Why I use a mouse rather than a joystick

[X2Eliah]

You know buy a good Mouse. Something like Logitech G700

I have that exact mouse - have had it for years
And no, it doesn't help - the mouseflight feel is still very bad, compared to joystick.

 

[Tonberry]

I've had a quick look - but the steam hardware survey doesnt seem to cover peripherals, and I've not found anything up to date that covers such a wide playerbase to see.
Personally, I wouldnt have thought that peripheral owning PC players would have outnumbered those with only a mouse and keyboard judging solely from the type and range of games in the last 3-4 years where a joystick could be used in a "natural fit" sort of way.
Alas - I now have a plate of food in front of me that has my attention now, but I'll have another look later on.

Not to mention that the game is extremely playable with a dual analogue joypad and every pc gamer I personally know has at least one immediately to hand should a game demand it...

 

[Lestat]

I have that exact mouse - have had it for years
And no, it doesn't help - the mouseflight feel is still very bad, compared to joystick.

Did you use Setpoint? for a few controls. You can do Ctrl A or Ctrl Z zoom in or out your radar and such? When I was in Lord of the rings online. My mouse controlled 30+ buttons with a G13 game pad. .

One game I use to hear people say mouse was better then joystick was Descent 1,2 and 3. Same controls as Elite.

 

[Kris]

Any good tips for keyboard and mouse players (threads, youtube videos)?

I only got into Alpha 1.1 this week, so i´m still learning. It´s getting better, but yes i agree that learning curve is not easiest. But i´m not complaining. Plan it stick with keyboard and mouse atm.

 

[GeneralZod]

Its my go to example for many things, but War Thunder Arcade mode is a good example. try playing that with a stick and you are in for a world of paiin. I like warthunder a lot, but I would be gutted if that happened with ED.

I no longer play warthunder for many reasons but this was one of them. I did stick with simulator battles just because of this but even that became distasteful. I even tried arcade with mouseaim and that was so easy it wasn't even enjoyable anymore. So the point that mouse can be made too OP is valid. It helped to ruin that game for me. However I did think their Mousejoy control scheme was good and took skill to use, but because it took skill many would not use it.

 

[Lestat]

What mouse do you use Kris and what are your main controls that you use other then shooting.

 

[Kris]

What mouse do you use Kris and what are your main controls that you use other then shooting.

Mostly default Mouse and Keyboard, with Absolute Pitch&Roll. Have mostly tried to adjust mouse sensitivity and deadzone, and tried with Toggle FA to hold or not. So mostly played with default.

So far i have tried to stick with this control scheme, and learn it. But would be interesting to learn what config others are using (for ideas).

I have cheapest Logitech mouse (B100), so nothing to brag about.

 

[Lestat]

A idea maybe user the mouse for Slide controls. Slide up down left right because you don't use them as much and use the keyboard to set the Pitch and Roll.

 

[spacehawk]

I got the premium beta was very excited to play it with my occulus rift. So got it hookd up started the game and then had issues with the rift not working(which I found out later on that u had to run it as secondry display when trying this game.) And the mouse making the ship go in circles. I gave up and was a bit annoyed.

Then I remember I had an xbox controller.and hooked it in.a dev helped me with the info of how to setup the rift for it. Then everything world like magic I loved what I saw. But am not good with dogfights so I gave up at the multiple enemy stage.now waiting for premium beta release. Can't wait to explore

 

[Malicar]

You can actually break the mouse + keyboard default setup by just making a few mistakes when setting up your custom controls. I did it with the Alpha 1.1 and thought why is the ship flying like this? The ship had this awful lag in the controls and almost swayed as I moved it. At first I wondered if they changed it in the Alpha 4.0 patch. However it was a direct result of me trying to map controls for the mouse that were already mapped by default but not listed and I ended up with a conflict that was not detected.

The easiest way to make sure your not doing this is to just pick the default control setup from the drop down and redo your binds after a quick test. In this case mouse and keyboard. The default controls are fine for the most part but I can't stand flying without manual rotation control. It's about the only change I would make to the actual default setup myself.

Freelook is a bit sensitive with the mouse and will require some deadzone tweakage to get it to the point of where it's not horribly inaccurate or overly sensitive. While I don't find the mouse and keyboard to be as good as analog controls it's most certainly not hurting the gameplay. I can for the most part do just fine. However flight assist off is again a bit trickier on the mouse and requires a bit of finesse. Other then that I fly mouse and keyboard just fine.

I enjoy loading the canister mission and just flying through the asteroid belt at insane speeds rolling and twisting as I make my way through tapping the flight assist to make quick vector adjustments or straffing runs as I fly by the rocks. It's just so damn smooth and sounds soooo good. Try scraping your hull on rock gently. Yep even that sound is modeled.

 

[Jack Booted Thug]

I did this with a mouse...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJDQE3jjBCk

The mouse controls are fine.

For those who cannot get the ship to stay steady increase your deadzone.

 

[insanephoton]

If I can dock a Lakon with k/board mouse ( and I can) there's not much wrong with it as a control system. Sure I've messed up a couple of times, but that's more down to getting used to the size of a Lakon. It's not as if using a joystick guarantees that you won't crash

 

[X2Eliah]

Hmyeah. Did some more tests.

What worked for me best was to remap the mouse to pitch+yaw, with roll keys on specific buttons. *and* to increase the deadzone about twice and reduce sensitivity by half. Then it's playable... Though I haven't tried actual combat with this yet.

