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HOTAS Suppport?
Hello All,
Greatly appreciate the attention being given the Mac app.
Last year I wrote about hotas support, as well as fixing the 2016 bug preventing the deletion of bindings.
Has the first been implemented and the second resolved?
Thank you!
Greatly appreciate the attention being given the Mac app.
Last year I wrote about hotas support, as well as fixing the 2016 bug preventing the deletion of bindings.
Has the first been implemented and the second resolved?
Thank you!
for reference, he means these forums posts i've linked here:
HOTAS support
Cannot clear key bindings
HOTAS support
Cannot clear key bindings
Hello Luxen. Thank you for making those links. :)
Well, no, the clearing binds thing is still an issue, although it does work it is VERY picky. You have to have the bind you want to clear highlighted (yellow) then press delete and it will clear. If you actually enter into bind mode by clicking on it (red), then press the del key, it will bind. Like said in the tread, if all else fails you can use /bind <key> NONE, and if this is too hard for you? You probably want to look else where, as this game uses these kind of commands in many many places...
Also with the joystick I'm not sure there is a bug, or maybe just you not using the menu correctly (it really isn't as straightforward as it could be). If you are rebinding and it is not saving, then maybe a bug, but it works on both my Android TV and on my Laptop which runs Windows 8. You have to apply the settings before changing screen, and I find the gamepad menu doesn't offer the same straight forward setup as the keyboard (for buttons) and calibration (for axis) menus. I have used many joysticks including the t16000 HOTAS from thrust master, and once I worked out how the menu + binds works? It works for all.
Also with the joystick I'm not sure there is a bug, or maybe just you not using the menu correctly (it really isn't as straightforward as it could be). If you are rebinding and it is not saving, then maybe a bug, but it works on both my Android TV and on my Laptop which runs Windows 8. You have to apply the settings before changing screen, and I find the gamepad menu doesn't offer the same straight forward setup as the keyboard (for buttons) and calibration (for axis) menus. I have used many joysticks including the t16000 HOTAS from thrust master, and once I worked out how the menu + binds works? It works for all.
Thanks for the note. Two items.
My experience is not about picky. It simply doesn't work.
Its too bad about the command line. Its not beyond me, and I think it a great option for VO's niche following. From a business point of view, however, the lack of clear hotas support and fall-backs to command lines is an unnecessary barrier to entry and a relic of the last millenium.
So you are right in one sense. I won't be introducing new players to space sims through VO. Simply too much information for non-gaming noobs to process. Better to start with Star Wars Squadrons, Everspace 2, or even Elite.
Sadly that is lost revenue and customers for Guild Software. Guild deserves better and I hope they prioritize updates in this area.
My experience is not about picky. It simply doesn't work.
Its too bad about the command line. Its not beyond me, and I think it a great option for VO's niche following. From a business point of view, however, the lack of clear hotas support and fall-backs to command lines is an unnecessary barrier to entry and a relic of the last millenium.
So you are right in one sense. I won't be introducing new players to space sims through VO. Simply too much information for non-gaming noobs to process. Better to start with Star Wars Squadrons, Everspace 2, or even Elite.
Sadly that is lost revenue and customers for Guild Software. Guild deserves better and I hope they prioritize updates in this area.
On October 10th, 2020, in VO 1.8.531 we included:
- Added 'Clear A Bind' button to Keyboard menu, so keys and commands can be unbound from each other.
As for HOTAS, the challenge is that "priorities" are all relative. Changes to the Mac platform, and Apple gradually eliminating support for open-standards based graphical APIs (like OpenGL) basically made the game non-functional for a lot of Mac people.
We thought that would take a week or so to fix, but because the Mac platform has a lot of.. let's call them "unique challenges", it ended up taking about a month. Much of that was figuring out how to do the newer more-elaborate Apple binary-signing in a way that's both compatible with our game, and palatable to modern MacOS. We aren't the only ones who struggle with this stuff, we can see Blizzard going through the same issues with World of Warcraft, they just have a lot more people to put on it.
Most other games 1) Don't bother supporting the Mac at all, 2) Don't self-update, as MMORPGs must, or 3) aren't independently installable outside of a "Store" framework. Very few of us continue to carry the torch of fundamental Mac support, which gets more difficult with each passing year, due to Apple's changes.
This is why things like HOTAS are not exactly top-of-mind. It isn't that we don't value that use-case, it's that we just have others that are way more pressing and fundamental.
HOTAS systems generally can be used in VO, and have been used for decades; but there is a substantial amount of custom-binding that usually needs to be done per-device. We had defaults in there for certain older Thrustmaster setups, but not the newer ones.
- Added 'Clear A Bind' button to Keyboard menu, so keys and commands can be unbound from each other.
As for HOTAS, the challenge is that "priorities" are all relative. Changes to the Mac platform, and Apple gradually eliminating support for open-standards based graphical APIs (like OpenGL) basically made the game non-functional for a lot of Mac people.
We thought that would take a week or so to fix, but because the Mac platform has a lot of.. let's call them "unique challenges", it ended up taking about a month. Much of that was figuring out how to do the newer more-elaborate Apple binary-signing in a way that's both compatible with our game, and palatable to modern MacOS. We aren't the only ones who struggle with this stuff, we can see Blizzard going through the same issues with World of Warcraft, they just have a lot more people to put on it.
Most other games 1) Don't bother supporting the Mac at all, 2) Don't self-update, as MMORPGs must, or 3) aren't independently installable outside of a "Store" framework. Very few of us continue to carry the torch of fundamental Mac support, which gets more difficult with each passing year, due to Apple's changes.
This is why things like HOTAS are not exactly top-of-mind. It isn't that we don't value that use-case, it's that we just have others that are way more pressing and fundamental.
HOTAS systems generally can be used in VO, and have been used for decades; but there is a substantial amount of custom-binding that usually needs to be done per-device. We had defaults in there for certain older Thrustmaster setups, but not the newer ones.