Vertical endurance vs weight

[Quillion]

I'm a little confused here. has high "vertical endurance" but from all of my experience, he's a lightweight.

It seems a little contradictory to me, but can anyone explain the difference?

 

[Kadano]

See:

So, I looked at the game memory, and it appears that this:

is indeed what happens. Or to be precise, this happens every frame:

(knockback stored into kbcomp here)
kbcomp = Math.max(kbcomp-0.051, 0);
fallcomp = Math.max(fallcomp-gravity, -terminal_velocity);
speed = kbcomp + fallcomp;
height += speed;

Basically, your falling speed is a vector that works against the knockback vector whenever you are airborne. Most attacks’ knockback scales with weight, but the effective flying curve is always a composite of [knockback vector]+[falling speed vector].

As I showed here:

Most of you probably heard that Fox falls the fastest early on, but Falco and Captain Falcon exceed him after some point.
To give you a quick understanding of how falling speed over time works for all the characters, I created this diagram:

This falling speed is applied whenever you are airborne. This is why light fastfallers like Fox and Falco die from the top blast zone so late – falling speed decreases knockback during the entire hitstun and beyond.

This diagram does not account for:

• Fast fall (I have no idea how I could add this in without cluttering it up too much to be useful, also I don’t know how fast fall gravity is applied / calculated)
• Instant gravity (Caused by doing an aerial on frame 1; this effectively pushes your character’s falling speed curve to the left by one frame)

Related discussions:
http://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/2l7i5j/falling_speeds_in_ssbm/
http://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/2lddfy/falling_speed_comparison_over_time_cunninghams/

Fox’ falling speed vector is the largest during the first 17 frames, and even after that, only Falco and Captain Falcon exceed his eventually. Thus, Fox’ effective flying curve is the lowest in most if not all cases. Especially on throws, as their knockback does not scale with weight.

 

[Quillion]

See:


Basically, your falling speed is a vector that works against the knockback vector whenever you are airborne. Most attacks’ knockback scales with weight, but the effective flying curve is always a composite of [knockback vector]+[falling speed vector].

As I showed here:


Fox’ falling speed vector is the largest during the first 17 frames, and even after that, only Falco and Captain Falcon exceed his eventually. Thus, Fox’ effective flying curve is the lowest in most if not all cases. Especially on throws, as their knockback does not scale with weight.

Does that mean that even though both Star Fox characters can survive vertical kills very well, they are still susceptible to horizontal kills? I know that both of their recoveries are very predictable and can be gimped easily.

 

[Kadano]

Does that mean that even though both Star Fox characters can survive vertical kills very well, they are still susceptible to horizontal kills? I know that both of their recoveries are very predictable and can be gimped easily.

Yes, that’s true. However, by using proper TDI (trajectory directional influence), they can convert a good portion of the horizontal component into the vertical component. So if they have good DI on finishers, they will resist them to a similar level as heavier, floatier characters (for example Doctor Mario).