KSP Joystick

[Rokmonkey]

Hey All,

I\'ve needed a project lately, and between KSP and Lunar Flight, my Saitek X52 just doesn\'t cut it. I\'ve been thinking about making a KSP Joystick, and wanted to get some input from the community on layout and design. I\'ve drawn something up real quick in Inventor, so tell me what you think. As I drew it, I realized it\'s a fairly large controller and I may need to make it larger, and definitely need to shift things around to accommodate a few more switches and levers comfortably. I\'ve modeled it after a standard full-size keyboard, and currently it is an inch or two larger on all sides.

From Left To Right:

Translational Hand Controller: it will actually translate Left-Right, Forward-Back. I\'m not sure how I want to handle up and down, though that may handle it as well. The button on top will toggle the RCS thrusters.

Throttle Control

Stage Separation Button: I wanted it big and noticeable.

Rotational Hand Controller: Pitch, Roll and Yaw control. Button on top, either turns on ACS, or toggles it, not sure which.

Assorted buttons that I have no idea what to put. Map, Time Compression, ACS Toggle, Precision Controls etc.

Feedback is more than welcome, just keep it constructive.

[flaillomanz]

Wow, this sounds great.

Just make sure to make it look kerbal, with a paint-job worthy of the total awesomeness of it.

You might want some extra switches, just normal flicky-toggley ones, for things like brakes and landing gear. How are you gonna rotate view? Maybe embed a laptop trackpad into it and somehow code it to act as a right-click-drag when touched.

And leave a space for a perspex-covered 'ABORT!' button, i\'ve heard that it is a planned feature - plan for the extra keys by leaving spaces for future expansion, and you\'ll have a joypad worthy of an insane amount of... joy.

Good luck on the project. I wish I could refer you to a guru of design, but alas, I know none.

I\'m strictly an ideas-man.

[Rokmonkey]

All thoughts I have had rolling around in my head, especially the further expansion part. I was working on a simpit for DCS Blackshark before I moved to a smaller apartment, and even then I still had to use the mouse and keyboard for somethings.

I\'ve thought about using a trackball, I haven\'t really looked into the hardware-software side of that, whether there are ready-made modules or what. It\'d be nice if I didn\'t hack things, so I could make a couple for people who might be interested.

On the 'more Kerbal' note; I totally agree. I\'m atrocious at aesthetics. I\'m a Mechanical Engineer, function over fashion in everything I make, which has made some of my more recent work projects a pain, but regardless, if there are some ambitious artists out there who have some ideas to make a controller more Kerbal, a drawing or 3D model would be neat to see.

[Monkthespy]

Oooh, that looks nice. Ironically enough I\'m about to GET my X52.

[DYJ]

Putting the X52 joystick on something that would pick up translation of the entire stick and translate that to RCS translation in KSP would be enough. A controller requiring 3 hands isn\'t really that ergonomic, straying away from HOTAS seems like a step backwards.

And since the X52 is very common joystick adding on to that seems sensible to me.

[flaillomanz]

All thoughts I have had rolling around in my head, especially the further expansion part. I was working on a simpit for DCS Blackshark before I moved to a smaller apartment, and even then I still had to use the mouse and keyboard for somethings.

I\'ve thought about using a trackball, I haven\'t really looked into the hardware-software side of that, whether there are ready-made modules or what. It\'d be nice if I didn\'t hack things, so I could make a couple for people who might be interested.

On the 'more Kerbal' note; I totally agree. I\'m atrocious at aesthetics. I\'m a Mechanical Engineer, function over fashion in everything I make, which has made some of my more recent work projects a pain, but regardless, if there are some ambitious artists out there who have some ideas to make a controller more Kerbal, a drawing or 3D model would be neat to see.

Ooh, I\'m studying to be a Civil engineer. I\'m taking to the environmental side more than the design side, though... I\'m not a good draftee.

Just base your designs off the KSP interface and she\'ll be right.

