What control schemes are people using?

[Canageek]

#5915

OH.

I’m reading the manual and the keyboard controls are….archaic. Complicated.

This is REALLY meant to be played with a joystick, isn’t it? I don’t have one, and even if I did, I doubt I’d be able to use it with a game from the 90s easily.

How are other people controlling this game? Keyboard? Is there a way to get dosbox to work with a modern joystick? Can I use my xbox controller in some manner (probably not well, as it seems to assume you’ll have a hand on the keyboard even with a joystick).

[Jozxyqk]

#5916

Joystick/gamepad should work out of the box with dosbox. Plug in (or connect via bluetooth) the controller to the pc, check if your os has detected it properly, start dosbox, configure the game to use a joystick, and you should be good to go.

There’s also quite a few remapping options:

https://www.dosbox.com/DOSBoxManual.html#Joystick

[Canageek]

#5917

Thanks. Would work if I had a joystick, but it seems to really want you to have a hand on the keyboard (it turns out my girlfriend played a LOT of Mechwarrior 2 when she was younger and says that is pretty essential, so a controller probably wouldn’t work very well)

[Mr Creosote]

#5918

Personally, keyboard all the way. I love the way they set up heading plus torso control all on the numpad, so that both can be handled with just the right hand. Left hand on shift/z/spacebar for zooming and firing. Occasionally travelling to the numbers for speed, navpoints, targetting etc.

Honestly, I struggle to understand how you can call this “archaic”. If you were a developer, how would you set up this many functions in “modern” ways? It’s a real question, I haven’t played later parts of the series, so maybe they had some amazing idea?

[Canageek]

#5921

Probably WASD + Mouse to be honest, scroll to zoom, and simply the options a lot.

I’m expected to use the Insert/Page Up/Page Down/Delete cluster for jumpjets? No. Just stop. That is nuts.

[Mr Creosote]

#5922

You can use the mouse plus cursor keys, you know. While good for exact aim, I find it inconvenient as the left hand (controlling heading) has to regularly leave the cursor keys in that setup to access all the other functions. Controlling heading + torso on the numpad solves this nicely.

Scroll wheel for zoom for sure sounds like a great idea, though! Then, if the mouse had a couple of more buttons (to activate schematic camera, switch nav point and cycle through enemies, activate jump jets etc.), it could work. In the end, you need keys somewhere 😉

[Kazashi]

#5924

For most playthroughs I tend to stick with the keyboard and default mapping. It isn’t the most accurate, as I jerkily try to move the reticle around, but I still get by. I can’t remember if I actually ever tried it with a joystick, I think I left that for later games in the series.

[firefyte]

#5929

I played this years ago with a thrustmaster WCS (mark 1 that worked like a keyboard) and joystick, and it wasn’t all too great back then, I preferred ‘only’ keyboard.

If you use dosbox, you can just remap everything to wherever you want, so remember that!