Hands-on with SWTOR's Galactic Starfighter

[Andryah]

Well, given everything that I have seen, I wasn't part of the beta, xpadder will work for those of you that must have a gamepad or Joystick.

 

In fact, I think a gamepad will be the preferred method of play for GS fans as you will be able to set up the joysticks to navigate and aim respectively and simultaneously. I'm very confident it will work because everything can be mapped back to keyboard/mouse bindings.

 

I'll be using a wired Xbox 360 controller.

 

Getting more and more excited about GS!

 

/Agree.

 

People act like there are no 3rd party mapping apps that allow you to easily port a console controller to any PC game you like. People have been installing and using xbox360 controllers with this game since shortly after launch. Now, there is actually a reason to do so IMO.

 

Bioware does not need to embed native support for controllers into the game because there are PC apps that do that nicely for any controller you want to use.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Andryah

[Argentys]

I've noticed that many people here are telling those of us who prefer and/or demand joystick support to look at World of Warplanes to see that a flight sim doesn't need a joystick to be good.

 

I play World of Warplanes. With a joystick. I wouldn't play it if it didn't have joystick support. I tried flying in that game with a keyboard, then with a mouse.

 

Yes, I realize that SWTOR is an MMO more like World of Warcraft than World of Warplanes. Yes, I realize that most people don't have a joystick. Yes, I realize that I am in a minority (however vocal). And yes, I realize it's time to manage my expectations.

 

I will expand on what I said about having high hopes for this game. My hope was that BioWare/EA/Disney had realized that there actually was a gaming audience that would play a space combat sim like World of Warplanes, set in space, and had decided to tap into it. My hope was that the older monthly subscription system would be done away with in favor of microtransactions. And I really wanted to fly an X-Wing against other players.

 

So I'm disappointed. If you are excited about Galactic Starfighters, specifically about playing a space combat game without gamepad or joystick support, I'm happy for you. I say that without any rancor. But the game will continue to not be for me. Don't get mad just because I don't like the same things as you do.

 

Here's hoping that the future brings something we can all enjoy.

[Andryah]

Yes, I realize that SWTOR is an MMO more like World of Warcraft than World of Warplanes. Yes, I realize that most people don't have a joystick. Yes, I realize that I am in a minority (however vocal). And yes, I realize it's time to manage my expectations.

 

Given your understanding that you are a minority interest with particular needs.. one would think that you would simply use the joystick (or gamepad) of your choice and map it into any game where you want using either the native software that comes with the joystick or a 3rd party mapping program.

 

Seriously... you are playing on a PC... where you have almost unlimited ability (unlike consoles) to add and configure hardware to work with any software application you like. Heck.. you could use a joystick for your word processing if you choose to go that route.

 

TL;DR you have the power to configure your PC to interact with any game these days, anyway you want.

 

No need for a game company to try to figure out what gamepad or joystick you personally prefer and then have to put game developer resources on managing your personal needs. It's bad use of game developer assets.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Andryah

[LordArtemis]

No need for a game company to try to figure out what gamepad or joystick you personally prefer and then have to put game developer resources on managing your personal needs. It's bad use of game developer assets.

 

I disagree to an extent. For me, the concern is not whether or not it can be done, the concern is whether or not it is expected as a native feature and if it is whether or not it's absence with stunt the addons potential.

 

Just like in Beta my concerns are the same....stunting potential by making poor design choices. This may not be a poor choice...it may in fact be the best choice, and certain folks could perhaps post a tutorial on how to get a stick to work for GS. So this may be moot...I certainly hope it's moot.

 

I get the feeling this is more twitch, turn on a dime but in 3d space and less air physics limited dogfighting simulator combat. Time will tell, if that is the case, if this was a wise decision.

 

I said long ago I think that this feature could have wider appeal, but I worry that appeal might be diminished if it's not true dogfighting.

 

One thing I would point out is that, IMO, if it is twitch based combat that is less like a flight simulation that might lend itself better to on foot combat, which would make the choice to exclude that part of the BF2 model odd to me. But there are many reasons why that decision might be understandable IMO. At least at this stage.

Edited November 15, 2013 by LordArtemis

[Andryah]

I disagree to an extent. For me, the concern is not whether or not it can be done, the concern is whether or not it is expected as a native feature and if it is whether or not it's absence with stunt the addons potential.

 

Just like in Beta my concerns are the same....stunting potential by making poor design choices. This may not be a poor choice...it may in fact be the best choice, and certain folks could perhaps post a tutorial on how to get a stick to work for GS. So this may be moot...I certainly hope it's moot.

