I want to start sharing my game controller (4 joysticks)

[tsmspace]

In truth, the purpose of my posting is to try and get some attention to this concept, and I personally think there is a future community that will enjoy this style of gameplay. 

 

I posted a video on youtube (I'm not a youtube content creator, just using it as video sharing for such displays as this one) in which i demonstrate the use of my 4 joystick controller and the game which I play with it. 

 

I first began considering a 4 joystick controller years ago, and in my mind have a FEW different uses for it, but the first one that actually inspired me to go ahead and put one together was the desire to play 6 degree of freedom inertial space games with all 6 degrees of freedom on a stick axis. Naturally, most games are pretty thoroughly planned out , and therefore don't leave much room for innovation, so when it comes to the best way to approach the gameplay, usually the stock-standard method is the only one that allows for the full use of the game. ,,, However, in the modern era of indie games, there became just the game I needed. 

 

I spent some time flying FPV drones, and then started playing the racing simulators, which are the best games for joysticks that have ever been created. However, because I like space games so much, (not popular titles, but just games that allow 3d newtonian flight), I wanted to find a game which allowed me to have the same format as FPV racing simulators, but in space. 

 

Of course, there is a game that allows exactly that, and this game is called,,,, Starmade. Starmade is a game that works basically like minecraft, and has two important features. You can place a "station core" which does not move, and allows you to build a space station onto it, or you can place a "ship-core" which you can use to fly around, and allows you to build a space-ship onto it. A blank ship-core ends up being nice and small, and flies almost PERFECTLY how one might imagine a space-fpv-drone would, or perhaps how a single seat "space-walk" vehicle might. newtonian-style-game physics applies, and you can accelerate in 3 axis, and rotate in 3 axis, (in this game rotation is stabilized, so you only rotate while deflecting the stick, rotation is not an acceleration physics mechanism,, you move just link any fps... this is logical to me because rotation would be very energy efficient to stabilize when compared to trajectory). 

 

For my controller I have two joysticks on the thumbs, and two joysticks on the trigger fingers. my configuration is as follows: 

 

left trigger finger pull: accel forward

left trigger finger push: accel reverse

left thumb up-down-left-right: accel up-down-left-right

right trigger finger left-right: roll left-right

right thumb up-down-left-right: pitch up-down, yaw left-right. 

 

yaw is misleading when considering a cube with engines in all directions. it's not really "yaw", which is an aircraft term, and refers to an unusual motion whereby the plane is rotated despite the friction of airflow, and is very inefficient,, instead, I think of it as left-right rotation,,, so really I think for space games, the term yaw should be replaced by "horizontal rotation" and pitch should be replaced by "vertical rotation". so turning left would be "rotating left", and turning down would be "rotating down".  

 

anyway. perusing my last few videos you will see (very poorly made) descriptions of the controller itself, but using this upload linked, you will see the sticks, and the gameplay, at the same time. 

 

 

[tsmspace]

This is an 8 axis game controller prototype. The use case is for space games, particularly games with 3d inertial physics. 

 

starmade, Infinity Battlescape, Orbital Racer,   I have these games. 

 

Astrokill is actually better for sitting at home playing simple arcade style shootemup,, but my controller isn't fully supported by astrokill,, not all of the sticks register in that game. 

 

Honestly,, I really wish more people got interested in Astrokill so that the developer would get back into it,,,, that game was ultimate. It had a killer soundtrack,, but MOST importantly, the dimensions of the vehicles and obstacles were perfect. There was a lot of navigation action in that game,, the stations were the right size to squeeze through the rings and the asteroids were superb for ripping around,, and most of all,,, the bass. The bass of my guns, and the bass of the menu screen,,, 

 

https://youtu.be/PoFnAP_DBT8

 

I am also interested in any games I might not know about. 

 

[Roswell]

Unless you’re planning on traveling between parallel universes with your controller, you don’t need 8 axes of movement. That aside, you certainly don’t have enough thumbs to utilize 16 degrees of freedom inter dimensional, time bending supremacy.

[thrasher_565]

On 5/29/2021 at 9:28 PM, tsmspace said:

I am also interested in any games I might not know about. 

