Alternative control device to keyboard (wasd) to play Starbound?

Hi All!

I'm a veteran player, who has been playing console games for all my life. Never ever got used to wasd keyboard controlling scheme, just can't beat the feeling of using the joypad! Anyway, since Starbound is in my top priority waiting list I was thinking could there be any other way to play starbound other than keyboard + mouse? I'd love to use Xbox360 controller for navigation (wasd), but then again mouse is superior for targeting compared to thumbstick in joypad.

Do you have any excperience / suggestions?

I was thinking to buy Razer Nostromo which is essentially left hand joystick with numpad shortcuts. Any experience on this one? The best combination I would think of would be Wii nunchuck (steer, jump) and mouse but I think thats not an option

Thank for help!

 

When I know what all the controls will be, I'll be making a starbound script for glovepie (input emulation). My current plan is to use the gamepad for everything but construction. I'll post the script once I'm done with it. I'll also take feedback and possibly update the script. I'm to version 4.6 of my Guild Wars 2 glovepie script, and it's pretty decent.

 

I can see it now. Starbound: better with kinect

 

Honestly, you'd have to look to the Xbox terraria for an example. In my experience, games that use the mouse as much as Starbound don't translate well onto controllers. Minecraft works because it's a FPS, I don't see it working with SB. But hey, someone smarter than I might come out with a way to do it.

 

So you are more of a veteran console gamer, try getting used to it, it's not that hard at the same time I am sure post release they will add joystick support.

No needs the playstation move with a tony hawk ride skateboard.

 

FPS work much, much better with keyboard and mouse though.

 

I've got bad news for you dude. The Nostromo is not a left hand joystick. It's actually an 8 way D-Pad. I use the nostromo and a deathadder to play all my games now.

 

Well, of course, for someone who's used to it.
Which I assume would be you and I. (and maybe a few other people?)
I could never get used to using a controller for anything other than games like super smash bros. and etc.

 

This keyboard and mouse vs. gamepad debate has been around as long as the devices. In the end it is an opinion what a player _likes_ using. But a mouse is a more accurate tool for detecting detailed movement than a gamepad.

 

Haha, the same thing goes for me

 

I think using a gamepad would work. The only issue I see coming up would be aiming guns accurately and placing blocks, but it would still work just not as well as with keyboard and mouse.

 

I have the exact opposite problem, I cant get used to controllers, especially the newfangled analog ones. I don't know how people aim in fps games on ps3 or xbox.

 

Playing an FPS with a controller is just painful.

 

Yep, I can play mouse and keyboard fps all day and be pretty damn good but if I sit down and play with my friends on Xbox or ps3 I feel like I'm a potato with thumbs.

 

i can play fps games with both keyboard and controller. i am half god.

 

I think most of you misunderstood me. I never said gamepad is better for FPS or like. I think its aiming method is way inferior than mouse. That is why I posted my question. To say again: I am looking for a way to combine D-pad for movement (in left hand) and mouse for aiming (in right hand). In that way, I could imagine one could benefit from both worlds.

You see, I will not play Starbound from laptop nor computer screen. I have 200" picture from video projector.

So far I found out that there is a way to use Wii's nunchuck along with xpadder program. Will try out this method to some terraria like game in PC within few days.

And yes, I know one can play Terraria in Xbo60 with gamepad, I played it like that for ~100h. I love it, but like said, the aiming system is inferior compared to mouse.

 

I'm sure there will probably be extensive mods for keybinding using an Xbox 360 controller, but at the same time it looks like starbound will be coming to the PS Vita and the PS4 (I think that's the console anyway, I haven't played consoles in forever, so I don't know). Anyway my point is that they are designing it with controllers in mind, so I don't think you have anything to worry about them it comes to that. This coupled with the controller based... Controls, means that the keybinding for Starbound is fairly compatible with controllers in general, making it much easier to play the game using one assuming there would be a mod to integrate an Xbox controller.

 

I'm adding the code for my current Starbound input emulation script. It uses Glovepie. To run it, you need to download glovepie, open glovepie, paste the contents of the script into a new script (save it as Starbound.pie if you want to open it later), then click the run button.

Code:

// This is a GlovePie script written by SquarelyCircle.
 
/////#####*****-----Starbound-----*****#####\\\\\
if starting then
    //Settings - Change the following 3 values to your liking.
  var.deadzone = .3 // percentage of sticks that don't do anything (from the center).  My xbox  360 controller wobbles a bit extra if I set this lower.
  var.maxmousedistance = 1 // Decreas/increas the size of the max distance the cursor can travel from your character while in the centered mouse mode. 1 = the height of the screen
  var.mousefreespeed = 30 // Change the max speed that the mouse will move when in free mouse mode.  The default is an arbitrary base speed that I chose.
 
