Oolite Bulletins

another_commander wrote:

Thank you for the patch. We will have to test it a bit and then decide if it is good to go in the game. However, this might take some time. Oolite trunk is now in feature lockdown phase and any new feature code additions are on hold until after the v1.73 release.

I know this is a few months old now, but I was curious: does this meant that if testing the patch is successful, then future versions will allow yaw to be mapped onto the mouse's X axis?

This is the only thing holding me back from really getting into the game right now. I've remapped yaw on the keyboard, but can't find a way to change the mouse. I just can't get used to the X axis roll.

You don't like the keyboard control at all?
I'd like to control Oolite with mouse entirely, but I only do it outside battles - in battles, I can control the ship much better with the keyboard.
Maybe it gets better with some of practice, though...

Edit: Having two axis + laser on the mouse and yaw on the keyboard is kinda nice, though. Otherwise, I don't have enough hands to steer (yaw included) and fire at the same time.

Poro wrote:

I know this is a few months old now, but I was curious: does this meant that if testing the patch is successful, then future versions will allow yaw to be mapped onto the mouse's X axis?

This is the only thing holding me back from really getting into the game right now. I've remapped yaw on the keyboard, but can't find a way to change the mouse. I just can't get used to the X axis roll.

Yes, this patch assigns yaw to the mouse left/right movement, but it does a lot of other things too, some of which are less desirable than others. Ahruman has already stated that in its current form, it creates a bad user experience on Macs - if it works at all - and based on this I have not given it any further testing. I am not sure if any of the other guys has tested it either, but unless we can ensure cross-platform functionality without creating problems for anyone, we will either have to modify the patch ourselves or wait for an updated version that fixes any potential problems to be uploaded. However, just assigning yaw to mouse left/right should not be terribly difficult, provided we can come up with a nice way to let the users choose how they want their x-axis mapped (game option maybe).

@Corny: Don't get me wrong, I think the keyboard is the best control for certain situations, but I'd rather use the mouse in combat. For my taste, using the mouse as the main combat control, and micro-adjusting with keyboard if necessary, is the most enjoyable to play.

@another_commander: Thanks for the confirmation. Selectable mouse yaw is the one thing I want, although having yaw thrusters (as other people have requested) would be my ultimte favourite - even if I had to pay a great deal for them. This would allow me to have the mouse for yaw and pitch, W,A,S,D for thrusters, and then Q and E in easy reach for rolling.

Looking forward to the next download.

Poro wrote:

Selectable mouse yaw is the one thing I want

I don't use the mouse in Oolite at all, I much prefer the keyboard. Being a player of the original BBC version, I have my control keys mapped to the class S, X, < and > keys, plus the left and right arrows for yaw

But thinking about this, perhaps a way to have yaw, would be to have you hold down the right mouse button and move the mouse left or right to yaw. Without the right button you would roll....?

JazHaz wrote:

But thinking about this, perhaps a way to have yaw, would be to have you hold down the right mouse button and move the mouse left or right to yaw. Without the right button you would roll....?

The right mouse button is already used when mouse control is on to zero all axes instantly. This is required, otherwise mouse control is extremely difficult. We are looking into it at the moment and may have something up soon.

another_commander wrote:

JazHaz wrote:

But thinking about this, perhaps a way to have yaw, would be to have you hold down the right mouse button and move the mouse left or right to yaw. Without the right button you would roll....?

The right mouse button is already used when mouse control is on to zero all axes instantly. This is required, otherwise mouse control is extremely difficult. We are looking into it at the moment and may have something up soon.

Well then the middle button.... (ie click the scroll wheel)...?

JazHaz wrote:

But thinking about this, perhaps a way to have yaw, would be to have you hold down the right mouse button and move the mouse left or right to yaw. Without the right button you would roll....?

The best solution is surely to make it selectable, either in a menu within the game or by altering a .plist file similar to remapping the keyboard.

As it is the RMB axis brake is very useful. For those of us who want mouse yaw, then keyboard rolling is fine. Those who prefer mouse roll seem okay with it being the other way around.

Personally I'd love the MMB to switch to a freely rotatable external view of your ship . Yes, there are a series of defineable external views, but it would indulge my iron ass vanity be great if we had free control over the external views. This would also allow the mouse wheel to zoom out or back in again. Since oolite already has context sensitive button functions, this would still allow the wheel to vary speed, if that is what people were also using it for.

At the moment, a very simple change is being tested:
If the player switches to mouse control by pressing Shift+M, then mouse control is as we have it now: Mouse x-axis controls roll, yaw is controlled by keyboard. If the player switches to mouse control by pressing Shift+Ctrl+M, then mouse control maps the x-axis to yaw and roll is controlled by keyboard. This should be sufficient to cover all player needs, if it works as intended.

The catch is that we need to ensure that while doing this we are not breaking joystick compatibility. This is quite tough for me, because I do not have a joystick to test. But hopefully we will have a resolution soon. Also, this patch will have to be cross-checked with the rest of the dev team before being injected in the trunk code.

Sounds great! An elegant way of incorporating an extra feature without any extra menus or editing.

I hope this doesn't throw up any problems, and makes it into the next update.