[UltraNerd]

15 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

"I love worlds I never knew existed!" -Storybots.

[Vorg]

These guys are working on a 6 axis controller. https://www.sublightdynamics.com/

[Roswell]

1 hour ago, Vorg said:

These guys are working on a 6 axis controller. https://www.sublightdynamics.com/

That’s a 3 axis controller with another 3 glorified sliders. We live in 3 dimensions and cannot use more than 3 axes of movement in a 3D space.

 

I blame Sony and their stupid Sixaxis controller for confusing people about this.

[thrasher_565]

4 hours ago, UltraNerd said:

"I love worlds I never knew existed!" -Storybots.

 

i like boats

[tsmspace]

 

[Dolyfin]

What even is an 8-axis controllers? If you really want to go crazy then some coding/development skills you can bind 2 vr controllers 3 axis each (xyz in 3d space) and use the two joysticks for another pair of 2 axis control plus even 2 or 4 analog triggers for insanity, and some pedals too. Would this work with the games op is talking about? I have no idea, just throwing this out there.

[tsmspace]

On 7/11/2021 at 6:16 PM, Dolyfin said:

What even is an 8-axis controllers? If you really want to go crazy then some coding/development skills you can bind 2 vr controllers 3 axis each (xyz in 3d space) and use the two joysticks for another pair of 2 axis control plus even 2 or 4 analog triggers for insanity, and some pedals too. Would this work with the games op is talking about? I have no idea, just throwing this out there.

I have a prototype. It's adequate for the games I'm playing presently. 

 

as for alternate solutions,,, this is fairly well addressed. There is the space-mouse, the thrustmaster flight stick pair, ordinary flight combos and a bit of "airplanes in space" rolling, foot paddles, mouses with joysticks on them, etc. 

 

But all of those things are enormously complicated, and my arduino 4 joystick controller is virtually the same as any ordinary game controller, except you have a few more sticks. As for why 8?? 

 

well, firstly I want to address using 4 sticks to achieve 6. There are some advantages early in the learning curve. By putting only one axis on each of the new sticks, you can be aggressive, fast, and loose with those sticks the same way you are with your thumbsticks, without interacting with another axis. Later, as your coordination improves, you could move the two pointer-finger axis onto one stick, freeing up the fourth stick for view/turret control (assuming your game is a space game). If you're playing with a headset on, well you don't need view on a stick, but you still might prefer having the two front axis separate, just to make the sticks more forgiving. 

 

again on alternate solutions,,, well,, I'm REALLY set on this one by now. I've spent most of my life trying to imagine using one of the other solutions. I can really see the space-mouse, but on the other hand, I would want to use that for some setups, but a game controller is more casual, frees up your posture, lets you sit anywhere, etc. So, for example, in a racing only game,, I would rather game controller, I think. 

 

So for me, the only solution is 4 joystick controllers hitting the market. 

 

 

[tsmspace]

On 5/31/2021 at 1:31 PM, Roswell said:

That’s a 3 axis controller with another 3 glorified sliders. We live in 3 dimensions and cannot use more than 3 axes of movement in a 3D space.

 

I blame Sony and their stupid Sixaxis controller for confusing people about this.

actually we move in 6. 3 of translation and 3 of rotation. 

[Roswell]

47 minutes ago, tsmspace said:

actually we move in 6. 3 of translation and 3 of rotation. 

That's not right. Yaw, pitch and roll aren't axes in a three dimensional space, they're rotation. We don't know what 6 axes (12 degrees) would look like because we're not time bending aliens. 

 

You can plot location anywhere in our known existence and universe with 3 axes:

 

 

 

 

 

[Amias]

While I get arguing dimensional semantics. But when you're playing you typically like to be able to move your vehicle in 3D space. Then your vision as well independently in 2D space. And maybe possibly a targeting reticule too, 2D maybe 3D. You also want to be able to control throttle/thurst. Weapon systems. Defensive systems.

 

No idea what the hell OP wants though.

 

Space Combat sims are boring though. Literally imagine getting an FPS, removing all corridors, buildings, ground ... then say go play. It's boring. The only factor on vectoring your opponents is distance and speed.

