Finallly got joystick working! -With Video-

[joeh100]

I finally got my joystick working. I just wanted to show the advantages of joystick control in a video and BEG the squad developers to add better joystick support. It's a PITA to get working and I have to change settings between aircraft and rockets.

Link: http://youtu.be/6h1t8hK443I

[Newnard]

Very nice. Any tips on configuring the stick? I have a HOTAS setup that I now want to try out with KSP...

Loved watching you land on the water tower, that was funny.

[joeh100]

Had to use ppjoy to get the controller working. It acts as a virtual driver between your joystick and the game. It's a kludge at best, which is why I would like to see better support by Squad.

I found a post on this forum where someone was hosting the software, but that was a couple weeks ago. Do a search for ppjoy and you should find it.

[Crown]

Back in the day when the ASAS was shaking ships apart, I had some joystick settings for KSP. So it was easier to use a joystick to fly a plane than enabling SAS (and less terrifying). But I haven't flown a plane in a very long time. Now the control stick is sitting here, quietly in the shelf.

I never tried to land rockets/landers with a control stick. So I am used to land things with WASDCtrlShift. But nice things you did there.

[joeh100]

Oh yea, planes and helicopters(firespitter mod) are a lot of fun now with the joystick if you design your aircraft well (I might make a tutorial on that). The physics are actually very good (heli's feel like real life) and the new SAS in the latest update is GREAT! Way to go Squad. I wish they would implement a better chase cam though, the current one is unusable for aircraft.

I'm going to be playing on the planet for a while now.

BTW just landed on the control tower!

[joeh100]

You can save different setup files for ppjoy, one for aircraft and one for rockets, but I still have to exit the game, go into settings, and switch my roll and yaw controls for some reason. If you could change settings without exiting to the main menu that would be great.

I added another video to show some pinpoint landings too. http://youtu.be/0Y6zvx7HkHM

[Mokmo]

Pretty neat flying.

Description of the first video says you were using a RC controller, i didn't know the throttle reacted so well.

(Makes me want to get my joystick out to try, had a gamepad in 0.21 but was mostly for spaceflight)

[joeh100]

It does; RC heli's require a lot of throttle control and so do airplanes when 3D flying. So there is some skill involved here, it's not just like hooking up a joystick will magically make you a great pilot.

The good news is if you practice in KSP and get good you can fly RC heli's and quadcopters in real life (keep SAS off though). If you could set up a fixed camera position it would be a great RC practice simulator, assuming you set up your joystick correct. For example, it would be a disaster if you got good in KSP with your yaw and roll reversed and then tried to fly a model in real life, where the controls are different.

You don't have to have a RC controller though. I have flown great in other flight simulators with a joystick that has a twist rudder. There is a lot of subtle rudder input required to keep a craft balanced. Almost impossible with the keyboard without SAS enabled. Anyway the controls translate well between the two controllers, so it's easy to go from one to the other.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Very impressive. I need to get my joystick out and see how I can get it working. I tried my dual stick game pad and that was a disaster. But I think it's a little wonky as it "twitches" a bit and KSP might have been reading those signals, as I kept flipping over for no reason.

[TYRT]

I think joystick is an important issue. SQUAD must add joystick controls to the game.

[Arsonik]

I have a very old Logitech joy that works natively with KSP. It makes flying planes a lot more fun... I wasn't fond of using it for rockets or landers however. Anyways, being some 10 years old one of the axis (roll in my config) is going bad so I can't really use it to fly anymore. However, the throttle stick on the joystick as well as its buttons and inputs work just fine still. I keep the joy connected just for the throttle alone. And I have some 20 buttons on it that I have tied to various functions in the game thanks to the ability to bind an input to more then one key.

I couldn't go back to playing without it. Throttling with shift and ctrl is to much of a fuss for me now. I don't even need the engine shutoff button.... I just flick my throttle stick down and it does the same thing. And allows for such a higher level of throttle precision.

In spite of all this, SQUAD does need to better support joysticks. Linearity and other things should be added for finer tuning of joystick axis' and such. Perhaps a way to load different joystick settings for each aircraft as well. This would be a huge help, perhaps a way to save different joy settings and load them in the VAB or tie them to individual craft. This is very important because different crafts call for different levels of deadzone, sensitivity, linearity, etc. Or you will simply crash out right. As it is, the fact that I cannot even access my input settings from anywhere in game other then the main menu is a huge annoyance. I've been hoping for the ability to change inputs from in-game since I started playing in .18