Re: Please share your controller setup and why you chose it.
Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 3:17 pm
My mouse hand is completely standard -- The buttons fire weapons, the scroll wheel lays bombs, and the mouse steers. The only nonstandard thing about my mouse is that I'm a Y-flipper. Y-flippers unite!
My keyboard hand looks like this:
Why is it like that? I designed the green part of this setup back in 1998, when Deimos (hi, Deimos!) convinced me that the default keyboard configuration was holding me back. If I'd had money, I would have switched to joystick, which was what all the cool kids used. I didn't, and Deimos was destroying me just fine on mouse, and I had a mouse already, so I switched to mouse. But I wanted to make sure I would never have to change these controls again. One of the drawbacks of the default keyboard configuration is that certain moves, like sliding and turning and rolling the same direction, could be REALLY awkward, and I was starting to feel those limitations. With that fresh in mind, I figured -- one axis per finger. No limitations. Future proof.
I would have figured a setup like that would be really common, but most people find it difficult to be moving all four fingers back and forth all the time. Entropy's the only person I've ever met who did something similar. Anyway. It works for me. I play piano. I'm used to it.
The blue parts have changed a lot over the years. They used to all be over on the left. I've settled on this set in the last couple years. I like the certainty of being able to pick a specific gun rather than thinking about how many cycles away it is.
The yellow bits don't really matter that much and could go anywhere. That bomb key is probably moving because I hit it on accident a lot when I'm maneuvering in a panic. I'm starting to regret combining the burner and rearview. My initial thought was that I don't need rearview in D2, and I don't need burner in D1, so hey! But that rear view has become so essential that I actually do want it in D2. The little postage stamp window doesn't do it for me. In fact, most of the time when I hit my burner in D2, I'm trying to use my mirror. So that will probably change.
(Why are there empty keys on the left? I've scooted this whole setup right and left many times on various keyboards. Back in the day, to find somewhere the core 8 keys could all register at once. Yeah, I had one of those keyboards. I used to do weapon management with my left pinkie, and I still like having pinkie buttons open as options. I change what's in them from time to time. Bomb might go over there. Right now automap and push to talk are in that region. The current left/right position was so that my thumb could comfortably reach the three extra thumb buttons that came with this keyboard, but they turned out to be a bust. Too stiff to be practical. At some point, I'll scoot the whole affair three keys to the right so my thumb can hit the alt for burner in D2...)
My keyboard hand looks like this:
Why is it like that? I designed the green part of this setup back in 1998, when Deimos (hi, Deimos!) convinced me that the default keyboard configuration was holding me back. If I'd had money, I would have switched to joystick, which was what all the cool kids used. I didn't, and Deimos was destroying me just fine on mouse, and I had a mouse already, so I switched to mouse. But I wanted to make sure I would never have to change these controls again. One of the drawbacks of the default keyboard configuration is that certain moves, like sliding and turning and rolling the same direction, could be REALLY awkward, and I was starting to feel those limitations. With that fresh in mind, I figured -- one axis per finger. No limitations. Future proof.
I would have figured a setup like that would be really common, but most people find it difficult to be moving all four fingers back and forth all the time. Entropy's the only person I've ever met who did something similar. Anyway. It works for me. I play piano. I'm used to it.
The blue parts have changed a lot over the years. They used to all be over on the left. I've settled on this set in the last couple years. I like the certainty of being able to pick a specific gun rather than thinking about how many cycles away it is.
The yellow bits don't really matter that much and could go anywhere. That bomb key is probably moving because I hit it on accident a lot when I'm maneuvering in a panic. I'm starting to regret combining the burner and rearview. My initial thought was that I don't need rearview in D2, and I don't need burner in D1, so hey! But that rear view has become so essential that I actually do want it in D2. The little postage stamp window doesn't do it for me. In fact, most of the time when I hit my burner in D2, I'm trying to use my mirror. So that will probably change.
(Why are there empty keys on the left? I've scooted this whole setup right and left many times on various keyboards. Back in the day, to find somewhere the core 8 keys could all register at once. Yeah, I had one of those keyboards. I used to do weapon management with my left pinkie, and I still like having pinkie buttons open as options. I change what's in them from time to time. Bomb might go over there. Right now automap and push to talk are in that region. The current left/right position was so that my thumb could comfortably reach the three extra thumb buttons that came with this keyboard, but they turned out to be a bust. Too stiff to be practical. At some point, I'll scoot the whole affair three keys to the right so my thumb can hit the alt for burner in D2...)