40 replies to this topic

[urmamasllama]

seriously though you should show razer how you've modded your stick to work because if im going to pilot a mech for srs with a joystick your setup is definitely the way to go

[Loc Nar]

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seriously though you should show razer how you've modded your stick to work because if im going to pilot a mech for srs with a joystick your setup is definitely the way to go

Thank you kindly, good sir. I hadn't really considered doing that, but it would be an honor of my stick were the progenitor of a prototype production stick of sorts. Not sure who to contact or how to go about it, but I'm taking this into consideration cause I'd really like to see a stick that *will succeed, and I'm pretty sure anyone that actually tried it would be pretty surprised at the degree of control this arrangement offers vs the typical relative input/aircraft gimbal arrangement that everyone assumes 'stick' means. If I made a real mech, this is *exactly how the controls would be. I'm kinda surprised that there are none like it, with the popularity of WoT, which it would work equally well with since the movement of a mech and tank are nearly the same although I think tank turrets rotate 360, which of course would create the need to switch the x-axis between relative and absolute. No problem. Hmm...

In fact now that I think of it, this may be the thing that makes Hawken (the horror!) tolerable to play with my stick, although if I were really into that game I would build a 3 axis version of what I currently have since the movement requirements are so different, but I digress...

I do have a current Cougar script for it, but due to those mechs needing to be able to move 360 degrees in the x-axis (typical FPS movement/control shceme ie: stafe, pitch, and 360 x-axis) since turning and aim are combined into one function, I was really turned off by the whole thing, which really disappointed me since I waited for Hawken for years, and ironically only learned about MWO because I was doing one of my periodic Hawken update searches sometime in spring 2012.

BTW, I have a pretty kick *** T16000 Hawken script as well if you ever want to try it out, and as far as driving mechs with the T16000 was concerned, I was surprised that those bots were easier to manage with the this stick for me than playing MWO, but I largely chalked that up to how oriented I am to my current stick and the T16000 is a pretty radical departure from that.



*well, not exactly like it. The new gimbal I'm working on will be exactly how a real one would be. Current stick has spring loaded plastic rubs that I can adjust the load as desired. The problem is when I have them stiff enough to be effective at catching the stick and providing sufficient resistance, fine tune movements like sniping and such are just a little more delicate than they should be owing to a slight ratcheting effect for small movements. New gimbal will move the same way, but the 2 axes will have rotational viscous dampers on them providing nearly all of the resistance, and the making the need for tension on the plastic rubs very low. The net effect is that fine small movements will be smooooooooth as silk and large inputs still have proper resistance. I already have the critical parts -the dampers. New gimbal to follow

[urmamasllama]

i'd also suggest looking in to a patent if this design hasn't been already

[Loc Nar]

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i'd also suggest looking in to a patent if this design hasn't been already

A glider pilot I used to fly with and communicate with was a patent lawyer. After several conversations with him my entusiasm about the patent process was severely diminished and my overall conclusion is that the patent process is an official legal mechanism to funnel any useful inventions by Joe Shmo into the hands/ "R&D" dept of existing corporation's or any other sufficiently well funded private hands to either:

a) quietly nerf out of existence because it undermines their gravy train/financial interests somehow, or
b) is developed and released by them as their newest 'invention'

It's really easy too, all they have to do is challenge your claim for your patent in the patent court $ystem on any number of infinite grounds couched in legalese and be able to afford better/more lawyers than you for longer than you can keep it up to prove otherwise. Not sure if my stick is useful enough for anyone to care about it to put up that kind of fight, but even in the best case scenario the patent is stupidly expensive by the time all is said and done even if no one challenges your claim and it's rewarded immediately. I hope I'm wrong about thi... wait -are you calling my mother a llama? :)

[evilC]

The reason that sticks work well for a flightsim is because the stick is in absolute mode, not because "you can apply a constant change of direction that I can't as easily with a mouse".
With a flightsim, if you have the stick full right, you are rolling full right. Centering the stick returns you to no roll and moving the stick to 100% left means you are rolling left at 100% speed, ie you can go from full roll one way to full roll the other as fast as you can move the stick from one side to the other.
With MWO, stick full right until you hit the limit of the twist, but then if you stick center, you are not at zero twist, you are still at full right twist. You can go full stick left, but for a while you would still be twisted right.

