Pitch Up/Down as W/S vs. S/W

[Diazo]

Been reading some threads that had to do with controls/controlling your ship and that made me realize that one of the first things I did in the game was to flip the W/S keys around from the default controls.

I don't even try to fly via the 3D view, I fly by the navball and flipping those around means that the pitch and yaw keys behave the same.

On the default controls, when you press a yaw key, the ship position indicator moves that direction on the navball, but when you press a pitch key, the ship position indicator moves the opposite direction. This gave me fits and I kept flipping rockets because I kept expecting them to behave the same when they did not.

So I swapped the W and S keys around and controlling rockets is now a hundred times simpler as the pitch/yaw keys now behave the same in relation to the navball.

Now, I do think this would make controlling a plane type ship harder as this makes W pull the nose up, not push down, but for flying rockets I feel this is the way to go.

Which makes me interested in what control schemes people are using. Have you done something similar, or have you changed the default control scheme in some other way?

D.

[Whirligig Girl]

w pitching down and s pitching up is standard in flight simulators.

[Nao]

For a veteran flightsim user like myself default WSADQE controls are fully intuitive. I have however switched K and I around for RCS linear control. And similarly to your change moving around (docking) became much easier. (up/left key presses meaning up/left movement on navbal). Funny thing that both RCS "modes" (defaults and Up/Down reversed) were used on space shuttle depending on input device. Controlling attitude was always in "plane" mode though, with up/forward meaning nose down. I guess it just requires some getting used too.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

So, if you want to have it then just turn....

[CARROTSAREAWSOME]

When i play, my hands just joint with my keyboard. I dont need to think that what buttons should push. When i want to turn, my hands automaticly presses the buttons. Weird :|

[wasmic]

I use the standard controls. They were a bit hard in the beginning, but I was too lazy, and then they stuck. I don't really think about what keys I use anymore, I just press them.

[DisarmingBaton5]

Inverted y-axis.

It comes from airplanes originally IIRC; the stick was easier to manipulate that way than it was otherwise, and weight was everything at the dawn of the 20th century.

The inverted y is now standard in airplanes (yoke towards pilot to go up and vice versa) and thus flight simulators, that's why it is so in KSP. Most flight simulator veterans and pilots in KSP use the default controls. That said, use whatever controls you like. It is, after all, a single player game, and I don't think anyone will flip a spelunker if you do so.

EDIT: Additionally, keep using the navball for steering. Using the 3d view for steering is only really useful during launch, docking and landing.

[Diazo]

I suppose that was why I did this, the default controls were not intuitive at all when trying to fly via the navball.

Go right! Hit D! Yay!

Go up! Hit W! Go down, wtf?

I just could not wrap my head around the pitch and yaw being in opposite directions when considered in relation to the movement on the navball.

If I ever start messing around with space planes I'll probably find myself putting them back to default, but for launching rockets it makes so much more sense to me the way I've set it up.

D.

[SteevyT]

Inverted y-axis.

Most flight simulator veterans and pilots in KSP use the default controls. That said, use whatever controls you like. It is, after all, a single player game, and I don't think anyone will flip a spelunker if you do so.

I wonder if anyone is doing something really bizarre, like r for up, 1 for down, f for right l for left....g is stage.....

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I would use inverted y-axis for a joystick, because i would find it intuitive.

How ever, only switching from arrow keys to WSAD a few years ago, I have would find it extremely confusing.

I totally agree for joysticks though

also above, back when I used arrow keys I used:arrow keys for yaw/pitch, Q and E for roll, U H J K for rovers, and for RCS, I used O/P for left/right, K/L for forward/back and U and J for up/down.

Throttle was the same and everything else was the same

Edited October 1, 2013 by SpaceSphereOfDeath

[Citriodora]

I often think of it like our own head movement, head tilts back to look up, head tilts forward to look down, to look left and right is the head turning left or right and roll etc.

Thinking back on myself, i wonder if conditioned by playing platformers/sidescroll shooters where the 'w' is used for up or jump can be contributed to idiosyncrasies.

RCS control with analog is extremely painful.

Edited October 1, 2013 by Citriodora
grammar

[RoboRay]

I fly in the real world, so I want my game controls to correspond to what's used in the real world.

[Deejayy2k]

i find i have to invert y axis for camera control on most console games as well, moving the stick down to move camera up i just got that used to it from playing flight sims, much to the annoyance to my friends who have it the other way around

[Specialist290]

I grew up knowing the default controls from other flight sims, so I was already fairly used to the arrangement (though I had to train myself to remember WASD instead of the arrow keys). Hasn't really caused me any problems yet.

[Depth]

I use a joystick/flight controller but it always feels natural without one to have W/up arrow to correspond to pitch down (as that is literally what a flight stick does), but the argument for what the trackball does is a very sound one. You have permission from the internet to remap your controls.

As a side note, using the gun trigger as SAS Hold is freaking awesome.

[lajoswinkler]

I use the riginal, inverted scheme. One day I might want find myself in a situation where I need to do an emergency landing IRL. You never know.

[Tank Buddy]

I just switched my RCS translation to the arrow keys and RShift and RCtrl; I also changed rover controls to the arrow keys to allow throttle/steering and torque to be used.

[Randox]

I've thought about removing the inversed pitch controls, and it does foul me up every once in a while (in situations where the yaw keys have no immediately visible effect, I sometimes switch to thinking that both x and y are inverted and operate the yaw keys backward for a couple seconds). It's worse with RCS, which I did have to invert because I was constantly fouling them up. Either all the keys correspond to desired direction, or correspond to direction of thrust. I prefer the latter, but can operate a craft either way, but I can't deal with some of the keys doing one thing and the others doing another.

It also occurs to me that the last time I flew a space plane by keyboard was just short of never (I hate it; have to use a controller), so there is actually no reason for me to 'correct' the keyboard. It might make sense in a flight sim to me, but not in a rocket sim where I fly by navball 95% of the time.

I can't wait to see all the hilarity that comes with making that switch, though I used to be able to switch between inverted y and non in shooters way back when (rather than just fixing it in the settings). Takes a few minutes, worse than switching keyboard layouts, but doable.