How do you fly your planes / land your landers???

[Dafni]

Hello everybody,

it seems I am not the only one with joystick issues. I tried everything and could not get a stick to work on 1.0.4.

So how do you fly your planes then?? Are all of those amazing videos here done with the keyboard? Or do you guys have joysticks that actually work??

I have a pretty hard time flying VTOLs and landers with the keyboard, a working joystick is top of my wishlist.

Thanks for any input

Daf

[Green Baron]

I do everything with the keyboard. Well, there is not much to do.

(Space-)Planes: hit t, adjust thrust, let it accelerate, rotate, adjust aoa and then just let it fy. At a certain height/speed adjust aoa again and at some time later switch engine mode until apsis reaches 75km (depends). Set maneuover node, to circularize and coast up, coasting with a high aoa lifts the apoapsis even higher.

It's just a few short strokes on the keys to reach space. Try a bit ...

k

[Warzouz]

I mostly use the keyboard. I've a Joystick (an old Logitech Wingman) I use for planes and for docking in space. But my joystick is quite buggy even I use it with plane, I usually use keyboard too.

But landing with a joystick is quite cool. Docking too.

[Superfluous J]

Keyboard here as well. Never tried KSP with a joystick or gamepad or anything like that.

I'm not what you'd call good at flying planes, but I can land a ship on a docking port on Minmus to refuel without too much trouble.

[Scarecrow88]

All keyboard for me.

[p1t1o]

I think there is a mod that lets you use the mouse as a joystick, think its this one:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/99126-0-90-v1-5-Analog-Control-Fly-smoothly-with-keyboard-and-mouse?highlight=analog

Havn't tried it myself, but in my experience, using a mouse as a joystick gives you just as much fine control as a joystick, if not more. The same author has another mod called Pilot Assistant which has some other helpful utilities as well.

For landers and other VTOLs, there is this useful mod which gives you great control over vertical speed, even when maneuvering:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50736-1-0-4-%28Jun23-15%29-Automate-Vertical-Velocity-and-Altitude-Control?highlight=vertical

Or you could just get MechJeb and have him pretty much fly every mission for you, it all depends on the amount of automation which you consider "cheating" or "too easy"

[steve_v]

I have a joystick, and it works - mostly. But the inadequacies of KSPs input system means I fly with keyboard + PilotAssistant most of the time.

For a game with so much flying, the joystick support is pretty disappointing.

Aaand, wait for it... "It's a Unity issue, can't fix."

As usual.

[The_Rocketeer]

I usually just shut my eyes, clench my buttocks, ramp up the throttle and sing songs of worship to the space kraken as I tap the spacebar.

Yeh, mostly keys. I have used a joystick and it's good fun, especially in atmo, but pulse-steering and using trim keys also works fine. When u need fine control hit the capslock. I don't know, but I'd also guess that when using keyboard controls you tend to rely on the SAS/autopilot more than with a stick.

[steve_v]

...pulse-steering and using trim keys also works fine.

Having to resort to quick-finger PWM with aircraft sucks hard. I really don't get what's so hard about providing usable joystick support... for a game that is arguably part flight-sim.

Seriously, I have to restart the damn game if I forget to center the throttle before loading (no, not zero, center. WHY!?). Where the f... are the axis calibration settings at, squad?

Edited August 28, 2015 by steve_v

[p1t1o]

Come on, where is your sense of challenge? Do you think they have joysticks in real spacecraft? Oh wait...

My favorite part is on landing, making fine adjustments to course near stall speed, with the keyboard. Even though you're moving at a crawl and only making slight changes to attitude, your fingers are going "clackety-clackety-clack" furiously on the keys...

[Chaos_Klaus]

All keyboard here. I tried joystick before but it doesn't feel good to me.

I used this mod:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/95022-0-24-2-Advanced-Fly-by-wire-v1-0-%28Better-controller-support%29

Don't know if it still works.

[Dafni]

Having to resort to quick-finger PWM with aircraft sucks hard. I really don't get what's so hard about providing usable joystick support... for a game that is arguably part flight-sim.

Seriously, I have to restart the damn game if I forget to center the throttle before loading (no, not zero, center. WHY!?). Where the f... are the axis calibration settings at, squad?

Well, at least your stick works. I can't get KSP to recognize my axis or levers at all. Even went out to get another stick that was suggested on here, same annoying result.

Thanks for the suggestions everybody. I'm not a complete beginner at KSP, built stations and bases and whatnot, all with the keyboard. It is doable, obviously, but it's kinda awkward sometimes, especially when you have a nice joystick sitting there completly useless.

Guess we're SOL until 1.1, stuck with the keyboard. I agree with all of yo who commented how disappointing the lack of joystick support is on a game like this. I wish they would fix it soon.