Copious amounts of hazard tape and some classic designs might give your Joystick some extra life. Be sure to put red LEDs in the switches, maybe when you\'re done you can post the plans for others to enjoy.

Here are some images which could be used for inspiration, in my opinion.

A nice pre-existing design for the abort button.

A great way of doing the switches - click the image for the tutorial page I found it at.

Maybe add a slight steampunk-esque theme to it.

[Rokmonkey]

The Shuttle Orbiter, Apollo Modules, and Lunar Lander are not HOTAS, so not really a step backward. From a practical aspect, how often do you need simultaneous input on Throttle, Translation and Rotational. Usually you are using a combination of Throttle/Rotation and Rotation/Translation. I split them into three controls, as you can get full range of motion, and more ergonomic individual controls that way. If Throttle and Translation are combined it get\'s complicated, not just to make, but to operate.

Of course, as I sit here and mull this over, I can conceive of a way to put 4-Axis onto one stick, I\'ll draw it up later when I have the time and see what it is like. Suffice to say it would be a twist throttle (I usually find them awkward, but who knows), on top of a 3-axis translational stick.

@Flaillomanz

Those are kinda what I had in mind, especially the abort button, for the stage separation part, since there is no abort sequence at the moment. Will have to see about those missile switch covers. I love them, but they can get pretty expensive and hard to find at times.

[Polecat Industries]

Needs more duct tape.

[semininja]

Basically, I think a 3D-mouse-type setup would work well for simultaneous rotation/translation control, although you\'d definitely want an ergonomic full-hand grip* instead of the small knob that most 3D mice have. You could have a right-hand 6-axis grip for rocket control and a 2-axis camera control on the left hand. As far as other buttons, since most people are used to the left hand on buttons and the right on the mouse, you\'d have the throttle and most of the buttons distributed near the left hand. The Big Red (staging) Button should have a flip-cover over it like the one that flaillomanz posted, so as to prevent accidental firing. That way, you don\'t need to worry about the stage lock being on in an emergency; you just flip up the cover. The throttle control should be on the left side of the left-hand control stick, so you don\'t need to reach over the stick and risk bumping it. It also doesn\'t need to be that big; you can have a 3-inch T lever at the left end of the board, which would be wide enough to be comfortable without taking up a lot of real-estate. That leaves you with plenty of room for all of the following, which would be necessary:

Toggle-switches:

SAS

-on/off

-LED above comes on for active

-function same as \'T\' key

RCS

-on/off

-same LED function as above

-below left hand

Landing Gear/Legs

-up/down

-LED above and below for undeployed and deployed, respectively

-near left hand

Flight Mode

-rocket/spaceplane

-left-right switch, swaps roll and yaw axes: roll=twist for rocket, yaw=twist for spaceplane

-would go at top of board, above translation/rotation (right) stick

Other customizable switches

-I recommend putting on, say, 7 additional for a total of ten

-switches could have a space below for small (1/4 in.) labels

Push-buttons:

SAS hold on right-hand trigger

-function same as \'F\' key

Screenshot

-ideally, positioned near/on camera control (left) stick, maybe trigger

UI off/on

-same as F2 key

-thumb button on left stick

Other customizable buttons (a 2x4 bank below the throttle would probably do)

If you were feeling incredibly ambitious, you could even put a screen that used a plugin like MechJeb to get flight data from the game, although that would be probably even more difficult than making the controller in the first place.

*Incidentally, the grip of the Nerf N-Strike Recon CS-6 fits my hand perfectly; you could look into the dimensions of that.

[SteevyT]

What if you could somehow map pulling up or pushing down on the RCS translate stick to moving up and down?

[semininja]

What if you could somehow map pulling up or pushing down on the RCS translate stick to moving up and down?

In my suggestion, the 6-axis right stick would cover that; the six axes are:

-Pitch up/down

-Yaw left/right

-Roll left/right

-Translate up/down

-Translate forward/back

-Translate left/right

[TerranCmdr]

Thought you might like to see my setup. Toggle switches would be awesome.

