[bucky699]

Fisrt of all i'd like to say to the devs AWSOME JOB, kudos on the successful release.

Second of all not being able to use my joystick (cyborg evo) for some reason it just wont work with the game so i'd like to use K/B and Mouse. Howerver the game wont let me map keys to my multiple mouse buttons and trying to use the numpad, arrow keys and WASD for all the diffrent types of movemt along with mouse for targeting just dosnt seem to gell. There are of course way too many keys needed in this game always was, so i call out to the community share with me your keyboard layout, how do you fellow mouse users get the most manuverability from your craft? Do you remap all your keys or just a few? Share with me so i might learn

I'm really looking for a setup that will use WASD for thrusters, Q/E for rolls but then i have to find rooom for all the targeting and that, very confusing. Is there anyway to get the game to recognise my other mouse buttons? Anyways any help would be apreciated.

[MatthTheGeek]

As a mouse user I use nearly no thruster keys and definitely not wasd. Just burners on tab, full thrust/full stop on shift+backspace/backspace and glide on middle mouse.

[StarSlayer]

I bound 'X' to Jason...

[General Battuta]

I use flight controls (thrusters and such) on the numpad, burners on tab, fire on ctrl, fire missiles on space.

[MatthTheGeek]

...I think you'll find there's basically as many layouts as players

[CKid]

Playing using only a keyboard and mouse. I got the following layout

Z- Afterburner
A- Bank when pressed
D- Glide
Arrow Keys- Thrusters
Tab- Switch secondary

Everything else is standard.

[z64555]

I remapped everything, basically...

Essential flight controls are on Q, W, E columns, targeting controls are in R, T, Y columns with U and J. Energy controls are in I, O, P, with M as equalize energy and ' as equalize shields. Primary and Secondary selection is 1 and 2, 4 is secondary fire linking (3 is reserved for primary linking when it gets implemented).

I'm generally happy with the setup, it works generally well with my laptop keyboard, although I'm not quite as happy with the placement of the energy controls and the throttle controls being so far away from the flight controls.

General idea behind my setup is to group similar controls together so I don't have to hunt around for them and don't have to move my left hand very far to get to them, especially the targeting keys. I'd like to try mapping them closer to the center of the keyboard so I could put the energy management stuff on the left and the targeting on the right, so I don't have to move my hand all the way over to do emergency energy management (which happens too often in FSO, Diaspora doesn't have this problem ).

[Cerebus]

I use the mouse, much better control imo

that being said, I use

W= full thrust while held
S= no thrust
A= Roll left
D=Roll right
E= Target what's in reticule
TAB= afterburners
Space = glide when pressed
remapped targeting and other things to suit to, but these changes made it way easier to fly

I'm probably gonna try switching WS to up and down thrusters, as I'm usually "pedal to the firewall"

[bucky699]

Wow thanks guys a lot of good ideas here, think i like Cerberus setup i'll give that a try, the only problem with redfining the keys is so many to change just to change one or two things lol. Also looks like i might have got my joystick working as well, seems it was a driver issue. I'll let yous all know what i come up with thanks for all the replies

[Cerebus]

[z64555]

Cerebus: use [lvlshot] instead of [img] tags, ty.

[newman]

Cerebus: use [lvlshot] instead of [img] tags, ty.

Fixored, but z64555 is right - please use the [lvlshot] tags with larger images, it makes it much easier to view them.

[Achillion]

I use one of these:

plus:
MB1: Primary weap
MB2: Afterburner
Middle mouse: Glide
Mouse thumb1: Secondary weap
Mouse thumb2: Target ship in reticle
and a little mouse button under middle mouse for countermeasures.

[BritishShivans]

This reminds me of something - I REALLY need to get all the mods and Freespace Open to use my preferred keyboard layout.

On the subject of layout, I use my mouse for braking and acceleration, with the middle button being used for afterburners. I use WSAD for steering, such as A being turn left, D being turn right, etc. I find it that it's much more responsive, and it helps me dogfight a lot better than the default layout. My targeting keys are also close to my maneuvering keys, so I can rapidly select specific stuff, like turrets or say, the engine subsystem. I use space for primaries, since when I use to it for secondaries, I had a tendency to knock the space bar and waste my secondaries. So I assigned them to Ctrl instead. I also use the alt key for switching inbetween dual-fire and single-fire.

I used to just use the default layout, because I found reassigning all the keys each time I played a new mod to be very tedious and tiring.

I'm honestly not sure what keys to assign for gliding yet, though.

Just wondering though, what do you think of the layout I described? I'm always trying to get my keyboard to be easy to use while avoiding tiring my hands and fingers, but I also want it to react quickly - I'm not fond of being stuck with a few options for maneuvering during dogfights. It'd be nice to hear other people's experiences.

[SaltyWaffles]

Huh. Never thought of some of the ideas shown here. I'm also surprised at how unusual my setup apparently is...though perhaps for good reason?

For Diaspora, at least, here we go:
W - Forward thrust
S - Reverse thrust/decelerate
A - Bank left
D - Bank right

Shift W - Up thrust
Shift S - Down thrust
Shift A - Left thrust
Shift D - Right thrust

Space - Afterburner
V - Press-to-glide
E - Target ship in reticule
Shift E - Target subsystem in reticule
Tab - Chase view
3 - Target nearest enemy
Shift 3 - Target nearest attacker
G - Toggle primary banks
Shift G - Toggle previous primary banks
R - Toggle secondaries
Shift R - Toggle previous secondaries
C - Communications
X - Countermeasures
1 - Toggle throttle to 0%
Shift 1 - Toggle throttle to 100%
B - Target bombs/bombers
F - Cycle friendlies
Shift F - Cycle backward friendlies

Misc:
Alt E - Toggle ships on escort list
Alt V - Add/Remove to escort list
Alt Shift V - Clear escort list
T - Target next live turret
Shift T - Target previous live turret


...I feel like I'm mixing up at least one thing; I can't remember which key I bound for cycling subsystems--might have been T, and I'm confusing it with something else, etc. The confusion stems from the major changes I had to make to my usual setup for Diaspora due to gameplay differences (toggling primaries is a rare, out-of-combat action, no shields or ETS to manage, etc).

I use the mouse for pitch, yaw, and fine-tooth aiming. As I literally can't bind my Mouse Button 4 or 5's to anything, it's a little frustrating at times. I tend to avoid binding Mouse 3 to anything, due to its bad ergonomics when in the heat of combat.