My joystick setup - what do others do?

[ralph_hh]

So yes banking into turns even makes sense in space, I know I'd prefer even centrifugal force pressing my bum into my seat and not across it.

While Banking into turns makes sense on earth, you have to have a look, why this is so. In an aircraft, a turn means acceleration in that direction due to aerodynamic Forces. The Aircraft Pilot will use roll and pitch to be pushed into the seat. An F1 Driver who turns the wheel will feel the acceleration because the tires move the car to that side. But he can't roll, he will always feel the sideway forces.

In space, a turn means nothing. You fly to direction A, then you turn away towards B... You still fly towands A. No wheels on the tarmac, no wings in the air. Bit like a car skidding on a frozen lake. You do not feel any forces in your seat. Unless you fire your main engines, apply some thrust and accelerate into direction B. At this Moment, it does not matter, how your ships nose got there, via yaw or roll. The acceleration forward will push your body backwards into the seat, no matter what the new direction is. So feel free to apply yaw to your spaceship.

Oolite is a bit different. You have no Newtonian Physics, no inertia, so if you use yaw or pitch, the ship moves there instantly. Which theroretically means that you have full side-thrust or up- and down-thrust for roll (and some rear-thrust, otherwise you would be at 140% speed after a 90° turn). The poor pilot would throw up his lunch quickly.

Now I feel it's a bit senseless to talk about the effects of sideway acceleration by yaw while at the same time you ignore all the other Forces that belong to that. Oolite was not meant to represent realistic physics.


By the way: My career:
LEGO space ships > Elite on a C64 > university Diplom in aeronautics > Oolite

[Cody]

My career: LEGO space ships > Elite on a C64 > university Diplom in aeronautics > Oolite

<chortles> My career: Meccano (steam-powered); masters in rock'n'roll survival from the OU (the 'Opeless University); Elite on the BBC; Oolite.

[Fritz]

In space, a turn means nothing. You fly to direction A, then you turn away towards B... You still fly towands A. No wheels on the tarmac, no wings in the air. Bit like a car skidding on a frozen lake. You do not feel any forces in your seat. Unless you fire your main engines, apply some thrust and accelerate into direction B. At this Moment, it does not matter, how your ships nose got there, via yaw or roll. The acceleration forward will push your body backwards into the seat, no matter what the new direction is. So feel free to apply yaw to your spaceship.

Correct - for real-life space ships. They usually have only one main engine, so they have to be turned into the right direction before applying thrust.

But imagine something like the Eagle: It has main engines, lift engines and control thrusters. So, in theory, you could fly real curves like in Elite, if you use the lift engines. If we assume them to be strong enough to lift the ship from the earth surface (I'm not sure about the eagle specs), you could fly a real 1g curve in space by pulling up. And only by pulling up because there are no strong engines at the top (for push-down curves) or at the sides (for yaw curves). That's what I was imagining in my posting, when I said that push-down curves and yaw curves seem wrong.

Of course there is at least one difficulty: To fly a clean Elite curve (without "sliding"), the control software would need to know the current speed. The faster we go, the slower the pitch movement would have to be, resulting in a larger radius, or we would need g forces stronger than the lift engines can provide. Speed is relative - a clean curve could only be flown relative to a given object, but in Elite, this would be easy, because planets, stars, and stations are fixed.

[Norby]

The faster we go, the slower the pitch movement would have to be, resulting in a larger radius, or we would need g forces stronger than the lift engines can provide.

So probably the maneuvering thrusters are built in all ships to be able to make as much force as needed at maximal speed. We discussed similar things once around Newtonian-ish physics.

[ralph_hh]

If you want a realistic Approach... Create individual thrusters in the shipdata plist, then calculate the thrust, ships mass and directed acceleration, then a resulting velocity. But you would end up noticing, that this does not make sense, if you ignore the momentum of moving mass. It's kinda impossible to apply 50% of physics almost realistically while ignoring the remaining 50%.

[Fritz]

That's true. And you would have to introduce gravity, orbits, etc.

[ocz]

If you want a realistic Approach... Create individual thrusters in the shipdata plist, then calculate the thrust, ships mass and [...]

And you could individually break them in flight and fight. Yet bett..worst, if the malfunction instead of killing the thrusters, would start to fire them till they burn out. What a nice idea for a "Hurting our Organum vestibulocochleare" OXP.

[CWolf]

Wow!
To quote a popular thing: "Well that escalated quickly!"

[Fritz]

After a very long decision phase, I've decided that I can't decide. To end this, I've just bought the T.Flight Hotas Stick X, and with some luck it could arrive before the weekend.

I don't know if I'll use the thrust lever, but it can be detached. I'll report how I'm getting along with it!

