DescentBB

Hi all,

Is it possible to play descent 3 with 2 analog joysticks ( 1 in left hand and 1 in right hand )
And thus having wicked control.

If it is possible what good joysticks are out there that can be used for both the left and right hand?

Regards,

FlawlesS

These are both USB, but these are Gameport

You can use any right hand joystick with a CH Pro Throttle
as seen above with the M$ Precision 2

click the pic to see the rest, Btw VELCRO is your Friend!!!

Oh, you can buy other controllers out there for half the price with 100x's the fustration and 100th the lifespan... you get what you pay for.... the Gameport throttle i have is from 1999.. still running like a champ, the USB throttle is from 2002 both are used for descent

I've done the dual thing before, with a logitech 2.4 wireless for the right hand, and left hand a saitek cyborg evo. The cyborg is reversible, the logitech is right hand only. I found that it worked ok, but its not the best for descent, at least for me. I had it set up with the right joystick doing all pivoting, and the left doing all sliding/moving.

Plus side:

- very precise motion. Good for sniping because you can aim by sliding.

- good for playing against noobs because I couldn't fly worth sh*t with it.

Minus side:

- slow to change direction, have to move the js from one extreme to the other. Always end up at the extremes of js travel because I want full velocity at all times. Mapped motion to left js buttons too, might as well use the keyboard.

- I used js left and right for sliding, forward/back for forward and back, and twist for up and down. The twist was confusing, and I quit using the setup before I got used to it.

thx for the reply. Would it be possible to have a button on both Joysticks that toggles from analog to absolute ( digital ) movement? to counter the slow changing directions/ hars tugging on the joysticks

Thats one of the things that is impressive about D3, the way it handles controls, you don't have to do anything but connect two joysticks to your PC and you can use both in the game.

If you have an all CH setup like the one in the picture at the bottom of my site, I have programed for some flight sim games a sensitivity/gain toggle into it for combat/std flight

ok bubbalou,

thats some mean looking setup you got there.
makes me think I got crap at home

respect

Ok bubbalou,

I hope you dont mind but I am seriously considering your setup. How muhc would something like this cost me? And I mean only the controlers.

It's been soo long since I played descent and this will get me back in the game, I am sure of it.
With or without VR goggles

I use a dual anolog gamepad from Belkin http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductP ... _Id=104594

The thing I like about it is that its fully customisable and you can use any key as a shift button so for example L1 is fire primary and "shift" + L1 is select primary. I use the D-pad for Pivot and the 4 buttons on the left for sliding. And the joystics are mapped the same. I have them setup so that they will move the ship VERY slowly. If I wanted to I could have a shift mode so that when I go into it and i press a movement butto it will pulse very fast and olny move the ship slowly.

FlawlesS wrote:Ok bubbalou,

I hope you dont mind but I am seriously considering your setup. How muhc would something like this cost me? And I mean only the controlers.

It's fairly pricey but the way Bubba jacks off over it you'd think it were made of solid gold or something...

It's been soo long since I played descent and this will get me back in the game, I am sure of it.
With or without VR goggles

A dual analog stick and VR goggles setup would kick arse in the immersion department!

yes, I do like to make is sound like CH is better than sliced bread. For good reason... I have gone through at least 13 joysticks before my first purchase of a CH product. With a 3 year warranty, pots, and switches that are rated for 3 million cycles.. quality = quality

I fwent to the CH Pro Throttle(USB) to use with my XP machine and M$ Precision 2 (USB) for $105. Since the gameport version that I already had was not programmable in XP, so with that... throttle (gameport) and 3DPro went upstairs to the 98SE box.

Then I added USB Pro Pedals for $107 and purchased the USB Combatstick for $80. Both about a year later, because it was a extremely difficult to play any Hardcore/Flightsims with a Descent/Freespace only setup.

Everything was purchased from 3 different sites for the best prices

I have had the Gameport version of the Combastick and was happy with it and gave it away to a friend in hawaii (I used it for almost 7 years)

I've liked dual joystick setups since Mechwarrior 2 first came out. However, not many games support it. I happened upon a Playstation dual flightstick and haven't looked back.

It doesn't have the greatest sensitivity, and the deadzone is a bit bigger than I'd like. This is probably a mechanical limitation of the stick, so I'll deal with it.

But in the future, if the thing ever dies (and I'm not likely to find another easily) I'll probably go with two cheap sticks and velcro. I've had to superglue the plates that hold down the rubber stick surrounds (like 4 little plastic rivets would hold? Pfeh.) This only affected it's ability to recenter (the rubber is like a spring). Otherwise the stick is bulletproof. It weighs about 4 pounds, not quite on par with CH stuff, but much heftier than Saitek Cyborgs.

I've got the left stick as slide up/down and left/right, four buttons are fwd, back, AB, and rearview. Right stick is pitch and heading, four buttons are pri, sec, flare, and buttbombs. I only use the HAT for banking, used to have it set to toggle weapons but that sucked, and I found a better solution with a $10 USB keypad and a key remapping script.

I use velcro... it rocks

BUBBALOU wrote:I use velcro... it rocks

LOL ...that only took ..what.. 30 years?