Awkward Tank Controls In Starsector? Madman Analyses Jank In Search of Eternal Truth

Say no to the tyrannical "execution taxes"! Rise up comrades, and make a new world of joyous controls! An actual video about Galactic Civilizations 2 will be coming soon. Edit: I also changed my channel logo to have a face on it, in a hopeless attempt to appear more human. But I know you are not so easily fooled.

This Devin Dev Commentary is pure gold

i think one game where tank controls are really well implemented is Brigador - a mech/tank/hovercraft isometric shooter. takes a while to get used to, but becomes very fluid after a while, cause it utilizes the fact that most weapons can be freely rotated, so you can drive with one hand and shoot with another. but it also has screen-related(no idea if this is correct name) controls, so the player always has an option to switch to something that fits them more

Here for the rants, stay for the commentary!

I don't like the tank control option (using the keyboard for rotation) in Starsector except for on large ships--and more specifically, ships designed for broadside combat. And there are only two of those--the Conquest and the Odyssey. I just go into the settings and check the box for "Invert what the Shift key does" or set it to a toggle option so I don't have to hold it down. Also: the "thing you can't do with aim-at-mouse on" is that if your ship has an omnishield, you can't rotate the shield separately from your facing; both your shield and your ship will turn to face your mouse. I don't really think this is much of an issue except on larger ships with omnishields... which again comes down mostly to the Conquest and Odyssey. Other than those two, following the mouse is the way to go. I can count on one hand the number of times I've needed or had the reflexes/coordination to aim my shields separately from my weapons & ship facing when piloting smaller and faster ships. Personally, I don't have an issue with the camera, since it is still controlled by you--the farther away your mouse is from your ship, the more the camera moves. It may not need to do it for smaller ships or those with shorter-range weapons, and while I can see a "zoom out / move camera behind ship" for longer-range weapons, I think the camera would become extra janky on ships with long-range turrets (as opposed to forward-facing hardpoints). It would also make it difficult to pilot any ships with fighter bays, since you'd need to be able to target ships over a screen away in order to send a fighter strike (unless the developer added a way to command YOUR ship to fighter strike an enemy ship from the command screen). This could make an argument for having more context-sensitive controls. Piloting a carrier? You get maximum bendy camera. Piloting a ship with long-range weapons? You get zoomed out and the camera shifts a bit depending on which weapon group you are controlling. Piloting a ship with short-range weapons? Camera locked to the ship. I honestly use the bendy-cam to survey the battlefield, since actually SEEING the action provides more information than what you see on the command screen, so I'm definitely in the camp of "I think the camera's fine, please don't change it for me / please give me the option to keep the camera the way it is." I really enjoy your videos, though. Watched your 5-hour one the whole way through, though it took several days!

I very strongly recommend point ship to cursor. from there you need only maintain your distance from the enemy.

13:25 In starsector's combats the mouse control a lot of things: 1 - The camera 2 - The targeting lock system 3 - The weapons 4 - The shield orientation arc 5 - the ship orientation (by holding shift or by inverting shift behavior like Alex said at 17:51) But aside form the first two, controling them with the mouse is optional. You can leave your weapons on auto targeting or use guided missille. You can use frontal shield to lock it forward, or pilot a phase ship. And you can use normal control and rotate your ship with Q and E. You can make it easy for yourself by chosing wich system you want to control with your mouse.

I can't believe someone's actually talking about Endless Sky. I used to play it on my laptop because it was free and not graphically intense, though i did enjoy it.

The reason you were slowing down when firing your weapons is because Starsector has a "Zero Flux Engine Boost" that increases your speed by 50% when you're at zero flux, as soon as you fire your weapons or raise shields, you loose that speed boost.

Only from Jank can we find the truth

Ya they have the lock and unlock to in the over map so there could be a key to tag on or off for lock and unlock on ship in fighting part.

I don't believe i could've played Starsector without camera following the mouse. I need to see what's going on further out on the battlefield.

If you ever do play endless sky keep in mind that to get access to the story you should go to the spaceport everytime you land and accept all missions that gives you

Oh god not again!

Endless Sky is great, got really into it for a while.

The first thing before my every playthrough in Starsector is changing the zoom out value in the config file. I don't remember what exactly I put there as I haven't played it much for quite some time, but it mitigates the camera issue by a lot. After playing like this for many, many releases and getting used to the convenience, I wouldn't play with the default values even if I was paid for it. Since the introduction of combat readiness, especially considering why it was even added to the game, I've been increasigly of the opinion that the lead dev's design choices are the biggest enemy of his own creation.

I wonder if you would like Sunless Skies? That might be something along the lines you were describing.

As we all know the only good game with tank controls was Steambot Chronicles

I feel like the camera not being locked to the ship you're piloting is not really a problem, but rather just a difference you need some time to get used to. I personally like it moving towards the cursor, since it allows me to see more of the the surroundings with my small screen. I've personally never had it interfere with actual piloting of the ship for me, but there were cases where I didn't notice a ship or a missile sneak up on me because I had the camera too far out.

Hey hey people, OffyD here