What types of slide/bank controls do you use?

[kakhome1]

The question petty much speaks for itself (though it's presumed forward/backward/turning/pitching are used at bare minimum, and are used in conjunction with any sliding/banking when appropriate); don't really think there is anything else to explain. I'm currently on the second-to-last option, but hoping to improve & develop a more fluid scheme at some point.

[Sirius]

Does "two-button slide" mean the "slide on" control?

[kakhome1]

Yes, means you use that and do not use slide left/right/up/down controls.

Changed this in the relevant items to be clear.

[Xfing]

WSAD for sliding, numeric keypad for pitching, Shift and Ctrl to accelerate and go in reverse and Q and E to rotate. EZ

[kakhome1]

What are your Afterburner and banking keys (I take rotate as being turn; if not what are your turning keys)? And to primary/secondary fire + drop bomb? It might be worth me trying.

[ShivanHunter]

FPS-like WASD, Q/E for banking, shift/ctrl for sliding up and down. Still need to bind afterburner (I rarely ever play D2). Maybe spacebar since missiles are RMB

[Xfing]

Nope, by rotating I meant banking. Pitching and turning is WSAD, as I wrote above. Afterburner is 0 on the numeric keypad, toggle bomb is + on the numeric keypad as well, while primary fire is left alt. Secondary fire is z, flare is x and drop bombs is c.

I find this a good layout since you don't have to reach far to get any button, everything is right under your fingertips.

[CDN_Merlin]

3d pro setup.
Hat - slide
stick twist - bank
stick forward/backward - pitch
stick left/right - yaw
A-Z - forward and reverse

[Krom]

3d pro setup.
Hat - slide
stick twist - bank
stick forward/backward - pitch
stick left/right - yaw
A-Z - forward and reverse

Same, but on a precision pro instead.

Also C - afterburner.
spacebar - fire secondary
trigger - fire primary

Good control setup because you can move the ship in any way it can move and fire all weapons without moving your fingers from their at rest positions.

[Sirius]

In more detail:
Pitch/yaw mouse (Y inverted to match most FPS games)
Primary/secondary fire on mouse buttons
Sliding E/S/D/F
Banking W/R
Forward Spacebar, backward A, burner Z
Bombs on B (I don't use them as much as some people)

[kakhome1]

What is Hat and A-Z on a joystick? I've also never heard of using both Keyboard and Joystick. (Only heard of Keyboard/Mouse.) I don't know where you'd put the two to both be easily reachable.

Also (to anyone on here) what are your keys to select weapons? Keyboard 1-0 might not always be most convenient, don't know if it's standard or not...

[kakhome1]

Also BTW my current control scheme (keyboard only) has been:

A/Z = Forward/back
Arrows = Turn/pitch (This & occasionally selecting a secondary is the ONLY thing my right hand takes care of; everything else is left hand)
Left alt = Slide on
S = Afterburner
F = Flare
T = Converter
B = Drop bomb
Left ctrl = Fire primary
Space = Fire secondary
1-0 = Select weapons

And nothing for banking. Seems I need some work!

[ShivanHunter]

Yeah that's the original configuration (or close to it). I used that so much growing up that I tried to remap other games like UT and Quake to use something similar, with predictably disastrous results. Recently came back to Descent after a long time and I was shocked at how unusable it was.

[Alter-Fox]

I do remember this taking a while, and a lot of experimentation, to come up with; but that was years ago.

WASD for forward/back/sliding
LShift & LCtrl for slide up/down
Q & E for bank left/right

Afterburner is middle mouse btw. Would normally be reload weapon in any other FPS since I like to keep all the weapon stuff together, but drop bomb makes more sense to me on spacebar for whatever reason.

[kakhome1]

I'll be glad when I can say 'but that was years ago'. Though actually far more glad when I can merely just say 'but now I've done it'.

Lots of different alternatives to try and see which works best (I appreciate that!)...seems right now I am all alone and by myself on an island located out in the middle of nowhere and far away from anyone else.

[kakhome1]

WSAD for sliding, numeric keypad for pitching...

Pitching and turning is WSAD, as I wrote above.

You had said above (as quoted) that WSAD is for sliding, numeric keypad is pitch/turn - so that leaves me completely unclear (AFAIK slide =/= pitch/turn unless you use the 'slide on' key). Which keys are sliding and which keys are turn/rotate?

[Xfing]

Oh sorry, indeed I made a mess here. I'll give you my full controls rundown.

Pitch Forward: Num5
Pitch Backward: Num8
Turn Left: Num4
Turn Right: Num6
Slide Left: A
Slide Right: D
Slide Up: W
Slide Down: S
Bank Left: Q
Bank Right: E
Fire Primary: LAlt
Fire Secondary: Z
Fire Flare: X
Drop Bomb: C
Rear View: R
Automap: TAB
Accelerate: LShift
Reverse: LCtrl
Afterburner: Num0
Headlight: H
Converter: G
Toggle Bomb: NumDel

[kakhome1]

That's a good list though do you have a second key binded to anything in case your finger is already busy? For instance with A/Q/Z you could not slide or bank left (A/Q) while firing secondary (Z), and also could not both slide and bank left simultaneously.

[vision]

I was keyboard only from 1995 until about six years ago when I added the mouse. The setup below helped me go from Hotshot to Insane. It took a couple weeks of adjustment, but I play better than ever. (I was never able to find a joystick I liked and I feel like I probably play in the upper percentile of pilots with the mouse).

