Hands-on with SWTOR's Galactic Starfighter

[LordArtemis]

Ok, well, it sounds like some folks are trying it out, so it might be a non-issue which would be good.

 

If there is some way to map it out for those folks that find it an issue, and someone posts something in the forums with instructions to that effect, if it is a concern that will probably diminish it substantially.

[Rafaman]

BadOrb, if you map out a good GS profile for xpadder let us know. Not sure if you are going to be trying to work this out on the PTS this weekend or not, but I plan on giving it a shot.

 

EDIT: GalacticKegger, I'll be doing the same if I can pull away from work. Are you using xpadder?

Edited November 14, 2013 by Rafaman

[Mallorik]

Having played it, the control scheme is such that it seems to me a joystick would work... poorly.

 

Then grats to bioware for doing what no other free flight game has ever been able to do.

 

For the people saying keyboard/mouse is better because of aiming, Nearly all the flight games that have a mouse control option aim and fly like that, and a joystick or a gamepad is still better.

 

It isn't hard to program the controls to use a stick or pad, the only real reason they can have is that they don't want people without sticks or game pads whining about fairness.

[KurganNazzir]

I

Movement

A: Roll left

D: Roll right

Q: Strafe left

E: Strafe right

<Shift>+W: Strafe up

<Shift>+S: Strafe down

 

Default for Strafing left and right was Shift+A and Shift+D.

 

F was free look camera

C was target camera

Shift+Z was toggle mouse mode

Z was hold mouse mode

[XavinNydek]

I just can't see it working well with a joystick. Turn rates are relatively slow compared to forward speed, so in most of the ships it would be really easy to outmaneuver them if the reticle was locked to the center of the screen. If the joystick just controlled the reticle similar to the mouse, that could work, but you would end up with the same situation as MWO, where a joystick just isn't designed for that kind of precision. I do think a gamepad would work. It wouldn't be as accurate as a mouse, but if people want to gimp themselves, more kills for me

 

The bottom line is that it's really fun the way they have it now, and if you are competent enough with a mouse to play an FPS, you are probably competent enough with a mouse to play this.

[PlasmaJohn]

By "Strafe up/down" did you mean "Nose up/down"?

[Mallorik]

By "Strafe up/down" did you mean "Nose up/down"?

 

Its space, you can Strafe up and down.

[JimG]

Which is exactly why a joystick option would be needed. It is a natural match with a 3d twitch shooter. Much easier for folks to control and enjoy playing.

I'm sure they didn't want it to be a thing where everyone needs to get a joystick to play this or be at a competitive disadvantage.

[Traesk]

No joystick OR game pad? I think its a horrible idea to not have joystick support but I could live with it if there was gamepad support.

 

Ive probably played every free flight online game and a lot of the offline games out there and ive yet to see one that benefits from a keyboard/mouse over stick or gamepad.

 

And I suspect the reason they don't have stick or pad support is for "Fairness" , Wish they would take a look at all the other flight games that have fell flat on their faces because they were only controllable with keyboard and mice.

 

The GS NEEDS joysticks. I stayed away from games like Freelancer because it was a mouse game.

[GalacticKegger]

Default for Strafing left and right was Shift+A and Shift+D.

 

F was free look camera

C was target camera

Shift+Z was toggle mouse mode

Z was hold mouse mode

You're right ... I remapped to Q & E and forgot about <shift> being the strafe mode switch. I didn't mess with the cameras much and forgot about those - I'll ad them, ty. Never toyed with hold mouse or mouse mode. Was mouse mode the bind for mouse inversion that was added? Because I was fine with the default mouse settings, though on a gamepad I would look at maybe using it. Edited November 14, 2013 by GalacticKegger

[Mallorik]

The GS NEEDS joysticks. I stayed away from games like Freelancer because it was a mouse game.

 

Any "flight" game that is keyboard and mouse only is just a shooter. Just a huge disappointment that they would go through all this trouble to give us free flight and then leave out one of the most important facets of a free flight game.

[KurganNazzir]

You're right ... I remapped to Q & E and forgot about <shift> be the strafe mode switch. I didn't mess with the cameras much and forgot about those - I'll ad them, ty. Never toyed with hold mouse or mouse mode. Was mouse mode the bind for mouse inversion that was added? Because I was fine with the default mouse settings, though on a gamepad I would look at maybe using it.

 

No, the invert mouse thing is different and I don't where that setting was located because I didn't bother to look. I think mouse mode just gave you your cursor on the screen so you could moues over skills and stuff without your ship turning, but that also made fighting impossible so it's something to only use when you first fly in, I guess.

 

My first weekend in, I remapped strafe to Q & E and it didn't work. I think my second weekend I had tried again and it still didn't work so I gave up after that.

[GalacticKegger]

No, the invert mouse thing is different and I don't where that setting was located because I didn't bother to look. I think mouse mode just gave you your cursor on the screen so you could moues over skills and stuff without your ship turning, but that also made fighting impossible so it's something to only use when you first fly in, I guess.

 

My first weekend in, I remapped strafe to Q & E and it didn't work. I think my second weekend I had tried again and it still didn't work so I gave up after that.

I didn't know about mouse mode because I too looked for it. After my first WZ, I agree ... stuff happens so fast I don't know that sacrificing even a moment of maneuverability for being able to click ability icons would have been worth it.

 

Mapping strafe L & R to Q & E worked for me. I use a G15 ... maybe that makes a difference?

Edited November 14, 2013 by GalacticKegger

[GalacticKegger]

By "Strafe up/down" did you mean "Nose up/down"?