 

Hell even on earth flight sims are boring. Right remove all the buildings etc, and put in a floor and a ceiling ... maybe make the floor bumpy ... and then again ... snore.

 

Where are the games where you have giant Asteroid fields, some with massive tunnel systems you can fly down? Where are the flight games where you can fly into giant space stations. Etc.

 

They feel so boring and unimaginative.

[tikker]

As others have said we don't have 8 axes to move on. Translation+rotation yields 6 degrees of freedom. If I understand correctly you want to map 2 of those to the additional two joysticks and the remaining 4 stay on the normal ones?

 

To be honest I think this doesn't exist, because a more intuitive solution for those degrees of freedom already exists: throttle and stick, perhaps with pedals.

[7heo]

On 6/1/2021 at 1:31 AM, Roswell said:

We live in 3 dimensions and cannot use more than 3 axes of movement in a 3D space.

The controller depicted in the videos is technically "8-axis" because four times two equals eight. It is independent of the dimensions of the space they are used in.

 

This is because the nature of the movements we control with all those axis isn't the same.

 

Rotation (Pitch/yaw/roll) is a different type of movement than translation (vertical, horizontal, and "frontal" translations, AKA "strafing"). For example, an arcade controller has one stick with two axis, each meant to convey horizontal and vertical translation controls, and the game usually is 2D (side-view) plan. But then, the simplest HOTAS, meant for moving in 3D space, has the same stick (two-axis), and a gas throttle (half-axis (ℝ+) or full-axis (ℝ) depending on if it only goes forward or also backwards); and only the gas control is a (frontal) translation. After that, some more advanced HOTAS do not only have one axis for the throttle, but two of them (for left and right gas, thus allowing for yaw control in addition of the frontal translation). That makes a total of 4 axis for moving in a 3D space. And then, there are modern console game controllers, with two sticks (of two axis each) and two triggers (of a single axis), for a grand total of six axis (and so technically Sony is correct and their controller is named aptly). Games make full use of those, and yet we cannot comprehend a space in six dimensions, let alone orient ourselves in it.

 

So, in the larger sense:

N axis != N dimensions

E.g. It is absolutely not necessary to have a space of N dimensions to make use of N axis of movement.

 

*   *   *

 

Now, I'm not entirely sure why it is useful to have four different two-axis joysticks for flight simulation, but I can easily imagine them being assigned to auxiliary or weapon systems, to additional navigation, etc. In addition, as the second video demonstrates, that makes it possible to assign "strafe" to one stick, "rotate" (pitch/yaw) to another one, gas to a third and roll on the last one. It is possible to use only three joysticks for this configuration, by assigning gas and roll to the same joystick; but that would probably feel unnatural to players who learned with a HOTAS. So the two extra "wasted" axis are just for it to be "very intuitive" (direct quote from the same video).

 

In contrast, a basic HOTAS would assign pitch to the vertical axis of the stick, and roll to the horizontal one; while having gas on the throttle. There would be no direct, simultaneous analog control for the "strafe" controls (side-way propulsion) even if the controlled object has that capability.

 

Now, to @tsmspace, I would like to say: it's IMHO highly unlikely that anyone will ever consider producing such a controller. It is essentially a normal controller, but with its analog triggers replaced by sticks (thus placing their rest position at their center rather than on one end). Half of the axis from the backside sticks are ignored, so that seems rather wasteful from a design perspective.

If you really want to have an aftermarket feeling one, I think your best bet would be to modify an existing controller and replace the triggers by sticks. If you want to support all the axis of the sticks, you could try buying a Thrustmaster dual trigger off of ebay, AFAIK it features two times two analog triggers, and thus would support both axis on both back sticks. The additional advantage of using an already existing controller is that it will have existing drivers, will have known support (e.g. it is possible to find out where it works and where it does not), and so the amount of work will be reduced by that much.

 

[Roswell]

21 minutes ago, 7heo said:

The controller depicted in the videos is technically "8-axis" because four times two equals eight. It is independent of the dimensions of the space they are used in.

 

This is because the nature of the movements we control with all those axis isn't the same.

 

Pitch/yaw/roll is a different type of movement than lateral translation (AKA "strafing"). For example, an arcade controller has one stick with two axis, each meant to convey lateral translation controls, and the game usually is 2D (side-view) plan. But then, the simplest HOTAS, meant for moving in 3D space, has the same stick (two-axis), and a gas throttle (half-axis (ℝ+) or full-axis (ℝ) depending on if it only goes forward or also backwards); and only the gas control is a frontal translation. After that, some more advanced HOTAS do not only have one axis for the throttle, but two of them (for left and right gas, thus allowing for yaw control in addition of the frontal translation). That makes a total of 4 axis for moving in a 3D space. And then, there are modern console game controllers, with two sticks (of two axis each) and two triggers (of a single axis), for a grand total of six axis (and so technically Sony is correct and their controller is named aptly). Games make full use of those, and yet we cannot comprehend a space in six dimensions, let alone orient ourselves in it.

 

So, in the larger sense:

N axis != N dimensions

E.g. It is absolutely not necessary to have a space of N dimensions to make use of N axis of movement.

 

*   *   *

 

Now, I'm not entirely sure why it is useful to have four different two-axis joysticks for flight simulation, but I can easily imagine them being assigned to auxiliary or weapon systems, to additional navigation, etc. In addition, as the second video demonstrates, that makes it possible to assign "strafe" to one stick, "rotate" (pitch/yaw) to another one, gas to a third and roll on the last one. It is possible to use only three joysticks for this configuration, by assigning gas and roll to the same joystick; but that would probably feel unnatural to players who learned with a HOTAS. So the two extra "wasted" axis are just for it to be "very intuitive" (direct quote from the same video).

 

In contrast, a basic HOTAS would assign pitch to the vertical axis of the stick, and roll to the horizontal one; while having gas on the throttle. There would be no direct, simultaneous analog control for the "strafe" controls (side-way propulsion) even if the controlled object has that capability.

 

Now, to @tsmspace, I would like to say: it's IMHO highly unlikely that anyone will ever consider producing such a controller. It is essentially a normal controller, but with its analog triggers replaced by sticks (thus placing their rest position at their center rather than on one end). Half of the axis from the backside sticks are ignored, so that seems rather wasteful from a design perspective.

If you really want to have an aftermarket feeling one, I think your best bet would be to modify an existing controller and replace the triggers by sticks. If you want to support all the axis of the sticks, you could try buying a Thrustmaster dual trigger off of ebay, AFAIK it features two times two analog triggers, and thus would support both axis on both back sticks. The additional advantage of using an already existing controller is that it will have existing drivers, will have known support (e.g. it is possible to find out where it works and where it does not), and so the amount of work will be reduced by that much.

 

I’ll reiterate. We live in a three dimensional existence and can only travel along 3 axes of space.

 

Anything beyond that are not axes of travel in three dimensional space. You can rotate, pan or do whatever else that you wish ALONG ONE OF THOSE THREE AXES (yaw, pitch and roll on on the vertical axis for example), but that doesn’t magically create additional axes in 3D space.

[7heo]

10 minutes ago, Roswell said:

that doesn’t magically create additional axes in 3D space

Nobody said it does.

 

Six axis (or axes, same thing) are necessary to apply two different types of movement simultaneously in a 3D space.

 

To sum it up, I feel that you're irritated by the confusion you've seen all around regarding axes of movement in space; while you largely ignored that each type of movement necessitates its own set of controls.

[tsmspace]

On 7/16/2021 at 4:55 PM, Roswell said:

That's not right. Yaw, pitch and roll aren't axes in a three dimensional space, they're rotation. We don't know what 6 axes (12 degrees) would look like because we're not time bending aliens. 

 

You can plot location anywhere in our known existence and universe with 3 axes:

 

 

 

 

 

I mean it's not up for debate. All objects in space require 3 degrees of position and 3 degrees of rotation to be described. 

 

I understand where you are going with your argument,,, but I DON'T know if you are in jest. anyway,,, the bottom line is,, you need six degrees of freedom to play a game in space. You can do it with fewer axis of control,, but your freedom is still 6. (you can roll and pull up, resulting in 3 degrees of translation using only 2 axis of control,, but your vehicle still moves within 3 degrees of translation and orients with 3 degrees of rotation)

[tsmspace]

20 hours ago, tikker said:

As others have said we don't have 8 axes to move on. Translation+rotation yields 6 degrees of freedom. If I understand correctly you want to map 2 of those to the additional two joysticks and the remaining 4 stay on the normal ones?

 

To be honest I think this doesn't exist, because a more intuitive solution for those degrees of freedom already exists: throttle and stick, perhaps with pedals.

I will agree with you that for the desktop setting there are a number of adequate solutions to 6 axis control. 

-spacemouse

-keyboard

-various one or two joystick options

 

however I will not agree with you that "more" intuitive solutions exist, only that "equally" intuitive solutions exist. I will also argue that a game controller in it's present state simply does not offer an intuitive solution. You can train yourself to use a game controller,, I have done this with a few different configurations, but none of them were particularly convincing. HOwever,, my 4 joystick controller convinced me instantly, and I made it for not games,, I initially conceived it for quadruped robot toys. I never got around to that because I went down space games, but I can assure you that I am fully convinced that the 4 joystick controller is a future product and will have its enthusiasts. 

 

on and about some arguments for it:  (these will not be in order or necessarily relate to eachother)

-at first, no one is going to be as good with a pointer finger as they are with their thumbs. That means that you need some kind of shortcut that allows you to be a bit clumsy and still perform at the same output as your thumbs. To do this, map one axis to each pointer stick, and then you can basically pull wrong but still get the accurate result you require for smooth gameplay. 

- game controllers give a lot of freedom. You can sit at your desk or not. You are not tied to something mounted in front of you. If you want to play a multiplayer living room game, you can hand the controller around, easy-peasy. You can stand, you can use vr, you can carry it to your friends house on your skateboard, you can keep one in your car, you can lay down, you can lay down on your belly. 

-flight sticks have a place,,, namely, in flying vehicles. for some flight simulators, flight sticks can be good. Flight sticks can also drive the mouse cursor, but no one does that, and that's because they aren't better. What you end up with is a mouse. Game controllers are basically the apex predator of handheld gaming development. Lots of solutions have been explored, and something that looks like a playstation or xbox controller is really all that made it. In part it's because you aren't flying a plane, you are holding a plastic controller and looking at a screen. So while complex simulation rigs will not go away,, they will basically never dominate the market. If the solution for a particular gaming experience is a complex flight simulation rig,, that game will not dominate the market. Instead, what will dominate the market, is a game that works well on a little plastic controller. A keyboard and mouse is the dominant form of sit at desk and game, a game controller is the dominant form of no desk and game, and these two forms are the dominant of game. Space games fit into these two categories,, and therefore space games should be played either with a keyboard and mouse or a handheld game controller. There is the space mouse, but the game controller is not solved. 

[tsmspace]

1 hour ago, 7heo said:

The controller depicted in the videos is technically "8-axis" because four times two equals eight. It is independent of the dimensions of the space they are used in.

 

This is because the nature of the movements we control with all those axis isn't the same.

 

Rotation (Pitch/yaw/roll) is a different type of movement than translation (vertical, horizontal, and "frontal" translations, AKA "strafing"). For example, an arcade controller has one stick with two axis, each meant to convey horizontal and vertical translation controls, and the game usually is 2D (side-view) plan. But then, the simplest HOTAS, meant for moving in 3D space, has the same stick (two-axis), and a gas throttle (half-axis (ℝ+) or full-axis (ℝ) depending on if it only goes forward or also backwards); and only the gas control is a (frontal) translation. After that, some more advanced HOTAS do not only have one axis for the throttle, but two of them (for left and right gas, thus allowing for yaw control in addition of the frontal translation). That makes a total of 4 axis for moving in a 3D space. And then, there are modern console game controllers, with two sticks (of two axis each) and two triggers (of a single axis), for a grand total of six axis (and so technically Sony is correct and their controller is named aptly). Games make full use of those, and yet we cannot comprehend a space in six dimensions, let alone orient ourselves in it.

 

So, in the larger sense:

N axis != N dimensions

E.g. It is absolutely not necessary to have a space of N dimensions to make use of N axis of movement.

