Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Jubalitn on April 21, 2006, 09:13:11 am
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Alright, I know your going to roast me for asking but it's bugging me.
I played the original Freespace a few years back (I got the jewelcase one), and didn't have a joystick at the time so I just used the mouse, which worked fine.
Recently I purchased a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, and even more recently got into FS2. I've been playing it with the joystick for about two weeks now. The problem though, is that even though I've gotten used to using the joystick I still totally suck with it. I've switched back to trying the mouse once or twice, and I find I'm accuracy is increasing ten fold. So my question is which is better? Do you guys think the joystick gives a level of accuracy that's just not achievable with the mouse? Should I just keep at it with the joystick and eventually I'll get better? Or should I just give up and use the mouse? Or maybe do I just have a really bad joystick :)?
Thanks for the responses.
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Mouse is definitely more accurate for aiming. But a joystick is better for flying. Guess it's a matter of style really, if you're a sniper go with the mouse, but if you like to dogfight, I'd definitely stick with the joystick.
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Keyboard all the way.
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I've been using my joystick for two days and I've gotten okay with it, ya' know not great, but not bad. I tried going back to the mouse to kill some of those pesky dragons on that mission where you hunt the Azrel, but I was even worse with the mouse than with the joystick! and I used to be decent with the mouse! You should stick with the joystick, you'd probably start getting better and anyway, if you purchased it, you probably spent a buttload of money on it. I know mine cost alot (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00068P3O4/104-8933200-5701517?v=glance&n=172282).
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I use the keyboard. It's a lot easier for me, especially when my wireless mouse runs out of batteries so quickly.
And contrary to my name, I don't start fires :nervous: .
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I Always use the Keyboard, ou only need to configure the keys well...
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Recently I purchased a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, and even more recently got into FS2. I've been playing it with the joystick for about two weeks now. The problem though, is that even though I've gotten used to using the joystick I still totally suck with it. I've switched back to trying the mouse once or twice, and I find I'm accuracy is increasing ten fold. So my question is which is better? Do you guys think the joystick gives a level of accuracy that's just not achievable with the mouse? Should I just keep at it with the joystick and eventually I'll get better? Or should I just give up and use the mouse? Or maybe do I just have a really bad joystick :)?
I personally just use pure keyboard and mastered it, you cannot bank with mouse, so give up the mouse. Without banking its gunna be pretty difficult to dodge every missle comming at you. if you play multi, your deffinity going to need that technique.
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Joystick just feels better, plus the seven buttons makes killing things easier.
Unfortunately, my banking axis is too jittery to play with, and I'm too lazy to look up with keys use it.
Somewhat OT, but what is the key for spinning? IE, not banking but rotating the ship around the axis created by the pilot's forward view.
In X-Wing/Tie you held down the "targeting" button on the joystick and then could spin yourself around, but I don't know how in FS...
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I personally just use pure keyboard and mastered it, you cannot bank with mouse, so give up the mouse. Without banking its gunna be pretty difficult to dodge every missle comming at you. if you play multi, your deffinity going to need that technique.
Can't a multi-button mouse (5+ buttons) allow banking?
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I used to play fs with only keyboard.
Then i got the gamepad i fell in love with (gravis exterminator).
I sort of sucked at accuracy with the joystick, until i just sort of got better, then next thing i know, i was awarded the ace medal.
Then i moved over to mouse, supremely accurate, like everyone says as the sniper, and also good for spraying a target with automatics
I don't see why you can't bank with the mouse?
It's the exact same control scheme for basic movement as the keyboard and the joystick.
Anyway, you can steer left right up and down with the mouse, keyboard, and joystick.
You roll your craft with two other buttons.
So i don't see how the mouse wouldn't apply to no banking anyway.
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Joystick just feels better, plus the seven buttons makes killing things easier.
Unfortunately, my banking axis is too jittery to play with, and I'm too lazy to look up with keys use it.
Somewhat OT, but what is the key for spinning? IE, not banking but rotating the ship around the axis created by the pilot's forward view.