 
  //Starting Voice
  speech.text = "Star bound. You heard me! Baby!"
  var.deadzone2 = .3 * var.deadzone      // the deadzone for the centered mouse mode is (by default) 1/3 the normal deadzone.  This results in a little unintentional wabbling, but also allows for movement a bit closer to the character.
  var.mousemode = False    // Choose which mouse mode the script starts with.  True = centered.  False = free mouse.  Press the back button to toggle between the two.
end if
 
 
//LeftStick WASD
key.A = Xinput.LeftstickX <-var.deadzone
key.D = Xinput.LeftstickX >var.deadzone
key.W = Xinput.LeftStickY >var.deadzone
Key.S = Xinput.LeftstickY <-var.deadzone
//Inventory button
key.I = xinput.B
//Quick Select items 1 and 2
key.one = Xinput.Up
key.two = xinput.Down
//quick switch between the L/R slots and the most recent item.
key.q = Xinput.Y
//Jump
key.space = Xinput.A
//Mouse buttons
Mouse.LeftButton = Xinput.Lefttrigger
Mouse.RightButton = xinput.Righttrigger
 
 
//Scroll through inventory with Dpad left and right.
If not var.scrollpressed then
mouse.wheeldown = xinput.Right
mouse.wheelup = xinput.Left
var.scrollpressed = true
else
mouse.wheeldown = false
mouse.wheelup = false
end if
 
if not (xinput.right or xinput.left) then
var.scrollpressed = false
end if
 
// MOUSE CONTROL!!!!!
//Centered mouse mode
if var.mousemode = true then
//X movement
if Xinput1.exists then
if Xinput.RightstickX >var.deadzone2 or Xinput.RightstickX <-var.deadzone2 or Xinput.RightstickY >var.deadzone2 or Xinput.RightstickY<-var.deadzone2 then
  if Xinput.RightStickX >0 then
      mouse.X = ((((Xinput.RightStickX)* (screen.Height / screen.Width) *(var.maxmousedistance))/2) +.5)
  end if
  If  Xinput.RightstickX <0 then
      mouse.X = ((((Xinput.RightStickX)* (screen.Height / screen.Width) *(var.maxmousedistance))/2) +.5)
  end if
//Y movement   
  if Xinput.RightStickY >0 then
      mouse.Y = ((((-Xinput.RightStickY)*var.maxmousedistance)/2) +.5)
  end if
  If  Xinput.RightstickY <0 then
      mouse.Y = ((((-Xinput.RightStickY)*var.maxmousedistance)/2) +.5)
  end if
else
      mouse.X =.5
      mouse.Y =.5
end if
end if
end if
 
//Free mouse mode
if var.mousemode = false then
If Xinput.RightStickX >var.deadzone then
mouse.CursorPosX += (Xinput.RightStickX-var.deadzone) *20
end if
If Xinput.RightstickX <-var.deadzone then
mouse.CursorPosX += (Xinput.RightStickX+var.deadzone) *20
end if
If Xinput.RightStickY >var.deadzone then
mouse.CursorPosY -= (Xinput.RightStickY-var.deadzone) *20
end if
If Xinput.RightstickY <-var.deadzone then
mouse.CursorPosY -= (Xinput.RightStickY+var.deadzone) *20
end if
end if
 
//Toggle Mousemode
if Xinput.back and not var.mousemodetoggle then
toggle var.mousemode
if var.mousemode = true then
beep 500, 133
else
beep 1000,133
end if
 
var.mousemodetoggle = true
end if
if not Xinput.back then
var.mousemodetoggle = false
end if

This is my first draft based on what I understand. I'm open to feedback.

Current Keys/key intentions:

• leftstick = wasd
• rightstick = mouse
• Dpad left/right = scroll through your inventory quickbar
• Dpad up/down = Quick select items 1 and 2.
• Left/Right trigger = left/right mouseclick
• A = jump
• B = inventory
• Y = Quick switch item
• X = currently undefined
• back = toggle whether the right stick controls the mouse freely, or represents where the mouse is on the screen. (try out the "centered" mode to understand it. It's good for aiming.)
• start = escape
• Left/Right shoulder buttons = currently undefined

Known issues:

• The centered mousemode doesn't allow for control near the character, due to dead zone. If this bothers you, set var.deadzone2 = 0 in the starting section. However, it will also allow for the mouse to wobble a bit.
• I don't know the official keyboard controls for the game, so there may be more or less that are useful
• In some games, the centered mouse mode doesn't work quite right. When Starbound comes out, I'll try to make it work for Starbound.

To test it, try it out in Terraria. Obvioiusly the games and controls will be quite different, but at least you can get the general feel for it.

Edit: Oh yeah, btw, this is for xbox 360 controllers. I don't have the logitech xinput controller, but I imagine it would work with that as well.
Edit 2: Noticed an error in the code. Fixed.

 

How can you already have a glovepie script if the beta isn't even out yet?
As for aiming, i was trying a terraria mod that adds "native" gamepad support with button icons and many configurable options. It works wonders, the cursor only moves how you want it to [aiming 360°, constrained to only the area you can place/break blocks, freely roam over the whole screen] and you could cycle the 10 hotkeys by pressing left and right on the D-pad. It would be perfect if not for two small issues. 1: I had a bug that i couldn't move the cursor while in the inventory. Then again, i was using a ps3 controller instead of ps3 one. and 2: while the mod is running, your character and worlds are saved elsewhere in a different format.

Thanks to that, i have been avoiding using that, waiting for terraria 1.2 to come out and see what 'im going to do.

Why did i say all that? Because terraria has gamepad support [duh] on the console versions, but not yet on the pc version. I've heard that it is actually pretty good [not counting touch-based controls.] So, if someone can mod a gamepad support to work this well on a game with almost the same type of controls, why can't the devs add gamepad support themselves? It just works. Building and digging can be a bit slower, but overall movement and exploration can have much to gain from this.

I, for one, am all for gamepad support. I'd play with keyboard + mouse if it's the only option, but after using half of my keyboard plus a special mouse with 3 extra buttons just to play a heavily modded TES4 Oblivion... I'd rather have gamepad support in all my games from then on.