[Fritz]

First impressions.

While the joystick is good for FlightGear - I managed a decent landing on the first try - it doesn't work with Oolite at all (for me, that is). I can aim and dock better than expected, but it's a completely different feeling, compared to Elite played with a digital joystick and compared to Oolite with keyboard controls. It's like a different game, and not a better one.

To steer a plane in a simulator you need very fine movements, and that's why digital sticks or keys are unsuitable. But Oolite is different. You either fly in a straight line or you fight, and for the latter you mostly need maximum roll and pitch. Only for aiming you need fine controls, but using the control key with the arrow keys is not less precise than using the stick. Btw, it's unsettling that the control key has to be pressed continuously for the keyboard precision mode, while the same function for the stick has to be toggled. This prevents any mixed or alternating use of keyboard and joystick, if you only have one brain...

The joystick can probably made to behave more "digital" by changing the configuration, so that, for example, 50% movement is full roll or pitch already. But that would probably make aiming more difficult.

All of this is a question of getting used to it, of course, and I won't let this be my final statement on this topic.

But there is one thing that probably can't be changed: The joystick is physically exhausting, compared to keyboard control (I still feel it in my arm, although I stopped playing more than two hours ago). Some months ago I had a phase when I sometimes literally played all day, eight hours or more. I could never do this with the joystick! One reason is that the Hotas Stick X is very heavy compared to, let's say, a Competition Pro or a Quickshot II Turbo, so moving it needs more force to overcome the momentum (sound's somewhat silly, but I can't explain it differently). Even more important, the stick is much longer and needs more movement. Distance x force is energy, and that's why it is exhausting. Moving the fingers is not!


Btw: I didn't plan to use the thrust lever anyhow, because I need my left hand for the keyboard (and the mouse in FlightGear), but I want to warn people who plan to use the Hotas Stick X for Oolite or a flight simulator: The lever is crap - I can't put it more mildly. Compared to the joystick, which has a very good "quality feeling", the thrust lever feels cheap. The device as a whole isn't very heavy if you separate it from the stick to place it left of the keyboard. This wouldn't be too bad because the lever itself moves very lightly, too lightly in my opinion, but unbelievably, this light movement is interrupted by a very dominant notch in the central position! The notch is so strong that the lever kind of snaps into it, and if you try to overcome the resistance, you must concentrate on not slamming the lever immediately into the full position. Impossible to fine tune something like a Wright R-3350...

I don't know why they made this notch, and perhaps I'll try to remove it, voiding the warranty of course. In most planes, reverse thrust is selected by a different lever, and Elite/Oolite spaceships can't go into reverse at all. The only realistic application for a lever like this seems to be accelerating and braking a modern subway or tramway car with electronic controls...

[phkb]

I know you've been around the boards for a while, so this might seem like an obvious answer, but joysticks can now be configured with different deadzones and adjustments to range and sensitivity. That might help bringing your joystick under control. I've been using a joystick for a couple of years now, and find going back to the keyboard a sure-fire way to end up with "Press space, commander"!

[Fritz]

Yes, I know, but fine tuning the settings won't change the physical disadvantage.

One problem is the way I'm sitting when playing: I don't have a comfortable "cockpit" like CWolf showed at the beginning of this thread, but I'm using my desktop computer, so keyboard and joystick are sitting on my desk. This causes the stick to be much higher than the optimal position would be, made worse by the fact that the base of the stick is very high, because of the sheer size of the whole thing. With a flight simulator, this isn't too bad because the really active phases (take off, approach, and landing) are much shorter, and most movements are smaller, but it's still not very comfortable. The next thing I'll try is to somehow get a higher seating position. To be honest, I'm usually sitting on a gym ball...

[phkb]

Ah, I see. I use a gamepad-like device (Logitech F310) which I can hold wherever is most comfortable, so I've avoided the "arms-outstretched" issue, but I can see how it would be a problem with Oolite or any space game, for that matter.

[Cody]

... I'm using my desktop computer, so keyboard and joystick are sitting on my desk. This causes the stick to be much higher than the optimal position...

I have the same problem - even after lowering my desk by a couple of inches.
Mind you, the arthritis in my hand, wrist, and shoulder doesn't exactly help.

[Fritz]

The most ergonomic solution would be to make a hole, so that only the upper part of the stick is above desktop level. It's a cheap desk but I'm not sure that I really want to do this...

Another solution would be a sidestick arrangement like in an Airbus, with the stick only a little higher than the seat level (https://mugglelife.files.wordpress.com/ ... ockpit.jpg). I'm sure they spent millions for ergonomic research on this topic, so it's probably a nearly optimal position. But in this case, the stick would have to be below my desk, and there isn't room for this.