In X-Wing/Tie you held down the "targeting" button on the joystick and then could spin yourself around, but I don't know how in FS...
Banking is spinning around the forward-backward axis, pitch is up-down, yaw is left-right. IIRC, you can bind a key to bank, it's in the options under "Bank when pressed."
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joystick all the way, i'm a bit of a barn-raiser in terms of flying ability in most games ;)
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Stick FTW!
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Can't a multi-button mouse (5+ buttons) allow banking?
Not yet. I'm working on this :D
Yeah, the bank-when-pressed control is what you need, but there's precious little room on a 3-button mouse.
I must say the joystick is my favorite option (and I think in many cases the people that don't like joysticks haven't tried a good one), but in some games I use both at once :-D Haven't come up with a perfect setup yet as Freespace has too many useful keys, but it's got the potential of best-of-both-worlds. (Especially if I can figure out a viable way to get the code to treat the mouse and joystick buttons separately as an option...)
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Oh man
Banking buttons on a 5 button mouse?
That's possibly going to be good when you're not shooting
I don't know how that's going to go
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Joystick just feels better, plus the seven buttons makes killing things easier.
Unfortunately, my banking axis is too jittery to play with, and I'm too lazy to look up with keys use it.
Somewhat OT, but what is the key for spinning? IE, not banking but rotating the ship around the axis created by the pilot's forward view.
7 and 9 are banking, and spinning around IS banking btw.
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The absolute best to way to play fs2 was with a gamepad that has dual L and R buttons
If it's only got one set of L and R buttons, it sucks
Obviously one set of the buttons is for primaries and secondaries
The second set of L and R's is for banking:)
If a gamepad doesn't have that(like my new one), then uggghh:(
Damn i need to get a new gamepad :lol:
And having dual joysticks is just utter ****
The other joystick gets setup by default for banking:(
How the hell does that work when i need to shoot and bank at the same time?
My gripes about my new control only being good for super nintendo emulation :lol:
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I personally just use pure keyboard and mastered it, you cannot bank with mouse, so give up the mouse. Without banking its gunna be pretty difficult to dodge every missle comming at you. if you play multi, your deffinity going to need that technique.
Can't a multi-button mouse (5+ buttons) allow banking?
Nope. Freespace doesnt support mice with more then 2 buttons
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I use the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro as well. As to the accuracy arguement... well generally my hand is steady enough to make extremely precise movements, so that I find myself making long-distance shots with ease. I tried using a mouse... and the controls went haywire! I moved it just a little bit and my ship would flip upside down, or I'd try moving up and to the left, and I'd move down and to the right. I am not a fan of mice in space sims for this reason.
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I personally just use pure keyboard and mastered it, you cannot bank with mouse, so give up the mouse. Without banking its gunna be pretty difficult to dodge every missle comming at you. if you play multi, your deffinity going to need that technique.
Can't a multi-button mouse (5+ buttons) allow banking?
Nope. Freespace doesnt support mice with more then 2 buttons
In reality it isn't quite that sad, as mouse drivers/software often allow one to map the extra buttons to any keypress.
There tend to be some issues though, like buttons getting "stuck" with certain keypress combinations :ick:
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Hopefully the mouse has some keyboard mapping software for the extra buttons
I don't even know if manufacturers make software like that for mice :blah:
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They do, though the "five buttons" are fairly standard (the 3rd, 4th and 5th now all mapping to the wheel IIRC). You can find mouse drivers at the manufacturer's website. If it's a Logitech mouse then their mouseware drivers, while bloated, will do what you're wanting.
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Hmmm. What's the term for the following:
1) Looking at Colossus, realizing that I'm looking at it upside down.
2) Making the ship move so that it isn't upside down without moving sideways.
Is that banking? I though banking was turning just using the "y-axis"...
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Yeah you got it, it's called banking
In other words, spinning your ship
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Cool. Thank you. :yes:
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To be honest, I use a keyboard and only touch my mouse when using the Maxim at its maximum range to take out small turrets on large capital ships.
