Controls

[Oddity]

Is there a mouse control option because total keyboard control is definetly not my usual for any flight game.

[[LM]crashy]

It is not possible to play with mouse only, but you can play with keyboard.

[Adragan]

At the moment is only keyboard.. not mouse/keyboard.. the mouse is just for camera view..

As a Feedback after my purchase and some playing time.. i can say that i love the background.. the style and the jokes.. but a mixture of Mouse/Keyboard for the dogfight will be (in my opinion) a very good improvement for the game.

Maybe its because im used to M/K for all the "plane" games that i play.. but i find it a little bit awful when it comes to a dogfight.. well just at the begining of the campaing.. when you have to escort the big plane against the Amazon Pirates (I love them..) i had to restart the mission like eight times.. because of the movement..

AGAIN, its not that ta game is wrong (Also its in Alpha) its that im used to Mouse/Keyboard to move my plane.. and to change that now.. its not easy..

I have to say it again.. apart form the controls.. i love the fraking game.. good jokes.. good story.. good background.. if you ever loved Dieselpunk.. this is the game..

[Potato]

I feel that a flight-game should at least have the options to for mouse and keyboard. This game looks absolute wonderful but I feel somewhat unsure to fetch the early-access because of it "lacking" in mouse and keyboard, please consider giving a wider range of ways to play the game.

[Oddity]

M/K dual controls are definetly a must, this game is great but the lack of mouse control makes it like flying a mack truck for me, otherwise good game.

[[LM]crashy]

Thank you for your feedback. I guess I'd need to play a lot to War thunder with mouse to see how they have implemented mouse control.

[Artillery Horse]

It needs mouse control, the keys are ackward, cumbersome and not fun...

[Clownsanity]

I would prefer mouse too over keyboard or gamepad or joystick but the problem is that a mouse player would have some advantage vs joystick/pads players just because aiming with a mouse is far more precise, beside of simple game mechanics the mouse/stick/keyboard question involve also balancing.

[[LM]crashy]

We have made a fast, primitive and hidden version of a mouse control in the upcoming Mk IIIa.
To enable this mouse controll you'll need to unbind both pitch & roll axis bindings and also the pitch & roll key/button bindings.

This is quite different from the War Thunder mouse control which, I think, is bad because it makes aiming easier when playing versus people that are using joysticks/pad.

But of course, we're listening for your feedbacks !

[Adragan]

Wow.. yeah.. so different from WT.. and every other game i played hahah xD

It worked.. but.. mouse only? i tried to fly but i couldn't stabilize the plane.. so i was upside down.. and "stumbling" trying to go in a straight line.. and just in the first chapter "Spam" mission.. i don't want to think in a dogfight with that..

With keyboard only i have little to none accuracy.. with this primitive as you say mouse only.. y have none to never accuracy on going in a straight line hahaha

Other thing.. maybe its because of the update.. but my saved game was litearally destroyed.. the game crashed when i tried to resume.. and thats why i was on "Spam".. start over again..

I can understand the "advantage" of K/M over J-pad.. its always the same in every single multiplayer game.. but now.. with the mouse only.. just in my opinion.. its unplayable.. at least i can go back to keyboard only.. but it will be great an hybrid.. at least for the Campaing.. at least for the ones that dont want to play on multiplayer..

ANOTHER THING TO SAY, its enjoyable that the devs listen to the players and try to fix this things as soon as they can.. come on.. 3-4 days and they just try to change the controls for the wish of players? doing some tests.. and listen to the feedback? THATS GREAT!! Yeah, its a early access and all that ♥♥♥♥.. but i've been in some alphas and betas.. that the devs never had listened to the players..

[Joe "Blondy" Manco]

Is this game format for a joystick? and if so, what kind?

[[LM]crashy]

@Steve: you can use whatever joystick or gamepad you want.

@Adragan: Thank you for your feedback !
I've played a bit more to WT and I think that, even if this control type may advantage mouse users, it is the only one suitable.
So I started working on it :)
Stay tuned !

[ℓσηgѕнσt]

Ok, initial feedback on the new Mouse Aim control.

The good - camera rolls with the aircraft. Feels so much more natural than the way WT does it with the camera staying level.

The so-so - the mouse circle responds in a jerky glitchy fashion to mouse movements. Instead of smoothly traversing across the screen, it stutters.

The bad - mouse aim overrides keyboard. In War Thunder its the other way around - if a rudder or elevator key is pressed then the plane responds to the keys only and not to the mouse, so you can move the mouse where-ever you like (including using it to look around) and the plane will still only obey your keyboard command. As soon as you release the keys it tries to align with your mouse again. This is far more natural and powerful than Bomb's implementation, where the keyboard is pretty much useless. There are a ton of maneuvers I can perform in WT that I can't do in Bomb right now because of this.

