Set a hold-down-button-firing-rate for the shock cannon to protect our joystick

[flanker1985]

I know why the developer team created this shock cannon where you shot for every press of button.
This is good for xbox players. However, for PC players who use joysticks, this is one way to ensure the broken down lifespan of our joysticks.
You see, and Xbox controller cost 20 dolloars (my room mate got this Chinese made controller has been used for 4 years, and only cost him $20). Even if it breaks, it will only cost a few dollars more to get a new one. But they way you guys made us abuse our joystick, it will break soon for sure. And it will take us hundreds of dollars to get a replacement. For example, the joystick I use is a Thrustmast warthog. It costed me over $600.
I have tested, I can press a button about 5 times per second. Can you please allow us to hold down a button and let the cannon to operate at this firing rate to protect our joystick please. But with reduced firing rate to about 5 rounds per second.

Also Set the profile won't do. Because that button is also used for my rail gun. Rail gun need you to hold down the button to charge up. If you set it as rapid hit, it won't work.

Edited:

Basically, I have 2 fire groups, 1 for small ships, and 1 for large ships.
Group1 has trigger 1 for class 4 beam laser and trigger 2 for 2 class 3 shock cannons.
Group2 has trigger 1 for both beam laser and shock cannons, and trigger 2 for my 2 class 2 railgun.

Do you see the problem. Not only this is going to be an abuse to the joystick, also in group2, shock cannon won't work with the beam laser. Back in the old days, I had multicannons where shock cannons are now.

 

[Chaparral]

The limited ammo and extreme synthesis cost of shock cannon ammo will protect your joystick. It's not always necessary to arcade mash it in every application.

 

[Sylow]

Hmm. When i tested shock cannons, i saved my joystick by using the profiling tool. I've set one button to emulate a mouseclick every 0.05 seconds. That's double the speed the shock cannon can fire, so it fires at maximum rate. (At 0.1 seconds you loose speed due to syncinc. In pure theory, you could still loose some at 0.05 and could gain a little more by going to 0.02 seconds. But i wasn't able to notice any difference between them, so i went with the slower one. )

That being said, i can do that with my HOTAS and there are programs around which allow you to do the very same to your mouse. Both of these are third party programs, so using them might be against EULA, but considering that my joystick (while being supported by ED) is not completely useable (some special keys, e.g. the slider, are not recognized) it'd be a complicated issue to sort out.

Considering how infrequently shock cannons are used, i don't consider this a high priority thing, but sorting this out would be welcome. And letting it fire at it's full rate by holding the button down quite certainly is easier for FD, than implementing checks against all HOTAS profiling software, to check if the macros inside are allowed or not.

 

[flanker1985]

Hmm. When i tested shock cannons, i saved my joystick by using the profiling tool. I've set one button to emulate a mouseclick every 0.05 seconds. That's double the speed the shock cannon can fire, so it fires at maximum rate. (At 0.1 seconds you loose speed due to syncinc. In pure theory, you could still loose some at 0.05 and could gain a little more by going to 0.02 seconds. But i wasn't able to notice any difference between them, so i went with the slower one. )

That being said, i can do that with my HOTAS and there are programs around which allow you to do the very same to your mouse. Both of these are third party programs, so using them might be against EULA, but considering that my joystick (while being supported by ED) is not completely useable (some special keys, e.g. the slider, are not recognized) it'd be a complicated issue to sort out.

Considering how infrequently shock cannons are used, i don't consider this a high priority thing, but sorting this out would be welcome. And letting it fire at it's full rate by holding the button down quite certainly is easier for FD, than implementing checks against all HOTAS profiling software, to check if the macros inside are allowed or not.

Really? Can warthog do that? I know how to bind button as keyboard button. But I don't know how to set click rate. Can you teach me please? Thanks

 

[Sylow]

Really? Can warthog do that? I know how to bind button as keyboard button. But I don't know how to set click rate. Can you teach me please? Thanks

No idea for the Warthog profiler. I did it on my Saitek/Logitech X-56. I'm not exactly advertising the X-56 for the build quality, but the profiler allows to put macros on keys. No checks, no algorithms, nothing too fancy. But an endless repeat of a buttonpress at a set interval is easily done there.

 

[jeffkren]

Yeah use a macro, AHK has a few out there or you can make your own since you'll only be doing it for 1 button it will be fun to learn
Not likey ill be seeing a shock cannon anytime soon but with tweaking to the timing you should be able to get exactly what you want.

AutoHotkey

Free keyboard macro program. Supports hotkeys for keyboard, mouse, and joystick. Can expand abbreviations as you type them (AutoText).

www.autohotkey.com

+works with everything
-you'll have to run your AHK script every time before the game

 

[flanker1985]

Never mind. Set the profile won't do. Because that button is also used for my rail gun. Rail gun need you to hold down the button to charge up. If you set it as rapid hit, it won't work.

