The Joystick/Controller discussion thread

[OlFart]

Hello everyone!

Until today, i was playing Elite with Mouse+Keyboard, but I decided to buy a joystick with throttle command, because i was sucking on dogfighting and I read that it helped a lot.

For the classical navigation, it helps me a lot. I do manoeuvers a lot quicker and I really enjoy navigating with a joystick. The big problem is that, with mouse, I achieved to beat 3/4 of the solo campaign, and with the joystick, I'm not even able to do the mission against the other Sidewinder. The problem is that I can't figure out how to aim properly

So I was wondering if somebody had tips for me to fight better with a joystick.

Thanks in advance

Finding the right controls for you is important.

I for example have my yaw on my joystick stick-X-axis and my roll on my twist-RZ-axis. That's not standard, but this is not an airplane and to me it feels natural for a spaceship. It gives me naturally accurate yaw which I need, but inaccurate roll, which is fine.

I also do not use the throttle control on the joystick. I can't afford to sacrifice my left hand to control just throttle. I need it on the keyboard, hovering over WASD for up/down/left/right thrust. I got the throttle on Q/E instead. This also put my fingers right next to my keys for the power distribution, flight assist, throttle-zero, targeting controls, and the left and right nav/status windows.

And then it takes a lot of practice.

I only started in beta 1, but I probably got 10 hours of combat and 10-20 hours of trading under my belt now. I'm really beginning to feel the controls now, and not have to think about them. Yes, it takes me that long to turn the controls into a natural extension of my body, and it's still not prefect.

It took me hours before I stopped jerking the joystick around, and managed to follow a target smoothly with the crosshairs. There's times when a quick jerk is what you need, but mostly I find that you need to handle the joystick as if it was stuck in tar: slow careful changes of the control input will keep your ship and your sight steady, keep the gimbals on target if you use them, and lets you nail those fixed lasers into the target over and over.

So yea. No shortcuts I'm afraid. All I can recommend is that you really think through your control setup, make a decision to go with it, and then spend 20-40 hours practicing with it.

 

[CTR69]

If you don't have trackIR, get that. Or similar headtracking device. That is much more important than joystick.

 

[MarcusReed]

Just keep practicing. With a joystick try to learn turning ASSIST on/off and also REVERSE thrust to help keep targets in your sights.

 

[OlFart]

If you don't have trackIR, get that. Or similar headtracking device. That is much more important than joystick.

While I'd love something like that, I unfortunately can't whip out €150 just like that. You can manage, using the radar instead of looking around. It's not quite as good, but it's doable. Just takes practice.

 

[philux]

If you don't have trackIR, get that. Or similar headtracking device. That is much more important than joystick.

I agree, TrackIR is crucial for every proper flight sim and also ED.

 

[BFNK]

There is no need to whip out large amounts of cash for TrackIR. There are reliable alternatives, such as crafting your own IR tracker (requires a nice webcam, such as the PS3 eyecam, some wiring, some IR leds - you can easily find guides with google), crafting or buying an ED tracker (this appears to be even cheaper than crafting an IR tracker), crafting a reflection-based tracker (again, google), or even using a no-IR system via the FreeTrackNoIR software and a good webcam + a lot of tweaking.

I don't agree that you shouldn't want any of these things, simply because they make flying a hundred times more pleasurable. VoiceAttack brings its own feeling to the game, and I am very happy with it, even when it occasionally fails. I can't think of a single reason not to use it (assuming you have a decent mic). And head tracking... is essential if you want the full experience. It's as simple as that. You don't have to spend crazy amounts of cash for all of this. It could amount to 20 bucks (voice attack + DIY ED tracker, for example). Is that a lot?

Regardless, keep it in mind that you will still need a lot of practice with the stick. Get a nice feeling of it and then start thinking about additional hardware.

 

[Thespen Tombs]

You asked if Voice Attack (VA) was worth the money, I use it and I now wouldn't want to play without it.


That said, its of very little use in combat (I use a HOTAS), in battle it's quicker to hit a button; IIRC the only combat related action I have is to dump a heat-sink.

But almost everything thing else is done via VA.

 

[Rigor Mortice]

I'm in the same boat. Only started playing in standard beta and it has been an age since I last played a flight sim game. Definitely very rusty but I know it will eventually start to come back and become almost 2nd nature. Practise, practice, practice!!

 

[QuantumTron]

Fun with shiny new joystick

So, it being Beta 'n all, and hence not being particularly fussed about losing ship and cargo or investing many hours in The Grind - I'd just done enough Grind to get myself a Hauler - I decided to test out my shiny new joystick yesterday - a Saitek/Mad Catz F.L.Y. 5 HOTAS thingy.

(sidenote: I bought two - one for my son who is into flight sims and recently joined the Air Training Cadets)

Anyway so, joystick assembled, plugged into the Asus ROG gaming laptop - which runs ED very nicely thank you very much - device drivers installed etc.

Loaded up ED, changed from mouse/keyboard to the FLY5 profile listed in the options (nice), and more importantly, didn't spend ANY time looking at button assignments or any boring stuff like that. That was a mistake as I was soon to find out

Entered the online game straight off without bothering to try it out on the first of the offline mission scenarios (waste cleanup). That was the second mistake

The real fun started after launch from the pad when I inadvertently switched off Flight Assist. I found out the hard way that turning FA Off whilst inside the station seems to mean that you stop rotating with the station!

