Star Fury Control Guidelines
By Kevin Miller

After designing my own preferred method of configuration and seeing the many that have shown up on the boards I've decided not just to set out a preferred configuration here. Instead I will try to set out guidelines that we can all use.

With its 16 thruster nozzles the Starfury can move along 3 bi-directional lines, (Translations) plus of course any number of combinations of those lines. It is also capable of rotating in 3 primary axial directions, and of course, you can combine these as well.

Since the standard computer has one mouse and a game fanatic could have a joystick, throttle and set of rudder pedals it is essential that the Sim is playable to some degree of success by any combination of controllers. To do this you need to be able to assign any axis of rotation to any control axis. If you want to assign pitch and yaw to a primary joystick you should be able to, if you want to assign it to the mouse you should have that option as well. Basically I'm looking for the ability to assigning any key or button to any function and any control axis to any rotation axis. Add the ability to assign thruster values for the main thruster to a throttle control and the ability to invert any control axis' input and you have an extremely flexible control system. (This would also allow a left handed person to rotate his joystick (Handle comfort permitting) to allow him to use all the buttons) Some setups may be more effective than others but that is a factor in every simulation.

My own considerations are for the Sidewinder family of joysticks, and would result in button firing controls for the fore and aft thrusters with the thrust value being set by the throttle, the HAT controls the lateral and vertical thrusters at a set thrust value, and the three control axis control all three of the rotational axis.

There are a few limitations inherent to this model but only two that seem insurmountable, first with the 8-way HAT you are restricted to only 8 directions of lateral/vertical movement. Second all finely controlled rotation is around an individual specific point in the center of the craft.

Cary Brown, our resident Aerospace Engineer had this to say:

"All movement can be described as a combination of three translations (up/down, left/right, forward/back) and three rotations (pitch, which is nose-up/down, roll, which is (in a contemporary aircraft) wingtip up/down, and yaw, which is nose-left/right).

The joystick should be used for Pitch and Yaw. The rudder controls should be used for Roll. As for Translation, this remains up for discussion. Throttle is the forward/back... and the throttle should have both positive and negative settings. In a game like this, it should work much like Wing Commander's "afterburners" did.. that is, you can "pulse" the thrust or "toggle" it.

As for the other translation methods, they've never been handled in sims before (to the best of my knowledge) but they SHOULD be in a B5 sim. These would be keyboard-only controls though, it would seem. Maybe "control-left-arrow" and so on to give translational bursts left/right/up/down?"

Throttle: The Main thrusters really need to have adjustable thrust values. This could be best accomplished by using a throttle (or the number keys) to pre-set the value and a set of buttons (2) to fire the fore or aft thrusters.

Toggle Keys: That would allow us to control thruster set (The Drift Thrusters) with the Joystick. This would kind of avoid the 8 direction limit that I described above.

Force Feedback

In a Starfury you don't have direct control over the craft so any feedback must be synthetic, added in by the SF computer to enhance your situational awareness. As far as I can figure this should limit FF to soft indications of weapon hits and perhaps the center can be used to indicate what retrothrust is necessary to stop inertia. (That last idea is kind of cool, if you leave your hand on the stick it will move around on its own to stop the ship).

If you had a damaged thruster the center point could move to indicate that. It would indicate what kind of firing pattern is needed to achieve stable flight.

We are fully expecting to support force feedback.

Cary Brown and I had the following exchange: (Cary's the one in quotes)

"I'm not sure any force-feedback devices on the market at the moment have three axis feedback."

None of the current or upcoming ones do.

"But the idea I had in mind would be an induced "stiffness" for the stick. Say, you're pitching downwards... to "right" your ship and return to "straight and level flight" you'd have to push the stick up, right? Well, maybe the resistance would be greater when you're FIGHTING inertia."

But there is no "straight and level" in space. Do you mean to use FF to adjust the autocentre of the stick to stop rotation? In which case you push forward on the stick to initiate a role and the centering force increases as you pick up speed? And when you let off pressure the stick pushes farther than center back until the spin begins to slow and then as the pin stops the stick returns to center? Phew, cool idea and very possible for the two axis of motion on a standard stick. The problem is exactly as you said, you only get this for two axis of rotation.

It could still work though and would be pretty neat for pitch and yaw. Roll automatically stops regardless. This would be incentive for me to abandon the control method that I've been hoping for, namely that all rotational axis can be directly translated to the rotation of the 'Fury.

"On the other hand, maybe you would see just the opposite... i.e., stick movements that tend to put the ship into "straight and level flight" would be easier but those that would increase rotation would be stiffer."

Oops, I think I just described this.

On a more general note, I've come to believe that FF may not be appropriate for this sim. This kills me to admit and I'm hoping you will all prove me wrong. The only FF I can imagine are purely synthetic using the stick as a haptic device that increases our situational awareness.

Autopilot Functions

Autopilot feature should be advantageous to new pilot but a practiced hand should be a little faster without them.

• FACE FLIGHT DIRECTION: This simply turns the Starfury so that it's facing in its current flight direction. Ideal for new pilots as this would come very close to the behavior of a traditional airplane. The computer would automatically dampen anything but forward or reverse motion as soon as you stopped firing a thruster. This would let you use the drift thrusters but would fire counter thrusters as soon as you let them go to stop the drift.
• FULL STOP: This brings the Starfury to a halt relative to established (Targeted?) waypoints (e.g. local jumpgate, planetary orbit, etc.)
• MATCH VELOCITY: This keeps your craft at the same speed as your target (and therefore at a constant distance) but still allows you to turn and maneuver. (Presuming you are on your enemy's 6.
• FACE CURRENT TARGET: This keeps the nose pointed at a predetermined point on the enemy craft, usually the physical center? While this function is engaged we could use the all the thruster but none of the axis of rotation controls to maneuver in respect to the target. It would have for its input, the projected course of the targeted ship so it would have a degree of precision, but would not be perfect.
• AUTO-AVOIDANCE: This is an assisted flight mode which allows you to fly normally, but monitors all nearby objects and takes over control to avoid collisions. This would include projectile weapons, giving your craft a limited ability to automatically dodge incoming fire. (Might be too powerful. Perhaps it only works with very slow moving objects.)
• KEEP SET DISTANCE: This keeps the Starfury at a set distance from the target. (I must confess I'm not at all certain how this one would work.)
• PRESET MANEUVER: This allows the pilot to set a macro in the ships computer. Sort of a way to give a pilot his "signature" maneuver.

Single Button Maneuvers

It has been said that there was the option of single buttons activating entire maneuvers. The only real problem with this is that we are quickly running out of keys. A bonus however would be some way to record maneuvers to assign to keys later.

• 180 Turn
• 90 Turn
• 90 Rotation
• Full Stop
• Match Target Rotation