So I'm still pretty noobish at this game and just got a Logitech G13, mainly for the second stick and backlit keys. I've set up a few things on the first (M1) page of it's profile but I'm pretty sure I'm not really realizing the full potential of this device.

So this is my noob question: What's the best way to set this thing up to get the full potential out of it? Anyone else that's using one of these wanna give a noob some tips or suggestions? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have a Nostromo n52, which is a bit different but a similar concept.

In particular, make sure you have keys bound to the nav window, sector list, jettison screen, char page, and mission log. Those are all things that you might want to quickly check in-flight. I'd set one key to "shift" as well, so that you can plot multi-hop routes without taking your left hand off the keypad. Might also want to have one of them set to the 'z' key (and then just bind 'z' to whatever feature you want) so that you can zoom the nav-map without having to click the button. Similarly, if one of the keys is assigned to be the 'a' key, you can easily dump all your cargo (useful if you get ambushed while hauling) by pressing the jettison window key followed by the 'a' key, without having to take your hands off the controls.

In addition to that stuff, I keep a key bound to turbo, turbo lock, the nextLS and prevLS commands from TargetLess, and toggles for auto-aim and mouse-look (I like being able to lock turbo, enable mouse-look, and then slide my right hand off my joystick and down to my mouse, so I can look around).

Of course, if you have any of those functions bound to the buttons on your joystick instead, they aren't necessary to also be bound to the gamepad. On my joystick I have the "target nearest" and "target next" functions - if you don't want those on the stick, put 'em on the gamepad.

You might also want to bind keys to any plugins or commands you use frequently, such as Maid or TA or whatever.

If you want to have a key to operate the telescopic view, you can either reassign one of them to be the 'i' key, or bind a key to the +zoom function. Personally, I wanted the zoom to toggle, so I made an alias to do that and bound that instead.

As for movement, I personally like to have the real joystick handle rotational stuff - pitch, yaw, roll - and use the hat-switch for forward/backward thrusters. I use my d-pad (in your case, the G13's stick) for the left/right and up/down strafing.

Oh, you might want to set a key or perhaps the joystick press-in button to operate the breaks, and also set a key to "activate" so that you can easily jump out or dock (if you don't use auto-dock - I prefer manual docking myself).

It can be useful to have keys bound to hail as well. I use the buttons on the base of my joystick for that, but some people prefer having them in places that can be reached more easily.

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Overall, the main idea is to minimize how often you need to take your hands off the gamepad or joystick, especially during combat and normal flight - taking your hand off the stick to press "enter" could be the moment the pirate behind you needs to kill you before you jump to safety.

Well I found out how to add game specific commands to the key assignments, everything is a macro and all the basic stuff is pre-recorded, just assign to a key. The device can use lua scripting but my programming days died with the Commodore 64 so I'm going to have to brush up on Lua, I suppose. Convenient, I guess since plugins for the game are also in Lua.

I also found out it has support for VO on the lcd, it shows your license stats in real time.

I've got the basics figured out. What I don't know are what are binds and what are aliases. The G13's keys are nothing natively. They have to be told to be something before you can use them for anything. They can be a keypress, a macro, can pass their state to a Lua script, or output a block of text. It looks like the macro function is the most used but Lua scripting is what really unlocks the thing from what I have read on it's community forums. So....

Any code monkeys out there?

Binds are the links between a command and a key, in VO. So for example, if you wanted to assign the nextLS command to the w key, you would create a bind: /bind w nextLS. An alias, on the other hand, is sort of like a custom command. If you want to be able to run /ex instead of typing out the full /explode, you could make an alias for that. Aliases can also be more complex, with multiple commands (which can also alter and run other aliases). The command created by the alias can then be bound just like any other. They're kind of like a poor man's plugin. Useful for simple tasks that plugins would be overkill for.

I have done a bit of Lua for plugins, but haven't done any for working with gamepads. Not really sure what the point would be in VO, besides maybe making the script talk to in-game plugins, and then using that to set up an automated bot (plugins normally can't control thrusters on their own, to prevent exploits). That would be against the EULA if you used it to set up an auto pilot or auto-dodging pattern or anything that essentially flies for you.

I suppose the scripting could be useful in games that don't have good plugin support, but it seems to me that in VO's case, it would probably be easier to just make plugins to do any particularly fancy things that need doing. Unless the thing needing doing is very keyboard intense - like if you want to be able to tap a key to do one thing, or double-tap the key to do something different. That would be easier to set up in the G13's scripting than in the game's plugins, I think.

EDIT: corrected syntax

Check your syntax Rin:
/bind w nextLS

Whoops, thanks.

Hey, another G13 owner! I use mine with the joystick in analog mode with strafe left/right up/down to the x and y axes. It works very well. :)