 

*   *   *

 

Now, I'm not entirely sure why it is useful to have four different two-axis joysticks for flight simulation, but I can easily imagine them being assigned to auxiliary or weapon systems, to additional navigation, etc. In addition, as the second video demonstrates, that makes it possible to assign "strafe" to one stick, "rotate" (pitch/yaw) to another one, gas to a third and roll on the last one. It is possible to use only three joysticks for this configuration, by assigning gas and roll to the same joystick; but that would probably feel unnatural to players who learned with a HOTAS. So the two extra "wasted" axis are just for it to be "very intuitive" (direct quote from the same video).

 

In contrast, a basic HOTAS would assign pitch to the vertical axis of the stick, and roll to the horizontal one; while having gas on the throttle. There would be no direct, simultaneous analog control for the "strafe" controls (side-way propulsion) even if the controlled object has that capability.

 

Now, to @tsmspace, I would like to say: it's IMHO highly unlikely that anyone will ever consider producing such a controller. It is essentially a normal controller, but with its analog triggers replaced by sticks (thus placing their rest position at their center rather than on one end). Half of the axis from the backside sticks are ignored, so that seems rather wasteful from a design perspective.

If you really want to have an aftermarket feeling one, I think your best bet would be to modify an existing controller and replace the triggers by sticks. If you want to support all the axis of the sticks, you could try buying a Thrustmaster dual trigger off of ebay, AFAIK it features two times two analog triggers, and thus would support both axis on both back sticks. The additional advantage of using an already existing controller is that it will have existing drivers, will have known support (e.g. it is possible to find out where it works and where it does not), and so the amount of work will be reduced by that much.

 

The real reason I went with 4 right away was to have some freedom to play around with it. but, when I found that my coordination in my fingers was a long way from comparing to the coordination in my thumbs, I decided one axis per joystick was an excellent interim, and sure enough , ican play orbital racer at peak performance even though my joysticking with my pointer fingers is newb. 

 

I will just repeat myself here, ,but anyway I don't want a big huge rig that takes up all the whole place. Gaming is on a tiny plastic controller, I just want a tiny plastic controller. Also,, I used to fly a lot of FPV drones, and having done some drones, some cars, and thought about everything, I've decided a handheld controller is the apex predator of manual robotics control. It's true that in shooting games, people using a mouse outperform game controllers, but you can break down the reasons why, and once you get it all ironed out, a handheld controller is not crutched for robotics,, it's better. FPV racing is a great example. There just isn't going to be a majority of pilots using a keyboard and mouse and winning. Anyway,, it doesn't matter WHAT exists,, what does matter is what does not,, and a game controller that is ALMOST identical to the standard game controller could control 6 axis  (+) and what it is,, is a 4 joystick controller. 

[tsmspace]

23 hours ago, Amias said:

While I get arguing dimensional semantics. But when you're playing you typically like to be able to move your vehicle in 3D space. Then your vision as well independently in 2D space. And maybe possibly a targeting reticule too, 2D maybe 3D. You also want to be able to control throttle/thurst. Weapon systems. Defensive systems.

 

No idea what the hell OP wants though.

 

Space Combat sims are boring though. Literally imagine getting an FPS, removing all corridors, buildings, ground ... then say go play. It's boring. The only factor on vectoring your opponents is distance and speed.

 

Hell even on earth flight sims are boring. Right remove all the buildings etc, and put in a floor and a ceiling ... maybe make the floor bumpy ... and then again ... snore.

 

Where are the games where you have giant Asteroid fields, some with massive tunnel systems you can fly down? Where are the flight games where you can fly into giant space stations. Etc.

 

They feel so boring and unimaginative.

well. Try orbital racer,, it's a bit of good fun. 

 

anyway, I can agree, and your topic is a big and well discussed topic. Some key concepts. "airplanes in space" is the popular space flight model for exactly this reason. With "true newtonian", what you get is called "turrets in space", where everyone is a turret, and all they do is point at the other turrets and pull trigger, and that's the game. why not all the tunnels?? it exists, and for a while was one of the most popular game series,, it was called "descent", and featured a NON-newtonian flight model where you had a keyboard and mouse and just like any shooter but with up and down you navigated a tunnel system flew down into the earth. There are still games like this floating around. 

