Weapons firing

[Dragsham]

I have my FDL Sting.
With 4 short range rails (size 2) with super penetrative experimentals.
Assigned currently to one fire group for a devastating volley fire.
The huge rapid firing corrosive multicannon on the belly slot, sharing the same fire group.
I have two virpil sticks with 4 triggers potentially. Ie the triggers have sweet spot passthroughs to the 2nd fire position.
What l want without 2 fire groups is to be able to fire 2 rails on the right stick, and if I pull the trigger past the sweetspot it fires all 4 on the right stick. Bear in mind the belly multicannon has the left sticks trigger.
Is there a way l can do this without 2 fire groups ?

 

[Jack Brolin]

No, but you can set up 2 near-identical fire groups, one with 2 rails & one with 4, and it's literally a single button press to achieve basically the same thing. You could maybe assign the fire group cycling to the 2nd fire position?

You can assign scanners & stuff to the same slots as your weapons & switch cockpit mode to use em, I do it with my AX ships so I can have just 2 or 3 fire groups to cycle through, keeps things simpler for my adhd ass when there's a million things going on. If that helps.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

You cannot have more than two fire buttons, so firing two rails, four rails or four rails plus MC isn't possible without makimg use of fire groups. Also, Elite doesn't make use of two stage triggers.

 

[aRJay]

Not practically after all you are using 3 triggers, and my impractical idea wouldn’t work any way so just no.

 

[Bravo17]

Also, Elite doesn't make use of two stage triggers

Since 2 stage triggers are just using 2 different directx inputs to produce the second trigger input you should be able to set it up so it does, that is how I have my Hotas Warthog set up anyway.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

You can use both stages of the trigger of course, but Elite doesn't make special use of two stage triggers like OP wants it to.

 

[Dragsham]

Bummer.. I've tried the 2 groups 2 rails n mc in each...its just not fast enuff to swap from one to another. I've switched back to 1 group.
Did think of 2 rails on left trigger 2 on right trigger but having that huge MC on short notice is a godsend in the thick of it (combat).
Thx for replys everyone.
Another fix is to do away with all stuff that uses fire groups except the weps. And have a voice command or button assigned to switch rather than a mini stick to scroll through em all.
Course the last option is a turreted size 3 rapid firing corrosive mc then problem solved the debuffs 'on' (corrosive)

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Honestly, it should be a matter of muscle memory to do the switching of the fire groups, and maybe a matter of optimal bindings. It probably helps to not have stuff on fire groups you don't need - you won't need scanners on a pure combat ship, for instance (or rarely do).

Let me elaborate how I deal with it. I have that situation on my AX Krait, where I have three weapon types in different combinations depending on what I fight - Two AXMCs, two other weapons (mostly Gauss cannons or Azimuth plasmas), and a TV beam, plus caustic sinks. My default fire group, let's say it is A for simplicity, is the beam on secondary (together with the AX scanner), and AXMCs on the primary. This group is for orbiting and fighting scouts. The next group, B, is the "other" weapons on primary, while having the AXMCs on secondary. This is for the Interceptor attack phase, and I can keep the MCs spamming on the secondary and assisting with the hearts. The next group, C, has the beam on secondary and the caustic sink on primary. I've had this setup forever, and it is so engrained into my muscle memory for fighting Thargoids that I don't have to think about it or visually check if I am on the right fire group. Like, when I am orbiting and need to purge a sink - two clicks up, fire, two clicks down, done. My fingers know it's two clicks to get to the sink because I am orbiting a Flower.

It's a matter of training, really. The real danger is if you ever change that setup - this will be a nightmare . Never change a running system, keep your fire groups consistent. Not really "the same" on each ship, just work out the best fire groups for each ship and stick with it. Your brain can memorize that even if your fire groups are different from ship to ship, as long as they never change.

 

[Dragsham]

See that's the problem. I have a plethora of combat ships but for this posts sake let's say i have 1 pvp ship and 3 pve ships.
The setups are completely different fire group wise with pve/pvp. But yeah I'll give it a go.
Atm I'm out topping up guardian mats and a few patterns for few bits n bobs. But l will try muscle memory. What l don't wanna do is have to rebind for pve ships or re-learn muscle memory. I try to keep the same generic setup across combat ships but the railer pvp Lance differs radically.

 

[galahad2069]

Is there a way l can do this without 2 fire groups ?

I don't think there is, but even if there was, what would be the purpose?

The whole point of that build is the high sustained dps (it's called 'yeeter' for a reason).

 

[Shurimal]

You can use both stages of the trigger of course, but Elite doesn't make special use of two stage triggers like OP wants it to.

