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[Bregor]

I picked up a Nostromo N-52 controller based upon the recommendation in this thread:

http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=9281&highlight=nostromo

I'm very happy with it so far, but I have a few questions for the more experienced users:

1. How have you mapped your weapon selection in FPS games? (Doom 3, Half Life, etc.)
2. Any ideas on how to get the thumb button to work better?
3. Any other good tips?

Thanks in advance...

 

[Bregor]

*** bump ***

 

[sc0la]

I would like some impressions as well. There are two at a store by me that are mismarked at $11.00

 

[RevenantKioku]

Get ArcadeStickMonk for your answerage. That guy pimps them all the time (Not that its bad, my friend has one and he loves it), I believe he knows his stuff.

 

[dark10x]

Get ArcadeStickMonk for your answerage. That guy pimps them all the time (Not that its bad, my friend has one and he loves it), I believe he knows his stuff.

You've just made his day.

He's at work right now, I believe...so this'll have to wait until later. I swear the guy had this thing welded to his left hand at one point.

 

[sc0la]

Well I am going to buy it today. No reason not at the price. I don't really play to many PC games right now (just WCIII) but I think I will program the hotkeys for my commonly used Photoshop shortcuts as well.

 

[impirius]

I have one, and while I love the idea, I hardly ever use it. The buttons are way too mushy. Maybe I'll try to break the thing in eventually, but for now, I'm back to ESDF.

 

[ArcadeStickMonk]

I'm still at work and my nose is bleeding right now.

Let's have a 'lil pimpage 'fore we get down.

Ah yeah.....

Weapon mapping really depends on the game. Any game that has ten progressively more powerful weapons, as well as a simplistic control scheme to begin with (Doom3), I just map from second row-left up. Pistol=5, Shotty=6, etc. Then I notice that i use the unbearably awesome and accurate shotgun 90% of the time so I re-map that to the center 7. It's always good to have your go to weapons on "home" keys.

Now, I used the pistol\flashlight mod, so that was one key I eliminated, and you're never going to use you're fist, so that one's out to. Shamefully, I mapped both quicksave and quickload to the thumb buttons. I ain't replayin' five minutes.

Half-Life used a weapon menu, and on games like that I simply map each menu to a top row button, because there is usually only about five. I did a really badassed config for NOLF2 that used this concept.

Keep in mind that I map jump and crouch to my side trackball buttons whereever applicable, so those never need to be fit to the N52. Reload is also on the trackball (wheel in). And of course i use the N52 thumb pad to move around.

Which thumb buttons are you referring to?
The d-pad is always arrow keys for me unless the game is mouse driven.
The bottom thumb button is a good canidate for quick load\save, and is also the go-to shift state for ulitiies where I can let of the d-pad for a moment. The big orange button is a great Escape\Menu\Inventory button, if it's not quicking.

I'll post what configs I have left when I get home, if you like. Just let me know what you're interested in. I can spend upwards of two hours configuring controls for a game, if they are complex enough. Anybody with a N52 and interested in Silent Storm really ought to see me first.

 

[Bregor]

So you use the d-pad for movement instead of WASD? That would make a lot more buttons available for weapons. I'm already using my mouse buttons for jump/crouch.

The thumb button I have trouble with is the orange one. It takes far too much force to get it to register when pressed (something I saw mentioned in reviews even before buying the n-52). I've even considered opening up the n-52 to see if I can fix the button.

The scroll wheel seems to be a bit low quality to me, but it is redundant anyway - I can't think of any use for it that the scroll wheel on my mouse doesn't already perform.

Other than the orange thumb button and scroll wheel, it's an excellent product IMO.

 

[ArcadeStickMonk]

You've gotta think harder !! That scroll wheel is three buttons if you want it to be, and twelve if you get nuts with shift states.

True, in a simple game like Doom3, it's relegated to bring up the menu when I touch it, but think harder. How about stance up and and down in Rainbow Six? How about being a force powers scroll paralleling your weapon scroll in Jedi Knight 2? Equipment scroll to match Biomod scroll in DEIW? Control viewable planes in Silent Storm? Throttle for MW4? It's useful, and it's a place to dump your quicks when everything else is full.

If you're not using the d-pad for movement, you're totally short-changing the N52's functionality. The orange button is a little firm, but that's why I commonly map a quicksave or "end turn" to it, it's that much harder to screw yourself on accident.

Learn to use those shift states. They litterally can change the way you play more complex games by putting shit at your fingertips that you wouldn't have bothered with before. Familiar with Planetside's controls? I mapped everything I'd ever need to just the N52 and my trackball. That includes speech macros. Give Me Fifty.

Use momentary shifts only, toggle will mess you up even on turn based games. Make a shift one coherent idea. Only stuff functions from one menu or mode into a shift state, it'll be hard to make sense of otherwise.

Your most important functions go on 6-8, with 2-4 being the next tier of access. Make 1,5,6,0 tertiary. The bottom four should be auxillery only, but the leftmost bottom key is the best momentary shift key on the N52. You can hold it with your pinky and still hit every other key.

Your first config should never be your final, take notes and archive them for reinstalls. Stay up late as hell. Wipe down the orange boot often, even a little dust on the bottom can make it slide all over. if the boot is clean on a clean surface, the N52 will stick like glue.

I'm proud of you

 

[Black Deatha]

Damnit ArcadeStickMonk and all your pimping of this damn thing, I belive it was you who a while back convinced me to try one when I see one, problem is, I cant find one anywhere. I live in Canada, and have never seen thses thing at Future Shop or on there site

And I dont have a CC to buy one online either.

~Black Deatha

 

[ArcadeStickMonk]

Perhaps you could request that a local game or electronics store order one for you?

I feel for you man; if there was some badassed controller that I just couldn't get my hands on it would kill me. This is just one of the reasons why I'm glad I don't like Virtua-On.

 

[Bregor]

How do you configure the diagonals on the thumb pad for movement? Say you want to move forward and strafe left at the same time, do you set a macro to this position to issue both commands? With WASD this is simple, you just press both keys at once, but with the d-pad you can only press one direction at a time...

 

[ArcadeStickMonk]

How do you configure the diagonals on the thumb pad for movement? Say you want to move forward and strafe left at the same time, do you set a macro to this position to issue both commands? With WASD this is simple, you just press both keys at once, but with the d-pad you can only press one direction at a time...

Just make sure that the diagonals are set to default. Both the N50 and N52 are smart enough to know that a diagonal press should combine two directions. If you set them to default they will come up as DPad UpRight and so on. If you've set them to off, they won't work at all.

The reason this is so is that Belkin wants you to have the option of eight functions on the pad, if you wanted to, but I've never thought it a good idea to take them off of default. However, in some configs, Silent Storm, I did turn them off because my Dpad was doing very un-dpad like things in that game and flubbing a diagonal would have prolly been bad.

 

[tedtropy]

I bought a Nostromo N-52 on a whim when I saw one for about $20 at my local Gamestop. For a few months it just sat there and I was kind of turned off by how the keys felt...then I picked up Doom 3. I played the game from beginning to end using only my Logitech MX700 and this device. I had everything from my movement, PDA, auto-load, auto-save, reload, FPS counter, weapons, you name it mapped to it. I actually used the D-pad for the primary weapons that I used as I prefer using the normal keys for movement. In the long haul, it's proven to be more comfortable and useful than a keyboard when it comes to FPSes, at least for me. My only real complaints would be that the thing shifts around too easy with the plastic bottom service it came with - I remedied this with a few plastic pads from Radio Shack. The other complaint is that the orange button above the D-pad is WAY too difficult to depress.