Edited by evilC, 08 February 2013 - 04:26 AM.

[Catamount]

evilC, you seem to be under the impression that Battlefield 3 is a flight sim. This worries me.

I also don't see your point; relative position and acceleration are not the same thing. Obviously if you stop a torso twist after twisting right you remain twisted right, but likewise, if you roll an aircraft to the right and stop rolling once your wing is perpendicular to the ground, you would likewise remain "rolled right". I fail to see the difference, beyond the fact that you can roll indefinitely, as opposed to hitting a hard limit the way you do with a torso twist (but then, that would be my point that you've quoted from, so clearly that's not what you mean )

Edited by Catamount, 08 February 2013 - 05:25 AM.

[Xervitus]

Joysticks are amazing for MWO in every way, everyone pleas start using them!11!!

[Catamount]

[evilC]

Catamount, on 08 February 2013 - 05:24 AM, said:

evilC, you seem to be under the impression that Battlefield 3 is a flight sim. This worries me.

Flying an aircraft in BF3 is a flight sim, just not one with a very accurate flight model.

Catamount, on 08 February 2013 - 05:24 AM, said:

if you roll an aircraft to the right and stop rolling once your wing is perpendicular to the ground, you would likewise remain "rolled right". I fail to see the difference.

Absolute mode (Normal for a flight sim):
Hold the stick right - you roll right at full speed. Your "rotational vector" is now 100% right. Now let the stick center a tiny bit, so the stick is now 90% right - your rotational vector is now 90% right. You have thus moved your rotational vector 10% left.

Relative mode:
Hold the stick right - after a while, you will reach max rotational vector right. Again, let the stick center a little, so the stick is now 90% right. Your rotational vector is still 100% right. Not until you move the stick back past centre to 1% left does your rotational vector change.

Edited by evilC, 08 February 2013 - 08:03 AM.

[evilC]

So how does this relate to MWO?

How MWO stands now - relative stick input:
Hold the stick 100% right. After a while, you reach full right twist. Now let the stick off so you are at 90% right - you are still twisted right 100%. Not until you move back past center to 1% left do you start twisting left.

How Stick aiming needs to be to be competetive with mouse (Absolute stick input):
Hold the stick 100% right. The mech is twisted 100% right. Now let the stick off to 90% right - you are now looking 90% right. In effect, you have twisted left when your stick is still to the right without having to move the stick past centre to the left.

[Corvus Antaka]

Joystick is better for aiming. Why?

Why do F-16 pilots use a joystick over a mouse?



Quick snap shot hypfast aiming the mouse wins, however that type of shooting is very rare in MWO. Since you always have time to line up, and generally vector, the smoothness of the joystick and the abilities it grants such as torso twisting smoothly while tracking a targets CT are invaluable and much better than anything a mouse can give you.

You can really see this with lasers since they have a DoT affect.

I currently use a mouse or joystick, depending on my mood, and while the mouse is casually fun, the stick is where it is at.

still missing - arm twist shooting 90 degrees.

[evilC]

Gotta love people blindly ignoring the mathematics and stating that relative mode stick is better for aiming than mouse just because they prefer or are better with a stick.

Are you by any chance a creationist?

I have worked for a lot of games companies in my time - two of them tried to do cross-platform FPS (ie Consoles and PC on the same server). Technically very easy, but both were abandoned because mouse users utterly owned all the joystick users.

Edited by evilC, 08 February 2013 - 08:27 AM.

[evilC]

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 08 February 2013 - 08:12 AM, said:

Joystick is better for aiming. Why?

Why do F-16 pilots use a joystick over a mouse?

READ WHAT I POSTED - the input mode on a plane is ABSOLUTE, so it makes sense to use a stick.

Colonel Pada Vinson, on 08 February 2013 - 08:12 AM, said:

the smoothness of the joystick and the abilities it grants such as torso twisting smoothly while tracking a targets CT are invaluable and much better than anything a mouse can give you.

