Forums » Suggestions

Joystick throttle idea

Sep 17, 2007 CdrJameson link
It's a real pain to have the joystick throttle not work in physics mode. I fly with a joystick and wish I could turn off F/A mode. Putting the throttle as accelerate/decelerate is not a good option because that is not how a throttle is supposed to work. You need to be able to control your thrust with the throttle not the speed. I think the devs said the problem with the throttle is physics mode is that you can only go forward and not backward. So add an extra button for "reverse" and when you push the button it toggles your thrust between forward and reverse.

Combat is a real pain in F/A mode and if this method was implemented it would make combat with a joystick a lot better.
Sep 18, 2007 SCAR Bank link
you could just set the center deadzone as the transitional. anything above is forward throttle and anything below is reverse.

But that's essentially what we have already with accelerate/decelerate.

I don't see what you're asking for.

Combat IMHO is ideal in physics mode with a joystick and the accelerate forward/backward in place of 'throttle', because that gives you full control of that axis of movement.
Sep 19, 2007 CdrJameson link
Here is how I would like it to work, and how I've seen it work in other physics mode games such as Jumpgate.

Throttle at idle = no thrust
Throttle at 50% = half forward thrust
Throttle at 100% = full forward thrust

Then I push a button for "reverse", now it works like this.

Throttle at idle = no thrust
Throttle at 50% = half reverse thrust
Throttle at 100% = full reverse thrust

Push the "reverse" button again and it goes back to being forward thrust. I don't like the accelerate/decelerate way of doing it because you don't have any fine control over the thrust. It's all or nothing in that mode.
Sep 19, 2007 SCAR Bank link
that sounds really counter-intuitive....

and accelerate forward/back is linear. You have perfect control.

I have it mapped to the twist grip of my left joystick, and it affords far more precision than any other form of control I've used.

It's not on/off unless you're mapping it to an on/off button, or your joystick is faulty.
Sep 20, 2007 greengeek link
CdrJameson:

In order to use a throttle properly with the FA toggle, you need to do a bit of extra work. This is because there are two different settings that a throttle control can be set to in the Joystick options:

Throttle: Works exactly as expected with Flight Assist on. Does nothing with Flight Assist off.
Accelerate: Works exactly as expected with FA off (Throttle centered = no thrust). With FA on, any position on the throttle other than center acts like pressing forward or back on the keyboard.

See my post here for more info about Joystick calibration.

The following bind works (for me) for toggling the throttle mapping and flight assist at the same time. It assumes your throttle is the Z axis on JOY0:

alias throttleToggle "throttleOn"
alias throttleOff "FlyModeToggle; bind JOY0Z Accel; alias throttleToggle throttleOn"
alias throttleOn "FlyModeToggle; bind JOY0Z Throttle; alias throttleToggle throttleOff"

Just bind throttleToggle to a joystick button (for example: /bind JOY0BUTTON5 throttleToggle) . I'd suggest leaving the keyboard FA toggle alone so that you can fix it if FA and the throttle setting get out of sync.
Sep 20, 2007 piCommander link
Actually works, thx a lot greengeek! :-)

Though I had a hard time to figure what's going wrong at first.
I had to switch off FA in VO's joystick menu. It seems that both the current state of
FA and your bindings need to be in sync, otherwise the throttle wheel will be dead
when switching to physiks mode. Unfortunately, binds don't seem to understand
conditional expressions (eg if...then)

On a somewhat related sidenote I've also found another oddity: as soon as
something's wrong in my config.ini (eg assigning my coolie hat where coolie hat
apparently isn't recognized), the whole Stick seems completely dead in VO.
Everythings seems still ok though in my external joystick calibrator.

I'm on Linux Mint (young Ubuntu variant) with a pretty outdated M$ sidewinder FF
Pro (still working, one of the very few things these guys in Redmond have done right).