You can do this, but the setup is a bit tricky. You need to keep the 1st stage engaged when binding the 2nd stage to secondary trigger, otherwise your secondary binding will be [Stage 1]+[Stage 2], not [Stage 2]. That is, in the former case primary weapons will stop firing if you engage the second stage, in the latter case the primary weapons will fire alongside with secondary ones.

I use this binding setup for great effect, either for staggering fire for eg modshards while still having all-guns salvo available under single finger pull, binding lasers to primary and multicannons to secondary, prespinning class 3 MC-s so that they start firing at the same time as Class 2/1 MC-s or putting continuous fire weapons (lasers/MC-s) under primary and single fire weapons (PA-s, railguns) under secondary trigger.

 

[Shurimal]

What l want without 2 fire groups is to be able to fire 2 rails on the right stick, and if I pull the trigger past the sweetspot it fires all 4 on the right stick. Bear in mind the belly multicannon has the left sticks trigger.
Is there a way l can do this without 2 fire groups ?

Not directly, but you could do it in a rather convoluted way by confing your right stick trigger to logical [Button 1] on press and [Button 2] on release, the second stage as [Button 3]. Then bind [Button 1] to Next Firegroup, [Button 2] to Previous Firegroup and [Button 3] as the Secondary Fire. Then set your MC to both Firegroup A and Firegroup B prim, your railguns to Firegroup B prim and sec.

End result should be: you start firing your MC with left trigger, pull right trigger half-way and you switch to next firegroup, the MC will continue firing and two prim railguns will start firing, pull the right trigger fully and two sec railguns will fire, release right trigger and you'll switch back to previous firegroup "releasing" the railguns but continuing MC fire.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

You can do this, but the setup is a bit tricky. You need to keep the 1st stage engaged when binding the 2nd stage to secondary trigger, otherwise your secondary binding will be [Stage 1]+[Stage 2], not [Stage 2].

Right. I've used that "trick" in the past, but in practice it makes little difference if the binding is only stage 2 or the combination of both, because...

That is, in the former case primary weapons will stop firing if you engage the second stage, in the latter case the primary weapons will fire alongside with secondary ones.

I don't think this is true, or at least my memory says it is - which could as well be flaky . Have you tested this? In your former case, the binding only cares if stage 1 is engaged; if another binding uses it in combination with stage two doesn't matter, does it? Stage 1 doesn't disengage when you engage stage 2. It might work well with weapons that need a retrigger though.

I use this binding setup for great effect, either for staggering fire for eg modshards while still having all-guns salvo available under single finger pull,

Modshards do need a retrigger, right?

binding lasers to primary and multicannons to secondary, prespinning class 3 MC-s so that they start firing at the same time as Class 2/1 MC-s or putting continuous fire weapons (lasers/MC-s) under primary and single fire weapons (PA-s, railguns) under secondary trigger.

This is all academic anyway, because what OP describes is basically "I want three (or more) fire buttons". Which isn't going to happen .

 

[Shurimal]

don't think this is true, or at least my memory says it is - which could as well be flaky . Have you tested this?

Well, I haven't tested it since I set up bindings after getting Odyssey in october '21 (IIRC), but back then primary weapons stopped firing if you bound secondary to [Stage1]+[Stage 2] instead of just [Stage 2]. Likely has to do with button combinations, eg you don't want to boost and drop landing gear at the same time when using console controllers

Modshards do need a retrigger, right?

Yes, they do. Staggered fire helps with heat. My setup is 2 modshards under prim, 2 under sec, half-pull trigger to fire prim, wait for a second, pull the trigger fully to fire sec and release, wait for a second, repeat. And if I want to deal as much damage as fast as possible (eg gibbing with a group), quick pull the trigger as fast as possible to finish the interceptor off, heat be damned!

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

Well if I am not too lazy I might try this out with weapons that don't need a retrigger, like lasers or MCs. In general I don't really like the two stage trigger, mid-battle I might get way too overexcited to control my finger's trigger point while also yoinking on the stick. I have bound the full pull as primary so I don't need to be delicate about it. The only thing I use only the first stage for is UI_SELECT. For the triggers, I like primary on my index finger and secondary on my thumb. I feel I have more control and am safe from false triggers that way.

 

[Shurimal]

False triggers are certainly a concern and it takes a bit of practice to get good control. VKB Kosmosima grip (as used in the Gladiator) doesn't have very good tactile feedback from the second stage, not sure if more expensive options are better.

 

[Helmut Grokenberger]

False triggers are certainly a concern and it takes a bit of practice to get good control. VKB Kosmosima grip (as used in the Gladiator) doesn't have very good tactile feedback from the second stage, not sure if more expensive options are better.

yeah, that's my feeling too - the second stage has very little resistance and feels kind of prone to mistriggering it.