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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: Controller Support  (Read 4852 times)

Quasarlight

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Controller Support
« on: March 27, 2020, 05:00:02 PM »

Hi people,

I was wandering if anyone else would be interested in controller support for the game?
For some reason I really can't get into the handling of the ships, between the mouse and keyboard. To be fair, I'm playing on my laptop, with just a mouse pad. But I tried adding a normal mouse and it didn't click with me. I had some great experiences with Helldivers on PS3, a twin-stick-shooter and great multiplayer-game by the way.




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Aereto

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Re: Controller Support
« Reply #1 on: March 31, 2020, 08:57:49 PM »

Twin-stick controls sound appetizing, but we have to bear in mind where the game is compiled on.

One stick to control strafe, forward, and back. Other to turn the ship.

The real problem  is... aiming with the weapons. Three sticks sound ridiculous, while the PS4 controller has the touch function.

Good for forward-firing hardpoint and missile platform ships, but forget using broadside ships or ships that rely on turrets.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Controller Support
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2020, 12:03:50 AM »

I've gotten rudementry controller support going with joy 2 key back before Steam had built in support. I think it was only possible to play with my system being so slow and even then, smaller ships were a pain to play...
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SCC

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Re: Controller Support
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2020, 03:19:54 AM »

One stick to control strafe, forward, and back. Other to turn the ship.

Good for forward-firing hardpoint and missile platform ships, but forget using broadside ships or ships that rely on turrets.
The second stick could be used to aim, too, in a similar fashion to how it's handled with turn to cursor. Aiming like in a twin-stick shooter has its own issue, in that current targeting system has no prioritisation and selecting a target behind other ships or fighters is going to be hard.
And yeah, any ship relying on multitasking is going to be dreadful to control.

Aereto

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Re: Controller Support
« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2020, 01:38:44 PM »

The second stick could be used to aim, too, in a similar fashion to how it's handled with turn to cursor. Aiming like in a twin-stick shooter has its own issue, in that current targeting system has no prioritisation and selecting a target behind other ships or fighters is going to be hard.
And yeah, any ship relying on multitasking is going to be dreadful to control.

In other words, the second stick can be used to aim turrets to a general direction (unlike using an aiming cursor to make turrets converge on a point) and look at the area of that direction. Then a button can either toggle between turret aim mode to ship orientation mode, or temporarily shift between the two until the button is released.

The real problem is marking a ship as a target besides using the tactical map.

And well, I actually used Steam Link through a smartphone. It took some tuning to get it functional, but refining it is a bit beyond my skills for now... especially when campaign map travel is a pain to tap.
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pedro1_1

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Re: Controller Support
« Reply #5 on: April 01, 2020, 04:01:45 PM »

Starsector only needs 1 analog stick to be functional, D-pad is better at alocating the movement system of the game than Left 3

[close]

just to chime in, some things can improve with proper suport for controlers, for exemple L3 being used to change weapon groups faster than X and Y can or keyboard Q and E, the strafing buttons when you are not using turn to camera, reciving proper buttons on the controler
« Last Edit: April 01, 2020, 04:20:32 PM by pedro1_1 »
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Quasarlight

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Re: Controller Support
« Reply #6 on: April 01, 2020, 07:41:58 PM »

Starsector only needs 1 analog stick to be functional, D-pad is better at alocating the movement system of the game than Left 3

[close]

just to chime in, some things can improve with proper suport for controlers, for exemple L3 being used to change weapon groups faster than X and Y can or keyboard Q and E, the strafing buttons when you are not using turn to camera, reciving proper buttons on the controler

Wouldn't it be easier to have W on L2 and S on R2, while shooting would be on L1 and/or R1? You could use the left stick for maneuvering and the right stick for aiming.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2020, 07:44:08 PM by Quasarlight »
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Quasarlight

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Re: Controller Support
« Reply #7 on: April 01, 2020, 07:46:13 PM »

The second stick could be used to aim, too, in a similar fashion to how it's handled with turn to cursor. Aiming like in a twin-stick shooter has its own issue, in that current targeting system has no prioritisation and selecting a target behind other ships or fighters is going to be hard.
And yeah, any ship relying on multitasking is going to be dreadful to control.

In other words, the second stick can be used to aim turrets to a general direction (unlike using an aiming cursor to make turrets converge on a point) and look at the area of that direction. Then a button can either toggle between turret aim mode to ship orientation mode, or temporarily shift between the two until the button is released.

The real problem is marking a ship as a target besides using the tactical map.

And well, I actually used Steam Link through a smartphone. It took some tuning to get it functional, but refining it is a bit beyond my skills for now... especially when campaign map travel is a pain to tap.


Do you still need to lock on? Otherwise you can still pause for locking on, not optimal, but it works right?

Starsector only needs 1 analog stick to be functional, D-pad is better at alocating the movement system of the game than Left 3

[close]

just to chime in, some things can improve with proper suport for controlers, for exemple L3 being used to change weapon groups faster than X and Y can or keyboard Q and E, the strafing buttons when you are not using turn to camera, reciving proper buttons on the controler

Wouldn't it be easier to have W on L2 and S on R2, while shooting would be on L1 and/or R1? You could use the left stick for maneuvering and the right stick for aiming.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2020, 07:48:28 PM by Quasarlight »
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pedro1_1

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Re: Controller Support
« Reply #8 on: April 01, 2020, 09:40:37 PM »

Wouldn't it be easier to have W on L2 and S on R2, while shooting would be on L1 and/or R1? You could use the left stick for maneuvering and the right stick for aiming.