 

I get the feeling this is more twitch, turn on a dime but in 3d space and less air physics limited dogfighting simulator combat. Time will tell, if that is the case, if this was a wise decision.

 

I said long ago I think that this feature could have wider appeal, but I worry that appeal might be diminished if it's not true dogfighting.

 

I understand your perspective.

 

My point is centered on not using game developer assets to develop interfaces (and maintain them) for all the various gamepads and sticks on the market. It's not their core competency. Whereas there are plenty of 3rd parties in the PC market (both hardware and software) that provide the capability in plug and play fashion.

 

The "compelling need" is not relevant to this, because everyone has equal access to PC extensions of hardware and software to address this.

Edited November 15, 2013 by Andryah

[Mallorik]

/Agree.

 

People act like there are no 3rd party mapping apps that allow you to easily port a console controller to any PC game you like. People have been installing and using xbox360 controllers with this game since shortly after launch. Now, there is actually a reason to do so IMO.

 

Bioware does not need to embed native support for controllers into the game because there are PC apps that do that nicely for any controller you want to use.

 

Yeah just rely on third party apps to do what this game should already do, aren't you part of the same group of people who think that addons are bad and that bioware should be the only ones adding features to the game, not 3rd party addon makers?

 

Bioware should have support for them, bioware should have known when they started this project it would be a big deal, but then again they alsp should have known that space on rails was not going to go over well and they did that anyways too.

[Illiyana]

Question to anyone that has played GS:

 

Under movement binds, what exactly do the "Z: Hold Mouse" and "<Shift> Z: Toggle Mouse Mode" exactly do? I'm not really getting the concept on those settings. Thanks in advance.

[Wainamoinen]

Question to anyone that has played GS:

 

Under movement binds, what exactly do the "Z: Hold Mouse" and "<Shift> Z: Toggle Mouse Mode" exactly do? I'm not really getting the concept on those settings. Thanks in advance.

 

In normal flight, your mouse is used to direct movement and target. If you shift the pointer over to one direction, the target reticule is dragged over and your ship turns that way.

 

With "mouse mode" it turns back into a standard mouse pointer and you can mouseover abilities to see tooltips, or click anything clickable. Your ship will be going in a straight line without firing while you're doing it, so I don't use it in combat.

[LordArtemis]

The great thing about fighting games like this is it will break folks from clicking. JTL did that IMO, and this feature could do that as well. You really can't "click" in a 3d combat feature like this, since you have to remain on your target if you wish to use something else other than missiles.

 

Clicking is only useful for out of combat actions IMO....during dogfighting using keybinds will be the key.

 

The right mouse and scroll button will be the most popular secondary buttons to use IMO. Some lucky folks will have more advanced mice that have programmable buttons within fingers reach.

[Vandicus]

The great thing about fighting games like this is it will break folks from clicking. JTL did that IMO, and this feature could do that as well. You really can't "click" in a 3d combat feature like this, since you have to remain on your target if you wish to use something else other than missiles.

 

Clicking is only useful for out of combat actions IMO....during dogfighting using keybinds will be the key.

 

The right mouse and scroll button will be the most popular secondary buttons to use IMO. Some lucky folks will have more advanced mice that have programmable buttons within fingers reach.

 

Right mouse is used for missile lock-ons(or sniper mode for gunships) by default.

[PlasmaJohn]

My point is centered on not using game developer assets to develop interfaces (and maintain them) for all the various gamepads and sticks on the market.

Developing for pads and joysticks have been a solved problem since the joystick interface got added to the USB HID (Human Interface Device) definition, likely as early as 1996. It's a very common API that you only need to code to once to support any HID compatible device. Requiring specialized code per manufacturer and device is thankfully dead (mostly... I'm looking at you Logitech).

 

All it requires from a competent game developer is to use that API to read the position values and apply it to the scaled axes (pitch, yaw, roll, throttle, rudder, etc.) GS has pitch and yaw but roll and throttle are all-on or all-off (weak).

[phill-fry]

I've heard PTS would begin this weekend, but I'm not absolutely sure on that.

Oh I really hope so!

[Lord_Ravenhurst]

is there anything like walking into a hangar and climbing into the actual ship?

 

or just queue up , loading screen, next you see your ship from behind?

 

I hope they designed it to be at least a bit immersive like Battlefront II

[GalacticKegger]

Biofails bad design team show up again.

 

It makes sense to offer controller support. However, with little beta testing (from a selected few) we all know how that turns out in the end.

 

The faults, if any, will no doubt appear once the expansion goes live and if there's enough players to take part.

