Oolite Bulletins

Hot on the heels of the recent OS poll, what about a poll of the sort of controllers people use?

For my own part I found the keyboard just too tricksy (just like in the original Elite!) so tried an old Microsoft Sidewinder Game Pad with programmable buttons and USB connection.

If I recall rightly you had to stuff around with drivers and Control Panel settings and God knows what else to make it work in Windows. But not in Linux! Or with Oolite!! (Obviously a mark of superior programming.) Just plugged it in, restarted Oolite and set up the buttons from the menu. Whoo-hoo! Keyboard-less control. (Got the ECM set up right above the Blast-the-Buggers button so no more hasty "E" key hunts.)

I use a Logitech Freedom wireless joystick. It has 10 buttons plus a throttle as well as the usual stick. In normal play, I use the joystick almost exclusively (only using the keyboard for changing mode on the Advanced Space Compass, or other seldom used functions like Energy Bomb or Escape. I don't do a lot of escaping, I prefer to prevail in battle. I don't use the Energy bomb much, I prefer winning fair and square, and when playing dirty the Q-bomb is *far* prettier. Foes dying an aesthetic death is important).

Incidentally, for roll, I use the twist axis rather than the X axis, partly due to limited space on my desk limiting X axis movement, and partly because the X axis has developed an intermittent fault.

Well, I'm obviously completely wierd, because I still find the keyboard generally best for really deadly long distance combat - yes, you can get the "NO, it's the pixel in between, damn you!", but that isn't often a problem.

It's actually much harder than the original Elite - certainly my Speccy version where you rarely bothered with 'real' combat, dog-fighting against squads of ships, down and dirty.

That is when a stick is good - I do use a Macally iStick occasionally - for astrobatic dog-fighting.

I always use the keyboard, don't even own a joystick. Used to use one with my old Amstrad 6128 though, but it got mangled by a thargoid.
Hence my lifelong mission to exterminate....exterminate.

I have 4216 kills using the keyboard (on a laptop). No pressing need to change.

The mouse is teh win. I could’t hit things at 15 km with a keyboard.

over 1000 kills on a laptop keyboard too. it suits me fine. i prefer keyboards to joysticks, too.

Ahhh, oh good, I'm feeling far less wierd now. I'm NOT the only one who prefers the keyboard. Excellent!!

Hacked XBox controller in one hand (for the joystick), with the other on keyboard. I started with keyboard only though, since before Oolite I had insufficent motivation to get a joystick.

kaypy wrote:

Hacked XBox controller in one hand (for the joystick), with the other on keyboard. I started with keyboard only though, since before Oolite I had insufficent motivation to get a joystick.

wow, that's some multitasking...

I just picked a generic dual analogue USB controller last weekend for the princely sum of $15 AUD... tacky crimson skull artwork no extra cost (link).

Seems to work OK, although whenever I get into a heated battle I tend to drop it and return to the keyboard... I spent the last month playing heavily on KB and it's now hardwired in.

If nothing else, I guess the controller will be handy for MAME.

I tried a dual analogue controller (Logitech Dual Action, the usual PS2 ripoff design) with the SDL build[1], and it’s nice for general flight but nowhere near the mouse for aiming – the same tradeoff as in FPSes. It might be worth it if there was yaw and delta-throttle support.

[1]Seems to me someone was working on controller support for the standard Mac build. Who was that again? Oh yeah, me…

I use the keyboard, although I would use the mouse if I knew how. Does the Linux version have this feature?

Galileo wrote:

I use the keyboard, although I would use the mouse if I knew how. Does the Linux version have this feature?

Yah, it's undocumented but it's there. Just hit Shift-M during flight. It's OK (and good for aiming) but I always have trouble returning to level flight.

right-click immediately recentres the “virtual joystick”.