Controllers and input¶

OpenReliant supports joysticks and gamepads: flight sticks, sticks with a throttle, HOTAS sets that connect with a single USB cable, old gameport sticks on USB adapters, and gamepads such as Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch controllers. You can connect a controller before starting the game or while it is running. The keyboard still works when a controller is connected.

Which controller is used¶

OpenReliant uses one controller at a time. If several are connected, it prefers a joystick over a gamepad, and it never picks a standalone throttle while a stick is connected. To choose a controller yourself, see Choosing a controller.

Gamepad controls¶

The face buttons are identified by position, not by label: the bottom button is A on an Xbox controller, cross on a PlayStation controller and B on a Nintendo controller.

Some mapped actions (such as gun groups, comms and damage windows) are not implemented in OpenReliant yet. They are mapped now so they work once they are added.

The left stick works like a flight stick: pushing it forward points the nose down. To invert this, set JoystickInvert=0 (see Settings).

Rumble¶

A controller with rumble motors, such as an Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo Switch controller, plays StarLancer's force-feedback effects as rumble: each gun has its own, and so do launching a missile, hits on your shields and hull, crashes, shockwaves and the afterburner. ForceFeedback=0 turns it off (see Settings).

Rumble can't push a stick the way the original's force-feedback joysticks did. Flight sticks without motors play nothing.

Flight stick controls¶

These are StarLancer's own defaults, from DEFAULT.TXT in the game's folder. Button numbers start at 0, as shown by openreliant joysticks, so the button your stick calls 1 is button 0 here. To roll with the stick instead of turning, hold the / key. If your stick has no throttle, use the keyboard throttle keys.

Checking your controller¶

openreliant joysticks lists the connected controllers, shows which one the game will use, and for joysticks shows which axis is used for what. Open a terminal in the folder where you extracted OpenReliant, and run:

./openreliant joysticks StarLancer

On Windows, use .\openreliant.exe instead of ./openreliant. StarLancer is the folder the game is installed in; the tool reads your settings from there. Without it, the tool finds the game as openreliant does (Installation). Its first line says which starlancer.ini it read, or that it found none, in which case none of your settings are used. For a joystick it then prints something like this:

Settings from StarLancer/starlancer.ini.
1. Logitech Extreme 3D (used by the game)
   joystick, USB ID 046d:c215, 4 axes, 12 buttons, 1 hat
   X: axis 0, Y: axis 1, throttle: axis 3 (automatic), twist: axis 2 (automatic)
   To choose it: Joystick=Logitech Extreme 3D

The third line says which axis the game uses for what. (automatic) marks OpenReliant's guess from the number of axes, and (ThrottleAxis) or (TwistAxis) marks a choice from your starlancer.ini. The last line is the setting that picks this controller when several are connected.

To see live input as the game reads it, add --watch:

./openreliant joysticks StarLancer --watch

X  1000  Y     0  throttle   500  twist  1000  hat   -
Buttons down: 0
Axis  0:  100% (X)
Axis  1:    0% (Y)
Axis  2:  100% (twist)
Axis  3:    0% (throttle)

The view updates in place as you move the controls. The first line shows the values as the game reads them. The second shows the buttons held down, by their numbers; on a gamepad, each with its name. For a joystick, a line for each axis follows: its number, how far it is moved, from -100% to 100% of its travel, and what the game uses it for. Move a control or press a button and see which number changes: that is the number to give ThrottleAxis, TwistAxis or JOY BUTTON. Axis and button numbers start at 0. Press Ctrl+C to stop.

The controls screen¶

GAME OPTIONS' CONTROL DEVICES opens the controls, as do the in-game options' and the pause menu's, and F1 in flight. There you choose what you steer with, the joystick or gamepad, the mouse or the keyboard, turn force feedback, pitch inversion, the hat and the twist's roll on and off, and bind the actions. To bind an action, click its row and press a key, alone or with Shift or Ctrl, or a button on your controller; click anywhere else when you are done, or press Escape to keep the old binding. A key or button another action has asks first whether to take it. Keys show by the names your keyboard's layout gives them, so on a French keyboard the key the US layout calls Q shows as A. The mouse wheel, or Up and Down, scroll the list. CANCEL CHANGES undoes what you changed since the screen opened, and RESET DEFAULTS goes back to the defaults. The screen saves what you change to starlancer.ini (Settings), and leaves the rest as the file has it.

With the joystick chosen and none connected, the keyboard steers until a controller is connected, and the joystick stays your choice. A gamepad's right stick always rolls, so its JOYSTICK ROLL box shows ticked and dimmed.

Settings¶

StarLancer stores its settings in starlancer.ini in the game folder, and OpenReliant reads the same file. If it does not exist, create it with a text editor:

[KeyConfig]
JoystickInvert=1
TwistEnable=1
HatEnable=1
Controller=0

[JoyConfig]
DeadZone=5
Joystick=Extreme 3D
ThrottleAxis=3
TwistAxis=2
ThrottleInvert=0
FIRE LASERS=JOY BUTTON 0
LAUNCH MISSILE=JOY BUTTON 1

A setting you leave out keeps its default.

