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Comment by bloopernova | Hacker News Reader

Very cool. They've done what I've daydreamed about, and actually got it to work!

When I played Elite: Dangerous I used a "hand on throttle and stick" (HOTAS) setup, along with foot pedals. I couldn't help but think that there must be a better way to control a spaceship: your ship can pitch, yaw, and roll in addition to being able to fire thrusters in 6 directions.

I wanted a handheld ship model that I could move such that the ship in Elite would move in the same way. The linked project looks like it could do just that. Thrust would be controlled in a similar way, but with my other hand.

Strange or new input models like that are so amazing to me. Our imagination can really fly high with these sorts of capabilities.

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One of my fondest memories is when I was 16 or so. I bought a 3D mouse (it’s like a mouse that you can control by waving it around) and taped it onto a hat that said Marines. Then I immediately went into CS: Source and got ready to annihilate everyone.

I think I played about the same, but it would’ve been funnier if I’d gotten creamed.

The theory was that my head is much more precise than my hands, so using a combination of both should improve my aim. It might sound like you’ll end up looking left and trying to see out of the corner of your eye, but in practice the two-mouse system ends up working out. I’ve always wanted to revive the idea for modern times, but you end up looking like a huge dork with a dildo glued to your head. I like that style though.

Your idea sounds way cool. You should make it!

Modern consoles (and modern controllers I assume) can do this "double-input" for aiming, using a joystick and a gyroscope. I'm still bad at shooters, but it feels super good. Plus you don't look like a huge dork with a dildo glued to your head.

> look like a huge dork with a dildo glued to your head.

What do you mean? I do get stares at the grocery store or on the street occasionally but no one ever mentioned anything.

I still hold onto my SpaceOrb369 for this sort of game. There is a guy that makes a converter to make it work over USB...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceOrb_360

https://www.tindie.com/products/vputz/orbotron-9001-version-...

I have the slightly newer version, branded by HP as the SpacePilot, and use it daily in Fusion 360 CAD. It has a native USB connection, and 6 user-definable hotkeys below an unimpressive LCD.

It requires some old drivers that aren't officially supported (why would they remove support for perfectly good hardware from the newer drivers? To send good stuff to the landfill, of course!), but when Autodesk tried to move Fusion to the new driver model exclusively, user outcry persuaded them to leave the old drivers in as an option. Apparently there's quite a few of us using those SpacePilots, and the phrase "from my cold, dead fingers" comes up not infrequently.

For sure, the HP one is a rebrand of the 3Dconnexion right?

Those are great, but nothing really compares to the original SpaceOrb360 controller form-factor for gaming IMO.

Yup, as far as I can tell the HP one is literally just a sticker and a different splash screen when the LCD powers up, it's otherwise 100% identical to the 3dconnexion original. Just slightly cheaper because of keyword search.

I haven't used the SpaceOrb360 but it looks like it would be a lot of wrist strain to hold it and use it for long periods. But I like the button placement under the right hand... hmm.

With the SpacePilot, I have my right hand on the keyboard or mouse so I can bind whatever buttons I want, and I suppose I could one-hand a regular controller and get A/B/X/Y/stick/triggers in my right hand instead. Hmm. Would that be easier on the wrists than melding the two together? I'm not sure. It would certainly give me more buttons to play with...

I plugged in my old SpacePilot Pro the other day and was so dissapointed that the drivers where so outdated, and like nothing was working.

If you weren’t playing Descent with this you were losing.

> I couldn't help but think that there must be a better way to control a spaceship

Two sticks?

https://old.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/16xi20a/dua...

https://youtu.be/T2-IHgNYaKA

Yep. I played Descent II this way and it was glorious.

That's really nice, before now I hadn't really understood how to use 2 sticks, but now it makes sense.

I used a CH Pro throttle, which has enough hats to sort of mimic that 2 stick action. Main throttle back forward for main engine and retros. A smaller thumb stick/hat for each of Y and Z axis.

https://www.chproducts.com/Pro-Throttle-v13-d-719.html

That works wonderfully with VKB's STECS, which lets you swap physical detent profiles in roughly 20 seconds. So you have a forward/backward axis on your throttle with a well defined "W" centre point, plus a high quality thumb stick for your lateral/vertical thrusters.

