Newcomer / Intro What are you up to?

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

Elite's control options are the richest I've ever seen.

Are you using hotkeys? For instance, you can have d-pad up do one thing, say deploy/stow hardpoints, while pressing another key at the same time will perform a different function. X+d-pad up could be set to trigger your FSD.

IIRC, you can also use d-pad motions to trigger an action. Doing the hadouken motion with B, for instance, can deploy landing gear.

Mines setup with a dozen or more key combos, Y+X cycles through my weapons groups, Y+Shoulder button cycles from combat mode to analysis mode, B+D-pad up raises and lowers landing gear and on and on. I love my xBox controller for combat.

I am fully aware of the setup possibilities. Yet still, my controller lacks at least two buttons for my needs.
There are a few things I'd prefer to have available on a single button press.

It is quite expensive, i got mine second hand, i think it's worth it.

Aside from cars, my luck with second hand stuff is quite bland...

I also have a mini keyboard between the two parts.

There we get into a problem I completely ignored - the available desk space.

 

[0threeleven]

I am fully aware of the setup possibilities. Yet still, my controller lacks at least two buttons for my needs.
There are a few things I'd prefer to have available on a single button press.

Aside from cars, my luck with second hand stuff is quite bland...

There we get into a problem I completely ignored - the available desk space.

I understand what you're saying, you have a very limited budget. If I were you, I would start buying components to build a tower computer, I would recommend an AMD rig as they tend to stick with the same socket for CPU's giving a greater upgrade path. These guys in this forum could be a huge help sending you down the correct path buying a component months apart looking for stuff on sale or even giving you stuff they have lying around.

It would make such a huge difference building something for yourself (actually very easy to do), it would instill a new excitement in you about playing and you would notice and see things like you never have before. I have several EVGA 1080 video cards collecting dust that I know I'll never use again. I used them for folding proteins so they weren't heavily used, and they would be free to anyone who wants them.

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

I understand what you're saying, you have a very limited budget. If I were you, I would start buying components to build a tower computer, I would recommend an AMD rig as they tend to stick with the same socket for CPU's giving a greater upgrade path. These guys in this forum could be a huge help sending you down the correct path buying a component months apart looking for stuff on sale or even giving you stuff they have lying around.

It would make such a huge difference building something for yourself (actually very easy to do), it would instill a new excitement in you about playing and you would notice and see things like you never have before. I have several EVGA 1080 video cards collecting dust that I know I'll never use again. I used them for folding proteins so they weren't heavily used, and they would be free to anyone who wants them.

I have built PCs in the past (first one around 1998/99, all AMD) and I'd love to do it again. But in this moment, I simply don't have the room to do that. And since my last PC died due to some blackouts (I've learned my lesson from that - I now have an UPS between the wall socket and the computer), I was in a pinch to get something new, as this is my main access to banking and stuff. The lack of money lead to getting a cheap laptop as a stopgap while I was planning on redoing my room.
Well, life happened (still happens, in fact) and I'm still stuck with this laptop as I'm unable to set up anything else in this mess of a room.

 

[the100thmonkey]

I am fully aware of the setup possibilities. Yet still, my controller lacks at least two buttons for my needs.
There are a few things I'd prefer to have available on a single button press.

That's always going to be an issue with gamepads - designs seem to have settled on 10 buttons and 6 axes (or 12 buttons and 4 axes) for quite some time now. For more than 12 buttons, you're looking at an Xbox adaptive controller, which is heavily customisable and commensurately expensive.

There we get into a problem I completely ignored - the available desk space.

I was going to suggest that you just buy a cheap joystick - you can pick up a Logitech Wingman or Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS for about €50. Then I saw that they actually only have 12 buttons too. Then I saw your desk space issue.

I've been playing around with Joystick Gremlin today - I'm fed up with the game crapping its pants whenever a controller isn't connected at launch and decided to add a second virtual joystick. The gamepad feeds through to the vJoy instance, which is always active. This means that if I change controller, the game just doesn't care - the vJoy instance is still there, so the game launches happily.

I tell you this because it strikes me that Joystick Gremlin might be able to help. Thrustmaster's TARGET program has a "long press" feature where a momentary click and a long press result in different outputs. Joystick Gremlin almost certainly has a similar feature, or an extension that enables it. It's a really useful piece of software. That would give you a whole twelve "new" buttons to play with - just hold "D-pad down" for 0.5s seconds to deploy/stow landing gear, and press "D-pad down" for less than that to, say, deploy the cargo scoop.

 

[the100thmonkey]

Mines setup with a dozen or more key combos, Y+X cycles through my weapons groups, Y+Shoulder button cycles from combat mode to analysis mode, B+D-pad up raises and lowers landing gear and on and on. I love my xBox controller for combat.

I use a joystick and CAD controller setup with a wireless controller and M/KB and I still find I don't have enough convenient buttons.

I had to make a batch file today to run the launcher and the associated apps:

@ECHO OFF

start /d "C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Elite Stuff\Sx2vJoy-test-master" Sx2vJoy.exe

start /d "C:\Program Files (x86)\H2ik\Joystick Gremlin" joystick_gremlin.exe

start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Thrustmaster\TARGET\x64\TARGETGUI.exe" -r "C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Elite Stuff\TARGET\Elite.fcf"

start /d "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Elite Dangerous" EDLaunch.exe

Now I just need to:

1. work out how to make the program monitor my activity and close all the programs when I close the game...
2. work out how to force Sx2vJoy automatically select the first virtual joystick instead of asking me to choose every time.
3. work out how to get it to fetch me drinks.

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

I tell you this because it strikes me that Joystick Gremlin might be able to help. Thrustmaster's TARGET program has a "long press" feature where a momentary click and a long press result in different outputs. Joystick Gremlin almost certainly has a similar feature, or an extension that enables it. It's a really useful piece of software. That would give you a whole twelve "new" buttons to play with - just hold "D-pad down" for 0.5s seconds to deploy/stow landing gear, and press "D-pad down" for less than that to, say, deploy the cargo scoop.

I wonder how well this would work in conjunction with Elite's "hold button+press Dpad / shoulder button"...

That's always going to be an issue with gamepads - designs seem to have settled on 10 buttons and 6 axes (or 12 buttons and 4 axes) for quite some time now. For more than 12 buttons, you're looking at an Xbox adaptive controller, which is heavily customisable and commensurately expensive.

The XBox Elite controller has four extra paddles on the underside. What I don't know, though, is if these are actually separate buttons or, like the two on that cheap controller I bought a while ago, are just thought to replace some of the buttons above.

 

[the100thmonkey]

The XBox Elite controller has four extra paddles on the underside. What I don't know, though, is if these are actually separate buttons or, like the two on that cheap controller I bought a while ago, are just thought to replace some of the buttons above.

In my understanding they duplicate the ABXY buttons. They are primarily designed for FPS games where the yplayer cannot take their hand off the right stick to press the buttons next to it.

 

[the100thmonkey]

I wonder how well this would work in conjunction with Elite's "hold button+press Dpad / shoulder button"...

I'm not sure - I looked into this a little and it seems that the function isn't well replicated by Joytstick Gremlin (although the last post I was on this was from 2019). You could always map the function using your controller and then change the ID of the device in the .binds file to match the virtual controller, I suppose.

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

In my understanding they duplicate the ABXY buttons. They are primarily designed for FPS games where the yplayer cannot take their hand off the right stick to press the buttons next to it.

That would be very uncool. I guess some deeper investigation is necessary to find out...

 

[Miscellaneous]

I traipsed about Mare Somnia for the weekend and now set sail through Acheron a ways anti-clockwise back around this arm, then I will skip over to the Scutum-Centaurus arm and Norma I guess. I think I see some nebulae to ogle over there. This Orca is a real battleaxe. I think the purple engines help

And look here, where Penny had a shard of crystal on her head, for a hat.

The other is the limitations my use of an XBox 360 controller comes with.

Ah McCMDR Timber, but you got to stop looking down on your XBox controller. It has feelings too you know

Hey on mine, the underside paddles can be reassigned to any other button. I set mine to mirror the shoulder buttons and triggers

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

Ah McCMDR Timber, but you got to stop looking down on your XBox controller. It has feelings too you know

I'm not looking down on it. We both agree that a few more buttons would be nice, but as it couldn't grow some extra ones...
It was a little sad (as was I) when I replaced it with that cheap controller because I thought it had finally succumbed to the degradation of its internals.
But I quickly learned that this couldn't be the reason for the odd behaviour I encountered, as the new one showed the same issues. Looking a little closer with a keener eye, I realized that the issue was a form of input lag. Then the new controller started to act up and wouldn't calm down. It now lies in a corner, contemplating its life choices while my trusty old (somewhere about 20 years...) 360 is back in action, with reinstated vigor. The input lag is greatly reduced since I did the upgrades, so that issue is gone as well.

Hey on mine, the underside paddles can be reassigned to any other button. I set mine to mirror the shoulder buttons and triggers

Well, that wouldn't help me, as I need some extra buttons I can assign to an action in the game setup.
My paws are big enough to reach any button and trigger on my controller.

 

[]M[]

There are two main reasons why I think I won't be able to get any good at combat.
First, there is this totally erratic playtime pattern of mine. Sometimes, I might get two or three days in a row where I might play for an hour or two. On other times, it might take a week or three between two short 30-60 minute stints. I never know when I'll be able to play.
The other is the limitations my use of an XBox 360 controller comes with. There are simply not enough buttons on it to use the full potential of the ships. I was looking into getting a new one with more buttons, but a good one costs about the same as the X52, which is quite steep for me. The X52 surely would be the better option, but I struggle to buy hardware for just one game. Yes, Elite would be the only game I would need a HOTAS for, they don't work that well with racing games or RPGs...