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lol why not just use ctrl?
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Because when you're firing with the mouse for a long range shot, you use the mouse button :lol:
But, if you want to get really technical, if you used ctrl for making a long range shot with the maxim and aiming with the mouse
You wouldn't shake the mouse any clicking the mouse :)
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i use a joystick, since i've used one my entire life. (started from a Microsoft Sidewinder Pro) most joysticks have tighter control than a mouse, as the mouse tends to coast instead of almost immediately stop. :ick:
I use THIS (http://www.saitekusa.com/USA/prod/x52.htm) joystick for FS2. it's a total blast. i'd probably own with the maneuverability i get with this. :D
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Hmm....this calls for the stea....I mean conscious apreciation in SCP code of yet another Lock-On feature:
Response curves.
By assigning rounded response curves to stick devices, one can achieve even GREATER accuracy with a joystick than a mouse.
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I've been playing with the keyboard and mouse combo with one layout ever since I got my hands on Freespace 1 in 1998. Playing vs. another guy who used pure keyboard (used the numpad for the pitch, yaw, roll) I consistently outmaneuvered him, and playing vs. people with joysticks, I've held my own fairly well. I've never played FS1/2 with a joystick, ever. I honestly don't want to either.
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i use a joystick, since i've used one my entire life. (started from a Microsoft Sidewinder Pro) most joysticks have tighter control than a mouse, as the mouse tends to coast instead of almost immediately stop. :ick:
I use THIS (http://www.saitekusa.com/USA/prod/x52.htm) joystick for FS2. it's a total blast. i'd probably own with the maneuverability i get with this. :D
hehe i have the very same stick.
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I play Space-Sims since Frontier - Elite II and Wing Commander I on a Amiga 500 with a Joystick.
Joystick is in my opinion a must-have for this Games.
I think with a Joystick the whole game has a better atmosphere :)
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Hmmm, yes, the commodore 64 or 128 :p My dads 61, and owns several commodores. I always thought they were awesome computers, even to this day. But, i never knew they were actually advanced game consoles either(definition wikipedia gave me). I guess that's why we only had about 500 or so games for the thing, besides using the machine to do taxes, and the fact that it can actually surf the net. I guess this means my dad was a gamer, or he just wanted a really good computer(1980's good). I've always had high respect for the machine, but i never knew it was seriously like one of the best computers of it's kind. The cool thing about the commodore though is that it still gets used for a ton of things. In a way, the commodore has outlasted any pc or mac :lol:
I should boot up the commodore and leave a post on here with it...because i can :lol:
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Amiga 500 != Commodore 64.
Not by a really long way. The Commodore 64 was basically a decent 8-bit home computer. The Amiga on the other hand was a fully functional personal computer that was somewhere between 5 to 10 years ahead of it's time. It was Commodore's dreadful mismanagement of the Amiga that led to it's downfall in fact.
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Yeah, i still like that machine a lot, it still does have some application for some things you can get done. But, of course, everyone remembers it for the games :)
My family had like 3 commodores, two 128's, and a 64. And we had lots of joysticks for it too. Those things were 8 directional and had a button. The joysticks for the commodore were very interesting in a certain respect. Commodore joystick inputs were the exact same as sega genesis controller inputs. In reality, sega genesis controllers were compatible on commodores, and commodore joysticks were compatible on the genesis. Me and my brother would always plug in the commodore joystick when we lost a sega controller for the genesis, and then we'd play nba jam. Nba jam with one button was actually possible as was sonic the hedgehog. And a turbo sega controller on the commodore was crazy. :lol:
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I know, I did that with my old Atari... i think it was a 1600 or something. anyway, i stuck the original sega genesis controller in the joystick port and played to my heart's content. :D
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originally played Descent with pure keyboard as the mice at my school where clunky in-keyboard trackballs. later we moved on to quake and i was forced to start using a mouse which had been upgraded to actual mice by this time. when we migrated back to Descent after our school's headmaster mysteriously learned about all the pentagrams of protection we were hunting, it being a catholic school and all, i found that i could not go back to keyboarding it.