Also needing improvement:-
- no free look keystroke that lets you pan the camera around.
- no zoom function (that I know of). Hence enemy planes are small dots until they're suddenly zoom at & past you, then dots again, and you can't tell what they're doing.
- red circle around enemy plane is too thick and intrusive. Would be better if it was larger but thinner.
- no HUD information on my air speed or altitude or throttle.
- I can fly directly upwards at low throttle for as long as I want. Surely at some point I need to be able to stall. Not being able to do so again robs me of a host of potential maneuvers and tactics. No rope-a-dope in Bomb :\
- no distance indicator on enemy aircraft, so I have no idea of range or whether the enemy's approaching or flying away.

All these things would greatly add to gameplay in my opinion, without in any way detracting from the arcade look & feel.

[[LM]crashy]

Thank you for this feedback, this will be a great help !

The so-so - the mouse circle responds in a jerky glitchy fashion to mouse movements. Instead of smoothly traversing across the screen, it stutters.

Yes, we will improve the mouse mouvement smoothing.

The bad - mouse aim overrides keyboard. In War Thunder its the other way around - if a rudder or elevator key is pressed then the plane responds to the keys only and not to the mouse, so you can move the mouse where-ever you like (including using it to look around) and the plane will still only obey your keyboard command. As soon as you release the keys it tries to align with your mouse again. This is far more natural and powerful than Bomb's implementation, where the keyboard is pretty much useless. There are a ton of maneuvers I can perform in WT that I can't do in Bomb right now because of this.

This is what I was going to implement.
In fact what I am targetting is a mouse+keyboard control:
-Use keys to do most of maneuvers, in my case this would be the wasd keys for thrust and roll, and a & e for yaw.
-Use mouse for pitch and more precise yaw control.
I think this should be fine with such controls.

- no free look keystroke that lets you pan the camera around.

I will add a toggle key to enable mouse look when pressed.

- no zoom function (that I know of). Hence enemy planes are small dots until they're suddenly zoom at & past you, then dots again, and you can't tell what they're doing.

There is a key mapping for that. You can find it in the "view" tab of the options menu. But there is no way to map it to a mouse button right now.

- red circle around enemy plane is too thick and intrusive. Would be better if it was larger but thinner.

This is really a matter of personal taste. But we are going to add a transparency slider in the options menu to change..the transparency of labels and icons.

- no HUD information on my air speed or altitude or throttle.

There is an airspeed, throttle and gauge indicator on the HUD. This is enabled by default but if this is not displayed in your case, you can toggle various HUD visiblitiy modes by pressing the backspace key multiple times (this is the default binding).
We are considering adding an altitude indicator.

- I can fly directly upwards at low throttle for as long as I want. Surely at some point I need to be able to stall. Not being able to do so again robs me of a host of potential maneuvers and tactics. No rope-a-dope in Bomb :\

This shouldn't be the case, stall in BOMB is not as "violent" as in harcore simulatiors, but you can in fact stall when climbing with thrust set to idle.
As it seems you don't have the throttle indicator on the HUD, maybe the thrust is not reacting as you think it is.( erm, this is not really clear and is not meant to be offensive, I've just some kind of difficulites to explain my thoughts in english).

- no distance indicator on enemy aircraft, so I have no idea of range or whether the enemy's approaching or flying away.

We'll discuss about this internally. This is an implemented feature, but we're not displaying it right now.

[ℓσηgѕнσt]

Originally posted by LMcrashy:

The bad - mouse aim overrides keyboard...

This is what I was going to implement.
In fact what I am targetting is a mouse+keyboard control:
-Use keys to do most of maneuvers, in my case this would be the wasd keys for thrust and roll, and a & e for yaw.
-Use mouse for pitch and more precise yaw control.
I think this should be fine with such controls.

Great, I look forward to the next iteration. Happy to provide as much feedback as you need :)

- no free look keystroke that lets you pan the camera around.

I will add a toggle key to enable mouse look when pressed.

Thanks :)

- no zoom function (that I know of). Hence enemy planes are small dots until they're suddenly zoom at & past you, then dots again, and you can't tell what they're doing.

There is a key mapping for that. You can find it in the "view" tab of the options menu. But there is no way to map it to a mouse button right now.

Ok I'll go looking. Mouse scroll wheel for zoom would be particularly nice.

- no HUD information on my air speed or altitude or throttle.

There is an airspeed, throttle and gauge indicator on the HUD. This is enabled by default but if this is not displayed in your case, you can toggle various HUD visiblitiy modes by pressing the backspace key multiple times (this is the default binding).

We are considering adding an altitude indicator.

Ok, this obviously related to my following comments about stalling. Yes I saw no HUD at all by default - I'll see if I can turn it on using backspace as you suggested.

- no distance indicator on enemy aircraft, so I have no idea of range or whether the enemy's approaching or flying away.

We'll discuss about this internally. This is an implemented feature, but we're not displaying it right now.

Please consider this a formal request on my part :) It would definitely add to the gameplay!

[[LM]crashy]

The last patch has been made for you ! (Ok, it's not only for you, but please believe we're doing this especially for you :) )

The zoom isn't on the mouse wheel as you requested, but this may change if you don't like the current setup.
Thanks.