Is the horrible vehicle steering optional? UGH!

[ShrubMiK 0]

Mouse is soooo not the right sort of controller for steering. Removing auto centre would fix some issues, but then I'm sure there will be some complaints when somebody wants to drive straight without having to fiddle with the mouse constantly. Maybe clicking a button to centre the steering again...but that doesn't feel much like how real steering works.

Personally I find no trouble with using keyboard to steer fast along some of those windy roads, much easier than I remember it being in OFP. Maybe that's just me.

And ideally I'd like to be able to use mouse to look around whilst driving - that would be my complaint about the steering model in ArmA. That and the fact that when a cat jumps on the desk and knocks the mouse that I have let go of whilst steering by keyboard, it inevitably does it at just the monent to pile me into a building or off the edge of the road into the sea.

[granQ 293]

how often haven't you been thru this:

"KA50!"

"stop the car, lets get out!!"..

*hits the brake*

toooooooooooo loooooooooooooong time passes

[celery 8]

how often haven't you been thru this:

"KA50!"

"stop the car, lets get out!!"..

*hits the brake*

toooooooooooo loooooooooooooong time passes

Breaking sideways like in action movies is a lifesaver.

[Guest Ti0n3r]

ODEN @ July 01 2007,13:43)]vote +1 for removal of auto centering

1 vote on making it optional

[the unknown 0]

50 votes for the optional (took the libarty to vote for the people that live around me that have arma)

Btw this has been asked for since 1.0 and it still aint fixed, i tink the saying If its good why try to fix it comes along.

[ShrubMiK 0]

how often haven't you been thru this:

"KA50!"

"stop the car, lets get out!!"..

*hits the brake*

toooooooooooo loooooooooooooong time passes

What's that got to do with the thread topic?

But you may have a point...since I never bother to use brake I honestly have no idea how it compares to real-life. I suppose I should find out what key I've got it configured on and get into the habit of using it in case of need.

But I would say that it's quite easy to bring the vehicles to a stop without using brake, the first blade of grass will normally do it ;o) And that , if anything, would be my main complaint re. the handling of the vehicles.

[russin 0]

joystick works great for driving mabe give that a try.....

[madrussian 347]

Add another vote for being rid of mouse auto-center in vehicles...

It's very console-ish as is in ArmA (while OFP had it spot on).  Optional setting in ArmA would be fine, just let us turn the damn thing off.

I wonder if anyone has submitted the mouse auto-center as a bug in the bugtracker system?  If so, maybe someone can post the id # here and we can all go vote for the fix.

Imo, it's up to each of us to increase the priority for this issue (as far as BIS is concerned)... good thing the vast magority seem to agree it's totally broken right now.  Let's do something about it.

[iconoclastdx 5]

+2 vote to remove auto centering. (and also get rid of the forced head turn when steering)

How did you get the game to do that? I would kind of like that as a optional feature to be honest. When I steer with the mouse or the keyboard my head view stays constant.

[the unknown 0]

The only ting that looked like it was this one but I dont tink its what we are talking about.

BTS Link

[ShrubMiK 0]

>good thing the vast magority seem to agree it's totally broken right now.

How did you arrive at that conclusion?

But having said that, I have no objection to it being an optional setting.

[frederf 0]

In OFP the combination of "look to apex" with the hardline mouse position = steering wheel position made for a very annoying "wobble" as the wheel turning made your mouse move to one side which made the car turn the other way. This in turn changed your view and since the mouse was slaved to the terrain and not your viewport your mouse would move respective to the car which would make you "look to apex" wherein the whole horrid cycle began anew.

The OFP method had it's flaws. The way BIS has changed it is certainly not the only solution but it was one that removed the coupled view-mouse oscillations.

I think the auto centering mouse just needs a longer delay, like 5 seconds? And make sure your cursor does not stick to the ground and you won't get the oscillations.

[madrussian 347]

>good thing the vast magority seem to agree it's totally broken right now.

How did you arrive at that conclusion?

But having said that, I have no objection to it being an optional setting.

I have seen a number of threads devoted to this very topic - the issue of the mouse-autocenter in vehicles.  In each of the threads, those who hate the mouse-autocentering "feature" far outnumber the ones that like it.

When you get this number of people wanting to fix something in ArmA that wasn't broken in OFP, imo it's tantamount to a bug (like with the flight model).

Bottom line is (as you alluded to), if there's an option to turn it on or off then we'll ALL be happy.

@the unknown

Yeah, that one does appear to be a bit too general.  Thanks for looking though.

!!! Attention to all who hate the dreaded-mouse-auto-center !!!

Sometime tomorrow, I intend to do some more searching in the bugtracker.  I'll write this up if it's not there already.  Either way I'll return with a #.  If any of you aren't registered on the bugtracker, now's a great time to sign up.  The more the votes = more visibility = the sooner this gets fixed!

Let's lick this thing for once and for all.

[Balschoiw 0]

I´m in your boat MadRussian. I wouldn´t even limit the autocenter-off function to ground vehicles only. It also makes sense to have it removed for planes and helos as there is no way you can steer the plane/helo consistent with mouse + keyboard. Most of the time you end up with running out of mousepad and the visual and inflight impression that you are riding a bull, not a plane.

For all who say that I should use a joystick. Scrap it. I have one as I have a wheel but changing the infrastructure on my desk whenever I hop into a vehicle is not on my list. First of all the vehicles should be controlable with the regular set of mouse (trackball) + keyboard. That´s the basics that should work for everyone and that certainly did work very well with OFP.

