hmm, maybe wrong place, but not sure where,,, I am looking for testers??

tsmspace · October 7, 2021

Don't get too excited, I'm just your everyday nobody with a handful of ugly diy game controllers I am hoping to get some people to try out.

The game controller is specific in it's design, and specifically I have a particular use case I'm interested in finding people to try out.

The idea is that you can use the 4 joysticks to control 6 axis manual thrust space games. (none of that "automatic thrust" allowed). The perfect example is Simulation Mode in the game Orbital Racer. There's no shooting, but there's nothing but navigation all day. It's true, the better place to get started is NOT a race, and I wish there were a game that had some tighter navigation for low speed, but overall Orbital Racer is the most checkboxes. (a sort of space-taxi could be better, if it flew like Orbital Racer, but you had to go through tight courses to reach checkpoints instead of laps around a high speed track).

What I'm looking to do, is send someone the game controller. I have a few ready, and ordered parts for a handful more. You can keep the controller, and additionally I will gift Orbital Racer on steam (we will add friends). So there is legitimately zero cost to the recipient. I want some good faith that you take the controller seriously, and that's about it. If we can have some conversations and I can feel you are genuinely interested in the game style and the controller, and you can agree to talk about it after you've practiced it for a while (not for others, I'm not trying to sell them, you would just talk to me privately, and I would only mention any comments you make in a passive "someone told me" kind of way). Unfortunately the controllers are using cheap joysticks, but they aren't THAT bad.

If you just want to build your own,, I do have a project page but my instructions aren't very good,, but the project is pretty self explanatory. If you do build one,, I would LOVE to hear about it. https://hackaday.io/project/180884-4-joystick-6-axis-6-dof-game-controller

Here's some comments i have to make. "realistic thrust physics" manual thrust games simply are not part of console gaming, and in honesty they are hardly a part of pc gaming. The game selection is pretty slim, generally being limited to games that take a lot of time to play like a space trading game, and then generally hardcore navigation isn't a part of the gameplay. In Orbital Racer it IS a part of the gameplay, and in simulation mode with "float" turned on,, you get exactly the experience I am talking about.

If players could simply use a game controller, I think the general interest in the game style would be much higher overall, but when presented with a manual thrust game, players are presented with controls that are difficult to interact with, and generally there are NO control interfaces that are presented that prospective players would just think, "oh,, that's really easy and logical". I do like the space mouse, and will never argue against it. I also feel that the recent attempts at 6axis joysticks will result in a good standardized product, but gamepads stand alone for many gamers and styles of gaming. If you get one in your hands, and you use my configuration, I feel you will find that using my 4 joystick controller is very intuitive, just as easy as a normal gamepad, and you will learn to play a game like Orbital Racer in overall an amount of time you can agree is fair to allow for a fun game.

If you are interested, reply here, and send me a message. I don't know what sort of conversation it would take for me to be ready to send one out, but the cost to you would be nothing more than some time and responsiveness.

I would love to talk about it more,, this is a serious inquiry,, if a mod wants to place it elsewhere that's ok , but I'm not selling or trading anything so I didn't really feel it was a classified in that sense. (if I was trying to move a cpu, maybe then,,,)

07_Sev · October 14, 2021

NGL this controller design looks super interesting. I'd love to try it but I was raised on PC so I don't really have that much analog stick experience. And the xp I do have is me being terrible at call of duty and battlefield, just longing for keyboard and mouse support on consoles. I'm also not familiar with Orbital Race. And last but not least, I live in the Netherlands. It's probaly quite costly to ship the controller to the other side of the world.

Perhaps if you could go to r/ElectricalEngineering someone closer to you might want to have a look and give you excelent feedback.

tsmspace · October 17, 2021

On 10/14/2021 at 9:14 AM, 07_Sev said:

NGL this controller design looks super interesting. I'd love to try it but I was raised on PC so I don't really have that much analog stick experience. And the xp I do have is me being terrible at call of duty and battlefield, just longing for keyboard and mouse support on consoles. I'm also not familiar with Orbital Race. And last but not least, I live in the Netherlands. It's probaly quite costly to ship the controller to the other side of the world.

Perhaps if you could go to r/ElectricalEngineering someone closer to you might want to have a look and give you excelent feedback.

I would be more than happy to send one to the netherlands. Sorry it's been a few days. I recently posted one to england, and it wasn't unbearably expensive, it's light and not too large.

You are actually the right candidate, because you will be a newbie no matter what,, you won't wish you were "like that other game" you always play so it will be normal for you to be in a learning state. I also was not a very good controller player and can give you some tips on how to work your way up.

Here's what I would like to do. I will private message you to talk in more detail, but here is my plan. We will add friends on Steam. In messenger there is better for me because I see those notifications more often, and we can figure out where you want to ship it to. My last recipient had a po box that kept their information private, so I am happy to send it to your home, but I am equally happy to send it to a forwarder or post office pickup if you have that option.

I will message you here to request your steam email so that I can add friends. If you would prefer to simply exchange information here, that is ok, but I want to gift you a few inexpensive games including orbital racer so that you will have no cost incurred and therefore hopefully the best experience. Also, I check my steam daily when I play a game, so if you need help with setup or have questions about why configuration is whacky in some game, I can probably see that more quickly!

Thanks!! I can't wait!!