KSP Linux 64 bit - Steam controller Joystick axis not being recognized.

[Xasin]

Hello!

I have recently ordered the Steam Controller, and have tested it with a variety of games. All inputs, including mouse movement etc., work perfectly fine.

However, despite most features working (buttons and mouse), KSP does not seem to accept or even notice any of the Touchpad axis when setting the Trackpads or Joystick to output a joystick axis.

This is very unfortunate, since the finer precision of the Trackpads can no longer be used.

I have used a Joystick with KSP before, which did work fine. However, I assume the main difference to be in the way the Joysticks are handled. With the normal Joystick, linux creates a device under /dev/input/js*, however with the steam controller this does not seem to be the case.

Maybe the already set up plugin to connect the steam controller with KSP could be expanded to allow for usage of the Touchpad Joystick axis outputs? Or is this a more underlying problem, in which Linux, Steam or Unity has to fix the problem?

[sal_vager]

Hi Xasin, KSP is still a bit ropey when it comes to controllers of all kinds, all I can suggest is that you restart KSP with the controller attached until it is detected (usually on 2nd restart).

If you bind any axis or buttons and start KSP without the controller attached they can show as "Not found" when you later plug it back in, so again just restart KSP once or twice with the controller in and it'll find it.

Unfortunately KSP doesn't check for controllers at all after it's started, so plugging in after starting KSP, or hot swapping controllers just doesn't work.

Let me know if this helps.

[Xasin]

Heya Sal_Vager!

I've tried my best to get it working with your suggestion (setting a Joystick Axis in both the Desktop and KSP layout), and have restarted KSP at least four times, each time having the controller connected, but sadly, no luck so far.

I've also tried a Kernel Update to see if it would do any good, since I have heard that Steam has been working a bit on some drivers for Gamepad stuff from what I have read in other Joystick-related threads.

Currently I am running 4.1.13 on ElementaryOS Freya 0.3.1 64bit ^^

[sal_vager]

Unfortunately I'm not sure what else to suggest here, the code that handles telling the Unity3D engine the new controller bindings is not working right, frankly.

Also, Steam controller support is brand new for 1.0.5 and has only really been setup for Windows (Yes I know Steam boxes run Linux) so if it works at all in KSP for Linux or OSX it'll only be thanks to the controller drivers on these platforms.

As a Linux user myself I'd really like to try KSP with a Steam controller, but I think I have to wait for KSP 1.1 :/

[Xasin]

Well, when the Steam Controller acts as a Joystick it seems to try and emulate the normal standard of other Gamepads, using X-Input, and should, theoretically, thusly be known by the system.

However, since there is no actual /dev/input/js* entry created, maybe the system does not recognize or accept the Steam Joystick output?

We will have to wait for 1.1 and see if that helps.

However, I have thought of a way to work around this missing Joystick identification problem!

D-Pad "analog Simulation".

When setting a Touchpad or the Joystick as D-Pad, it can simulate an analog input by "duty-cycling" the button, having it 10% pressed and the rest depressed for a given time, then 20% etc.

However this is not a very good method in KSP since the Pitch/Yaw/Roll axis inputs slowly "scale" upwards when pressing a button, and instantaneously fall back to 0 when letting go.

This makes very long cycle periods necessary, which makes the input very sluggish and makes the craft wobble.

Now, I had a nice idea that could be implemented as some kind of Mod? I am not sure.

My idea was to have the KSP System measure the time between two button presses or depresses. If this value is much lower than something a normal user would press, but high enough for the Steam Analog Simulation to work, then KSP could, instead of using the normal input system, measure the duty cycle of the button press (the time between button press and release divided by the time between two button presses), and then set the according axis to the calculated value.

I myself have never even touched a game like KSP, and thusly I really don't know much about coding a mod or plugin for this, however, it does seem to be easily doable, I would suppose.

Optimally this should be implemented into the KSP source code, but if there is anybody out there who knows how to code such a plugin who is willing to do it ... I would greatly appreciate it!

[sal_vager]

Xasin, your issue could be the result of the libCSteamworks.so file being [U][URL="http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/issues/5996#note-5"]in the wrong folder.[/URL][/U]

Try moving the libCSteamworks.so file to GameData/Squad/Plugins/