It would not, the D-pad works the same way WASD works, you also don't need the extra moviment options from the analog stick, since the game uses aceleration as the way to move, insted of inputing a direction, and R1 and L1 are Left Mouse Button, which is fire, and Right Mouse Button, which is shield/phase, respectivaly
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Controller Support
« Reply #9 on: April 01, 2020, 10:31:57 PM »

You're missing a bunch of important stuff: strafing, venting, weapon groups, auto fire toggle, hold fire. Also, R needs to bound to something you can press without moving your right thumb because you need to be aiming to target something. That's the biggest problem with controllers, you need to move your thumbs to press a lot of the buttons so you can't be aiming while using those functions.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2020, 11:11:33 PM by intrinsic_parity »
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pedro1_1

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Re: Controller Support
« Reply #10 on: April 02, 2020, 12:02:55 AM »

You're missing a bunch of important stuff: strafing, venting, weapon groups, auto fire toggle, hold fire. Also, R needs to bound to something you can press without moving your right thumb because you need to be aiming to target something. That's the biggest problem with controllers, you need to move your thumbs to press a lot of the buttons so you can't be aiming while using those functions.

Version 2, uses the Left stick more, as I Said in my first post, strafing, weapon group 5 and auto fire toggle did not make the cut, they need proper controler suport from the game

[close]

Thanks, now we have the problem of controlers on PC games, not enought Buttons...
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bobucles

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Re: Controller Support
« Reply #11 on: April 02, 2020, 06:44:31 AM »

What is the point of having a dual stick setup if you aren't going to have dual stick flying? It's not an easy thing to manage of course. There's FOUR independent directions to deal with: Velocity, ship direction, weapon direction and omni shield direction. Each direction is important and 2 sticks is hardly enough to manage them.

pedro1_1

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Re: Controller Support
« Reply #12 on: April 02, 2020, 07:25:35 AM »

What is the point of having a dual stick setup if you aren't going to have dual stick flying? It's not an easy thing to manage of course. There's FOUR independent directions to deal with: Velocity, ship direction, weapon direction and omni shield direction. Each direction is important and 2 sticks is hardly enough to manage them.

Omni Shields and Weapon Arcs follow the cursor, the diference of both is speed, which the weapons are bettter and turret arcs, both of those are acounted for on the Right stick, only being changed by player proficiency.

Ship Direction is acounted for twice: one for Broadside ships, like Conquest, using the D-pad sides, and one for the normal ships, using the Turn to cursor, which them makes that a problem of the Right Stick.

Velocity Direction of acelleration is also acounted, WASD and D-pad function basically the same way, and that's important, because the D-pad will aways be on your side, while the Left stick will apply full trust on a direction you might not want to just because you missed a small tolerance window

It's All Acounted for.
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Aereto

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Re: Controller Support
« Reply #13 on: April 02, 2020, 11:56:34 PM »

Spoiler
What is the point of having a dual stick setup if you aren't going to have dual stick flying? It's not an easy thing to manage of course. There's FOUR independent directions to deal with: Velocity, ship direction, weapon direction and omni shield direction. Each direction is important and 2 sticks is hardly enough to manage them.

Omni Shields and Weapon Arcs follow the cursor, the diference of both is speed, which the weapons are bettter and turret arcs, both of those are acounted for on the Right stick, only being changed by player proficiency.

Ship Direction is acounted for twice: one for Broadside ships, like Conquest, using the D-pad sides, and one for the normal ships, using the Turn to cursor, which them makes that a problem of the Right Stick.

Velocity Direction of acelleration is also acounted, WASD and D-pad function basically the same way, and that's important, because the D-pad will aways be on your side, while the Left stick will apply full trust on a direction you might not want to just because you missed a small tolerance window

It's All Acounted for.
[close]

We may as well continue refining the interface down to a science.

With 4 cardinal directions to deal with, it can be grouped into 2. Velocity and Ship Direction can be handled with the way of the toggle method: The movement stick handles forward, back, and strafe, but strafe can be toggled to turn so the weapon and shield can orient independent of the ship.

The strafe and turn means of movement have been around since the old days of video games, so it may take time to get the spatial perception to know how to helm a ship in turn mode (I had my fair share of playing Asteroids and few I'd rather not mention when it comes to such control schemes), while strafe mode is more intuitive.

The "camera" stick determines weapon and shield orientation, and while in strafe mode, auto-orient the ship to face the same direction. There needs a control option to not select any weapon group and just focus on shield orientation.

Of course, things get interesting when it comes to the diverse nature of controllers for PCs. I have a Xbox 360 wired controller and a Steam Link compatible smartphone, though screen size leaves much to be desired when I opted for durability that makes an Onslaught jealous (but not a Nokia), not some high tech flagship a Tri-Trachyon employee would fancy having the credits to buy.

Do you still need to lock on? Otherwise you can still pause for locking on, not optimal, but it works right?
Locking on is more important for auto-fire weapon target prioritization (when in range) and fighter wing targeting. Fighter Strike tactical orders are good when saturating attacks to a single ship or specifically designate which carrier sends wings to which target, but forget about being economical with command points when using builds not geared to address it.

Pausing is one thing, but to use a controller to point a cursor at a ship and lock on, that has its own hurdles when the cursor comes with the shield and weapon orientation. Unfortunately Steam Link controllers are phased out in favor of smartphones, which can be inconvenience when the screen size could screw someone over in terms of controls, even with a third party gamepad connected.
« Last Edit: April 04, 2020, 03:50:41 PM by Aereto »
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