 

[jeffkren]

Yeah, with AHK you can have a key to turn your script on and off though.

 

[jeffkren]

or make use of the two bindings and only script the one for firing shock cannons

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

I use a CH stick, that thing is built like tank, supposed to last at least a decade. My trigger finger is in more danger than my fire button. But I like the fine control I have with the shock cannons as is. They do heat up your ship like crazy, and their clip size before going into reload is small.

 

[Troopi]

Autohotkey can make anything work on PC windows. It's open source, easy to script, with a community full of examples and eager to help.
I've done lot's of macros with it. I use one with Elite to manage pips and keep a mini window active when watching youtube and keep the game playing.
I've even done one to work with vjoy (joystick emulator), that enabled me to use mouse as a joystick in older pc games like wing commander.

 

[Sylow]

+works with everything
-you'll have to run your AHK script every time before the game

- Be very careful with that thing! We don't know if FD has their eyes open for it, but a number of games ban you when they detect it running!

Just two examples:

• Blizzard (Overwatch) https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/can-i-be-banned-for-using-autohotkey/75928
• Warframe https://forums.warframe.com/topic/888276-autohotkey-ban/

And that were just the first ones to come up. Some of them even just detect if you have that software on your system and if it's there, you are already listed for the ban. So while it's powerful, be -very- careful what you play with it on your system.

 

[jeffkren]

Ive been running my AHK script UJM everytime I play they use it in those games to exploit one system or another so its not AHK that got them banned, its what they did with it.

 

[jeffkren]

Like using it to skip power cooldowns if you have ever tried a mmorpg, but if your using any profile software that came with your stick, its the same thing.

 

[jeffkren]

UJR - Universal Joystick Remapper (Using vJoy)

vjoystick.sourceforge.net

UJR i mean.. gives you way more control over your stick settings, especially if you have a old analog stick like mine held together with duck tape and match sticks

 

[Troopi]

Ive been running my AHK script UJM everytime I play they use it in those games to exploit one system or another so its not AHK that got them banned, its what they did with it.

Indeed. If one uses AHK just to control keyboard/mouse/joystick keys, I doubt any game will argue about it.

 

[flanker1985]

Thanks for the suggestion. But I have heard bad things about editing your script for joystick.

Basically, I have 2 fire groups, 1 for small ships, and 1 for large ships.
Group1 has trigger 1 for class 4 beam laser and trigger 2 for 2 class 3 shock cannons.
Group2 has trigger 1 for both beam laser and shock cannons, and trigger 2 for my 2 class 2 railgun.

Do you see the problem. Not only this is going to be an abuse to the joystick, also in group2, shock cannon won't work with the beam laser. Back in the old days, I had multicannons where shock cannons are now.

 

[Morbad]

Frontier should be discouraging macros/autohotkeys and scripts where practical, if only so their use doesn't become mandatory, and I agree with Sylow that the most rational way to do this in cases like these would be to make semi-auto weapons fully automatic.

Far more logical to have shock cannon fire at their full rate as long as the trigger is held, with short bursts used to control bloom, rather than making it a game of how fast one can actuate a switch.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

On the subject, I'd like to just hold my trigger for railguns to cycle up the next charge, releasing and pressing it again feels unnecessary.
I use a gamepad, and there's quite a lot of movement to release the trigger completely, which kinda makes the railgun a chore to use, especially combined with the rather skittish behaviour of gamepad aiming.

 

[Troopi]

Group2 has trigger 1 for both beam laser and shock cannons, and trigger 2 for my 2 class 2 railgun.

If you use the same key for beams and shock cannons, then there's nothing you can do about it, unless FD really change the shock cannon to full-auto.
And that takes us to the post's original issue:
I agree.
Shock cannons should be full-auto, like the auto-cannons, but with lower fire-rate. Much like a flak gun.
In fact, I would rather have a proper flak weapon than these shock cannons. They are pretty much like cannons, with less damage and more fire rate. I would rather have an auto-cannon with slower fire rate and explosive shells for wide area effect. But not that stupid flak weapon Elite now has. No modern flak weapon uses such detail of keeping the button pressed until target is close. Since WWI that height/range finder technology is developed for AA guns. It would be really stupid to not have an auto range measurement system on a sci-fi flak gun.
So with this, you would have a very different cannon, with area effect, slow fire rate but requiring the single press of a button. It would still be great against thargoid swarms, it would be great against light/small ships, great at disabling modules with all the shrapnel deployed, but very very bad on friendly fire.