Steel Battalion Controller Setup

[Flame Soulis]

Hello. I have been working on a setup that allows Steel Battalion Controller owners to pilot their ships via their fancy 40 button controller. While I'm still trying to find out what cased the crashes from an earlier topic (Still no idea what caused them), I do have the controller operational and so far working out pretty well (Did a few runs to Minmus as a test). Here is what I have so far:

At this time, I do not have RCS support, but I had an idea about making the sight change act as RCS if a switch is toggled on. I have also been looking to make RCS/SAS toggles the Oxygen and Filtration switches but due to the fact that the systems can be kept online between missions, it'd become complicated unless I can find a way to resolve that minor issue.

I forgot to add it, but the Gear lever switches 'modes' of control (mostly for the Rover). Neutral is for normal flight (Pedals increase/decrease thrust), 1^st Gear is 'Drive' (Gas pedal acts as gas and Brake acts as brake), with Reverse acting as it would as well. Gears 2 and 3 auto-hold the gas pedal at 50% and 100% respectively. Also to help clarify, Change Camera Mode refers to 'next camera' and Change Camera refers to the actual in-game Change Camera Mode. The reason I slightly renamed this is because I would normally assume Camera Mode to refer to the various types (Chase, Free, Auto, etc) and Change Camera refer to which camera to view from (IVA or normal). I'm also having issues with EVA working with the controller at the moment (save for the actions like grab/user and jump), and some actions obviously still require the mouse (setting points, menus, building, etc).

I was hoping if anyone had any input about the current setup I have so far.

[Javster]

Seems cool! I have an Extreme 3D Pro, it's pretty good, but I rarely use all the buttons. The most valuable thing to me is the throttle. Landing (horizontally or vertically) is so much easier when you have good throttle control.

[Mork]

That does sound pretty kewl. I'm just using my PS3 controller for now, was thinking about getting a Razer Orbweaver to use in conjunction with my Extreme 3D joystick.

[Flame Soulis]

Currently I don't have any RCS controls, which I am hoping to either make a switch to toggle if Sight Change is controlling basic RCS or re-config that the right aiming lever handles it and thrust becomes forward and back. I'm also hoping to add the Fuel Flow Rate Toggle Switch to be a 'half control' switch so that all controls are at half sensitivity. This would be handle for smaller vessels where the sensitivity may be too high.

At this time, when RCS or SAS is engaged, the lights on the controller slowly glow to illustrate that they are online. I was thinking on making the Action buttons do the same for at least the Function buttons. The communication buttons I tend to use more for Science stuff so they are 'use once and over again' so having them be lit would be confusing. I do have an idea on how to combat that though for users who DO use them for important things: I plan to make the OVERRIDE button something you press to engage 'override' mode so you can manually adjust the lights (Pressing them wouldn't cause their action to occur). This may also work for Toggle switches if I choose to use them for RCS/SAS, but I'm hesitant to do that for now until I have the idea at least working.

What other controls/aspects should I look at for this setup?

[Kruleworld]

Not knowing what a Steel Battalion Controller was, i did a quick web search and found it listed under "12 worst game controllers". it made the list mostly because it was only intended for one game only.

[Flame Soulis]

Not knowing what a Steel Battalion Controller was, i did a quick web search and found it listed under "12 worst game controllers". it made the list mostly because it was only intended for one game only.

While it was made for just one game, modders have been able to get it working for many others (like how I got it to work fine with KSP). It is essentially a USB device, but it had no drivers until recently.

From the steam forums, people recommended making the foot pedals for roll with clutch (left pedal) being for SAS hold. I am interested on it but that leaves the rotation lever without much of a purpose, so I'm trying to think about how to work with it since it sounds like an interesting idea, especially with the planes division.

[Guest]

The problem with Steel Battalion controller is that is too much of a departure from your standard aircraft controls, having more in common with what you'd use for driving sims. I've got a HOTAS setup, too, but it's CH, designed for flight sims. Joystick controls pitch and yaw (with a button to swap yaw and roll, for quick switching to plane mode), pedals control roll, throttle controls throttle and the thumbstick controls side translation. Fore/back translation is bound to two buttons on the throttle. It takes 6 axes, dunno how many your controller has.

[Flame Soulis]

The problem with Steel Battalion controller is that is too much of a departure from your standard aircraft controls, having more in common with what you'd use for driving sims. I've got a HOTAS setup, too, but it's CH, designed for flight sims. Joystick controls pitch and yaw (with a button to swap yaw and roll, for quick switching to plane mode), pedals control roll, throttle controls throttle and the thumbstick controls side translation. Fore/back translation is bound to two buttons on the throttle. It takes 6 axes, dunno how many your controller has.

As many as I need. The controller only has 3 pedals, one rotation lever (x axis only) and one aiming lever (X/Y) with a site changer (X/Y/Input), but how they are programmed is a whole different story. For example, in my Hawken setup, when I was doing keybindings, I read the raw data off of the pedals to determine if the key should be pressed or not. For KSP, I have a similar thing happening with the brake pedal for rovers. I guess I could recondition the Gear Lever for throttle, but it is a bit finicky at times.

[uberk]

I just picked up one of these controllers pretty cheap, looking to use it for KSP too. Have you done any more work on it? Does it use a custom .cs file for the driver controller, and if so, would you mind sharing it? Thanks for putting this up, it looks great!