Mouse
By Birdseye
The mouse is an excellent controller, but it comes in second to the joystick,
specifically the Sidewinder 3dpro, in overall use. The problem with the mouse is
the lack of fluidity- with a joystick you can do a 360 by just holding the
joystick in one direction- with the mouse to do a 360 without the help of slides
or banks, you are forced to pick up "the rat" and move it to turn around. This
is very slow, and can cause a mouse player to die if another player gets behind
him or her, because the mouse player cannot turn around in time to dodge
incoming fire. Often times the mouse player is forced to run in certain
situations, because he or she cannot turn around in time, and is forced to flee
the situation (smartly).
Although there is a mouselook option in Descent 3, I do not recommend it. It
does allow for some really fast turning, but it is rarely enabled on any
servers. It is off by default in D3 if you start a game- people must turn it on
for mouselook players to be able to join the game. Because of this hassle, that
you will not be able to join 95% of games because of mouselook, I do not
recommend using it. It will make the game more of a trouble than an outlet for
fun. Not only that, but the mouselook, to me, is inferior to the flightsim mode.
The flightsim mode allows for more intact aiming, because it has a more fluid
motion- whereas the mouselook has a certain area of sensitivity that "pinpoints"
and another area of sensitivity that turns the ship very fast. This sounds like
an advantage, but is not. Descent is about fluidity of motion, and that's why it
is proven that the joystick is the ultimate controller.
On the mouse, one button is for acceleration, and one for primaries. If you have
a third, I recommend delegating that as something like flares or "use counter
measures," because both the primary and accelerate/forward button will be
pressed often. Adding a third button that is used often would cause you to have
to put all three fingers on the mouse at once, which restricts overall mouse
movement. Try it for yourself- two fingers on the mouse and three fingers on the
mouse, and you'll see that it is easier to maneuver the rat around with two
fingers. I have a three button mouse, and I don't even use the middle button.
Now, on the keys, you'll need to have all four of your slides, both your banks,
reverse, afterburner, fire secondaries, and use countermeasures (unless you put
this on the mouse, not recommended). This is quite a lot to do with one hand,
and takes longer to get used to, probably longer than it is to get used to a
joystick config.
I have made the slides A, S, D, and C. A & S are slide left and right, and D & C
are slide up and down. Many people have their slides in order, like ASDF, but I
think this is harder to get used to and can cause hand strain- not to mention it
will be more difficult to reach other keyboard buttons with your pointer finger.
My banks are Tab and Caps lock. Shift is my afterburner, and space fires my
secondaries. I reverse with Z, and use countermeasures with X The mouse is a
very hard controller to learn well, and even if you do learn it, you will still
be at a disadvantage to a joystick player. The only reason I still use a mouse
is that I've been playing with the mouse for over 3 years, and achieved high
success with it, and it is too late for me to change.