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Ship Flight. Keyboard vs mouse
banikslave
Member Posts: 16 Arc User
This is more out of curiosity. While beta testing the Romulan Character Tutorial, I noticed that the instructions given to newbies is still to steer using the standard WASD.
Personally, I find the ship to be an absolute NIGHTMARE to fly using WASD. The space map is multidimensional, and on top of these keys you have weapons as well. As a newbie I dreaded space battles until someone told me how to steer my ship using the mouse.
Does anyone else find mouse much easier that WASD? I am wondering if that should be the "default" control setting given in the tutorials instead?
Or is it just me :P
Personally, I find the ship to be an absolute NIGHTMARE to fly using WASD. The space map is multidimensional, and on top of these keys you have weapons as well. As a newbie I dreaded space battles until someone told me how to steer my ship using the mouse.
Does anyone else find mouse much easier that WASD? I am wondering if that should be the "default" control setting given in the tutorials instead?
Or is it just me :P
Post edited by banikslave on
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Leaves my right hand free to work the 10+ keys on the numpad that I have bound to offensive powers.
Defensive powers I have bound to the numbers over the letters. I can still easily activate one of those powers while still steering my ship.
My mouse runs on batteries anyways and so the last thing I need is to be dead in space when it dies out! :rolleyes:
You can see how well I control an escort in this vid. Shameless self promotion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZMqh2UBOIU
TBH it is only easy with the capital ships, feasible with shuttles, and difficult with fighters. Same is true for a Freelancer mod I play that has everything from battleships down to light interceptors.
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Bottom line is: change controls the way it fits YOUR gameplay best. It might take a while to configure and fine-tune but it'll be worth the initial hassle. Some people might have valuable or interesting suggestions, just keep an eye out.
Just think JKD: Adopt what is useful, discard what is useless, and add your own.
Good flight!
Besides, in most MMOs, 'keyboard turning' is bad because it is slower. It doesn't really work that way in STO space comabt, since the ships have a set rate of turn.
See, though, I find the opposite to be true. My movements wind up being far more precise in space when I use the mouse as opposed to using WASD. So I think this is an example of YMMV, not an absolute 'this is the correct way and the other method fails'.
In combat, if I want to keep the enemy in sight, I often use the keyboard for turning. Since I use autofire configured to stay active as long as I'm in red alert (and have a target) I don't have to worry about firing weapons, though before I learned how that worked I used to keep mashing the space bar. For certain maneuvers (usually outside of combat) I find the mouse to be a bit more precise since the direction can be fine tuned a little bit better as opposed to using a key press which rotates the ship a set amount, which may be more then I want it to move.
To make boff skills easier to do on my laptop's keyboard, I use the alt+number and shift+number for 2nd/3rd trays instead of ctrl+number.
Could be.
When I try to use the mouse to steer, I'm wobbling all over the place. I can never just turn right or left, I turn up or down too whether I want to or not. That means a lot of time wasted with pointless manoeuvring in a big ship, and my aim being thrown off a lot when flying something nimble with narrow forward firing arcs.
But that could just be me.
I like having a buttons for 'left', 'right', 'up', and 'down'; it means I can give clearer direction to my ship. I don't get that with a mouse.
Again, though; I find it easier to move where I want to by pointing my vessel -exactly- where I want it to go. Which also winds up keeping my narrow-arc Science powers in line a lot more accurately. And as far as I know, all but one of the members of the PVP premade I run weekly do the same!
Both ways are equally valid- Player preference and comfort is what really allows a given player to excel with one over the other.
In PvP however I always use keyboard, less awkward for me.
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-Thomas Marrone
My right hand is almost always on the mouse, pressing tray powers, selecting targets, etc. Sometimes when I'm fighting slower enemies or players I can let go of the mouse and press my keybound tray powers. Row 1 is bound to the numbers, row 2 bound to the F numbers, and row three to the keypad. Row three is where I put my less used/unused/sector space powers. In battle I never maneuver with the mouse.
In space: I use backquote (left of the 1 key) as my fire key which keeps me near the number keys and saves the more important parts of my keyboard from abuse. One ergonomic defect occurs in space, when the game sometimes decides I'm not pressing both mouse buttons. If I don't notice until too late then I slam into stuff (if I hot-key Ramming Speed this is almost a 'benefit'). Another risk is hitting Esc by accident but with practice that very rarely happens. The track pad is close enough to the keyboard to also use my right hand for keyboard zoom-in/out and friend-targeting. The track pad is also always handy for clicking on things, but not when I need to steer. The greatest quality of life improvement to the game since I started is Control-Q/A/Z for pickups.