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

A joystick made KSP much more playable for me. ("top hat" switch for retros, joystick for gyros/aero) made docking easier!

But that was beta. I haven't tried to it set up the the new one. (took hours to set up, because the settings are at the beginning of the game, you have to set it up, launch the game, try it, quit out, make changes, launch the game, try it, quit out, make changes, launch the game, try it, quit out, make changes...)

are there issues in 1.0?

Edit: I'll try later today, and post my results.

[eddiew]

Keyboard all the way. With the forgiving stock atmo, I find it extremely hard to actually crash a plane unless I'm trying... gentle taps are all it needs to keep a bird under control, unless you built a stinker

Landers... have the pilot hold retrograde, if available. Otherwise manual tapping towards 'close enough'. Unless your lander is seriously off balance and needing constant correction, I can't personally see a need for analogue controls.

[cantab]

Xbox 360 pad for planes. It works great, flying is a joy, and 1.0 made sorting out the rudders much better. I do still need an external program so I can use the D-Pad for trim though.

My control layout:

Left stick - pitch and roll

Triggers - yaw

Bumpers - throttle up and down

ABXY - gear, brakes, and lights matching the colours next to the altimeter, and stage on the blue one.

Start - pause

Back - Abort

Xbox logo - Modifier. I need to hold it when pushing the dpad for trim, it's annoying but I haven't found a way round it. This mapping needs setting up by editing the settings.cfg

Dpad - Pitch and roll, used for trim.

360 pad for long drives on rovers too, it's more comfortable than using the keyboard.

Keyboard for rockets, I generally don't need the same kind of smooth control I do for planes.

[steve_v]

took hours to set up, because the settings are at the beginning of the game, you have to set it up, launch the game, try it, quit out, make changes, launch the game, try it, quit out, make changes, launch the game, try it, quit out, make changes...

Having to do this is utterly ridiculous, why can't we have it in the in-game options menu? Along with all the other stuff that should be there.

- - - Updated - - -

This mapping needs setting up by editing the settings.cfg

Again, utterly ridiculous to have to hand-edit the .cfg to set up an input device.

I'd use my joystick a whole lot more if it wasn't such a complete pain in the ass to set up.

[Skorpychan]

Keyboard for landers. If I want to do planes, I'll have to set up my controller for it.

But keyboard works fine for landers, because that's mostly a case of setting things up and waiting to see how they turn out.

[Dafni]

Well, there are landers, and then there are landers

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqgsE2C9kx62D1zYWHyAEow

sucks so hard to have to fly such creations with the keyboard.

Anyway, one big question comes up: are we sure 1.1 (or Unity5) will fix this once and for all??

I agree with Steve_v on the ridiculousness of this whole situation. I would enjoy KSP so much more if I had a working joystick.

The xbox gamepad sounds interesting enough, but it's just a band-aid fix IMO. Using the mouse as joystick with some plugin sounds less than ideal, and I will ignore the "just use mechjeb" suggestion

[Warzouz]

Again, utterly ridiculous to have to hand-edit the .cfg to set up an input device.

I'd use my joystick a whole lot more if it wasn't such a complete pain in the ass to set up.

And BACKUP your setting.cfg. Mine has disapeared more than once.

[Mikki]

Also all keyboard here... But having a sticksupport would be real nice to have, could be more accurate to land our crazy crates...

[cantab]

And BACKUP your setting.cfg. Mine has disapeared more than once.

I have my online backup program pointed to my KSP folders. Saves, crafts, whatever get backed up every 30 minutes without me needing to worry about it.

[steve_v]

ZFS filesystem snapshots over here.

But while backups are good, the game trashing the settings file is not.

[Cairol]

I used keyboard only a long time. But for spaceplanes I removed the dust from my old Saitek Cyborg 3D joystick. It's working fine. Meanwhile I use the newer model "Cyborg Evo".

Much better than keyboard control.

For rockets, I use the keyboard. And I also always dock with the keyboard.

Edited August 30, 2015 by Cairol

[GarrisonChisholm]

I use only keyboard, but that is because my frame-rate is so bad that Any required input is dangerous, so ideally all my flights only go up at a naturally increasing vector once I rotate off the runway. If I drift too far off I just click "prograde" until the vector moves and then click it back to "stable".

Considering how slow performance is, it is notable I have been happily entertained for so long. The engineering aspect of KSP is more than half the fun.

[Glaran K'erman]

Only use keyboard but definitely open to the idea of using a joystick. Both these threads talk about custom controllers and I gotta say JUST a joystick won't do it after seeing these

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/102513-My-KSP-control-panel

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/66763-Custom-hardware-simpit-repository-For-people-who-take-KSP-a-little-too-far