Retro Rockets

[Rimbaud]

I remember them on the Amiga - kinda useless, apart from the retreat to cool off option, but if you can afford Retros you can afford a gun on the back.

The only interesting thing about them was that it sent you backwards so fast, you could go through a space station unharmed. They would be useful if they weren't ridiculous expensive like in the (rubbish) Amiga version.

[Wunderbear]

How about a full manual thruster pack conversion?

That way you could disengage the standard Elite computer assisted controls and go for undamped 6x2 way thrusters.
(Roll+ Roll- Pitch+ Pitch- Yaw+ Yaw- X+ X- Y+ Y- Z+ Z-, yup, only twelve keys required, could just about manage that with two hands!)

That sounds like good fun - it might make manual docking heaps easier too.

Ever played Orbiter? It's a real spaceflight simulator, that simulates almost all of the Solar System. It requires some real skill to launch from Kennedy and dock with the ISS.

It has the full set of RCS (Translation and Rotation) thrusters. But it's ingenious in that it uses the NUMPAD.

Let's see. For rotation, it's:

Roll left/right: 4/6
Pitch up/down: 2/8
Yaw left/right: 1/3

For translation (This one's a bit more complex):

Trans left/right: 1/3
Trans forward/back: 9/6
Trans up/down: 8/2

And it used the / key to switch between the two sets. Quite simple. ¬_¬

Of course, you wouldn't need all the translation ones, although they'd be useful. You could stick with rotation, and for the requested retros, just use S, like a sort of reverse.

[ramon]

I play on a laptop so don't have a kepad!

[Wunderbear]

I play on a laptop so don't have a kepad!

Well, that's a pity. Well, if noone minds a coupla kets being remapped, you could just use the wasd layout block:

Q W E
A S D
Z X C

For the thrusters.

EDIT: Wait, maybe not.