(In case anyone is wondering, I transitioned from the Warthog throttle with DeltaSim's slew mod with zero issues, I find the STECS Standard way more versatile and flexible).

I couple this with a Gunfighter Ultimate stick (V3), and Crosswinds pedals, all profile mounted. (My GFU grip has twist, but I don't use it.)

When you add TrackIR in my case (or VR for others), there's quite a bit of immersion going on! :-)

I play DCS and Star Citizen these days, also used to fly Elite Dangerous though. Building the combined quad screen workstation / simrig has been a wonderful side project over the past few years. ;)

In the sci-fi series The Expanse, the Rocinante is controlled in part by a 3DConnexion SpaceMouse, commonly used in CAD and 3D modeling.

this 6dof "joystick" has been around for decades: https://3dconnexion.com/nl/spacemouse/

This. Sadly the drivers suck.

Would it help with scripting macro software such as AutoHotKey? I imagine it wouldn't pick up some inputs due to proprietary driver.

It have the same issue for my Logitech G600 that it can't pick up some inputs. I set up the macros in LGHUB with keystrokes (multiple modifiers with keys) and use AHK to grab those and expands the capabilities of my G600 than what LGHUB offers.

Exactly, the inputs aren’t exposed as extra axes so those tools don’t see them.

Could it help if the driver have those axes assigned to a different key to allow AHK to pick that up and AHK can change it as axes? I done that with my XP-PEN AC-19, I assigned the dial wheel to different keys in XP-PEN software and AutoHotInterception with AHK to pick that up. Then assigned it with wheelup/down depending on what active window I am on.

It does not expose it as a key either. You must link their proprietary driver (and sign some legal document) that then gives you an API you can use to read the position of the spaceball.

Really? That sucks. I guess it would be better to get a custom keypad with rotary encoders that would expose itself.

I found it interesting how companies invest heavy in hardware and don't bother to improve the software side.

There is an opensource driver package for Unix type systems[1]. I find them to be pretty reliable. The stock Windows drivers do leave something to be desired.

[1] https://spacenav.sourceforge.net/

I've always found it fascinating that companies that makes specialized hardware devices like this lean so hard into proprietary software, as if that's the thing that gives them the edge on the competition.

If anything the hardware is the hard part to copy and open source drivers could do nothing but benefit them and ensure wide platform compatibility and longevity, and yet so many companies like this insist on closing things up and forcing hackers to reverse engineer everything. It's bizarre logic to me.

I've never found an explanation of what exactly is in that.

Is it a track-ball, a rotary encoder, and a 3D stick?

I don't know exactly, but using one, it has the sensation of using the trackpoint on a Thinkpad. The puck you push, pull, and twist to make the motion is a bit springiness. The harder to push it, the faster the motion happens in the software on screen. When you release, it springs back to neutral. The old ones (late 90's vintage) had trouble coming back to center, and there was a hot key to rezero it if it was starting to drift. The newer ones don't seem to have the issue.

There's a picture on the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3Dconnexion and there's a patent you can look at: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050172711A1/en?oq=2005...

It's flexible, and there are LEDs and linear optical sensors set up with an occluder in between that casts a shadow (or passes a light through a slit, according to the patent). The sensor detect where along the sensor the shadow or light falls, which indicates how much you have translated or rotated the control in a particular axis.

Imagine a 3-axis joystick that can also sense translation. So aside from pitch/roll/yaw you also get the linear up-down/left-rigth/forward-back axises.

I can see how pitch roll yaw would work, but I can't imagine how linear movements are made on the same joystick? Maybe up and down is push and pull but what about the other directions? Do you push the device itself?

Looks like current incarnation is Stewart platform lookalike optical setup for all axes[1]. I misspoke in a different comment: Mine was older SpaceBall 5000 model, and it was more like two joysticks joined at the stem.

1: https://www.fictiv.com/teardowns/spacenavigator-3d-mouse-tea...

The trick in comparing it to a joystick is that it can distinguish between tilting the control to a side, and pushing the control to the side. Does that help? Similarly, it can detect pushing straight down and pulling straight up.

It’s a knob that spring back to its origin when let go, that can move ~45 degrees or ~1/4” each axes(subjectively). It feels a bit like those old bobbing dashboard toy in hand.

