Any Advice From Experienced Players? - RE: My Current Controller Layout

[Fubarbrickdust]

Hi All,

So I've recently started playing, I'm a couple of weeks in - Playing career mode and am at the 'happily orbiting Kerbin/put up a few satellites>about to land on and explore the Mun' stage...

Anyhow, my question is for those veterans of the game with a wealth of Kerbal-wisdom under their belts - I'm using a controller (DS4) with a custom config I've made up for controlling flight/spaceflight (see below).

It's gone through 1 or 2 revisions, it's working well and I'm quite happy with it...but I'm wondering if there's anything that I might not be thinking of as I'm quite new and inexperienced with the wider/later game? Any thoughts?...all input and suggestions are welcome. It's probably best to iron out any kinks now before I get too used to the layout.

Cheers in advance

Edited October 23, 2015 by Fubarbrickdust

[Snark]

Goodness, never occurred to me that folks would use something other than the keyboard.

What about custom action groups? You'll be wanting those once your ships start getting more complex.

Also, different SAS modes ("hold retrograde" etc.).

Also, cycle next/previous ship.

Rover controls?

EVA lights.

Edited October 21, 2015 by Snark

[Jimbimbibble]

You could use both sticks for control. I can imagine some situations where you really want all 3 axes on the sticks, especially when flying planes. Also, just personal preference, but I like to have pitch/roll on the right stick and yaw on the left. It would be nice to put throttle on the left stick too but that could be difficult because the stick is spring loaded. In model aircraft, we have the up/down axis of the left stick not spring loaded so we can leave throttle set in one position.

[cantab]

I didn't think KSP lets you bind a control to a combination of keys. How do you do that?

[worir4]

I play with an Xbox 360 remote. How do you bind a shift modifier key or is it exclusive to your remote?

[FlyingPete]

This is the layout I use with a PS3-type controller:

Left stick- pitch, yaw

Right stick- translate forward/aft, roll

D-pad- translate up/down, translate left/right. Also assigned to rover wheel forward/back and steering.

L2/R2- reduce/increase thrust

L1/R1- cut/full thrust (L1 also assigned to brakes)

Square button- SAS

Circle button- RCS

X button- staging

Triangle button- Map view

Start- lights

Select- landing gear

L3- precision controls

Having pitch/yaw on one stick makes the most sense for rockets, and works well enough for aircraft. Plus, you can fly the ship one-handed for a moment (to activate action groups etc on the keyboard or to use the mouse) without a significant loss of control.

For translation, on/off control of up/down/left/right is less of an issue, and you still have control over the roll axis on the right stick for situations where this matters. I used the D-pad for rover controls as well, as you can just switch off RCS to prevent interference.

[Fubarbrickdust]

Hey Guys, thanks for all the feedback and input - exactly the kind of stuff I was after, cheers.

I'll take a few of the suggestions and what other peeps are using and try them out/merge them in to see how it works out...the whole game's focused around experimenting so I guess this'd be a simple extension of that.

Goodness, never occurred to me that folks would use something other than the keyboard.

What about custom action groups? You'll be wanting those once your ships start getting more complex.

Also, different SAS modes ("hold retrograde" etc.).

Also, cycle next/previous ship.

Rover controls?

EVA lights.

I know, right! - There's so many controls in this game you could probably fill up 10 controllers worth! It's just not possible to cover every area. To be fair, I've always been a PC gamer and totally cool with kb&m play, but it's nice to get analogues involved when in command of vehicles in any game. It was a bit of head scratching in the beginning but in the end I decided to try and keep it simple and just that by dedicating the controller to the pure flight/rocketry/rover (they're mapped into the analogues as well btw) and EVA controls. It made it a bit easier to come at it from that angle. Although my EVA's are done on the kb&m still as there's something a bit buggy going on with mapping for some of the 'kerbal/EVA' controls to the analogues in the game's input settings.

I didn't think KSP lets you bind a control to a combination of keys. How do you do that?

I play with an Xbox 360 remote. How do you bind a shift modifier key or is it exclusive to your remote?

Hey chaps,

No, there's nothing special about my controller, It's just a common or garden variety DS4 - What makes the shift modifier/2 control layers possible is the software I use to map the buttons. It's called DS4Windows and it's based on the old SCP Server (a tool used to fool Windows into thinking it has an x360/xinput controller attached). The tool also has quite deep configuration/mapping options which allow for the 2nd layer. How I've set it up is to map all of the analogue stuff from withing KSP and the use the the tool to map the buttons and touchpad on the DS4 to keystrokes - it works flawlessly.

If it's something you're interested in exploring I don't think you need to have a DS4/SCP Server...I'm not 100% certain but I'm sure the mapping features aren't exclusive to 'DS4Windows' and can be achieved by some of the other x360 mapping tools (xpadder, pinnacle game profiler, etc.).

Edited October 23, 2015 by Fubarbrickdust

[moogoob]

Your controls are somewhat similar to mine, only I A) use an X360 controller, don't have max thrust/min thrust, just up and down, C) X and Y are brake and SAS toggle respectively, D) L and R bumpers are translate FW/BW, E) left stick push in does gear toggle, right stick toggle IVA.

I find it works OK for me.

EDIT: Didn't notice, but I also use the stick for Pictch and Yaw, and L/R for roll. Makes more sense with spacecraft, landers and rockets, but planes are still controllable. You just have to think "Star Fox 64".

Edited October 23, 2015 by moogoob

[maltesh]

I don't currently fly spaceplanes often enough to remap my xbox 360 controller, but when I did, this was the map I used.

As for why Action Group 2 and Action Group 5: I use an Action Group Scheme that switches things on or off depending on what the spacecraft is currently doing, rather than concentrating on particular parts or types of parts. 2 is "On-orbit, Maneuvering" which would do things like close intakes, shut off atmospheric engines, and activate rocket engines. Action Group 5 was "Atmospheric Descent mode", which for spaceplanes, would shut off rocket engines, turn on atmospheric engines, and open intakes.

[Techneck]

On 10/21/2015 at 3:29 PM, Fubarbrickdust said:

Hi All,

So I've recently started playing, I'm a couple of weeks in - Playing career mode and am at the 'happily orbiting Kerbin/put up a few satellites>about to land on and explore the Mun' stage...

Anyhow, my question is for those veterans of the game with a wealth of Kerbal-wisdom under their belts - I'm using a controller (DS4) with a custom config I've made up for controlling flight/spaceflight (see below).

It's gone through 1 or 2 revisions, it's working well and I'm quite happy with it...but I'm wondering if there's anything that I might not be thinking of as I'm quite new and inexperienced with the wider/later game? Any thoughts?...all input and suggestions are welcome. It's probably best to iron out any kinks now before I get too used to the layout.

Cheers in advance

Fubarbrickdust,

I know you posted this a long time ago in a galaxy far far way... Anyway, I just started using a PS4 controller on a Windows 10 PC and would love an example of your PS4 controller mapping.  The link you have in the original post is bad.

Thanks