i do have an old ms sidewinder pro joystick that i've tried to use from time to time but i keep going back to the mouse because the accuracy is just too precise to pass up.
currently using a logitech MX1000 with the Cruise Up/Down keys re-bound for pitch Down/Up and the Tilt Left/Right re-bound for Yaw Left/Right to assist so i'm less likely to run out of mousepad while tracking a target. banking is done with Q and E since i'm stuck firmly in the WASD config from most FPS gaming. but arg if i don't have to suppress the urge to mod all the ships to allow for at least small amounts of lateral, vertical and reverse thrusting...
if the mouse support is enhanced as mentioned here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,33402.msg744896.html#msg744896) which sounds suspiciously like Freelancer then :nod:
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Mice are for groundpounders. Real pilots know how to handle a stick. :p
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Define groundpounder.
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Those little men I napalm when flying an IL-2.
Foot soldiers.
Quake men.
See?
I have to say I am more setup for flight sims and mainly play IL-2 Sturmovik. Just taking a break and playing FS2_open at the mo. SO I've got a Saitek X52, love it to bits, but it's probably not the best thing for FS2. Bit bulky and awkward for the kind of manouvering you do. If you throw a Bf-109 or I-16 or even a Spitfire around like you do a Myrmidon or HercII it'll kill you, or atleast break something.
Back in 2000 when I played FS2retail I used an original Saitek Cyborg and that was far more suitable. Thrustmaster Topgun was good too...
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Define groundpounder.
A somewhat derogatory term used frequently in the Descent community (and most likely other places) to refer to standard FPS games, i.e. games without 6DOF gameplay. (As one of the banner ads for PlanetDescent used to say, "We'd like to see you trichord in Quake." ;))
More on-topic, as far as FS2 is concerned, I'm very happy with my Saitek Cyborg Evo; it has enough buttons to take care of just about every frequently-used targeting function. For pure feel, though, nothing beats the venerable MS Sidewinder 3D Pro. Someone in the Descent community just created a gameport-to-USB adapter for these sticks, so now I get the chance to fall in love all over again. :)
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I had the original MS Sidewinder Pro gameport joystick. Played Descent 1 and Descent 2 with it. Good for that. It was useless for everything else, but it was darn good for Descent 1 and 2.
Sadly it didnt survive long enough to see FS2.
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Define groundpounder.
A somewhat derogatory term used frequently in the Descent community (and most likely other places) to refer to standard FPS games, i.e. games without 6DOF gameplay. (As one of the banner ads for PlanetDescent used to say, "We'd like to see you trichord in Quake." ;))
not that i'm particularly pro-groundpounder (i'll try almost anything) but the controls can easily be the same...
the translation axis Fwd/Back, Left/Right are simple. Up/Down is Jump/Crouch.
the roll axis Pitch and Yaw are also simple and Leaning equates to Banking.
ground pounder is military slang for land based troops used by those who move around in the air.
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Mice are for groundpounders. Real pilots know how to handle a stick. :p
I have been using my stick lately on single, i flat out suck on it. But im a master at the keyboard, and im so use to playing inverted on the keyboard in freespace that i have to play inverted on shooters on consoles O.o
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Heck, since I pretty much started out gaming with Descent, the first thing I do when playing a shooter on a console is to invert the Y-axis. :p
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Inverted is the correct way :) That's how planes fly, down is up, and up is down. I've tried playing fps and flight sims without the inversion and oh man it's so unplayable. I don't understand how some people can play without inversion. :lol:
Of course i know it's all down to preference and what people grew up using, but it's just unfathomable to think about non-inverties to us inverties. :lol:
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you'd be surprised how quickly the brain can adapt. the initial switch is jarring yes, but far from impossible. took about 2 hours to switch tbh. for other flight sims (and BF2) i use a joystick to fly though and un-inverting that causes problems :)
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Well, as long as your flying, the correct way is to be inverted. Try playing an fps without inversion :lol: