Dual Joystick help

Howdy oftheborg! Welcome to the forum! *Coughs on dust* Kinda glad to see someone using a twin stick setup instead of a plane throttle. 😉
You are both absolutely correct. Joystick2 will refer to the second controller. You can probably have as many controllers as you like, actually. Ideally, the order of controllers is determined by a location Chessking told you of. In the game controller settings, there will be a list of the controllers attached to your computer. Ideally, the one on the top is Joystick1, the one below it Joystick2, and so on. Unfortunately, this stopped working correctly in Windows 7 and beyond, so Microsoft has a little “Advanced” button allowing you to set which controller to use for older games. This controller will be Joystick1, I think. I-War2 has a lot of hiccups with modern operating systems, and this may not work perfectly. The easiest thing to do is simply set up the controls, fire up the game, and see if the right stick does left stick things. Then you’ll know to switch Joystick1 with Joystick2.

Now, just in case you’re as lazy as I am, I’m including my own control config file. It’s set up so it doesn’t replace either of the default configs, and will show up in the game options as “Custom.” I doubt that the buttons on your Thrustmaster T-16000M are arranged the same as my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, so you might have to do delve into the file and adjust a couple things. It’s set up so that the right stick turns the ship, like any joystick. The left stick will control lateral and vertical thrusters for strafing. The left trigger (button 1) thrusts forward, as I almost never use throttle, and button 3 thrusts backwards. Button 2 calls for wingmen to defend you, since I do a lot of Instant Action. 😛 I’ve stuck some comments in the file.

The file is included in a .zip, since the forum won’t let me attach .ini files. :dry:

Hope this helps. 🙂 Feel free to hit me with any more questions you may have. Happy hunting sir!

–IronDuke

Sounds like you got it. :cheer: The reason for it needing to got to 0 before moving in the opposite direction is because of the way input works. It’s a thing in every game. Think of it as being like a car transmission. You can have it in either reverse or a forward gear, but not both. That’s because games read input as a number. With the stick centered, they read 0; with it all the way forward, they read 1; with it halfway forward, they read 0.5, and with it all the way backwards: they read -1. This makes the math quite easy, since you can have your code simply switch to using reverse thrust whenever the input is negative. Better yet, just multiply the force being applied to the ship by the input. With input positive, the force is applied to forward. But with the input negative, then the force is negative, and therefore exactly opposite to normal. That would thrust the ship backwards.
That explanation was probably horrifically overwordy, but I think you get it. :silly:

Probably I-War2’s biggest limitation is the lack of a headlook function. Your head is frozen in the cockpit. It will swing a little as you move the ship about, but that’s it. However, there are some additional view options bound to the F1, F2, F3, and F4 keys. You could try those out.

Also, rather thrilled to see that I-War2 isn’t pulling a Starboy* and only allowing two controllers. :cheer: Seems we can have three, and presumably more.

–IronDuke

*Starboy was an ancient, incredibly terrible, and unpopular space game from thirty years ago. I might be the only person in the world who even remembers it, since the thing barely broke 100 sales. It has never existed on the Internet.

Yep, we’re basically the greatest I-War site on the internet now. There isn’t a whole lot of competition, admittedly, but we’re still the best. B)