You are trying to aim at a target's CT which is to your right. You stick right, but you give it too much so now you need to aim a little left.
With a stick in relative mode, you need to move BACK PAST CENTER to the left. While the stick is between 100% right and 1% left, YOUR STICK IS DOING NOTHING.
With a mouse, as soon as you stop moving it right and move it 1 millimetre left, you start turning left.

Sheesh, is this really so hard to understand? What are they teaching in school these days in place of maths?

Edited by evilC, 08 February 2013 - 08:32 AM.

[evilC]

To aim at a stationary target to your right with a stick in relative mode:

You stick 100% right. When the crosshair is over the target, you stop holding the stick right.
You will NOT be aiming at the target - while the stick returned to centre, it had to pass through 90% right, 80% right, 70% right etc, so your crosshair is to the right of the target. The only way to stop on target is to start letting the stick center BEFORE your crosshair is over the target, and your stick needs to hit center EXACTLY at the moment the target is under the crosshair.

With a mouse, you mouse right until the target is under the crosshair, then stop moving.

[Loc Nar]

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Joystick:

Alpha One - Will we be seeing any improved joystick support in the near feature, such as changing the turning axis to analog and a Relative / Absolute toggle for the pitch and yaw axes? Also access to joystick configuration options (axis inversion, sensitivity, etc) in the control options menu as opposed to having to manually edit the User.cfg file?
A: Yes, no ETA.

Anony Mouse - What news, Any news, can you convey regarding native Joystick/Controller support?
A: Ongoing improvements will come online in the next few months. Nothing firm yet.

Gif -Any word on the Razer Artemis Controller?
A: No updates, we are currently deciding the feasibility of the controller.

Relevant news, fresh from the latest ask the devs... ^_^

[theborgeffect]

I really want a MW4 control style option. I would love to be able to bind torso twist to a actual stick twist configuration. Make the x/y of the joystick control the targeting in the current screen and not force torso to twist. Just My Opinion.

[Eyecon69]

i'm a total Newb was joystick support well supported for MW4? Is there a general concensus that it was better KBM?

edit: as a side note I'm trying to use a Joystick for the novelty immersive feeling of it.

Edited by Eyecon69, 09 February 2013 - 09:41 AM.

[Loc Nar]

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I have to admit, this is a rather interesting approach, but does that mean the margin between the stick being centered, and all the way over, represents the entire range of movement for the torso? It seems to me that would be a rather sensitive control scheme, especially on mechs with a large torso. Do you ever find this to be the case?

Thanks man, and sorry - missed this till now. I think I understand what you're asking though. I can turn the sensitivity (on the fly!) as up down as needed via one of the otherwise unused analog axis on the Cougar in order to accomplish the full range of in-game movement while using the same ~90 deg (+/-45) of stick motion. The bearings are all really beefy though and with tensioned plastic rubs so it moves very smoothly and is not twitchy feeling unless the sensitivity is to high.

Since all mechs move more than 90 deg, there is always some level of amplification, but here's the kicker -it varies from mech to mech so settings that work with one will suck with another. This is yet another reason most people will nearly always have a skewed perspective of stick use with MWO, since without the ability to change easily sensitivity from mech to mech. Probably not as noticeable with relative inputs, but with absolute inputs it's quite obvious. Another thing I can do is easily massage the curve response to an 's' type (amplifies higher at ends of travel) but I find linear input to be much more predictable and hence controllable, particularly with absolute.

For long range stuff, like if I'm sniping with advanced zoom or something, I switch to using the digital aiming function of my stick (china hat or d-pad) and can do fine/very fine inputs this way but most of my piloting if brawling range so I'm usually on pure stick. Related, I occasionally re-center torso to keep it all in line, but I can do it by turning my legs/torso at the same time (which is how it gets kooked out to begin with).

[Balinoar]

evilC, on 08 February 2013 - 08:25 AM, said:

Gotta love people blindly ignoring the mathematics and stating that relative mode stick is better for aiming than mouse just because they prefer or are better with a stick.

Are you by any chance a creationist?

I have worked for a lot of games companies in my time - two of them tried to do cross-platform FPS (ie Consoles and PC on the same server). Technically very easy, but both were abandoned because mouse users utterly owned all the joystick users.

Really? I fail to see the relevance.

[V8i Gunner]

Could someone please direct me to where I configure my joystick?
TYVM!