Mechanically, it’s something like an Rx/Rz two-axis joystick with sliding knob part on top that can be slid in X/Y, pushed/pulled in Z and twisted in Ry as well. All axes are spring centered.

And it works surprisingly well for Descent. The original 3dconnexion one worked first try on linux too.

Yup. Use one every day for Fusion360 and Blender.

I always imagined a sphere suspended / held by a minimum number of strings (or rods?) / attachments. By physically pushing, pulling, and twisting the sphere you could detect these movements via compression and tension in the attachments. You could motorize those strings/rods to give resistence and feedback to the piloting.

Yeah that's almost exactly what I was daydreaming of! Weaker gyroscopes might mean a ship can rotate in one direction slower than others, and feedback to a controller could model that for the user.

> I couldn't help but think that there must be a better way to control a spaceship: your ship can pitch, yaw, and roll ... in 6 directions.

15 years later and I'm still convinced that the SpaceOrb 360 is THE GREATEST GAME CONTROLER OF ALL TIME. See what I did with the all cap there? It's the G.O.A.T. and it's a tragedy that it lost the battle to "WASD" keyboard and mouse gaming and the "two thumbs" style of controller.

If you've ever tried a SpaceOrb, you probably already know this. If you didn't live through the SpaceOrb's hayday (around 1994-5 with the original Quake, and Descent, truly one of the greatest games ever) then this post will sound like I'm a crotchety old dude trying desperately to relive my the golden hour of my youth. Ok, so you got me. What of it? ;)

https://www.hanselman.com/blog/the-best-controller-for-fps-a...

Degrees of freedom: https://hanselmanblogcontent.azureedge.net/WindowsLiveWriter...

I had purchased a box of these when they were going away, and sponsored a custom driver. For a while there were other solutions available, like OrbShield:

// via SeedStudio: https://www.seeedstudio.com/Orbshield-v1-0-kit-p-671.html?qu...

// via Tindie: https://www.tindie.com/products/vputz/orbotron-9001-version-...

Reading your comment with the linked project in mind, I started thinking about the idea of a “glove holding a sphere” sort of control system: the glove is the substrate for the ArUco codes, but the sphere could contain the accelerometers, but could also contain gyroscopes to provide inertial feedback? I don’t know anywhere enough about either technology but I imagine controlling a ship in 3d space would be a constant fight against inertia, and it would be awesome to feel that.

This is why 2 sticks is a fairly common setup for space games

If you like the puzzle of firing thrusters manually, try "ΔV: Rings of Saturn". The game is 2D, but you get six keys to individually fire different thruster combos, and a separate key to fire the main engine.

Then try staying in control with an unbalanced ship, or after you inevitably smashed one of the thrusters into a rock. It's a pretty space-nerd game too, they simulate details like reaction wheel saturation.

There’s an entire rabbit hole of dual stick setups for space games. Quack HOSAS to get started.

Ok Quack is adorkable.

What would be the word for "To Kagi"? They use "Fetch" in the search field, but it hasn't really stuck with me.

Why mention the provider instead of using the verb you use the provider for? You want to "search" for something.

You wouldn't say I am AT&Ting or AOLing for browsing the internet or Honda-ing / Ducati-ing for using the motorcycle

Sorry I forgot fun died with web 1.0. I’ll try to be more cynical in the future.

The folks at Sublight Dynamics had a really neat product in this vein that I was excited about. Seems like the perfect flightsim controller. They had trouble getting fully to market. Website is still up though so I'm holding out hope!

Given that a spaceship isn't all that different from a fixed-wing aircraft, and the stick + pedals arrangement has become a standard for controlling the latter for over a century, I think it'd be hard to improve on.

The difference is that spaceships have thrusters, so they have the ability to accelerate up, down, left, or right, in addition to all the controls of a fixed-wing aircraft (throttle + stick + pedals).

With no gravity or drag they're way different.

Do fixed wing aircraft spend a lot of the time going backwards? Do they, for example, need to turn around and point their engine in the direction of travel in order to slow down? If a fixed wing accelerates to 1000mph and then rotates it’s nose by 90 degrees, how fast is it going and in what direction? What about a space craft?

> If a fixed wing accelerates to 1000mph and then rotates it’s nose by 90 degrees, how fast is it going and in what direction?

I don't know how fast, but depending on which axis it rotates on and how fast, it may be going in several directions at once.

Lol, right?

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