[Descenter]

Is there anyway you can make it to where you can use "throttle" control in FS2 Open?  I have a joystick with the "throttle" control and would like to be able to control the entire ship with just the joystick in the game.  (Other than the misc ship controls that are not essential for flying)

[karajorma]

From the Beta version of the FAQ.

How can I make my joystick's throttle work?
Freespace 2 has two different throttle options. Absolute throttle allows you to move the throttle between stop and maximum speed. Relative throtttle is used for devices like a mouse wheel where you can spin down to slow down and up to speed up. Activating the throttle is reasonably simple but by default the throttle option isn't activated. To activate it do the following.

   1. Press F2 to bring up the options menu
   2. Click on Control Config
   3. Select Ship
   4. Select either absolute or relative throttle axis
   5. Click Bind
   6. Move your throttle

[CaptJosh]

Go into your controls options and go to the ship controls. Find the "Absolute Throttle Axis" and put it into bind mode by either doubleclicking on the item or clicking once, then clicking the bind button. Move the throttle control. It should bind it to that.

Note: this is how I did it with a Top Gun Afterburner II from Thrustmaster. I make no guarantees on it working with your stick.

EDIT: DOH! Beat me to it, karajorma.

[StratComm]

Originally posted by karajorma
From the Beta version of the FAQ.

...Absolute throttle allows you to move the throttle between stop and maximum speed. Relative throtttle is used for devices like a mouse wheel where you can spin down to slow down and up to speed up. ...

It's probably worth pointing out that the actual mouse wheel isn't bindable.  Only if you have a joystick with a throttle control that moves like a mouse wheel, in that it has no beginning or end can you make use of relative throttle axis.

[karajorma]

Ah. Thanks for that.

Now you see why it's the beta version

[StratComm]

I'm the one responsible for the core of that statement in the first place, and I only found out afterwards that it didn't actually work.  So I'm glad to get it "officially" corrected.

[Fenrir]

It's a shame it doesn't work on a mouse wheel... that would be mighty handy.

[StratComm]

I've already mentioned it in the ask-for-features thread.  Unfortunatly I don't know if its implimentation is platfor-specific or not.

[Descenter]

  Should have known... Thanks anyways.  It works now.

(Plays FS2 with joystick)

[CaptJosh]

Really, it shouldn't be platform specific. The input is the same, regardless. Though on a Mac, you'd have to get a USB scrolling mouse or that fancy new mouse Apple's been making a big deal about. The so-called "Super Mouse".

[taylor]

Originally posted by Fenrir
It's a shame it doesn't work on a mouse wheel... that would be mighty handy.

The mouse wheel is supported in the new IO code I'm working on.  The new code supports up to 8 mouse buttons plus the wheel (only up/down) as an axis.

[Inquisitor]

I believe, regardless of whether it "should be" that is is indeed platform specific, unless someone snuck in an SDL rewrite for windows that my senility has caused me to forget.

[Kazan]

Inqui: writing SDL once (if written well) is automatically "an SDL rewrite for windows"

the slow process of stripping all platform dependancy continues

[taylor]

Originally posted by Inquisitor
I believe, regardless of whether it "should be" that is is indeed platform specific, unless someone snuck in an SDL rewrite for windows that my senility has caused me to forget.

There are really only two "platforms" though, SDL and Win32.  Catching the events is the only platform specific part of it and then it just passes the current positions to the mouse code which is not (in general) tied to any platform.  After the event has be captured in the one part the rest of the code doesn't care what platform you're running on since the values are converted to an axis/state struct which is used for all future reference.

And the new I/O code does use SDL on everything.  Depends on how testing goes as to whether I leave it in for Windows or just have it a compile time option, but we'll see when I get all of the relevant code done.