There’s a much lower cost (and space saving) solution - getting just a basic flightstick: I used a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro for my first few 1000 hours before finally getting an X52 late 2019.

Tbh i’d played my first 50 hours or so of ED with KB&M until i remembered that i had one packed away in the cupboard [originally i’d bought it to play retro arcade style games only to discover that a flight stick is not an arcade-style joystick ;]

It’s a stick only, with a small levered throttle control on the side - mine didn’t work after years of no use, but if if you get a newer one, it should…

Really, i can not say just how much this changed my ED flight experience - there is just no comparison with KB&M (or game contoller i would think) …in ED we fly ships and flight is best with a flight stick!

You have full 3-axis rotational control with the stick - pitch/roll on the Y/X-axes and yaw with the stick twist motion… really, the X52 just added a nice chunky throttle lever and more usable buttons when i eventually upgraded - between the E3DPro and keyboard controls, it’s a really good all round ED flight control solution that costs much less than any HOTAS - and probably uses about 1/3 of the desk space :]

 

[Codger]

My paws are big enough to reach any button and trigger on my controller.

I've never learned to use a controller. I just never had a reason to do so, I guess, since I've always played on PC.

Back in the day I got my first joystick to play Freelancer or Wing Commander or one of those. I really had fun with that.

So when I started with Elite Dangerous I bought a cheapo stick and went with that. I did try using a throttle at one point, but it was weird to use and never felt comfortable, so I went back to doing all the throttle stuff on keyboard and use the stick for flight. It works well enough for me.

I went through a few joysticks during the last bunch of years playing Elite, but a couple years ago I bought a VKB Gladiator (the original simple one) and it has held up extremely well. It works like new still.

 

[sinisalo]

That's for all the bios you were the first to ever scan. This happens most likely on planets you are the first to ever set your feet on, but can also relate to bios that others have missed.

Revisiting this, does the first number include the second number? Or are the two added together to know what your exo profits are? Does "profit from organic data" include '"profit from first-logged" ?

I believe it IS included and the first number is the total proceeds from exo.

 

[sinisalo]

Reading through some of the recent posts it seems many or most are already clued in to using shifted commands. Like many, I find the available buttons on my stick and throttle (Evenstrain Thrustmaster Cougar) too few. So I use shifted commands to essentially double the number of commands on the device. On this stick I have a 'pinky button", called S3. By leaving that unassigned I can assign commands to every button and switch, and then do it again whilst holding the shift button. So every button and switch ends up with two commands, one shifted and one unshifted. From skimming over the posts above I see many are aware of this and use it. But something to look in to if previously unaware

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

Revisiting this, does the first number include the second number? Or are the two added together to know what your exo profits are? Does "profit from organic data" include '"profit from first-logged" ?

I believe it IS included and the first number is the total proceeds from exo.

From what I've seen, it seems to be that you always get the basic number (like, 19.something MCr) for your scans and an extra bonus for first scans when turning in your data. The third party programs I use only tell me the base number, no boni. How much I actually earned, I only will know once I turn in my data.

 

[aRJay]

Revisiting this, does the first number include the second number? Or are the two added together to know what your exo profits are? Does "profit from organic data" include '"profit from first-logged" ?

I believe it IS included and the first number is the total proceeds from exo.

Just looked at my data and I would say you are correct, 16Bn total; 12Bn First Logged.

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

I've never learned to use a controller. I just never had a reason to do so, I guess, since I've always played on PC.

My life as a gamer started on the SNES in 1993/94. First time gaming on PC was in 1998/99, when I bought Need for Speed 2SE. Which I played with the arrow keys on my keyboard.
I tried a controller, but the controllers available for PC back then were more or less copies of the SNES controller (a D-pad and two buttons, later 4) and weren't really comfortable to hold. And as the input was as digital as the arrow keys, I didn't see any sense in using one. That came later when my messedup from working too hard tendons decided to act up and torture me. At that time, the N64 had introduced the analog stick, which helped me a lot.

 

[CMDR Timber McWolf]

Just looked at my data and I would say you are correct, 16Bn total; 12Bn First Logged.

After you turned them in or are you able to see this somewhere before turning the data in?

 

[aRJay]

After you turned them in or are you able to see this somewhere before turning the data in?

After turn in, actually from looking at the statistics page on Inara which is essentially a copy of the data in my Codex.

I know you can scan a planet second but get first discovery if you sell it first and I know First Footfall is earned real time what I am not sure of is if I first footfalled and then scanned a Bio on that planet if you could claim the discovery bonus by landing there next and selling the data first.