Without useing the joystick, how do you think would be the most comfortable to control a spaceship in 3d space? I am leaning to all keyboard myself. like the ship thrust could be controled with w/x/a/d/e/c and the rotations could be controlled with the numpad 8/2/4/6/7/9 Im going to have customizeable keybinds, i guess what im gettting at is, should I try to have mouse support? Ill see if I can whip up a demo to demonstrate my movement ideas.

How about this
W forward
S backward
A left (slide) thrust
D right (slide) thrust
Q roll left
E roll right

The numberpad could be a good idea, I never use it in games (''cept Falcon4)
Remeber tho the more you have to move your hands on the keyboard, the more chances you have of screwing up your aim (flight path, targeting, etc.)
Like if you put cycle through weapons on [ and ] your left hand is on the far left of the keyboard and your right hand is on the far right.

So the player would have to choose which feels more comfortable, driving the ship with the left hand with no steering or using the right hand and having thrusting...
Of course in space your thrust realistically is on and off or throtled.

Also when using the keyboard, include some sort of "pressure" sensor on the keys. As you know all keys on the keyboard are either on or off. So when you press the 4 on the numpad to turn left, the ship will turn left alot in one keypress depending on your turn rate and all. Infantry (now owned by Sony Online) has a variable that controls how fast the characters turning speed hits full speed. So you could do something like that where if you hit the turn left key it would nudge it a bit and if you held it down longer it would turn a lot faster.

Just my 2 cents

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Black Hole Productions
www.bhpro.com
simon@bhpro.com
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You just MUST have mouse control.. with option to invert Y (I just hate default mouse in flight simulations )

About keys.. if user can change them then it doesn''t matter that much what default keys are...

There are more worlds than the one that you hold in your hand...

Anyone remember Elite?

i Roll left
p Roll right
z Pitch Up
q Pitch Down

(i think)

Keef



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Hay,
I think that the keybord is the way to go, Let the ueser map the keys however that want(you defults sound good). If you have not alredy done so you should check out a game called "Indepndence War" It is one of the best space sim games I have ever played and that handeled the simi-realictic spaceship phicis ans control really well. There is a sequal that is pritty new that is a grate game as well but thay dumed down the control a bit. any way hope this is of some help to you.