That's a biased WAG. Regulators experienced it's gestation period (painfully at times I might add) and found it to be a helluva fun free-flight dogfighting expansion. As long as the product at release closely mimics the quality of the product we closed out beta with, then the core player base will like it ... with or without joystick support.

 

No, the audience that's on a level they want joystick support cockpit flightsim game play won't give GS a second thought.

 

BW lining their GS TOR mini game to compete in the same bracket as Star citizen or X Rebirth, that would be a waste of money. Cos once the people looking for a in depth space sim game move to the space sim specialized games GS is gonna be a ghost town since it's inaccessible to the casuals doing the ground game due to the high complexity/hardware entry barrier.

 

It's arcade or bust, that's the cold hard fact. A side project for an everquest mmo can't hope to hold a candle to dedicated games that spend 25mil+ on the same gameplay mode. Whoever is massively disappointed and goes "look at SC BW" needs to wake up cos he's sleepwalking through life.

 

Once they add a couple more modes and ships they're already doing a more than a decent job of giving Star Conflict a proper run for their money. Which is more than any sane individual could ever have expected from a gameplay mode tack-on in an MMO.

TOR fans who are also hardcore flight sim afficionados (of which I am one) will give it a second thought and even continue playing it if it's fun enough because they are already playing TOR for what TOR is. They will understand what Galactic Starfighter is: a completely off rails free-flight 3D space dogfighting expansion for their already existing mouse+keyboard Star Wars MMORPG ... not a boutique standalone flight simulator title. GS won't be a ghost town unless it's simply not working.

 

The reality is that GS won't be a game of choice for dyed in the wool flight sim pilots who swear by cockpit control realism because it wasn't created for them. Will the number of players who would leave because there is no initial joystick support make a dent in the grand scheme of things? Probably not. The bottom line would experience a hit similar to PvP petition exodus. The noise went away, but the revenue stream went largely unfazed.

Edited November 15, 2013 by GalacticKegger

[Mallorik]

The reality is that GS won't be a game of choice for dyed in the wool flight sim pilots who swear by cockpit control realism because it wasn't created for them. Will the number of players who would leave because there is no initial joystick support make a dent in the grand scheme of things? Probably not. The bottom line would experience a hit similar to when F2Ps had their posting privileges removed. The noise went away, but the revenue stream went largely unfazed.

 

Yeah having no joystick support will not destroy GS, but it will definitely not help it. One thing I can say about people who play flight games, whether they are sims or more arcade like, they play their games for a long long time and they have money. A star wars flight game had a chance to draw those people in and keep them, for very little effort.

 

I think im most annoyed that the short sighted bad decision making that I thought was gone from swtor still seems to be here.

[GalacticKegger]

Yeah having no joystick support will not destroy GS, but it will definitely not help it. One thing I can say about people who play flight games, whether they are sims or more arcade like, they play their games for a long long time and they have money. A star wars flight game had a chance to draw those people in and keep them, for very little effort.

 

I think im most annoyed that the short sighted bad decision making that I thought was gone from swtor still seems to be here.

I wouldn't consider the decision making short-sighted or bad. Flight sim pilots want everything they are used to, from in-cockpit UI controls to external UID support. SWG fans want everything that game offered. WoW fans want everything that game has. STO fans want everything that game has. GW2 fans ... Rift fans ... Skyrim fans ... Tera fans ... LotRO fans ... The list of games where their fans want SWTOR to have what "their" games have or had is substantial. That those people think enough of SWTOR to feel all it needs is their stuff to make it awesome is a credit to Bioware for getting that close.

 

But realistically, unless some supreme power comes down out of the cosmos and weaves magic that creates a perfect gaming universe in 6 days (then takes a day off), one MMO will not have all the best features of every game ever made. Or it would have been done already.

Edited November 15, 2013 by GalacticKegger

[Mallorik]

I wouldn't consider the decision making short-sighted or bad. Flight sim pilots want everything they are used to, from in-cockpit UI controls to external UID support. SWG fans want everything that game offered. WoW fans want everything that game has. STO fans want everything that game has. GW2 fans ... Rift fans ... Skyrim fans ... Tera fans ... LotRO fans ... The list of games where their fans want SWTOR to have what "their" games have or had is substantial. That those people think enough of SWTOR that all it needs is their stuff to make it awesome is a credit to Bioware for getting that close.

 

But realistically, unless some supreme power comes down out of the cosmos and weaves magic that creates a perfect gaming universe in 6 days (then takes a day off), one MMO will not have all the best features of every game ever made. It's just not possible.

 

You don't consider joystick support the one of the very basic things a flight game needs?

