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One handed gaming


Tyrion Spacedwarf

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I asked this on reddit and had some good feedback but I have one more day so I wanted to get any additional info.

its been a year since I played at a buddies, my computer was a brick. My wife blessed me with a new computer I get tomorrow and I will be downloading ksp. 

The thing is I had a stroke last Father’s Day and I still haven’t regained movement in my right arm or hand. How hard would it be to play? Any suggestions? I’m getting a mouse with 6 buttons and I can use in my left hand. Any thoughts would be appreciated, thank you. 

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17 minutes ago, Tyrion Spacedwarf said:

How hard would it be to play?

Hello, and welcome to the forums!  :)

Sorry to hear about your mobility loss.  That said... KSP's probably better than most games, this way-- it's not a "twitch" game, it doesn't involve having fast reflexes and needing to do lots of stuff all at once.  So as long as you can operate a two-button mouse with one hand, and don't mind switching back and forth between mouse and keyboard, then I suspect it ought to be mostly okay.

There are a few useful key bindings where you hold down the ALT key while mouse-clicking something, which I imagine might be a little awkward with one hand.  This six-button mouse of yours-- does it have software that lets you map some of the buttons to keyboard keys?  i.e. could you make it so that one of the mouse buttons functions the same as pressing ALT on the keyboard?  If so, then I think you may be good to go-- I can't think of any other two-handed operation in KSP, off the top of my head.

(Of course, I've never actually tried playing it one-handed, so it's possible I'm forgetting some detail.  But I believe you ought to be okay.)

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Thank you for your kind response and your time. Yes, it can save the hot keys for up to 3 games. I played a year ago and just couldn’t remember when two hands was needed but I will have the mouse. Thank you and I can’t wait to try the game. It will I think be Awkward but before you know it I will be killing kerbal, but naturally. 

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If you can bind mouse macros for shift+LMB and alt+RMB you're pretty much set, I don't think there's any other major modifier combos you need and even those are very niche use (VAB stuff and bringing up fuel transfer in flight).

Craft can be controlled entirely with the keyboard so you should be grand there, really only need the mouse for navigating context menus and such.

Here's to a speedy recovery in any case, best of luck.

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Well, you could use voice commands for some things. Like, literally, saying "SAS" instead of pushing T. (I started using that for Elite Dangerous today, there is no better feeling than saying "prepare jump" and watching the ship going to hyperspace) Voice Attack is the software for ya.

Edited by The Aziz
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Hi,  I saw your post on reddit, and I too am very sorry for your situation.  That being said, I honestly think you can have much success playing Kerbal.  As Snark mentioned, its not a fast paced twitch game.  Some fine mouse skills can be semi-required when building ships, but on the other hand if that doesn't work for you there is bajillions of premade ships that you can download and fly around without having to build them.  The flying part of the game is very left hand oriented for me, with mostly just moving the camera around with the mouse with my right hand.  There is some right clicking of parts in flight, but that can be done fairly leisurely, when you're not actively steering the ship with the keyboard. 

I recall someone mentioning TrackIR, which I think you should totally look into if not for KSP but for a bunch of other games.  I have no idea if it works for Kerbal, perhaps someone else can confirm that.  Apparently there was a bug almost 3 years ago that prevented 64bit KSP from working with a version of TrackIR:  https://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/9456  That unfortunately hasnt been set to resolved or ready to test so theoretically that means the bug is still present, but the way the bugtracker is maintained (read: poorly) also suggests it could very well have been fixed.  It would probably make the camera manipulation a little easier for you.

 

 

 

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MechJeb is a handy mod that will be able to help you, it can fly your ship, get you into orbit, land, dock, do almost anything (requiring that you have enough fuel). I believe it will be helpful for you

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I use the Nostromo Speed pad (similar to what @Tyko mentioned), and it is excellent for gaming.   While it is normally associated with the left hand while the mouse is in the right, I can easily see a setup where you could quickly jump between the two.  

41JRDZSJTPL._SX425_.jpg

 

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12 hours ago, Tyrion Spacedwarf said:

It will I think be Awkward but before you know it I will be killing kerbal, but naturally

That is an incredibly awesome statement.

In the end... isn't this what we live for?

God speed your endeavours! 

Peace. 

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I'm on my phone so I can't find the link, but I think it's better time control or time warping mod?

It'll let you throw the game into slow motion whenever you want, you can make it super duper slow like almost standing still or anywhere in between.

I assume that would be a big help, and give you all the time you need to access the controls with one hand. Hope you feel better soon!

UPDATE: Home now, here's the link:

 

Edited by Rocket In My Pocket
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On 3/7/2019 at 2:37 PM, Tyrion Spacedwarf said:

Some very interesting things for me to check out.

Tyrion,

I came across this the other day.  Even if they may not be able to help you directly, at least the can point you in the direction of other resources that can.

https://www.gameblast19.org.uk/

They are a charity for obtaining disabled gamers custom controllers. 

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Sorry to hear about your problem. MechJeb would help a lot. I also have transferred many of the functions onto the 10-key portion of the keyboard. I have also used a 10-key add-on. This can be done in the settings section before starting the game. Good gaming! 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/6/2019 at 8:53 PM, Tyrion Spacedwarf said:

I asked this on reddit and had some good feedback but I have one more day so I wanted to get any additional info.

its been a year since I played at a buddies, my computer was a brick. My wife blessed me with a new computer I get tomorrow and I will be downloading ksp. 

The thing is I had a stroke last Father’s Day and I still haven’t regained movement in my right arm or hand. How hard would it be to play? Any suggestions? I’m getting a mouse with 6 buttons and I can use in my left hand. Any thoughts would be appreciated, thank you. 

That's really rough, I hope you get better soon. I agree with the others in this thread and recommend MechJeb, I've never used it myself but it would make playing a lot easier.

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On 3/7/2019 at 12:37 AM, Vanamonde said:

There are mods which can automate some of the piloting, too. 

 

On 3/19/2019 at 6:38 PM, Hands MCML said:

Sorry to hear about your problem. MechJeb would help a lot. I also have transferred many of the functions onto the 10-key portion of the keyboard. I have also used a 10-key add-on. This can be done in the settings section before starting the game. Good gaming! 

I used to get a lot of intravenous injections leading to me basically only being able to use one hand for Weeks at a time and Mechjeb really helped me to continue playing KSP. 

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In addition to the many excellent suggestions above, consider using the GravityTurn mod as well. It can automate the entire liftoff-to-orbit process for you, leaving only a final circularisation burn needed to reach orbit. (If you have MechJeb installed, it will hand off to MJ for the circularisation burn as well).

MechJeb can get you to orbit, but GT does a much better, more fuel-efficient job of it than MJ)

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  • 2 weeks later...

I really like this mouse - https://www.amazon.com/ROCCAT-Tyon-Black-Action-Multi-Button/dp/B00MSOIUOO

It has an actual joystick button - single axis though. The top button can rock left and right. the bottom thumb button while pressed doubles all buttons.

Most of my KSP with this is just on the mouse hand. The only stuff I use the keyboard for with my other hand is really roll, staging, throttle (a/z/ctrl/shift), action groups, docking thrusters.

I still use the other one, but it's out of convenience more often than not. Other than roll which is a pretty "at the time" kind of function, anything else, I can let go, press and reassert my hand.

I think mapping roll to the mouse would be quite doable.

Edited by beomagi
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