xbox controller

[gxsmith]

Hey Guys, can I use a xbox 360 controller to control my plane? If so, how do I install it? thanks for any help

[Mudman]

I wouldn't recommend it. You can look at a thread entitled "does not have full controller support" below, in which someone reminds me it is possible, but RoF is best flown with a stick.

[Jorri]

Hi gxsmith,

It's certainly possible. But these planes require a lot of coordination with the rudder, so it's certainly not easy. If you try it out, it's best to practice it with a relatively easy plane like Albatros D.Va.

One advantage is that the second joystick makes looking around very easy.

How I would assign my controls:

Throttle and radiator: both assigned to the bumpers. Throttle open means radiator open, throttle closed means radiator closed.

Fuel mixture: on the D-pad (you don't need this on the Albatros)

Ailerons and elevator: left joystick

Rudder: use the triggers!

Blip switch (temporarily cut the ignition on rotary engines, very useful): clicking down the left joystick

Looking around (panning): right joystick

Zooming in and out: D-pad

And the four remaining keys: reload guns, fire guns, start/stop engine, drop bomb.

If you want to know how to assign your controls, the manual should be able to help as well.

Once again, flying coordinated manoeuvres with an Xbox controller will take quite a bit more practice than doing so with a joystick. The rudder is absol;utely essential, that's why I assigned it to the triggers.

[Von Adder]

Originally posted by Jorri:

Hi gxsmith,

It's certainly possible. But these planes require a lot of coordination with the rudder, so it's certainly not easy. If you try it out, it's best to practice it with a relatively easy plane like Albatros D.Va.

One advantage is that the second joystick makes looking around very easy.

How I would assign my controls:

Throttle and radiator: both assigned to the bumpers. Throttle open means radiator open, throttle closed means radiator closed.

Fuel mixture: on the D-pad (you don't need this on the Albatros)

Ailerons and elevator: left joystick

Rudder: use the triggers!

Blip switch (temporarily cut the ignition on rotary engines, very useful): clicking down the left joystick

Looking around (panning): right joystick

Zooming in and out: D-pad

And the four remaining keys: reload guns, fire guns, start/stop engine, drop bomb.

If you want to know how to assign your controls, the manual should be able to help as well.

Once again, flying coordinated manoeuvres with an Xbox controller will take quite a bit more practice than doing so with a joystick. The rudder is absol;utely essential, that's why I assigned it to the triggers.

If it can be mapped, then why not add it to the game? A lot of people play pc games on HDTV's these days including myself, and a controller just makes life easier. RoF whilst aiming for realism doesn't actually need a joystick, a well mapped controller would do the job perfectly.

[Jorri]

This is the first time that Rise of Flight has reached a group of (potential) customers that would even consider not using a joystick :) so yeah that face might just be the catalyst that will cause them to add actual full controller support?

[Von Adder]

Originally posted by Jorri:

This is the first time that Rise of Flight has reached a group of (potential) customers that would even consider not using a joystick :) so yeah that face might just be the catalyst that will cause them to add actual full controller support?

I play with a joystick atm, but tbh i only utilise a few of it's buttons, nothing that can't be controller mapped, the annoying thing is having to sit right up front of my 52" HDTV :)

[gxsmith]

Thanks for all the input, I appreciate it.

[Klax75]

Originally posted by Jorri:

Hi gxsmith,

It's certainly possible. But these planes require a lot of coordination with the rudder, so it's certainly not easy. If you try it out, it's best to practice it with a relatively easy plane like Albatros D.Va.

One advantage is that the second joystick makes looking around very easy.

How I would assign my controls:

Throttle and radiator: both assigned to the bumpers. Throttle open means radiator open, throttle closed means radiator closed.

Fuel mixture: on the D-pad (you don't need this on the Albatros)

Ailerons and elevator: left joystick

Rudder: use the triggers!

Blip switch (temporarily cut the ignition on rotary engines, very useful): clicking down the left joystick

Looking around (panning): right joystick

Zooming in and out: D-pad

And the four remaining keys: reload guns, fire guns, start/stop engine, drop bomb.

If you want to know how to assign your controls, the manual should be able to help as well.

Once again, flying coordinated manoeuvres with an Xbox controller will take quite a bit more practice than doing so with a joystick. The rudder is absol;utely essential, that's why I assigned it to the triggers.