Code: Select all

          Keyboard          Mouse
         
          +-+-+
Slide UP  |Q|W|             Pitch
          +-+-+-+           +-+-+
Slide L/R |A|S|D| Forward   | | | Bank L/R 
          +-+-+-+           +-+-+
Slide DWN |Z|X|C| Reverse   |   |
          +-+-+-+            \_/

Fire primary/seconday with CTL/SPACE

[CDN_Merlin]

What is Hat and A-Z on a joystick? I've also never heard of using both Keyboard and Joystick. (Only heard of Keyboard/Mouse.) I don't know where you'd put the two to both be easily reachable.

Also (to anyone on here) what are your keys to select weapons? Keyboard 1-0 might not always be most convenient, don't know if it's standard or not...

I use the hat on my joystick to slide.
The A/Z keys on my keyboard for movement.
Space for afterburner

I use left hand on left side of KB. Joystick is on right side of KB.
My arms are about 2 feet apart. Have always played this way.

[Krom]

Re: Switching weapons, the precision pro has a couple small buttons to the left of the 8 directional hat switch that I bound to cycle primary and cycle secondary. But otherwise I could quickly and easily tap the number keys on the keyboard with my left hand. Pretty often I'd fly around with concs or homers selected and I'd fire off a couple just to fool people into thinking I wasn't carrying something worse until it was too late for them to dodge.

[kakhome1]

I use the hat on my joystick to slide.
The A/Z keys on my keyboard for movement.
Space for afterburner

I use left hand on left side of KB. Joystick is on right side of KB.
My arms are about 2 feet apart. Have always played this way.

A couple of quick questions:

1) What difficulty do you play Descent on (and have you beaten it no death no save on that difficulty)?

2) What buttons do you use to fire primary/secondary and what fingers do you use for those actions?

3) How large do you make your dead zones; what are your sensitivities (lower range, mid range, or upper range in the Descent menus)?

4) Do you use the throttle on your Joystick and/or the buttons to the left of the stick for anything?

[Sirius]

I think most people who seriously played with one joystick supplemented it with keyboard - there usually aren't enough controls on a joystick base (some exceptions exist). I used to do that myself before I switched to mouse.

[CDN_Merlin]

I use the hat on my joystick to slide.
The A/Z keys on my keyboard for movement.
Space for afterburner

I use left hand on left side of KB. Joystick is on right side of KB.
My arms are about 2 feet apart. Have always played this way.

A couple of quick questions:

1) What difficulty do you play Descent on (and have you beaten it no death no save on that difficulty)?

I haven't played often lately so I play Rookie. I don't normally die.

2) What buttons do you use to fire primary/secondary and what fingers do you use for those actions?

Primary - Trigger
Secondary - Button below hat
Flare - stick side button 1
Change secondaries - stick side button 2

3) How large do you make your dead zones; what are your sensitivities (lower range, mid range, or upper range in the Descent menus)?

No deadzone

4) Do you use the throttle on your Joystick and/or the buttons to the left of the stick for anything?
No throttle

Those I used when playing MechWarrior.

[Descer]

Slide On here. (Right Shift)
I usually (but not allways) stop before bankin' (to set myself with Floor/roof). (Default)

1. Trainee (don't even try).
2. Prim.: Right CTRL (thumb), Sec.: Enter (little) (left hand)
3. Huh?

[kakhome1]

In more detail:
Pitch/yaw mouse (Y inverted to match most FPS games)
Primary/secondary fire on mouse buttons
Sliding E/S/D/F
Banking W/R
Forward Spacebar, backward A, burner Z
Bombs on B (I don't use them as much as some people)

Couple quick questions:

1) What are your mouse sensitivities for pitching and yawing (turning) - is pitch sensitivity set equal to, greater than, or less than yaw sensitivity?

2) Do you use any deadzone?

3) What keys for flares and headlight?

4) What skill do you play on & do you play with no death no save (at least sometimes)?

[Sirius]

1) Mouse sensitivity is 3 notches above the middle - both axes have equal sensitivity. I'm running on 1600 DPI, though I have been considering experimenting with switching on the fly. Apparently Mark392 does that, and it seems like it would be even more useful in D2 given the presence of Gauss and Mercury missiles.
2) No. From what I understand the only place Rebirth/Retro use deadzone for mouse is on flight sim mode, which I don't use - I just use the standard "Rebirth" mode.
3) Flare is G, headlight is H. I don't use headlight very often though.
4) Depends. Hotshot if I just want to cruise, Ace most of the time otherwise (if it's easy like most of D2CS, Insane is a more appropriate challenge though). I rarely intentionally play NDNS (in Hotshot it typically happens anyway) but I have done it, e.g. the D2 level 16 Insane run I recorded a while back. I recall my play-testing runs of Anthology were also Ace NDNS.

[kakhome1]

1) How do I find/adjust DPI of my mouse?

4) Regardless of if you play that way or not, do you think you could beat most original Descent game levels - as well as Obsidian - on Insane NDNS or at least Ace NDNS?

On that topic, who on here does commonly play NDNS Ace or above with their stated controls?

[Sirius]

1) It depends on the model and probably requires you have a gaming mouse. I'm using a Logitech G700 which has software to manage that. The one I use at work does not.

4) Yes, with enough time to memorize the levels. Ace I might be able to wing it, depending on the mission - but Insane probably does require preparation. "No death no save" never really became a thing in Descent until quite recently, which is why I haven't focused on it.

[LightWolf]

I can do Trainee death-save

My main issue with ace and above is that I'm slow to dodge. But I can do pretty well with my controls otherwise.