Love your idea! I\'d buy one.

[Sem_oki]

Thought you might like to see my setup. Toggle switches would be awesome.

Love your idea! I\'d buy one.

Those stickers with the name of the controls looks very very kerbal!

I really like your setup there

For the KSP joystick i think you need more switches!!!

[Rokmonkey]

I like the suggestions! Keep \'em coming. I\'m going to draw something up today, a new revisions with more toggle switches, which EVERYONE wants! I may take a 3D mouse from work and test it out with KSP, though the thing to remember with those, is that it can be really awkward, I always have trouble with it anyways, try to rotate and you translate, and visa-versa.

Now, how about a layout like this:

Ignore the pedals, and the obvious professionalism. Imagine more duct tape and toggles instead of buttons. I\'d really like to see what C7Studios had been thinking of for cockpit design, in terms of kerbalizing it. Unfortunately, I can\'t really make my concept models very Kerbal because doing so in a CAD is a pain in the ass, (I hate using splines)

What do you all think of hat switches for view control?

[TerranCmdr]

I use my hat switch for camera control and it works well enough. I think more of an analog input for the camera would work better though. Sometimes I need more precise control.

[semininja]

When I get the chance some time in the next few days, I\'ll throw something together in Inventor to show you what kind of stuff I\'d like to see on the controller.

[Pluto100]

Wow! Cool idea!

[Emilio]

Coool... How are you going to configure it ? Arduino ? Old joystick circuits ?

[Rokmonkey]

I have a Teensy++ 2.0, and the Teensduino setup. Originally I was just going to write it in C, but it turns out Teensyduino doesn\'t need the Arduino bootloader, which makes it attractive, given that there are HID libraries in it, just have to write a new report, that\'s all.

[Emilio]

Teensy ? Teensduino ? (I\'m a noob in arduino so..)

[Rokmonkey]

The Teensy is a USB capable AVR development board. Teensyduino is a software add-on for Adruino that allows development for the Teensy.

[White Owl]

My dream flight-sim controller has always been a separate stick and throttle, with multiple POV hats and rotary axes all over the place, both stick and throttle attached to half a keyboard. Modular, so I can experiment with different configurations. Just imagine a standard QWERTY keyboard, break it in half, and attach the HOTAS components of your choice to either half.

Why the hell hasn\'t anybody done this yet?

[flaillomanz]

My dream flight-sim controller has always been a separate stick and throttle, with multiple POV hats and rotary axes all over the place, both stick and throttle attached to half a keyboard. Modular, so I can experiment with different configurations. Just imagine a standard QWERTY keyboard, break it in half, and attach the HOTAS components of your choice to either half.

Why the hell hasn\'t anybody done this yet?

Sounds awesome.

I want one that resembles the flight deck of a 747.

[Rokmonkey]

Okay, new inspiration...

[HarvesteR]

Well, this here is an awesome project if I ever saw one.

Have you considered using a SpaceNavigator for translation control? It\'s actually got 6 degrees of motion to it, so in theory, it could even take care of everything by itself (short of throttle). The latest driver version is able to report as a joystick to Windows, so you can map the axes in the game.

IDK what your budget for the project is tho, the cheapest SpaceNavigator model is 99USD.

For the rest, a HOTAS stick like an X52 would work just fine. The X52 right hand stick has a twist grip, so it\'s got the three rotational inputs you need there, and with the throttle || spacenavigator on the left hand, it should cover all bases.

For buttons and switches, the most common approach used by simpit enthusiasts is to take apart a keyboard and have each button on the panel basically closing a key circuit on the keyboard PCB. Another option, which is more involved but much more customizable, is to use an Arduino controller to read switches and buttons on its pins. Or, you could look for a keyboard emulator board, which are made especially for simpit construction. It\'s basically keyboard hardware, but instead of keys, there are open pins to attach buttons and switches to.

Anyhow, best of luck with this project!

Cheers