Just curious, I use my X-Box controller for racing and I had to make it so the triggers would work at the same time as different axis. But in Rise of Flight, the tiggers now only go one way if I use them for rudder. So set them for rudders hit the right trigger the rudder goes right, but if I hit the left trigger nothing happens. Any suggestions?

[startrekmike]

I knew ROF was going to have some issues when it hit steam, the problem really lies in the expecations of the general gamer, they see ROF on steam and think that you SHOULD be able to play it perfectly with either a mouse and keyboard or a gamepad, this is not the case at the moment and probably won't really ever be, at least not in any meaningful way.

First, lets clear some things up.

1.) it is "technically" possible to play ROF with a keyboard/mouse just as it is "technically" possible to play ROF with a gamepad, there are some folks who will tell you that using either of those will "workd perfectly" and they might be overstating things more than a little bit.

2.) ROF was built with joysticks in mind, most joysticks and HOTAS systems have pretty much identical basic designs and as such most real flight sims are built with the range of joystick axis's in mind, that is not even getting into the need for a proper and accurate rudder axis in order to actually fly these planes properly.

3.) A gamepad may have sticks but they are not the same as a joystick axis, they have much shorter ranges and often have pretty heavy deadzones, this makes them work with your average game really well but makes them poor for flight sims where extremely precise movement is a must, you just can't get that precision with a tiny stick, you will almost always overdo your inputs.

4.) The rudder issue is huge in ROF, if you can bind your controller triggers to act as rudders, cool but if not, you are going to have a really hard time with some planes, heck, just abvout every aircraft in ROF with a rotary engine RELIES on precise rudder control just for basic steering.

5.) On a final note about keyboards, I can't think of a flight sim that really works with a keyboard very well, the keys are either full on or full off, there is no gradiant level of control so you are going to have a terrible time in ROF if you try to go that way.

Overall, ROF (like most realistic flight sims) is built for a joystick, you don't need a super expensive one for ROF, you don't need a ton of buttons but you do need that full range of very precise movement that only a proper joystick can give you.

[Klax75]

Thanks for the info, I got it working. I just have to remember to start a certain profile for the controller that makes the triggers the same axis. Then change it back for when I race. I do have a full HOTAS (Minus pedals) I'm disabled and it's a pain setting that up everytime. :) I was hardcore in to online Flight sims in my younger days. Air Warrior when 80% of the screen was taken up by 2D games. lol

[srutherford1172]

i find that in trying to configure a logitech xbox style controller that every time I set it up, the game changes things that I configure so I find that instead of turning left, I instead look dtraight down..... etc even though I know I didnt set it up like that and when I look at the configureation map it shows it as being the way that I set it up.

[Mhiester]

There is built in support for Xbox 360 controllers (tried it once out of curiosity)

It kind of sucks, and like some people above said, there's no way in hell you can do it with full realism settings

[~RamZiel~]

Originally posted by Jorri:

Hi gxsmith,

It's certainly possible. But these planes require a lot of coordination with the rudder, so it's certainly not easy. If you try it out, it's best to practice it with a relatively easy plane like Albatros D.Va.

One advantage is that the second joystick makes looking around very easy.

How I would assign my controls:

Throttle and radiator: both assigned to the bumpers. Throttle open means radiator open, throttle closed means radiator closed.

Fuel mixture: on the D-pad (you don't need this on the Albatros)

Ailerons and elevator: left joystick

Rudder: use the triggers!

Blip switch (temporarily cut the ignition on rotary engines, very useful): clicking down the left joystick

Looking around (panning): right joystick

Zooming in and out: D-pad

And the four remaining keys: reload guns, fire guns, start/stop engine, drop bomb.

If you want to know how to assign your controls, the manual should be able to help as well.

Once again, flying coordinated manoeuvres with an Xbox controller will take quite a bit more practice than doing so with a joystick. The rudder is absol;utely essential, that's why I assigned it to the triggers.

This. Also need to adjust input curves. Playing 360 controller myself, and with proper adjustments it's good.

[Adie Killgore]

thanks for the help, however, I was not able to assign the rudders to the triggers, game didn't want to take the second trigger, only took one

[~RamZiel~]

Originally posted by The Game Explorer:

thanks for the help, however, I was not able to assign the rudders to the triggers, game didn't want to take the second trigger, only took one

Did you tried to play the game with that setup? Because for me it works this way. Trigger are on the same axis, so basically they sending one signal, but one with minus, and other with plus.