 

[FrogsFriend]

I've never really had a problem flying with £4 supermarket kb/m combination, and I have tried both a joystick and a gamepad before returning to the mouse.

Mouse Mode - absolute pitch/roll inverted
Sensitivity - about half way
Dead zone - about a quarter
Yaw into Roll - off

Think 'swoopy' Roll towards your target and gently pull up to bring it into your sights. Use the Yaw on the keyboard to fine tune as you line up.

But, having said that, I can understand the OPs concern that if many people buy the game and find they struggle to control their ship with kb/m, and when they turn to the forums for help they're told 'go spend more money on a joystick', it could generate a lot of negative reviews.
I'm sure Frontier don't want this to just be a niche game for sim fans, and a little tweeking of the mouse default settings would probably help ease new players in.

 

[GeneralZod]

If I can dock a Lakon with k/board mouse ( and I can) there's not much wrong with it as a control system. Sure I've messed up a couple of times, but that's more down to getting used to the size of a Lakon. It's not as if using a joystick guarantees that you won't crash

You're correct there is nothing wrong with the mouse. It's just guys looking at everything but the pilot's seat for reasons why they constantly fail at the game.

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Just had a quick play session with a mouse.
..

I can guarantee you one thing, at least:
Anyone new to the game, who buys this, logs in, and tries flying with the mouse will utterly hate the controls.

Been reading this thread with great interest as I only bought the premium Beta yesterday. I was a little concerned about the use of mouse and keyboard as I had read peoples issues regarding this and the problems they were having, but screw it I thought I'll just go ahead and get the game, delve right in and see for myself. Anyway.... I can tell you my first experience with these controls couldn't have been better!! lol It was perfect for me.... Immediately I was cruising around of meteors barely skimming the surface then boosting off towards another one at full blast!! and to then stop just in time, do a 90 degree turn and scoot off along the surface!

It all felt very natural to me, so I have to disagree and say that for some of us it's actually better. I decided to test my theory and so plugged in my 360 controller....hahaha what a joke, I was useless!! I can only put it down to my practice time with these types of peripherals. I had used a Joystick back in the spectrum 48k/Amiga500 days and only in recent years have been using a controller, albeit not very well (except driving games) but I grew up using mouse and keys more than any other input device, so...it would only be natural that I am better with these.

I do however think that for 'immersion' qualities a joystick might be better, but for me...probably a lot harder

anyway just my two pennys worth.

 

[Darth Sidious]

Selfish of me perhaps
But I planned to play with occulus so I couldn't imagine using a mouse&keyboard.
One thing ..back in the day's Joysticks really felt like fisherprice toys.
Of course we played with mouse.
Still I agree it should not be neglected.
Don't forget to see jack booted thug higher up in this tread.
Btw I use both mouse and joystick
At least don't turn it off. that little dot is quite useful

 

[SentineI]

You're correct there is nothing wrong with the mouse. It's just guys looking at everything but the pilot's seat for reasons why they constantly fail at the game.

So it's the fault of people who tried playing with a mouse, gave-up, bought a joystick, and suddenly got better? That sounds like an argument which will alienate a large percentage of Elite Dangerous joystick players

P.S. Your argument fails, since you failed to address any of the points of the opening posting!

 

[SentineI]

For me personally the reason why other control methods don't work for me is only a single aspect: I need the three axes pitch, roll and yaw accessible with a single hand. I can not coordinate the movement well enough if it's split between two hands.

Hopefully not many people have that problem. I guess you would suck at patting your head with one hand, and rubbing your stomach with the other hand? And let's not even mention juggling

On a sidenote: Do later Alpha versions allow one to save custom control presets? I'm still on 1.1. For testing purposes I'd very much like to switch between the different control methods, but when premium beta starts I most certainly won't want to reassign all the stuff every time I do that.

You can do this manually:
1. Make sure Elite Dangerous is NOT running.
2. Open the folder "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\Options\Bindings" (typing that into the Start Menu withOUT quotes & then pressing Enter should do it).
3. The file "Custom.binds" is your current settings. Make a copy of this & give it a suitable name (say "Custom_MAIN.binds").
4. Start Elite Dangerous & customise the controls.

You can backup your new controls using the same method.

To restore previously backed-up controls:
1. Make sure Elite Dangerous is NOT running.
2. Delete or rename the current "Custom.binds" file (in the "Bindings" folder).
3. Copy the backup file to the "Bindings" folder, and then rename it to "Custom.binds".
4. Restart Elite Dangerous.

NOTE: This method does not work with Alpha 1.1, as the controls were stored differently then.

 

[SentineI]

A lot of joystick fans seem to blame the mouse as being inherently bad. That's simply wrong. I can play a vast number of space & flight-sim-like games using the mouse, without a problem. After a lot of practice that now includes Elite Dangerous

I blame problems people have with the mouse on:
1. The default controls aren't intuitive or easy, as shown by the fact that over half of those still using the mouse changed from Pitch/Roll to Pitch/Yaw.
2. The tempting-sounding "Yaw into Roll" option makes things worse not better, as shown by so few using it (16%).
3. People naturally want to yaw with the mouse, but this is not viable with Elite Dangerous' flight model. It takes practice (to learn to fly a spaceship like a plane).
4. I think mouse control can be made easier to pick-up, and Frontier seem to agree with me.