If anyone saw an out of control Hauler in Eranin's station yesterday, flailing around randomly and then being thrown around like a ball-bearing in a spin dryer, subsequently exploding - that was me

Made me laugh anyway.

Bottom line is I'll be using the waste disposal mission to get used to the shiny new joystick for a while

Another thing which got me was switching to joystick means I'll have to reconfigure some of the keyboard commands to be active again as there's just not enough buttons on that stick to cater for everything.

 

[blacky75]

I expected somewhat like: And I pushed the button to see what it was doing, and WHOOOOOSH the ship boosted into the end of the station and was a fatal explosion ^^
Well.... that said, in station, you could try somewhat easier than just FA OFF, the Rotational correction can be turned off in station. I did that by mistake, (using VoiceAttack), and I had suddenly to remember how to hell I've programmed the Enable-ing of the rotational correction ^^ Under panic, all seems soooo much more difficult...

 

[TheDoctor]

It's taken me 3 days to get my new X52 Pro configured to just how I like it.

I must go and find the key configuration file and make a copy of it just in case it gets wiped.

 

[andygood]

I must go and find the key configuration file and make a copy of it just in case it gets wiped.

Very important! My custom.binds file gets annihilated every time there's an update...

The config files are in the '%Program Files%\Frontier\EDLaunch\Products\FORC-FDEV-D-1000\ControlSchemes' folder.

 

[QuantumTron]

I expected somewhat like: And I pushed the button to see what it was doing, and WHOOOOOSH the ship boosted into the end of the station and was a fatal explosion ^^
Well.... that said, in station, you could try somewhat easier than just FA OFF, the Rotational correction can be turned off in station. I did that by mistake, (using VoiceAttack), and I had suddenly to remember how to hell I've programmed the Enable-ing of the rotational correction ^^ Under panic, all seems soooo much more difficult...

AH yes... after I bought my old loadout, I started again from the pad, even managing to gently cruise up to the letterbox, only, I accidentally the boost button whilst aiming slightly off-centre, and bounced around the letterbox - this lasted for a good amount of panic-time, as I had full pips to shields. I almost made it out of the station but then exploded spectacularly again.

It was at that point I decided practise in the waste disposal mission was a good idea

 

[FatWeasel]

Very important! My custom.binds file gets annihilated every time there's an update...

The config files are in the '%Program Files%\Frontier\EDLaunch\Products\FORC-FDEV-D-1000\ControlSchemes' folder.

Ooh! And you just make a copy of that do you?

It's taken me 3 days to slowly assign my layout! Haha

 

[Jonathan Strange]

Quite a few people are using it, myself included. I'm very happy with it in ED

On these kind of regular old non HOTAS sticks you can now bind head-look to the hat positions as well as u/d/l/r thrust. This means you can look about using the hat when in 'head look' mode, but thrust about using the hat when in regular 'fixed head' flight.

Hopefully you get a notification of a quote. I just got the game myself, and I am presently using my old SideWinder Precision 2 as well. How did you setup your binds may I ask? Right now I have the hat set to thrust, but do you have a button set to let it change to look mode? Also what about the side throttle? Seems I have that set wrong now. As if it isn't dead center it goes reverse or forward, which can be bad if you pop in with it set wrong. I was thinking of setting it to some sort of throttle full response, down is off and up full is full up, then use a button to toggle between forward and reverse.

Anybody else with a SideWinder Precision 2 that can give me some hints would be most helpful.

 

[Abburo]

I went in some issues with multiple controllers inputs and you can read my findigs here:
http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=31596

- is ED really limited to only 4 physycal devices ? If yes, how can we force which of those devices must be used within the game?

 

[Syd Snott]

My X52 Pro and pedals arrived today - woo!

I am fairly impressed with the hardware, it's solid and seems well made.

Unfortunately it doesn't click, and the old trick of holding the base and waggling the joystick has got me absolutely nowhere in Daley Thompsons Decathlon

Where am I going wrong?

Anyway - it's all nice and shiny, but I don't have a clue on how to use any of it lol. Going to practice for a bit and see what I can program. I definitely want an option to switch to purple mode, uncage the safety trigger thing, press it, and dump 20 tons of Slave Dung

Hi ASP Explorer. There are holes in the base of both units if you want to clamp it down. Actually if you have a nice shiny surface the suckers hold it quite well. I have the X52 and still trying to get a good profile for it. Doh

 

[lazerus]

Joystick advice

Ok, so the 2 button on my FLY 5 finally snapped off so I need a new HOTAS.

The obvious choice is the X52, but does anyone know the difference between the normal and the X52 Pro, apart for price and looks? I've searched the threads and online but can't find an answer.

Or is there anything else around at that price point, Warthog and X55 are way out of my league.

Meanwhile I have only primary firepower.

 

[Stoo]

There's plenty of threads on which stick is better than the other... have a look around.

 

[Sir.Tj]

Merged into the main thread. loads of great info here.