It's a flight game, it needs to support a flight stick. When I tell my buddies that TOR's getting free flight space combat the first thing they ask "It supports a stick right?" and when I say "no" they laugh and say "good luck wit dat".

As cool as I think this feature is, I recognize that this is has niche appeal. And that niche demands flight controls. A side comment at a Cantina Tour hinted that one of the motivations behind GS was to attract new players to TOR. You are seriously handicapping yourself with those players you're trying to attract.

I understand your desire to make it "accessible" and not require people to buy an additional peripheral (er, just a sec, headset cord's all tangled) but I think that's rather misguided. How many people already have an XBox or PSx controller laying around?

As for the "advantage" fallacy, as the game stands now, a headtracker (eg. TrackIR in mouse mode) seems like the killer controller and those aren't cheap (US$150?). Cheap sticks are US$20?

Yes I played GS on the 2nd PTS weekend. Yes I got used to the moue. Yes it still feels very awkward.

For the inevitable "if they spend time adding stick support it'll take time away from new maps" QQ... Maps are content not engine development.

Adding my support for this feature to be added as well.

How can there be free flight WITHOUT a joystick. The current controls are quite terrible.

Other than that, this little addition to the game isn't too bad. Breaks up the monotony of ground dailies a little. UI is nice too. lol

It's a flight game, it needs to support a flight stick. When I tell my buddies that TOR's getting free flight space combat the first thing they ask "It supports a stick right?" and when I say "no" they laugh and say "good luck wit dat".

 

As cool as I think this feature is, I recognize that this is has niche appeal. And that niche demands flight controls. A side comment at a Cantina Tour hinted that one of the motivations behind GS was to attract new players to TOR. You are seriously handicapping yourself with those players you're trying to attract.

^Truth.....way to keep the dropping the ball on helping the game

Re-subbed just for this expansion...should have spent the money on a 12 pack of beer. I can't even begin to reason why you would make an "off the rails" space game (even if its just a pvp arena) and not have flight stick of controller support.

+1

The tutorial wet my appetite (after initially not being interested in GSF at all), but having to use the mouse is a no-go for me. It's incredibly awkward, and would be like trying to drive a racing sim without a steering wheel and pedals.

Damn, was really looking forward to this. Logged in today with a few old guildies who, like me, hadn't been on in weeks/months and bam, no pad/stick support and controls that suck. Played a few rounds, and I must admit I like the space combat, but I can't get round the terrible keyboard setup. Sad.

/puts-SWTOR-back-in-the-unused-icons-folder

Damn, was really looking forward to this. Logged in today with a few old guildies who, like me, hadn't been on in weeks/months and bam, no pad/stick support and controls that suck. Played a few rounds, and I must admit I like the space combat, but I can't get round the terrible keyboard setup. Sad.

 

/puts-SWTOR-back-in-the-unused-icons-folder

Remap your keys! I did so and it improved my experience a lot. I do agree though that the GS experience would benefit from joystick control - at least for me.

What the OP said.

Seriously, this isn't rocket surgery, space sim + joystick = win.

Why is it that apart from story, everything in SWToR is done better in other games?

Remap your keys! I did so and it improved my experience a lot. I do agree though that the GS experience would benefit from joystick control - at least for me.

I did. Didn't help. I simply don't find keyboard controls to be a natural setup for free flight. As I said, it's a shame because apart from that it's quite good.

Yeah

Flightstick support is a must for this expac. I've tried it with the mouse/kb set up and found the controls sloppy. The only ship I can tolerate in that set up is the Gunship. Any mods, or 3rd party programs that will allow me to use my stick with GSF out there?

To the question, "Should our spaceflight game have joystick support?" there is only one correct answer. Only. One.

Somehow Bioware managed to come up with the opposite answer anyway.

Today I dug out my joystick, loaded up the joystick drivers, excitedly logged into TOR, started the tutorial, discovered that my joystick did nothing, and quit the tutorial. This will be my last interaction with GSF until Bioware fixes this glaring error.

Just received reassurance that Star Citizen will have joystick support.

I can now be pretty sure what I will be playing in about a year's time, and it looks like I will be taking an extended break from SWToR...

I was excited about GSF, but now... well, you guys get the idea. If they're not going to make this joystick-compatable, why not make it mouse-friendly?

By mouse-friendly, I mean that moving the mouse to the left should turn your ship a little bit to the left, not send it into a continuous arc until you realign the reticule up with the center. Can we all agree that it's awkward when you're trying to move your ship in someone's direction, but then you have to quickly move your mouse back before it sends you into a 180 degree spin? Like, when I heard that GSF was coming out, I figured the controls would be set up so that you wouldn't have to move your mouse cursor back to the center of the screen to stop turning.

Honestly, anyone who's done space combat without a joystick should know that the best control scheme is one where the ship only turns when you move the mouse. There's no readjustment required for it to start flying straight, controls aren't as sloppy, and it's easier to fly/zero-in on enemies. With the way the controls work now, you'd think that it was designed with joysticks in mind.

So my advice is to do three things:

1: Create a new mouse-friendly control system, where moving the mouse will only turn your ship as long as you're moving the mouse in that direction.

2: Add software that makes the game joystick-compatable (which will work great with the current system)

3: Add a new selection in the Starfighter area of Preferences: Joystick-Friendly or Mouse-Friendly control schemes

Actually, got a fourth thing to add: the keyboard controls need to be edited a bit. Like strafing is a little... slow; need to improve on that. And how about adding in a pair of controls that turn your ship 90 degrees left & right? Like Q could make us to a hard left, and E would do a hard right? Just so that if the mouse wasn't turning you fast enough, there was a backup available.

Seems completely lacking to not have joystick or game pad controls as an option.

I mean seriously, Roll, Pitch, Yaw. A few button mapping options. C'mon dev's! How could you possibly not think that it would be a good option to roll out with an expansion like this? The mouse controls were 'okay' in the space mission side, but that was more like being a gunner on a roller-coaster than it was being a pilot.

This is probably my biggest disappointment ever with this game (been playing since beta). I'm utterly shocked to not see joystick controls.

as i haven't tried it out yet, i have to ask is GS in First person (Cockpit view) or Third person (exterior view)?.. if it's in First i say it needs a Flight Stick, if it's in third, then Mouse Controls should be fine like in FreeLancer and a Flight Stick would just be awkward at least to me, Flight Sticks and 3rd Person don't mix well in my experience, but Flight Sticks and 1st Person mix like Chocolate and Peanut Butter...

It is 3rd person.. There is no cockpit view.. GS doesn't need joystick or controller support.. The controls and perspective is very similar to what we had before patch.. The only difference is, no more rails.. Other than that, exactly the same..

Whew. As the owner of a HOTAS + pedals setup, I'm torn on this one. While it will add immersiveness for me and the handful of other people coming from flight simulators, it will create balancing issues. They either implement perfect joystick controls and will put the 98 or 99% of consumers who play it with mouse&keyboard at a disadvantage, or they do what many flight action games, flight sim lites (or racing games) do; give keyboard users small, possibly hidden aiming and/or steering aids.

Not necessarily against joystick support, just be careful what you ask for.

I just want mapping to the yaw, pitch and roll. It would change GS from a shooter to a flight game.

But if a shooter is what they wanted all along, then they totally 100% misinterpreted why everyone was so upset with bioware when they announced an on rails space game for swtor.