Am I an idiot to play w/out a joystick?

[dogeddie]

I've never owned a joystick and have been playing space games for a long time. I managed to configure the arrow keys to turn my ship left and right rather than rolling, which has helped alot. It's still quite a bit different than I am used to, as in X3, Freelancer, Privateer, etc - games I play with a mouse. Does anyone use the arrow keys like this? I wish I could configure the mouse, but when I do, I lose the yaw and can only use roll, which fries my brain. Point is, after all this time, I really don't want to learn to use a joystick. I like my games the way they are. Is this game doable w/ the arrow keys?

[Jar]

I've never used the joystick.

But I don't like the yaw either. After several decades of rock and roll the yaw does not compute.

[CmdrLUke]

I can only dogfight with the joystick. I have a cheap joystick that does not center properly, which is VERY annoying as the screen starts drifting in random directions when I let go of the stick. I wish there was a "center joystick" command like there seems to be with the mouse. Dogfighting became 1 million times easier with the joystick. But I grew up on pitch/roll joystick fighting, and keyboard pitch roll just do not compute for chasing a dodging target for me. The main, major advantage of the joystick is that you can hold a constant non-max combined pitch/roll. The keyboard is either full pitch or full roll or you have to tap the key repeatedly to approximate a pitch/roll in between 0 and max, which still results in jerky motion.

On the subject of centering the joystick: I've tried adjusting the oolite code to make the joystick center larger (i.e., treat a small epsilon from 0 as 0 in virtualstick.x and virtualstick.y) but that doesn't seem to work. Hmm actually I have an idea here to try that may help: make the epsilon larger but only apply this adjustment with BOTH pitch and roll are within epsilon of 0.0.

However, precsion maneuvering operations including docking and rear gunning when being chased by attackers (where the attackers fly straight) I always do with the keyboard.

I *love* the yaw. Makes lining up on stations, etc. much faster. Very useful to yank those squirming & wiggling asps and Fer-de-Lances in close dogfighting back into the center of the screen.

[Disembodied]

I've never used a joystick either, and like Jar I found that yawing does my head in... I fly from the keyboard but I wouldn't recommend using the arrow keys as they're not best placed. The control keys are fully adjustable -- see the wiki for details.

[dogeddie]

I've never used a joystick either, and like Jar I found that yawing does my head in... I fly from the keyboard but I wouldn't recommend using the arrow keys as they're not best placed. The control keys are fully adjustable -- see the wiki for details.

I like the arrow keys sort of away from the other keys as it give a similar feel to using a mouse and keyboard - like right hand does the ship movement, left hand does the rest. Does that make sense?

[FSOneblin]

I have a keypad (an airflow) for starwars battlefront, but it is too hard to use in oolite, So I have mastered the ways of the key board. I Would try the joystick, but Don't want to bother getting a new one. Well, I might try..... Can someone pm me 35 or so dollars? I have the money, I just don't want to spind it for something I might not use

Don't Panic: FSOneblin

[JensAyton]

Mouse Rules OK!

[dogeddie]

When I enable the mouse and have to use roll I feel like I'm gonna barf all over my cockpit. http://www.xandrah.com/images/SpinningIllusion.gif
Sort of like that.
I should see if there is a way to reduce the sensitivity or something. For now give me keyboard + yaw.

[CmdrLUke]

When I enable the mouse and have to use roll I feel like I'm gonna barf all over my cockpit. http://www.xandrah.com/images/SpinningIllusion.gif
Sort of like that.
I should see if there is a way to reduce the sensitivity or something. For now give me keyboard + yaw.

Speaking of barfing, after a long weekend of intense oolite-ing, for hours afterwards when I close my eyes I'd see a spinning starfield. Blech!

[Disembodied]

I like the arrow keys sort of away from the other keys as it give a similar feel to using a mouse and keyboard - like right hand does the ship movement, left hand does the rest. Does that make sense?

I suppose it does... I just have s, x, <,> and a to fire ingrained in me -- with spacebar to decelerate and / to accelerate. It's what I grew up with. I used it in Escape Velocity, too.

[Commander McLane]

Is this game doable w/ the arrow keys?

Of course it is. I have never used anything else than the keyboard in the different incarnations of Elite. Ever.

[TGHC]

I use the keyboard and have always preferred it, in fact my left hand is now permanently claw shaped in the awse position. I used to have a joystick with the Amstrad 6128 and used the upside down trick for the rear laser, but it just wasn't robust enough and it gave up the ghost during a manic dogfighting session.

[Thargoid]

Of course it is. I have never used anything else than the keyboard in the different incarnations of Elite. Ever.

Likewise.

And the reconfigurability (if that's a word) of the keyboard in Oolite is a great bonus (in my case to stop me dumping cargo instead of auto-docking ).

[ClymAngus]

Likewise.

And the reconfigurability (if that's a word) of the keyboard in Oolite is a great bonus (in my case to stop me dumping cargo instead of auto-docking ).

Oh, you've suffered that too have you? Yeah. One minute I'm docking, next minute I'm picking up litter.