Please share your controller setup and why you chose it.

[Mark392]

T'was the best controller I ever did meet... *wistful sigh*

[Djcjr]

My set up is very typical for a joystick user.

Controler: Sidewinder 3d Pro, keyboard

3d Pro

Slide up/down: joystick hat
Primary: trigger
Secondary: button 2
Bomb: button 3
Banking: twist

Keyboard

Forward: W
Backward: S
Slide left: A
Slide right: D
Flare: spacebar
Rearview: R
Cycle secondaries: E
Afterburner: left shift


I use mouse on very rare occasions. I've tried several different set ups, but only one similar to what I'm used to has ever felt natural to me. The only differences between the 2 is that I use left shift and spacebar for sliding up and down, and Q/E for banking (and F for flares, B for bombs). Everything else stays the same.

[organic io (formerly goldie)]

[Mark392]

Ok, here is my rudimentary foolishness:

W = Forward, S = Backwards, A = Slide Left, D = Slide Right, Left Shift = Slide Up, Spacebar = Slide Down, Q and E are Banking, C = Flare, X = Proxies, R = Rearview, 1 = lasers, 2 = Vulcan, 3 = spreadfire, 4 = plasma, 5 = fusion.

Mouse is normal (I use a Roccat Lua Mouse, and it is very nice, but I aspire to buy a mouse in the Roccat line with some side buttons to put flair and bomb on, I miss a TON of my flare moments because its hard to reach down and maneuver while flaring accurately, and my proxy placement isn't what I want it to be due to the same inssue--I use my left pointer finger to slide right and bank on the d and e key respectively, so reaching down to flare or drop proxies means I cant use either of those keys to maneuver... plus I kill myself with proxies a lot when I try to flare, so stop making fun of my flaring, Morfod )
So left click is primary fire, right click is secondary's, and I use the scroll wheel scroll up and down function to select smart missiles and homing missiles. I haven't used Afterburner in D2 since my Orb's last hurrah because I can't find a place to put it where it is reliable and consistent. I aspire, as well, to put AB on an extra mouse button (I used my scroll click back in the day, but now that I use the scroll wheel to switch between smarts and homers I can't do that).

That's it... Why do I use it? Well, my original controls were all keyboard (demo in late--if I remember correctly--94, full version when it came out), that was a funky setup that took all of my brain power to come up with back then.. but it worked. I kept the left hand's responsibilities from my old keyboard-only setup... So most of that was my left hand's responsibility on the keyboard when I was keys only (Plus it came naturally to me to do almost all my major movements with my left hand because I am ambidextrous and so switching to orb, which utilizes the left hand, and moving on the keyboard mostly with left hand was very second nature).
When I was still on keys only I used Num lock as pitch forward, 7 on the keypad to pitch down, Page down to turn left, 8 to turn right, Left arrow to shoot primaries, Down arrow to cycle primaries, up arrow to cycle secondaries, + on the num pad to fire secondaries, Enter on the num pad to flare, and page up/end buttons dropped proxies--so I moved flare and proxies to my left hand when I switched to mouse. I used a Thrustmaster Joystick in late '96, moved to Thurstmaster Platinum when it came out, then sometime in '97 I got to play on LAN with a guy of the callsign Xevious. He used this wicked looking controller that was SO MUCH FUN to try! The SpaceOrb 360. I was in love with that controller, so in late '97 I started the transition of switching to the Orb. It took me almost a year to completely master it and stop using Joystick or keys only when I was playing seriously. So, in late '98 I switched to the orb exclusively until 2001. I started using mouse for most of my gaming after some opponents refused to play me anymore after I beat them while I was on the Orb... Because many competitors were adamant that, 1. My Orb was cheating, and 2. There was no way I could continue to beat them without it (Challenge accepted). So I started trying to use mouse and adapt my old keyboard only style in late 01. I probably would have gone back to the Thrustmaster Platinum joystick, however, I couldn't find any that were working, and mouse was readily available. (If anyone wants to know more about my Orb style let me know, I never had the ability to use the legendary instant flip, that was only an option I the first style of software for the Orb) After a while I got decent at it mouse, beat those guys telling them I was on mouse, and they accused me of still playing on the Orb and said my flying looked just like I was on the orb, and my aim was better. So, I gave up playing some of those people (unless they asked me), but I switched to mouse exclusively to avoid any ridicule. I was a kid back then, so I thought that not using it at all was the only way. The final time I flew on my orb was in early '02 when Djcjr said he wanted me to use it in a 1v1 we played in d2. That was the last time my baby saw the light of the mines and the flash of the cannons... *Teardrop*

/end meaningless history review.

[Entropy]

With all the technology we have nowadays, how hard would it be to tear a SpaceOrb apart and just make the inner hardware for it? Could cut holes in the case and even add more buttons and stuff. What's the mechanism for the Orb part itself? Can that be 3D printed?

[Djcjr]

Really? I was the last one to challenge you to play with the space orb? What a bunch of wimps. Find a way to hook that bad boy up and we'll go for round 2.

[Sirius]

I think I actually remember Xevious. Not much more than the name though...
Long time ago, that.

[organic io (formerly goldie)]

That was some cool history Mark. I was actually gonna bring the topic up... Wasn't there a pretty heated debate at one point about the spaceorb being cheating because it could flip 180 degrees with a single button? But if yours didn't do that, I can't see why they would consider it cheating.

Also I wonder how it was able to do that. You would think if Descent would allow it, then it isn't really cheating. And that joystick/mouse users could figure some way to do it too. Maybe not back then on Windows 98, but I bet these days you could use Xpadder or some kind of keyboard/joystick mapping utility to make a single button press do a really fast 180 degree turn on the joystick axis.

[Sirius]

Yeah, I half wonder if the SpaceOrb driver devs hacked Descent to let it do that. I thought the joystick turn rate was hard-capped, but Orbers could routinely exceed it.

[Mark392]

The first interface software for the Orb had all those things in there where you could really just do anything you wanted. That only lasted with the first batch and then the updated software (the only software I ever owned) was the software that had caps on sensitivity fed through the game model and had no option for any instaflips.

DJ, yes sir, you were! I'd love to have that puppy work and fly around again!