 

I understand that everyone wants different things in their games but there are certain things in certain kinds of games that are considered standard, bioware still leaving out standard features 2 years after almost destroying their $300m game for the same reason is disturbing.

[GalacticKegger]

You don't consider joystick support the one of the very basic things a flight game needs?

 

I understand that everyone wants different things in their games but there are certain things in certain kinds of games that are considered standard, bioware still leaving out standard features 2 years after almost destroying their $300m game for the same reason is disturbing.

No, for the same reason I don't think mouse and keyboard support is one of the very basic things a console game needs. Bioware isn't destroying anything. Their game isn't for everyone. No game ever will be. They understand that. So do TOR fans. Edited November 15, 2013 by GalacticKegger

[Itkovian]

Yeah having no joystick support will not destroy GS, but it will definitely not help it. One thing I can say about people who play flight games, whether they are sims or more arcade like, they play their games for a long long time and they have money. A star wars flight game had a chance to draw those people in and keep them, for very little effort.

 

I think im most annoyed that the short sighted bad decision making that I thought was gone from swtor still seems to be here.

 

This overlooks that the very core of the design depends on using the mouse as the targeting reticule, as well as moving. The moment you do that, and you balance your game accordingly, then joystick use becomes a handicap. Take a look at MWO for a good example. You can easily tell who is using a joystick compared to the mouse, there is a massive degradation in targeting precision. I tried it myself, but finally resorted to using a Throttle/Mouse/Rudder Pedals combo (in MWO that is).

 

In short, anyone using a joystick with the current GS design will not be competitive. There is just too much focus on using the mouse cursor to aim your guns within the weapon arc. To make joysticks truly viable and competitive, they'd either need to add some sort of auto-tracking, or better yet go back to the X-wing model, where guns are aimed straight ahead.

 

I'd definitely love the latter... but the way the game stands now, I doubt that's going to change anytime soon.

 

That said, it certainly would be possible to add joystick support, but with the current design it would just end up as a liability, and there's wisdom in BW focusing on mouse controls first. I'd much rather see them focus on adding more maps and game modes before stick support, and I say this as a hardcore sim fanatic.

 

That said, I'd kill for track IR support.

[Mallorik]

No, for the same reason I don't think mouse and keyboard support are one of the very basic things a console game needs.

 

Ok so this isn't a flight game, its just another shooter? theres my problem, I thought we were getting a free flight game, for which joystick controls are considered standard.

[Mallorik]

This overlooks that the very core of the design depends on using the mouse as the targeting reticule, as well as moving. The moment you do that, and you balance your game accordingly, then joystick use becomes a handicap. Take a look at MWO for a good example. You can easily tell who is using a joystick compared to the mouse, there is a massive degradation in targeting precision. I tried it myself, but finally resorted to using a Throttle/Mouse/Rudder Pedals combo (in MWO that is).

 

In short, anyone using a joystick with the current GS design will not be competitive. There is just too much focus on using the mouse cursor to aim your guns within the weapon arc. To make joysticks truly viable and competitive, they'd either need to add some sort of auto-tracking, or better yet go back to the X-wing model, where guns are aimed straight ahead.

 

I'd definitely love the latter... but the way the game stands now, I doubt that's going to change anytime soon.

 

That said, it certainly would be possible to add joystick support, but with the current design it would just end up as a liability, and there's wisdom in BW focusing on mouse controls first. I'd much rather see them focus on adding more maps and game modes before stick support, and I say this as a hardcore sim fanatic.

 

That said, I'd kill for track IR support.

 

Assuming MWO is MechWarrior, it is not a free flight game. I would be happy locking the reticle and using a joystick in GS.

[Mallorik]

I may be mistaken here, can you fly around upside down in GS? can you pull an immelmann or split s without the use of some special ability?

[GalacticKegger]

Ok so this isn't a flight game, its just another shooter? theres my problem, I thought we were getting a free flight game, for which joystick controls are considered standard.

So what free flight games do you play using a joystick system that you feel SWTOR should mimic?

[Mallorik]

So what free flight games do you play using a joystick system that you feel SWTOR should mimic?

 

They don't have to mimic any specific free flight game, they all have joystick support. H.I.S, world of planes, warthunder.

[GalacticKegger]

I may be mistaken here, can you fly around upside down in GS? can you pull an immelmann or split s without the use of some special ability?

Yes and yes. Can even pull the Top Gun slam on the reverse thrusters, let the guy on your tail blow past, kick the thrusters back in and lock onto his 6. I even tried a Lumchevok but since there's no gravity in space dragging the tail was not possible so I couldn't complete it.