Friendly Suggestion RE: Controllers

[ArcaneTheWoof]

Look, I know that a lot of people have probably asked for this before. But I wanted to share with you why I uninstalled Starbound.

Keyboards and mice are undoubtedly superior than gamepads for winning certain genres of games. In FPS shooters, competent K/M players dominate competent GP players. And they are the de facto standard for games with complex input mechanics like StarCraft.

For casual players, the keyboard/mouse combo sucks. It's painful over long play sessions. The keyboard requires a lot more manual dexterity for otherwise simple actions, and relies much more heavily on weaker fingers. The mouse is strenuous on the wrist, reacts insanely to startling or high-stress, and puts too great an emphasis on precision. And both of them make games difficult to play from comfortable places, requiring elaborate setups to play in front of a TV instead of hunched over a desk. In addition, the keyboard and mouse are attached to operating system functions that a gamepad isn't (for example, I have died because my mouse left the game window while the game was fullscreen, because that's how Macs work). You can't accidentally alt+tab out of a game using a gamepad.

Starbound doesn't feel like a hardcore game to me. It feels like a game that's meant to be enjoyed, not triumphed over. It's the kind of game I'd like to sit down in my easy chair, turn on my TV, and relax with for awhile. Instead, it's a painful, limiting, frustrating experience. My desk, my desk chair, and my keyboard and mouse are all designed for work, not play; but when I want to play Castle Crashers, I can fire the game over to my TV, plug in my gamepad, and forget that I use my computer to work too.

Starbound seems like a delightful game and I wish I could play it, but it's not playable simply by mapping keyboard/mouse to a game pad. Terraria is perfectly serviceable with a gamepad with only a few tweaks. I'm sure Starbound could be too.

[amyy]

Originally posted by unsavory.maggot:

Can you beam up/down by using Select (Back) to navigate to the side bar, holding the right stick down, and tapping R2 (RT)? Back should change the function of the cursor to focus solely on how hard the stick is pushed down, until R2 (RT) is pressed. (This one focuses on a layout which may be mod specific, but let me know if it works.) As for smart cursor being off -- that should only affect the action layer -- right stick functionality. It's weird that it malfunctions, but this tells me that I should probably change action layers to action sets, for compatibility across devices.

Very good! I've been playing with the configuration here as well. I agree that Left Shift is pretty important for menu nav -- and helpful for precision MM. I'm glad that this configuration has worked well, and your changes are pretty sensible! It's tempting to use that, especially where I prefer to keep Alt Attack on Circle (B). The smart cursor really does make quite a difference in every aspect of combat that I've tried so far. I have to thank Moon for his configuration -- I had no idea that Mouse Region was implemented in Steam, but it's pretty useful!

Here are my changes so far: Square (xbox X) is used for Alt Attack / Use, while short Circle (B) is Interact and long Circle (B) is Drop -- and it makes all the difference. I think I'll change short Triangle (Y) to a long press, to make room for a Left Shift toggle.

cool!
i'll test the beam functionaly in a second, as i'm working on a mod request :P
i'll also have to get used to controller. it reminds me of when i played smash bros (brawl) with my family, and after hundreds of hours of playing with a gamecube controller, using a wiimote felt so unnatural.

[Ascended Mermaid]

There's more work to be done. I just finished adding in a Mech Smart Cursor -- hold Select (Back) to switch to Mech mode. Press Select (Back) again to toggle it off. I may turn that into hold as well, if I find any need to access the side bar while piloting the mech. It doesn't seem like it at the moment. Since the mech cursor has a greater cursor range (preventing any issues with cursor distance for things like sprinting mid-combat), it may even be better for combat outside of the mech, as long as mining isn't a priority. Still, it's more efficient to keep the controls as they are, since the alternative is toggling the mining cursor instead. It's far simpler to toggle once for the mech than a billion times for mining, enemies, mining, etc.

I also changed R2/RT to toggle off the quick menu cursor on release. This means that you now manually have to switch smart cursor off for menu navigation, but it also means that you can beam down to a planet without needing to switch the smart cursor on. One more thing: it eliminates a bug that sometimes causes the quick menu to work incorrectly due to a "simultaneous" instance of Left Mouse + toggle off.

I haven't yet switched the action layers to action sets, mostly because I'm still exploring the issue. I want to visit the possibility that an older version of my configuration may have been uploaded by mistake, for whatever reason. My next guess is that Steam may have a bug that causes Action Layers to be exported (or imported) as Action Sets -- in which case, I should make a report.

Here is the updated version, if you are curious. Make sure to export any personal configurations!
steam://controllerconfig/211820/1256615028

I am considering the possibility of starting my own thread, rather than hijacking a thread that doesn't necessarily suggest a fix being in the works.

[TheSuit]

They said Controller Support for PC will be looked into after th XboX versoin of Starbound releasse.

[amyy]

Originally posted by The | Suit:

They said Controller Support for PC will be looked into after the XboX version of Starbound release.

fixed your typos, but you mean, like ingame controller support? i know there's a official config on steam for it (only for controllers windows supports natively, but it's not hard to install the drivers for controllers that aren't), but i'm not sure how it works in other platforms for it

honestly though, if controller support is going to be added, the game's going to have to be tweaked. even with a really good controls setup, doing stuff feels awkward, kind of like trying to play with a mouse on the left side of the pc (if you're confused on why this would be awkward, i'm left handed.)

[Ascended Mermaid]

All right, I've made a dedicated guide (with links) to my configuration here.

I admit that I've given the official configurations a fair shot -- they felt awkward and did not cover every function necessary to enjoy and play Starbound independently of the Keyboard and Mouse. Menu navigation could be way better. Other games have done these exact menus with full gamepad functionality, without any issues. I still switch to K+M for tasks like selling produce, but now I feel like I can give it my all! Beyond this, I'd like to use the Left Joystick to handle mouse movement *and* character movement simultaneously, while giving the Right Joystick priority/dominance when pushed.