In zero-g a ship can drift straight up and down as easily at it can drift left and right. Nose up/down and bank left/right are mouselook controlled. Edited November 14, 2013 by GalacticKegger

[KurganNazzir]

Mapping strafe L & R to Q & E worked for me. I use a G15 ... maybe that makes a difference?

You used the keyboard's software to map things (or however that works)? I used the in-game rebinding and it wasn't working the times I tried, I just have a regular two-button wheel mouse and regular keyboard so no extra keys or software for binding.

[TorvinAugeri]

I am just putting forth my opinion here, but most keyboard and mouse only 3d twitch shooters, to my knowledge have bombed.

Mind my asking how you personally define "3d twitch shooters"?

 

Because given a broad enough scope, you end up with games like:

 

Doom

Quake

Quake III

Unreal

Unreal Tournament ('99, '00, 2k4)

 

I would hardly say any of these "bombed". Granted, these are nowadays considered arena shooters, and by "3D" you likely mean space and/or 6DoF, but still.

 

If I can turn on a dime and obliterate someone with a precise railgun shot, to my mind it's a twitch shooter.

[Vandicus]

 

If I can turn on a dime and obliterate someone with a precise railgun shot, to my mind it's a twitch shooter.

 

Funnily enough that is something that you could do in Galactic Starfighter. Wouldn't be the easiest thing to do though.

[GalacticKegger]

You used the keyboard's software to map things (or however that works)? I used the in-game rebinding and it wasn't working the times I tried, I just have a regular two-button wheel mouse and regular keyboard so no extra keys or software for binding.

I just changed the keyboard assignments from within the key bindings tab. It kept changing back after resets, but I was still able to reassign keybinds.

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

I think it will be fun, hopefully it is the base tech to get tons of features and content for space in the future.

 

Cockpits, joysticks, open star systems, mining, exploration.

Death Star Attack with 16+ players

 

Red 5 standing by

[Mallorik]

Mind my asking how you personally define "3d twitch shooters"?

 

Because given a broad enough scope, you end up with games like:

 

Doom

Quake

Quake III

Unreal

Unreal Tournament ('99, '00, 2k4)

 

I would hardly say any of these "bombed". Granted, these are nowadays considered arena shooters, and by "3D" you likely mean space and/or 6DoF, but still.

 

If I can turn on a dime and obliterate someone with a precise railgun shot, to my mind it's a twitch shooter.

 

If GS is in the same class as those games, then bioware seriously misunderstood people when we said we wanted off the rails space.

[Imhotep]

I'm sure they didn't want it to be a thing where everyone needs to get a joystick to play this or be at a competitive disadvantage.

 

Thats exactly why they are launching it as keyboard and mouse.

[Mallorik]

Thats exactly why they are launching it as keyboard and mouse.

 

So now only people with certain programmable keyboards and gamepads can use them, great idea.

[TorvinAugeri]

If GS is in the same class as those games, then bioware seriously misunderstood people when we said we wanted off the rails space.

 

...and I think you've seriously misconstrued my post. My point was that "twitch shooters" is a rather vague discriminator that'll mean different things to different people, hence why I asked for clarification, because "keyboard and mouse only twitch shooters have bombed" doesn't really jive with what I know of and experienced with early 3D shooters. :\

 

I think it's fair to say that when people say "on-rails space" they think "Star Fox" and when they say "off the rails space" they think Wing Commander / TIE Fighter / Rogue Squadron / FreeSpace / insert-your-nostalgic-game-of-choice-here.

Edited November 14, 2013 by TorvinAugeri

[Mallorik]

...and I think you've seriously misconstrued my post. My point was that "twitch shooters" is a rather vague discriminator that'll mean different things to different people, hence why I asked for clarification, because "keyboard and mouse only twitch shooters have bombed" doesn't really jive with what I know of and experienced with early 3D shooters. :\

 

I think it's fair to say that when people say "on-rails space" they think "Star Fox" and when they say "off the rails space" they think Wing Commander / TIE Fighter / Rogue Squadron / FreeSpace / insert-your-nostalgic-game-of-choice-here.

 

In flight(space or terrestrial) games theres really only 2 modes, Sim and Arcade but most games float in between the two modes. Most of these games that have released without stick or pad control options have crashed and burned as bad as a p2w game. Mouse and keyboards are for shooters, sticks and pads are for flying.

[TorvinAugeri]

In flight(space or terrestrial) games theres really only 2 modes, Sim and Arcade but most games float in between the two modes. Most of these games that have released without stick or pad control options have crashed and burned as bad as a p2w game. Mouse and keyboards are for shooters, sticks and pads are for flying.

 

Arcade games (as in cabinets) have sticks because sticks were the most intuitive control input device as far as positioning is concerned. Trackballs were too finicky to outlast sticks and no one was mass-producing mice prior to 1984 for anything other than specific computer models. Cabinets and the game design philosophy behind them are now so entrenched in that tradition that there's really no point in switching to anything else. Games like Asteroids, Raiden, etc. translate very easily to keyboard and mouse, there's just no point in switching over for most cabinet makers. Console developers don't switch over because a pad with sticks is easier and more intuitive for the average customer than mouse and keyboard; they also get more money out of you via controller accessories by sticking with pads.

 

The large majority of flight sim video games (an entirely different creature from actual flight sims a la RealFlight, etc.) developed and published after '84 have supported both K+M and sticks/pads. Elite, Wing Commander, Aces of the Pacific, Descent, Magic Carpet, etc. etc. etc. Can you name me some of these flight sim and arcade games that have bombed by supporting only keyboard-and-mouse? I'm willing to bet that the ones you're thinking of that crashed and burned for that reason are actual flight simulators intended for pilots and RC model fliers, in which case K+M only IS unacceptable.

Edited November 15, 2013 by TorvinAugeri