 

what's the solution?? well, firstly the solution is that people can easily learn to fly 6dof. In order for this to happen everyone needs some intuitive control interface hardware, which is why I think the game controller is a key that will break open space games. 

 

the games are really well worked out. they're fun, but the learning curve is quite steep. They lack funding, because they can't get popular basically. Only star wars can,, and star wars presents a lot of the solutions to the problems you argue about, it's just they don't have the flight model. 

 

 

[Roswell]

2 hours ago, 7heo said:

Nobody said it does.

 

Six axis (or axes, same thing) are necessary to apply two different types of movement simultaneously in a 3D space.

 

To sum it up, I feel that you're irritated by the confusion you've seen all around regarding axes of movement in space; while you largely ignored that each type of movement necessitates its own set of controls.

So you concede that nothing we as humans can do require more than 3 axes of movement. Therefore, calling something “six axis” is stupid because you can’t apply 6 axes to literally any movement in the known universe.

 

With your logic, using both of my hands to rotate and move two objects around my head suddenly requires 24 degrees of freedom. But it doesn’t… axes don’t stack in number. It’s always 3.

 

1 hour ago, tsmspace said:

I mean it's not up for debate. All objects in space require 3 degrees of position and 3 degrees of rotation to be described. 

 

I understand where you are going with your argument,,, but I DON'T know if you are in jest. anyway,,, the bottom line is,, you need six degrees of freedom to play a game in space. You can do it with fewer axis of control,, but your freedom is still 6. (you can roll and pull up, resulting in 3 degrees of translation using only 2 axis of control,, but your vehicle still moves within 3 degrees of translation and orients with 3 degrees of rotation)

Movement only and always requires 3 axes.

 

You’re also wrong in axis->degree. 
 

3 axes = 6 degrees of freedom.

[7heo]

38 minutes ago, Roswell said:

calling something “six axis” is stupid

It's got six axis. Literally. A 4x4 vehicle is still called a 4x4 even tho it does not have 16 wheels. So, whatever.

 

38 minutes ago, Roswell said:

With your logic, using both of my hands to rotate and move two objects around my head suddenly requires 24 degrees of freedom.

Given how poorly "degrees of freedom" is/are defined, yeah, it could be 24, 48, 1337, 42.69... I mean, yeah, sure. Ranges of motion, on the other hand, are a known and defined concept, and there are (many) more than three for any of our limbs.

 

38 minutes ago, Roswell said:

Movement only and always requires 3 axes.

Yes. Control of said movement does not. Here, since the beginning, we are talking about the control of that movement. You are talking about the movement and ignoring the control. I don't know how clearer I can get...

 

*   *   *

 

So after some research, and extending my good faith to eliminating all the definitions of 'degrees of freedom' but the one that exactly fits the current discussion (otherwise it could have been easy to make the case that degrees of freedom aren't always 6: "One of the largest difficulties in motor control is quantifying the exact number of DOFs in the complex neuromuscular system of the human body.", especially after your attempt at illustrating how there are only ever "not 24" degrees of freedom using both hands), it appears that degrees of freedom are exactly what I was talking about: the number of types of movements multiplied by the number of dimensions. There are two types of movements, three dimensions, thus six. Six "degrees of freedom", each controlled with a linear motion from one axis. Thus, six axis. Sixaxis.

[tikker]

1 hour ago, tsmspace said:

however I will not agree with you that "more" intuitive solutions exist, only that "equally" intuitive solutions exist. I will also argue that a game controller in it's present state simply does not offer an intuitive solution. You can train yourself to use a game controller,, I have done this with a few different configurations, but none of them were particularly convincing. HOwever,, my 4 joystick controller convinced me instantly, and I made it for not games,, I initially conceived it for quadruped robot toys. I never got around to that because I went down space games, but I can assure you that I am fully convinced that the 4 joystick controller is a future product and will have its enthusiasts.

I mean it would be a bit bad if you were not convinced of your own product, so it's good you are convinced yourself. I'm still not sure what you are on about exactly though. What would the two extra sticks control exactly? For normal 6 DoF flight I stand by my point that a flight stick is more intuitive as it naturally encompasses all of them. The situation where I could see a reason for more sticks to exist would be one where you need direct control over each DoF like, I don't know, flying up vertically while barrel rolling. Those would be rather niche situations though.

