Serious question. Are some people just incapable of flying with a mouse?

[Slange Lands]

I moved it way down.

It's just my brain. Even now I'm trying to fathom how one uses a mouse in combat, and whilst I acknowledge the accuracy of a mouse sensor...

My brain is just a clouded mess.

Believe me, part of me is royally peeved by this, and that's the part of me that decided to give it a go.

Look I'm gonna' be straight. IRL if two people talk to me simultaneously, 9/10 times I will be unable to utter a simple word. I am not exaggerating here.

What I'm trying to say is that if you ask me to read two things at once, I literally can't do it. I think that's why I've never been able to do FA-off. Because the multiple variables that must be read, quite simply overload my brain.

I still haven't been able to talk to my doctor but this only started when I had to start taking APs. Before that I was a very different lad. I was quick to think and hard to outsmart. This prescription has destroyed my brain.

But I'll stop there. I'm discussing that matter in detail on a specialist board elsewhere, to see what my next move should be.

Why am I telling you this? Simple. My cognitive function seems to have been greatly diminished as a result of these meds', and I mean everywhere in life.

I think it's good I made this topic. It's helped me see some of the genuine problems I face.

Hang in there Uni. Remember there are virtuosi using all sorts of control schemes. Yes, even gamepads. By all means experiment. But please remember that the limitations you put on yourself are probably much more limiting than the technical capabilities of any specific control scheme.

The human nervous system is incredible.

I am studying FA Off Tutorials by Look Inverted. Look Inverted is a paraplegic who uses a joystick on the right and a gamepad on the left. He is physically unable to use a throttle because of his disability, hence the gamepad. Also due to his disability he has to anchor his elbow in order to use the joystick. Despite all that, he is a virtuoso pilot. My God, can he fly. It's so graceful, effortless and elegant. He is now my inspiration. Whenever I get frustrated I think about him. And that gives me the wherewithal to try yet again.

 

[Thatchinho]

Yes.

I can still not control the ship though. RIP

It's alright, madness has passed. Big yellow Post-It on the wall to remind Mr FPS fan that our (read: my) brain cannot pilot a ship with a mouse.

I blame the APs. They destroy a lot of brain function. It's why I can't drive IRL.

Fair enough.

In case you decide you want to keep trying at some point, here's the powercurve etc settings that I use in case you want something as a starting point for those settings:

Spoiler

I've got a fairly old, and standard office style mouse though, so it's tuned to that.

Also bear in mind that a lot will depend on the ship you're flying. If you've got something very manouverable then you'll either need to adjust your hand movement to compensate, change the mouse controls, or decrease the mouse's sensitivity. If you then move to something that's a bit of a flying brick then you'll need to do the opposite.

 

[Thatchinho]

Spectrum wasnt the original, BBC was and BBC games always assumed you didnt have a joystick. It was an "educational machine"

SX (or was it AZ?) and <> for pitch and roll. The good old days!

 

[Burke]

haha s x and a for fire. I still use those keys. My key setup grew out of elite and iv used it for basicly all my gaming. I used to FPS with s x and a for jump. And yeah those roll keys.

 

[GTwannabe]

I haven't slummed it with a mouse since I had an IBM PS/2

 

[Burke]

Zarch is a notoriously difficult game for beginners.[citation needed] Controls are extremely sensitive; simply moving the mouse while taking off can cause the lander to explode on the launchpad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarch

We knew you cant fly with a mouse this long ago

 

[constvoid]

Spectrum wasnt the original, BBC was and BBC games always assumed you didnt have a joystick. It was an "educational machine"

In fact BBC Elite supported joysticks connected to the analogue port. I found it was much easier with those, especially for docking. I built my own pair of joysticks using bits bought via (snail) mail order from the now-defunct Maplin Electronic Supplies.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Fair enough.

In case you decide you want to keep trying at some point, here's the powercurve etc settings that I use in case you want something as a starting point for those settings:


I've got a fairly old, and standard office style mouse though, so it's tuned to that.

Also bear in mind that a lot will depend on the ship you're flying. If you've got something very manouverable then you'll either need to adjust your hand movement to compensate, change the mouse controls, or decrease the mouse's sensitivity. If you then move to something that's a bit of a flying brick then you'll need to do the opposite.

Thanks dude. It might crop up again, might not.

So far my Post-It wall has been good at preventing relapses.

 

[Shinji Ikari]

IDK, I always used MKb because that's what I had, I guess I only have trouble moving around while aiming but my bet is that's as hard or harder to do with joysticks.

 

[Devari]

That is just... stunning.

Even when I played the original Elite on my ZX Spectrum I had a Kempston Joystick to fly my spaceship.