I *do* know there's a long lasting kernel bug for this particular stick. There's a patch
for it which never made it into the kernel (maybe this stick is too old, so why bother
they may think). It's just a minor bug: everytime the sidewinder module is loaded (by
autoload or manually), you need to hold your stick to interrupt the light barrier.
If you don't, the module is loaded, but you won't get the node /dev/input/js0.
This has nothing todo with what I've said above though: when the stick doesn't
respond in VO, /dev/input/js0 is present.

As a last note, I'm about going to love this game but - joystick support is painful
and looks quite unprofessional (e.g. no menu guided button configuration).
In other words, getting my Joystick to work properly was extremely time consuming
and annyoing.

Everything else is really impressive. VO runs so smoothly, wonder what ping times or
traceroute I would have here from germany, can't be that good at such a long distance.

piCommander out (sorry for bad spelling, my native language is german)
Sep 20, 2007 greengeek link
You can configure joystick buttons through the Controls menu. It's done through the Keyboard page (same goes for mouse buttons), which is a bit confusing initially.
Sep 20, 2007 piCommander link
Ahh, missed that one. A litte hint on this page would be nice (for starters).

Btw, the problem with my joystick being dead in VO is still unsolved. I'm even not sure
whether it has something to do with your bind. The only workaround which seems to
work when this happens is logging out and reloading the sidewinder module. Same
procedure as in work around the kernel bug I described above, but a different reason.
Odd.

Edit: This seems to happen by chance. Just re-checked and the stick is still working.
Sep 21, 2007 SCAR Bank link
try typing /ping in game
you could also tracert to majikthise.guildsoftware.com (production server)
Sep 21, 2007 piCommander link
tracert (I used tracepath) looks horrible (lost track after 18 hops).
Ping OTOH is quite unusual for such a long distance: very constant between 162 and 165 ms (extern ping from terminal to production server).
Incredible!
Sep 21, 2007 SCAR Bank link
that seems slightly on the low side for Europe... I think most people over there got something around 200 last I heard. I'm in the southern US, and I get around 90-100.
Sep 21, 2007 logrus link
I'm getting a very steady 129ms from Netherlands.
Sep 21, 2007 Lord~spidey link
i get 70~80 from halifax nova scotia

sometime gets down to 63 :)
Sep 21, 2007 SCAR Bank link
nova scotia is only half as far from the server as I am.

Move to Milwaukee, you could shoot for 50.
Sep 21, 2007 Lord~spidey link
i actually find having 100~130 millisecond lag (with no packet loss) is an advantage in a fight because i tend to do better in europe than i do at home
Sep 21, 2007 piCommander link
So I must do even better with my ~160 (without packet loss)! *g*
(I was used to 300-500+ when I was still playing Terminus/TPE. *That* was ugly)

Btw, I've watched your vendetta trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqiYuAQSkv8
Amazing, do you have more stuff like that?

On a sidenote, when it comes to sound I'm quite picky.
Are there any plans for user made (also configurable) sounds?
If not, here's a small suggestion (or a wish if you want so): I don't like the start of the turbo sound.
The attack phase sounds like a (somewhat cheap) explosion or a shot to me.
I'd rather prefer something like a "woooosh", similar to the turbo refresh sound, but louder.
Just a minor one, if anyone cares...

Back to topic

Now that it basically works for me I'd like to get a little more feedback about the current direction of
acceleration in physics mode (which isn't needed in FA since you never move back there).
Maybe a different color for the "reversed acceleration indicator"?

My favourite though would be a centered indicater: going down for backward and up for forward
thrust, with a "no thrust position"in the middle (with a small horizontal bar), corresponding with a
throttle position at the middle. This would IMO much better reflect how the throttle actually works in
physics mode, with the small drawback that the resolution of the *visible* part (the indicator, not the
actual function) becomes halved.
Sep 23, 2007 SCAR Bank link
That's StarFisher's trailer. There are more out there, and most of them are on youtube if you look.