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Comment by vmception | Hacker News Reader

that looks a lot more fun and straight forward than games today hm

a lot of times with nostalgia gaming, one quickly notices how broken and inaccessible the controls are and how much more imagination it requires to be an escape

but this one just looks straight forward and fun

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I wouldn't call descents controls straightforward regardless of what mod/engine you use. 6 AOF Games are hard to play and descent is quite a hard game even in easier difficulties. That being said, it's a lot of fun for sure.

6DOF is hard to control for sure. A joystick with twist assigned to roll works well for heading, but I've never figured out how to best manage translation.

Descent has some limits on how fast you can adjust pitch which can be odd for new players (some of the ports can turn those off, but purists may object)

The MS Sidewinder 3D Pro had twist to roll, throttle control for forward/backward, and a 4-way hat switch for translation (aka ‘strafing’, if we’re both taking about the same thing here). It was perfect for Descent.

Edit: and Freespace!

Hmm... I need to try harder with hats, I've never felt great about using them.

Don’t forget the Gravis Phoenix which was truly a high end joystick at that time and perfect for Descent.

The Space Orb was the most effective way to play D2 once you got used to it.

I played freespace long after its hayday. The mod loader was lovely and the mod community was still quite active. The most expansive overhaul mod had only one server that had many players. It was a full-on RP server. It wasn't for me, but it was fascinating nonetheless.

One control scheme that's used nowadays is two joysticks, with one to control orientation (pitch/roll/yaw) and the other to control translation (up-down/left-right/forward-back). I usually map the left stick to translation, with twist working the up-down axis.

Takes a little getting used to, but is pretty intuitive, and gives nice smooth analogue axis for all 6DOF.

Dual joystick was a setup I used with Descent but also experienced in Mechwarrior arcade. Allows for more precise control then a single joystick with hat switch. Feels weird at first though!! Controller prices were a premium back then so keeping two joysticks in good working order was uncommon if you played hard.

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