1 hour ago, tsmspace said:

you can basically pull wrong but still get the accurate result you require for smooth gameplay.

This is in contradiction with itself. You cannot provide a wrong input and get an accurate result. The more error in input you allow, the less accurate the control over output you will have.

1 hour ago, tsmspace said:

- game controllers give a lot of freedom. You can sit at your desk or not. You are not tied to something mounted in front of you. If you want to play a multiplayer living room game, you can hand the controller around, easy-peasy. You can stand, you can use vr, you can carry it to your friends house on your skateboard, you can keep one in your car, you can lay down, you can lay down on your belly.

This is just a reason in favour of controllers, which nobody is argueing.

1 hour ago, tsmspace said:

-flight sticks have a place,,, namely, in flying vehicles.

Which is what you seem to be aiming for though?

1 hour ago, tsmspace said:

something that looks like a playstation or xbox controller is really all that made it. In part it's because you aren't flying a plane, you are holding a plastic controller and looking at a screen. for some flight simulators, flight sticks can be good. Flight sticks can also drive the mouse cursor, but no one does that, and that's because they aren't better. What you end up with is a mouse. Game controllers are basically the apex predator of handheld gaming development. Lots of solutions have been explored, and something that looks like a playstation or xbox controller is really all that made it. In part it's because you aren't flying a plane, you are holding a plastic controller and looking at a screen. So while complex simulation rigs will not go away,, they will basically never dominate the market. If the solution for a particular gaming experience is a complex flight simulation rig,, that game will not dominate the market. Instead, what will dominate the market, is a game that works well on a little plastic controller. A keyboard and mouse is the dominant form of sit at desk and game, a game controller is the dominant form of no desk and game, and these two forms are the dominant of game. Space games fit into these two categories,, and therefore space games should be played either with a keyboard and mouse or a handheld game controller. There is the space mouse, but the game controller is not solved. 

The controllers we have now are the result of many iterations to arrive at a good product. In your further point about flight sticks being too complex to appeal to the mass market you already foreshadow a big problem for a 4-stick controller: it's complicated and niche compared to what we have now, so it will most likely never dominate the market. It will be a niche product for the situation it potentially handles well.

1 hour ago, tsmspace said:

the games are really well worked out. they're fun, but the learning curve is quite steep. They lack funding, because they can't get popular basically. Only star wars can,, and star wars presents a lot of the solutions to the problems you argue about, it's just they don't have the flight model.

It's not a lack of funding or lack of proper controllers I'd say. Most flight sims just aren't the most exciting games for the general market and get old quickly no matter the context.

34 minutes ago, 7heo said:

It's got six axis. Literally. A 4x4 vehicle is still called a 4x4 even tho it does not have 16 wheels. So, whatever.

No, it has six degrees of freedom, not six axes. You have 3 axes along which you can do translation + rotation, resulting in 2 degrees of freedom on each axis.

34 minutes ago, 7heo said:

Given how poorly "degrees of freedom" is/are defined, yeah, it could be 24, 48, 1337, 42.69... I mean, yeah, sure. Ranges of motion, on the other hand, are a known and defined concept, and there are (many) more than three for any of our limbs.

Not true degrees of freedom aren't poorly defined at all. They tell you how a system can move and aren't fractional in physical context. Ranges of motions are complementary to degrees of freedom as they provide constraints. For example, your elbow has 1 degree of freedom: you can open and close it by rotating along the joint's axis, nothing more. It's range of motion is 180 degree (fully extended) to let's say 30 degrees (fully contracted). Your shoulder joint has 3 degrees of freedom, rotation around x, y and z, with some range of motion associated with how flexible you are.

34 minutes ago, 7heo said:

Yes. Control of said movement does not. Here, since the beginning, we are talking about the control of that movement. You are talking about the movement and ignoring the control. I don't know how clearer I can get...

"Controlling" something doesn't magically introduce degrees of freedom. All of that control is governed by a handful of operations: a translation along x, y, z and a rotation about x, y ,z. For example, a certain diagonal movement is just translation along a certain combination of the three axes.