So give it back to us please. A visual indicator (read visible pointer) should be included aswell for feedback and target reasons in planes. All who are happy with joystick will not be affected by the change anyway, and if it´s embedded optional it would do no harm but only improve it for a big load of people who are permanetly frustrated by the akward control method we have today with m+k.

[iconoclastdx 5]

Yes, I forgot to mention that the same autocentering cripples flight as well. Its annoying to have to roll my mouse an accumulative 20 feet just to make a 180 degree banking turn.

[oyman 0]

how often haven't you been thru this:

"KA50!"

"stop the car, lets get out!!"..

*hits the brake*

toooooooooooo loooooooooooooong time passes

The ArmA cars are not Formula 1 cars.

[ShrubMiK 0]

"I have seen a number of threads devoted to this very topic - the issue of the mouse-autocenter in vehicles.  In each of the threads, those who hate the mouse-autocentering "feature" far outnumber the ones that like it."

Links? Actual numbers of those for and against? You've obviously counted them accurately, yes?

Take this thread for example - I 'll admit I haven't counted preceisely but there seem to be some people who really dislike it, some people who like it, and some people who don't care on way or another. Whatever, it doesn't come across to me as clear evidence that a "vast majority" hate it...especially when you consider that the number of people who have actually stated an opinion is a very small fraction of the total player base.

There's also different opinions on what the "fix" for the "issue" should be.

If you want to make statements like "the vast majority of players are against X and in favour of Y", a poll might be a good way to back it up?

(And I'll just point out again I'm in the "don't care" faction - as long as any change is optional/configurable.)

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]Links? Actual numbers of those for and against? You've obviously counted them accurately, yes?

Use the search.

Most of the time the issue arose in topics that had discussions about the FM, the handling of vehicles and so on.

And yes, there is a major agreement among Arma users who use keyboard + mouse only that the current autocenter ond loss of directional cursor ingame is not something that makes it easier to keep steering consistent and fluent but achieves just the opposite.

These are remains of the XBox port to Arma. There is no benefit from it, quite the opposite is the case as consistent and fluent steering is impossible now with keyboard+mouse. It´s impuls steering.

Most of the people do not care because they do not use keyboard + mouse for flying, driving. They use joystick. These people can be totally excluded as they do not care as they do not use that controller combination.

You may recount btw.

Quote[/b] ]If you want to make statements like "the vast majority of players are against X and in favour of Y", a poll might be a good way to back it up?

Polls at the BIS forum lately have turned into a kindergarden clicky-show with no actual meaning.

I suggest to set up a BT suggestion and have those vote who want to have an alternate vehicle control method that can be enabled/disabled via options , has the autocenter removed and a visual cursor reimplemented for feedback.

Edit:

Count from this thread:

Pro optional change: 16

Con change: 1

Didnt´count the "I don´t care" as they don´t care.

[ShrubMiK 0]

No...now here's a revolutionary idea: the person making the grandiose claim should make the effort of doing the research, gathering the statistics, whatever is needed to back it up.

It's hard if the yeas and nays are distributed in various other threads about various other subjects, which is where an explicit poll should be useful.

Just because some meaningless polls have been created doesn't mean that there's no point in creating a meaningful one. What's the potential problem? People might not care enough to answer? People might lie? Or it might turn out that the overwhelming consnsus claimed does not actually exist?

Not saying you're wrong, btw, I just like to see some evidence. Especially when I, for one, disagree...I find it less troublesome to steer ground vehicles in ArmA than OFP, honestly. Helicopters are a bit more awkward, but I think that's down to the flight model itself rather than anything to do with mouse autocentring. Flying aircraft with mouse...well, in my view that's inherently a very bad fit, I'd vote joystick every time.

Perhaps I should point out that the overwhelming majority of people are in favour of polls, as proved by comments in various unrelated threads that I can't be bothered to look up ;o)

[MehMan 0]

Or you could just vote on the bugtracker on the topic I just made here.

[ShrubMiK 0]

A valid alternative Although it would be nice if it explicitly asked for it to be configurable rather than just changed

Balschoiw, an alternative way to tally this thread so far is:

10 people posted without saying that they wanted any sort of change, optional or otherwise. Implication: they are happy with the way it is. You can probably *assume* they would be happy with an optional change, but that is an assumption.

11 people posted saying they were unhappy with how it is and want it changed, full stop.

3 people (including me) specifically advocate an optional change. (allegedly +50 mysterious ghosts).

Don't know why I'm devoting so much time to this, lol. Perhaps we should just wait and see how many people vote for it on the bugtracker...

[NeoNiels 0]

The problem is that the keyboard and mouse are to fast for the driving controls in ArmA. The engine in ArmA was build for the X-BOX game "Operation Flashpoint:Elite". Consoles use analoge gamepads. They are much slower than the mouse or keyboard. You see it with all X-BOX ports. Rainbow Six Vegas has the biggest problems with controls. These games expect a slow controller. When keyboard and mouse are applied things go wrong. For example with aiming or in this case driving. It's just a matter of dealing with the problem and getting used to it. But it still sucks.

Drive safely!

[wamingo 1]

I concur, the autocentering is a real drag, including flying. But I think it would need a deadzone for flying, or level flight may prove difficult. Though atm helicopters and planes are slightly pulling back all the time, that's pretty darn annoying too.

So an autocentering game-setting would be nice. And how about a key toggle just for the heck of it.

[ht-57 0]

NO ,by the way

HVS {horrible vehichle steering} is included on all models

even the floor models,no extra charge!

If you order before midnight will throw in the new "all or nothing accelerator" as well!

[Average Joe 0]

I gotta admit the steering is horrid and yes I prefer the bf2 method and vehicle physics, so shoot me.