Control interface - mouse/keyboard or what?

[Jon Jaymes]

What will be the available control interfaces for the game?

And what will be the recommended one - i.e. what are the pre-alpha testers using, especially for flight control?

Thx
Jon Jaymes

 

[jabokai]

What will be the available control interfaces for the game?

And what will be the recommended one - i.e. what are the pre-alpha testers using, especially for flight control?

Thx
Jon Jaymes

Pretty much anything, from what they've said! Although the baseline they seem to be working with is the XBOX 360 controller as it gives 2 analogue sticks and is cheap and cheerful. They've stated that mouse/KB and other joysticks will be supported too.

Have a look at this post from one of the devs (and his other posts in that thread) for some info - http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=145099

 

[roryscarlett]

From what I've seen it looks like we'll be able to use pretty much anything we like. Personally I will be using joystick, keyboard and mouse. Hopefully with TrackIR support at some point too!

Having looked at the 'Meet the Team' articles and various development vids, it looks like the Xbox controller is a favourite at FD!

 

[Jenner]

I've got a old Microsoft joystick...probably dust that puppy off. Of course I'm old now and my sticky jockying days are a number of years ago. I might wind up doing mouse/keyboard, I dunno.

 

[warbaby2]

No oculus rift on release... other then that, pretty much everything, I guess.

 

[EidLeWeise]

I picked up a Thrustmaster Hotas from Amazon, so far I'm really liking it. It's a good compromise between functionality and the £350 Joysticks out there. (though that does look soooo sweet!!!)

Eid

 

[SnowGhost]

No oculus rift on release... other then that, pretty much everything, I guess.

Well considering the Oculus rift isn't available yet and has no release date or, well, anything, it isn't surprising it won't be supported. It's hard to support a device that doesn't exist.

 

[Susimetsa]

I picked up a Thrustmaster Hotas from Amazon

It's a pity that they don't make affordable joysticks like that for us lefties... We end up having to use either cheap&simple joysticks or trying to grip a right-handed joystick with the left hand (not comfortable and the control buttons meant for the other hand are completely unreachable...).

 

[izzy]

It's a pity that they don't make affordable joysticks like that for us lefties... We end up having to use either cheap&simple joysticks or trying to grip a right-handed joystick with the left hand (not comfortable and the control buttons meant for the other hand are completely unreachable...).

Yes joysticks are made for right-handed ... I don't know if there are good joysticks for lefties

 

[Patrick_68000]

It's a pity that they don't make affordable joysticks like that for us lefties... We end up having to use either cheap&simple joysticks or trying to grip a right-handed joystick with the left hand (not comfortable and the control buttons meant for the other hand are completely unreachable...).

Yes joysticks are made for right-handed ... I don't know if there are good joysticks for lefties

Yet many are lefties ... + 1 with me

 

[jabokai]

Well considering the Oculus rift isn't available yet and has no release date or, well, anything, it isn't surprising it won't be supported. It's hard to support a device that doesn't exist.

Not really. What you said would be like saying there's no PS4 and XBone out there so how can you develop for them. The OR dev kits are there, the SDK is there... like any hardware developer, they want software titles available AT launch, not AFTER it.

 

[Steve_T]

I've always use keyboard only for PC games (although I'm no hardcore gamer). As it's cheap, I'll definitely try the Xbox controller with ED and see how it goes.

 

[jabokai]

Well considering the Oculus rift isn't available yet and has no release date or, well, anything, it isn't surprising it won't be supported. It's hard to support a device that doesn't exist.

As if to prove my point, CCP have a 20 person team working on Eve Valkyrie - a game solely for the Rift!

Link to story

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

like any hardware developer, they want software titles available AT launch, not AFTER it.

I would have thought that developing a game in advance of a new piece of hardware is a business risk as you have no idea how successful that hardware would be, so devoting resources to a dead platform isn't a great usage of money. However, don't the hardware vendors purchase the rights to the game / sponsor them somehow to encourage production of the software ?

As if to prove my point, CCP have a 20 person team working on Eve Valkyrie - a game solely for the Rift!

That is a business risk taken by CCP ...

---

That aside - KB/Mouse for me ... unless it's clear I am at a disadvantage (will know post Alpha by the number of times my wife kicks my rear in the game) and will consider a controller. I am a bit two-thumbed with them so would be up for suggestions nearer the time.

 

[EidLeWeise]

As if to prove my point, CCP have a 20 person team working on Eve Valkyrie - a game solely for the Rift!

