Hello.

I'm new to VO, only came over cos I saw it mentioned on the Jumpgate Evolution boards.

Just have a quick question...

I use a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick, but find that when I switch to 'real flight' mode, my throttle slider no longer works and I have to use 'W' and 'S' to regulate my throttle. I cannot redefine the controls to use the throttle slider instead of these keys. Is thi a problem anyone else has had?

Thanks,

Micky Chow

It's because of how throttle works in vo,
or to be precise, with flight assist on, your ship's computer is maintaining your speed, that's what you set with throttle,
with flight assist off, it doesn't, you can only turn on thrusters to accelerate forward or backwards
so, throttle with FA off just doesn't make sense.

you could assign throttle to 'accelerate' but it's not particularly useful, also it'd then not work with Flight assist on.

What i belive is better solution (or at least one i use)
is set joystick buttons for accelerate/decelerate, that i use with FA off and i only use throttle when i have FA on.

Excellent stuff. I was thinking that might be the way to go, but I just wanted some clarification from someone who's already playing!!

Thanks for that!

Micky Chow

Hi Micky Chow, welcome to VO!

There are two flight models in this game, one in which the computer assists you to keep you going more or less in the direction your nose is pointed and at a certain velocity, and one in which you are floating freely through space and are in direct control of your ship's thrusters.

A throttle will work with Flight Assist on since the computer knows how fast you want to be going, but with Flight Assist off a throttle is really meaningless since you are 'firing' your thrusters directly.

I've been playing VO for almost six years, and I've found the best way to get full control of your ship is by using two joysticks, and turning Flight Assist off. VO has no problem recognizing multiple joysticks, and if you use sticks with a twist axis(z-rotation) you can set them up like this:

Right Stick (attitude)

x-axis: yaw
y-axis: pitch
z-rotation: roll

Left Stick (thrust)

x-axis: lateral thrust (left-right)
y-axis: horizontal thrust (forward-back)
z-rotation: vertical thrust (up-down)

This is the most intuitive set-up I've found, and I'm sure others will agree. The degree of control you have over your movement is just awesome, not to mention assigning your left blaster to your left trigger and your right blaster to your right trigger and pulling them at the same time is fun.

If you don't want to invest in a second stick, then using some of your stick's peripheral buttons for thrust when not using Flight Assist works best, you can also use an 8-d hat for thrust. Also, a gamepad is a cheap alternative that works well, Logitech makes some decent ones.

Have fun!

Welcome MickyChow.

You can also just use a mouse and KB and play it like an FPS. It just takes some time to get used to using qawsedrf for movement.

and welcome :)

I just ignored throttle when I was using a joystick. It was simpler and easier to just assign accellerate and decellerate two two convenient buttons.