I will generally only play flight sims with a joystick as well but in part that is because I tended to play flight sims that required careful aiming with fixed weapons or involved complex maneuvers, primarily WWII or modern helicopter flight sims, and a joystick was basically necessary to play those games properly. I only really became proficient with the keyboard in Elite out of necessity and found that it works fairly well in combat primarily because the use of gimbals removes the need for precise aiming. If I were playing a traditional flight sim or really anything without gimbal weapons I would probably find that a keyboard-only approach wasn't really viable in combat even if it could work for basic flight maneuvers. I still keep my HOTAS plugged into my deskstop setup as it is still more fun to fly for certain ships such as the FDL that benefit from precise throttle management. The convenience of flying keyboard-only however means that I rarely use my HOTAS these days. Another factor is that I run Elite in windowed mode and frequently Alt-Tab during supercruise or repetitive jumps to do other tasks on my computer and the ability to switch tasks between Elite and other programs while only using the keyboard is also quite useful.

 

[Threeofseven]

Not incapable but it does not feel like flying a spaceship so I refuse to do it.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Its inverse for me.. if i accepted flying with a mouse, there at least 3 other space games that deserve my time more than elite, only from the time already spent in it.

As it stands though i cant do this, and run away squealing anytime i try one of these mousers. I think it was from growing up on tie fighter.

 

[Devari]

Not incapable but it does not feel like flying a spaceship so I refuse to do it.

It always bothered me on Star Trek how they maneuvered ships (even small shuttlepods) using touchpads and buttons. In many cases they weren't directly piloting but were instead plotting a course but they did also need to rely on the touchpads for manual piloting as well. After learning how to fly Elite using the keyboard I do sort of see it as feasible now but it still bothers me somewhat. Still, even Star Trek finally realized this and put a flight stick on the Enterprise E:

Despite being intended mainly as a joke it was technically something of an improvement over pushing buttons to pilot the ship. What bothered me about it however was that they didn't design it very well and instead of being attached to the command chair or helm console it was literally standing in the middle of the bridge. Much of the point of using the joystick as a more precise method of flight control input would have been lost by having to stand up while using it, particularly when the crew is thrown around nearly every time the ship is hit by weapons fire.

Amusingly enough, they found a solution for this as well by finally installing seatbelts on the Enterprise E captain's chair:

Now if only they combined flight sticks and seat belts and installed them together on the helm station.

If we're really going to design a proper pilot's chair for a spacecraft though, why stop with just a flight stick and seat belt? Maybe add the high-g maneuvering rigs from the Expanse that monitor and regulate physiological parameters to maximize the tolerance of high-g maneuvers. Even on Star Trek this would be useful for sitautions where the inertial dampers don't fully compensate for some of the maneuvers:

Why stop here with just a fixed pilot's chair though? Maybe also consider putting the pilot's chairs on gimbals to optimize the g-forces for the pilot, which was a method used on the Razorback, a small racing ship from the Expanse:

There's also a number of other design features that would help optimize the pilot's tolerance for high-g maneuvers, such as putting the pilot at the ship's centre of mass to minimize rotational forces, like they did on the Starfury from Babylon 5:

It's rather unfortunate that so few sci-fi series really optimize the controls and seating for the pilot in ways that would make sense for piloting a spacecraft that routinely maneuvers with 6DOF and operates with sustained accelerations upwards of 10 g.

 

[Spacecat]

If I remember right the default setup is funky. I use mouse for pitch and roll (the "stick"), AD keys for "rudder". Easy and intuitive.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

I started out on mouse and keyboard. I can do it, I just really hate the way it feels. I switched to a flight stick after day 3, and picked up a throttle on day 5.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

I've been trying for weeks now. I just can't do it. If I try flying with mouse, no matter the setup, I just end up going spinning in circles.

For those of you demi-gods who can fly with a mouse, would you say there's a certain mindset needed?

This isn't me being salty. I've got the X52 out and I'm happily flying like someone who earned his license again. Moved on, all good, such is life. Just means I'm going to have to deal with a very messy desk... XD

I'm just thinking, are some people simply not able to fly well using a mouse? In the same way that some people just can't drive a car fast and clean around a track IRL? (I also can't do that)

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: oh most definitely yes!

 

[Bortas]

The benefits of the KBM combat pilot are marginal at best and hard to quantify. We might get better aiming with a mouse, but how much better is it? A few millisecs difference, all things being equal? Fly with what you enjoy.

One thing shouldn't be neglected, though... KBM is at least equal to a HOTAS setup in combat, if not even slightly superior... but the difference is: KBM costs nothing, whereas a good HOTAS setup can be quite expensive.

 

[krylite]

I've been using KBM only for probably about 8 years counting for all gaming/simming on my pc laptop. (I never got a console system). I did get a Logitech G502 game mouse a few years ago. It has plenty of reachable extra buttons, adjustable metal weights, switchable button set functions, as well as a tiltable input center track wheel-button. Also works great as a general use and precision drawing mouse. Having played FFE , I was already expecting decent kbm controlling when I started ED.

 

[Banger_uk]

try it before I plug in the x52 pro, never again I was bouncing all off the walls in stations. And was shoted by station guns for it many times

teknet gaming mouse (upto dpi 4000)