Link to story

<sarcasm>Sure let's take 20 developer's off making the core ED game and put them on to adding Oculus Rift, an as yet un-proven technology... Oh hang on FD doesn't have 20 developers or 20 million dollars to do this.</sarcasm>

In all seriousness FD is working it's butt off to make the core of Elite Dangerous. It wants to make that core as good as it can be, but it has to bite off little chunks. I for one would far rather they release a good core game, and then add people's pipe dreams as expansions or some such down the road. If the OR sells 50 bazillion units and becomes THE way to view your game, then I can see the priority for developing support for it rising, if it flops, then I guess it'll never get done. For now, let's just let them make the game that they want to make... Apparently we (the people who funded the kickstarter) agree with that idea otherwise we'd not have invested in it.

Eid

 

[graham.reeds]

I have it down to the two you listed EidLeWeise, though I am leaning towards the Warthog as the X65 seems to have some issues which people aren't too happy with regarding software drivers.

Annoyingly there doesn't appear to be specific flight pedals for the Warthog - needed since the Warthog doesn't have a twist function in the stick.

Here's a good comparison: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3543169/Saitek_X_65F_vs_Thrustmaster_W.html

As for the Occulus Rift, I think there will be support for it but not in the main release - maybe as part of the 1.1 patch?

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Oh hang on FD doesn't have 20 developers or 20 million dollars to do this

LINK

We are currently over 200 individuals with development studios in Cambridge, UK and Halifax, Canada.

Tack on KS (£1.8m); private funds and floating on the stock exchange, I would say you're a bit wrong here.

FWIW I too believe they should wait until ED is out and OR matures, just wanted to correct you on your sarcasm.

 

[jabokai]

<sarcasm>Sure let's take 20 developer's off making the core ED game and put them on to adding Oculus Rift, an as yet un-proven technology... Oh hang on FD doesn't have 20 developers or 20 million dollars to do this.</sarcasm>

No need for the sarcasm, I was in no way suggesting that Frontier should jump on the bandwagon just yet. :smilie: Just pointing out (to back up the point I made previously) that major developments are already in progress for this unreleased hardware.

For the record (broken one from me it seems, sorry ) I think VR will be huge... for me the difference in immersion and experience is even greater than going from the original Elite to Elite Dangerous will be - after all it's still just flat graphics on a screen 3 feet in front of you. Opinions will vary, of course, and I realise I'm probably at one extreme. :smilie:

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

I have it down to the two you listed EidLeWeise, though I am leaning towards the Warthog as the X65 seems to have some issues which people aren't too happy with regarding software drivers.

Annoyingly there doesn't appear to be specific flight pedals for the Warthog - needed since the Warthog doesn't have a twist function in the stick.

Here's a good comparison: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3543169/Saitek_X_65F_vs_Thrustmaster_W.html

I like that guys summary:

Buy a Warthog:
- If you want a good, solid stick and probably what is as good as it gets
- If you accept you will basically need to buy pedals if you don't have them
- If you want a joystick with thousands (if not millions) of dollars in R&D behind it
- If you want what is the better joystick

Buy an X65F:
- If you aren't flying helicopters
- If you can fix the stick and throttle to your pit/desk
- You have hands the size of shovels
- You can deal with the crazy calibration of it
- You are mental

Still not sure what to do ...

 

[EidLeWeise]

LINKTack on KS (£1.8m); private funds and floating on the stock exchange, I would say you're a bit wrong here..

You're quite possibly right, though I know in my own development company actual developers are in the minority compared to other disciplines needed to make and sell software. Regardless, I doubt they have 20 people just hanging about developers or otherwise.

No need for the sarcasm, I was in no way suggesting that Frontier should jump on the bandwagon just yet. :smilie: Just pointing out (to back up the point I made previously) that major developments are already in progress for this unreleased hardware.

For the record (broken one from me it seems, sorry ) I think VR will be huge... for me the difference in immersion and experience is even greater than going from the original Elite to Elite Dangerous will be - after all it's still just flat graphics on a screen 3 feet in front of you. Opinions will vary, of course, and I realise I'm probably at one extreme. :smilie:

I'm following the OR with a lot of interest myself and know that they've released some prototypes already (Basically the dev kits). This is what companies like Steam are using to make their product line run on the OR. I LOVE the idea of some kind of VR for my gaming. (Read Ready Player One for something close to my ideal set up)

Personally I've got concerns with how the Oculus Rift isolates you from your environment. The amount of controls that will be required for even day to day piloting of your ship may well mean that you can't do everything using just your gamepad / joystick. So having a keyboard and mouse for some things as well as your joystick for essential combat controls may well be required. To use these, you will need to know where those items physically are and I suspect wearing the Oculus Rift will hinder that.

At the moment, we the community just don't know how well ED would work and with what controls (or combination of controls). Once we do then we can make an educated guess as to how well people would be able to play it whilst wearing their Oculus Rift. However every other flight or space sim I've played (even relatively simple ones like Wing Commander - assuming we could some how assign buttons to our joysticks in that game) needs a combination of Joystick and Keyboard to successfully fly.

Eid