Improvement: DeadZone, Joystick, ThrottleAxis, TwistAxis and ThrottleInvert are OpenReliant settings; the original game ignores them. Axis numbers are the ones openreliant joysticks shows.

Button bindings¶

The controls screen binds buttons (The controls screen). To bind one by hand, add ACTION NAME=JOY BUTTON number to the JoyConfig section for a joystick, with the button numbers openreliant joysticks --watch shows, or to the GamepadConfig section for a gamepad, which keeps its buttons apart since they are numbered otherwise; ACTION NAME= with nothing unbinds the action. A gamepad's numbers are always these:

The action names are:

COCKPIT CAMERA, LEFT VIEW CAMERA, RIGHT VIEW CAMERA, REAR VIEW CAMERA, FLYBY CAMERA, TARGET CAMERA, EXTERNAL CAMERA, MISSILE CAMERA, NEXT ENEMY TARGET, PREVIOUS ENEMY TARGET, NEXT FRIENDLY TARGET, PREVIOUS FRIENDLY TARGET, NEXT SUBTARGET, PREVIOUS SUBTARGET, TARGET UNDER RETICULE, TARGET NEAREST ENEMY, TARGET NEAREST FRIENDLY, TARGET TORPEDO, SMART TARGET, PRIMARY TARGET, AFTERBURNERS, AFTERBURNER TOGGLE, REVERSE THRUST, JUMP DRIVE, MATCH SPEED, ACCELERATE, DECELERATE, ZERO THROTTLE, FULL THROTTLE, ROLL SHIP CLOCKWISE, ROLL SHIP ANTI-CLOCKWISE, NOSE UP, NOSE DOWN, ROTATE CLOCKWISE, ROTATE ANTI-CLOCKWISE, STRAFE LEFT, STRAFE RIGHT, JOYSTICK ROLL, FIRE LASERS, FULL GUNS, GUNNERY WINDOW, GUNNERY WINDOW LOCKED, SYNCHRONISE GUNS, TOGGLE BLINDFIRE, LAUNCH MISSILE, MISSILE WINDOW, ROTATE MISSILES CLOCKWISE, ROTATE MISSILES ANTICLOCKWISE, COMMS WINDOW, POWERBALL WINDOW, POWERBALL WINDOW LOCKED, FULL POWER TO GUNNERY, FULL POWER TO ENGINES, FULL POWER TO SHIELDS, EQUALIZE POWER, OBJECTIVES WINDOW, WING STATUS WINDOW, WING STATUS WINDOW LOCKED, DAMAGE WINDOW, DAMAGE WINDOW LOCKED, RADAR RANGES, SHIELD BALANCING, COUNTERMEASURES, EJECT, CLOAK SHIP, ECM, SPECTRAL SHIELDS, ATTACK MY TARGET, BACK OFF, HELP ME, PERMISSION TO LAND, DISPLAY KILLS, SEND COMMS MESSAGE, KEY CONFIG.

For example, STRAFE LEFT=JOY BUTTON 13 and STRAFE RIGHT=JOY BUTTON 14 strafe with the D-pad. In that case also set HatEnable=0, otherwise the D-pad looks around as well.

Choosing a controller¶

If several controllers are connected, Joystick selects the first one whose name contains the given text (not case-sensitive). For example, Joystick=xbox uses an Xbox controller even when a stick is connected. If no connected controller's name contains it, the game picks a controller as it would without the setting, and says so in its log; openreliant joysticks says so too.

Common controllers¶

• Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch and most other gamepads: work out of the box with the gamepad controls above.
• Sticks with a twist and a throttle, such as the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro: work out of the box. Set TwistEnable=1 if you want to roll with the twist.
• HOTAS sets with a single USB cable, such as the Saitek/Logitech X52: work out of the box. Use openreliant joysticks --watch to check that the right axis is used as the throttle, and set ThrottleAxis if it is not.
• Stick and throttle with separate USB cables: OpenReliant only reads the stick for now (#114). Use the keyboard for the throttle, or bind ACCELERATE and DECELERATE to buttons on the stick.
• Old gameport sticks on a USB adapter: steering and buttons work; use the keyboard for the throttle.
• Gamepads listed as a joystick: SDL, the library OpenReliant uses for controllers, does not recognize the gamepad, so its right stick is treated as a throttle. Set ThrottleAxis=-1 and TwistAxis=2. Alternatively, add a mapping for the gamepad to a gamecontrollerdb.txt file in the game folder to get the full gamepad controls. The SDL_GameControllerDB project has mappings for thousands of gamepads.

If your controller needs any of these settings, or does not work at all, please open an issue on GitHub and include the output of openreliant joysticks, so support can be improved.

Troubleshooting¶

• The controller is not listed: Check that your system detects it. On Linux, you need read access to its device in /dev/input; desktop sessions normally give this to the logged-in user.
• The ship drifts or turns by itself: Your stick does not rest exactly in the center. Increase DeadZone.
• Small movements do nothing: Decrease DeadZone. The default of 10 is large for a modern stick.
• The throttle works in reverse: Set ThrottleInvert=1.
• The wrong axis controls the throttle or twist: Find the right axes with openreliant joysticks --watch and set ThrottleAxis and TwistAxis.