When it comes to piloting a ship, I need some kind of a joystick or analog stick - but I'm way to lazy to setup a HOTAS setup on my desk every time I want to play (my desk is usually a mess). As a result I have spent a majority of my time using the Xbox 360 controller instead, and for a short time even the dual shock 4. I found both of them to be extremely lacking in buttons and customization.
Now here comes the steam controller. At first it looks like the usual Xbox 360 layout, and in some ways it is. But under the hood there is a ton of customization that can be accessed. I'll be going over those, and how they can be utilized in Elite.
For a quick reference my final layout is as follows:
Layout[https://i.imgur.com/JnZoaob.jpg]
This may look like a lot, but its pretty easy to get used to, took me a couple of hours in a RES. The buttons are grouped based on their usage.
The right touch pad has a yaw axis and vertical thrust axis, however it also holds 4 buttons. Since my thumb is on that touch pad 95% of the time, I decided to add combat oriented buttons for quick access (Silent running / Shield Cell / Chaff / Heat Sink). You can literally access these buttons without lifting a finger. In my opinion the touch pad is way more accurate than a secondary analog stick, the ship goes exactly where you want it to go, albeit it does take some trial and error setting it up in the beginning.
The left touch pad's touch keys are used for pip control, however pressing the pad in the center opens a menu. The touch menu allows for quick access for non-combat ship functions (cargo bay, lights, third person, galaxy map). You can map up to 16 buttons there... Here is a picture of it used in flight:
Button Menu [https://i.imgur.com/qnhI3Hz.jpg] (I manually added the letters in mspaint, there is a bug where they do not show)
The Primary and Secondary fire buttons are in the back, those buttons are not available on standard xbox controllers - at first they felt hard to press but after about a day it becomes second nature.
Overall I would say the experience with the steam controller is great. I can't really see myself ever going back to a regular controller. In the end what you get is a controller that has dangerously similar functionality to a keyboard (no pun intended), but with an analogy stick, rumble feedback, and the ability to play on a couch next to your cat. Not bad I say.
Disadvantages? The main one I can think of is the time required to get used to it. There was an initial period where I was wondering if purchasing this was a mistake. Oh, and it uses AA batteries. But the battery life is apparently about 80 hours according to Valve so that's not a deal breaker.
I think with further tweaking/experience I will be able to get pretty close to the accuracy of a mouse. I have not messed with the gyro feature yet. But I have seen some people getting pretty damn good accuracy with it on kb+m twitch games like Counter-Strike. So perhaps I will hop on that next.
If you have a steam controller and would like to try out my layout, the controller configuration id is: 551015126 (Also called "CMDR Nutella-Addict's Setup").
I also have the custom bindings here, but you could set those up manually: Please don't overwrite your bindings when pasting this in![3]
If you have any questions, let me know!
Over and out.
Now here comes the steam controller. At first it looks like the usual Xbox 360 layout, and in some ways it is. But under the hood there is a ton of customization that can be accessed. I'll be going over those, and how they can be utilized in Elite.
For a quick reference my final layout is as follows:
Layout[https://i.imgur.com/JnZoaob.jpg]
This may look like a lot, but its pretty easy to get used to, took me a couple of hours in a RES. The buttons are grouped based on their usage.
The right touch pad has a yaw axis and vertical thrust axis, however it also holds 4 buttons. Since my thumb is on that touch pad 95% of the time, I decided to add combat oriented buttons for quick access (Silent running / Shield Cell / Chaff / Heat Sink). You can literally access these buttons without lifting a finger. In my opinion the touch pad is way more accurate than a secondary analog stick, the ship goes exactly where you want it to go, albeit it does take some trial and error setting it up in the beginning.
The left touch pad's touch keys are used for pip control, however pressing the pad in the center opens a menu. The touch menu allows for quick access for non-combat ship functions (cargo bay, lights, third person, galaxy map). You can map up to 16 buttons there... Here is a picture of it used in flight:
Button Menu [https://i.imgur.com/qnhI3Hz.jpg] (I manually added the letters in mspaint, there is a bug where they do not show)
The Primary and Secondary fire buttons are in the back, those buttons are not available on standard xbox controllers - at first they felt hard to press but after about a day it becomes second nature.
Overall I would say the experience with the steam controller is great. I can't really see myself ever going back to a regular controller. In the end what you get is a controller that has dangerously similar functionality to a keyboard (no pun intended), but with an analogy stick, rumble feedback, and the ability to play on a couch next to your cat. Not bad I say.
Disadvantages? The main one I can think of is the time required to get used to it. There was an initial period where I was wondering if purchasing this was a mistake. Oh, and it uses AA batteries. But the battery life is apparently about 80 hours according to Valve so that's not a deal breaker.
I think with further tweaking/experience I will be able to get pretty close to the accuracy of a mouse. I have not messed with the gyro feature yet. But I have seen some people getting pretty damn good accuracy with it on kb+m twitch games like Counter-Strike. So perhaps I will hop on that next.
If you have a steam controller and would like to try out my layout, the controller configuration id is: 551015126 (Also called "CMDR Nutella-Addict's Setup").
I also have the custom bindings here, but you could set those up manually: Please don't overwrite your bindings when pasting this in![3]
If you have any questions, let me know!
Over and out.
