Use a joystick in Freelancer - YES, it can be done!!

Sun Feb 23, 2003 9:29 pm by loneheart

I know that there is a rule about discussing joysticks in this forum but this is something different... trust me. Many many people have said that Freelancer does not have joystick support, and they are 100% correct... and from the sounds of it, it never will. While this makes me very very sad it doesn't exactly surprise me. But what happens if you still want to use a joystick, or refuse to even buy the game unless you can use a joystick, or worse yet are handicapped and have to use a joystick instead of a mouse? The solution is simple... sorta... find a program that makes a joystick work like a mouse. Try a program called "Joystick 2 Mouse" or the updated version "Joystick 2 Mouse 3". I'll include the links for the main page below. You may have to play with the settings a little to get it to work correctly (threshold = 18000 and sensitivity = 8000 work for me) but it does work. You can even invert the Y-axis. With the updated version I can get all of the buttons on my Logitech Wireless 2.4 to work perfectly... although I am still working on the throttle and twist functions.
There is one thing to keep in mind... it DOES NOT work exactly like a joystick. Normally, when you release a joystick, the cursor would recenter itself and you would stop turning. This program mimics the mouse so when you release the joystick, its going to keep turning in whatever direction the cursor pointing... just like the mouse control in the game. I have already e-mailed the author of the program about this to see if it can be fixed.
I'm hoping that some of you find this useful. It isn't the prefect solution yet, but it is my hope that by posting this here, someone will find a way to make it perfect. Here are those links:

Joystick 2 Mouse - http://atzitznet.no-ip.org/Joy2Mouse/
Joystick 2 Mouse 3 - http://atzitznet.no-ip.org/Joy2Mouse3/

Sincerely,
Loneheart

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P4 2.53
ASUS P4G8X mobo
1 GB Crucial PC2100 DDR DIMMs
ATI AIW 9700 Pro
1+TB of HDD space

Sun Feb 23, 2003 9:36 pm by Fear Factor

Perhaps we can keep this one open? if it can be done, then why the hell not? But if some smug pops up and yells "I told you!" then click it. So keep the replies civil and respectful?

Sun Feb 23, 2003 10:13 pm by RubberEagle

I actually said something like that a long time ago, that people who really mustplay with joystic could do so by a joystick-mouse wrapper...

Sun Feb 23, 2003 10:37 pm by ElectricBrain

Well, let us know how it turns out.

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Sun Feb 23, 2003 10:51 pm by WhiteTiger

Cool!!

Good post Loneheart! So the ones who will not play Freelancer because of a lack of joystick support have no excuse now. Lol!

Mon Feb 24, 2003 12:44 am by TwoPintsMatty

/me lasso's Stingers finger.

Mon Feb 24, 2003 1:15 am by WP_Spawn

this man is my god, joystick combat here we come

although tryed it like this in Tribes 2, without it centering its a bit weird

Mon Feb 24, 2003 9:02 pm by nelinator

So has anyone else tried this with any success? Is it better than using the mouse? What about picking menu options, is the y-axis still inverted? I am probably gonna try it out tonight.

Mon Feb 24, 2003 10:28 pm by Deviant

Ya know, it NOT auto-centering might actually work better in FL... might make menus easier to pick from. That aside, most of the HUD is hotkeyable, so I don't plan on using the HUD input for a lot of things, even if I do use the mouse. Will the game recognize various button presses though? Perhaps if you map the stick buttons to keystrokes in the profile software?

Mon Feb 24, 2003 10:36 pm by Ugnaught

This sounds like a good thing if someone is unable to use a mouse, but at first glance it seems like it would be harder to play the game this way. I'm curious to see if anyone tries this out and finds it satisfactory.

Let's get those missiles ready to destroy the universe!!

Tue Feb 25, 2003 2:44 am by loneheart

Well, I managed to get the program to recenter the cursor when in Windows but when that option (called absolute movement) is enabled and you try to play Freelancer the joystick doesn't work at all (although the normal mouse still does). I've tried this with four different joy2mouse type programs and none of them work. As for which works better, mouse or joystick... I can't really answer that one. I have no choice but to use a joystick if I want any type of cursor control in Windows or games (some minor nerve damage makes my hands shake unless there is some kind of feedback, like in a joystick). I have tried using a mouse and a trackball in FL and I can definitely say that a mouse works better for me... but that isn't saying much

Still, I am now used to how the joystick does currently work but I'm still going to try to get it to work the way that works best for me.

Loneheart

Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:30 am by taquinvol

as i mentioned in a previous thread, use this instead:
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA016823 ... ml#changes

Tue Feb 25, 2003 2:38 pm by Guibs

problem is that in freelancer, the mouse move a cursor which your ship follow. In a game like starlancer, the joystick was also moving the cursor, although that cursor was "fixed" to the middle of your screen, so you had more of the impression that you were in fact, controlling the ship.

your idea will work, although it still won't feel exactly like a real space sim like starlancer, wing commander and others felt like with a joystick.

Tue Feb 25, 2003 3:20 pm by taquinvol

problem is that in freelancer, the mouse move a cursor which your ship follow. In a game like starlancer, the joystick was also moving the cursor, although that cursor was "fixed" to the middle of your screen, so you had more of the impression that you were in fact, controlling the ship.

that's why i posted the thing above (again) - it emulates keypresses and thus you can map the joystick movement to keys that correspond to the keys you'd use to yaw and pitch

Tue Feb 25, 2003 7:04 pm by WP_Spawn

small sugestion, prehaps this link should be added into the warning about joystick discussions, so people don't need to flame about the lack of joy (mutter) because they can correct it to an extent if they still want to

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