Throttle is confirmed to have a breaking issue right now. You can test with the beta branch of the game on Steam for a fixed behaviour.

Originally posted by Stranger:

Throttle is confirmed to have a breaking issue right now. You can test with the beta branch of the game on Steam for a fixed behaviour.

Ook thanks.. I will try that and let you know how it works!

Can I use my Xbox 360 controller in this game? I tried it doesn't seem to be recognized, doesn't do anything.

I use my XB360 controller for this game, and it works really well!
What I would like to see though is the ability to assign various game functions to the buttons and D pad, this would be very useful! The options screen doesn't seem to allow this kind of configuring, but only allows very general templates., e.g, for left handed players. Please make it so.
GREAT game, by the way!

Originally posted by zombiewarrior07:

I use my XB360 controller for this game, and it works really well!
What I would like to see though is the ability to assign various game functions to the buttons and D pad, this would be very useful! The options screen doesn't seem to allow this kind of configuring, but only allows very general templates., e.g, for left handed players. Please make it so.
GREAT game, by the way!

How did you configure your XBox controller? I have been trying all sort of things but can't get it to work.

Normally in a game you just plug it in and that's it. But in Helium Rain it doesn't do anything, like it's not there.

Your controller should work out of the box, no settings required.

My wireless controller no longer works with my Alienware Alpha console, so I just picked up a Logitech controller with a cable, plugged in to USB, and it worked straight away. But again: I need to be able to assign functions to buttons and D pad.

We're not going to add full remapping for controller devices. You can however try Steam's built-in remapping feature, which is available in the context menu for the game entry in your library. Using Steam's Big Picture mode, the entry will be called something like "Manage game".

Originally posted by Stranger:

Your controller should work out of the box, no settings required.

I just needed to reboot. I still don't understand why it didn't work because I tested and the controller worked fine in other games. But it solved the problem

Originally posted by Stranger:

We're not going to add full remapping for controller devices. You can however try Steam's built-in remapping feature, which is available in the context menu for the game entry in your library. Using Steam's Big Picture mode, the entry will be called something like "Manage game".

Is there a reason you have chosen to not support gaming industry standards for controller support? Most gamers, especially for simulations, are not going to support sims that don't have that.

I want to see your title and any future versions, succeed. But it is very hard to recommend to all those I know that play space sims, a game that won't support controller mapping etc.

I understand the feeling. To give some context about our choices, Helium Rain requires every key available on a gamepad, so there isn't a lot of room for different layouts. Supporting mouse/keyboard, joysticks (which aren't even supported by our engine and required additional work) and gamepads simultaneously for all of the game is not easy and takes up a considerable part of the code. We do understand that people might need specific mappings, so we've offered four different gamepad control schemes that we know can work, knowing Steam offers full remapping for gamepad users who aren't satisfied with any of the built-in schemes.

We're a very small team, and Helium Rain has taken more than four years of work, including a year in Early Access before release. We have to be realistic about the features we provide, knowing games with 100x our team size will definitely be able to do more.

By the way, did you try the beta branch ?

Originally posted by Stranger:

I understand the feeling. To give some context about our choices, Helium Rain requires every key available on a gamepad, so there isn't a lot of room for different layouts. Supporting mouse/keyboard, joysticks (which aren't even supported by our engine and required additional work) and gamepads simultaneously for all of the game is not easy and takes up a considerable part of the code. We do understand that people might need specific mappings, so we've offered four different gamepad control schemes that we know can work, knowing Steam offers full remapping for gamepad users who aren't satisfied with any of the built-in schemes.

We're a very small team, and Helium Rain has taken more than four years of work, including a year in Early Access before release. We have to be realistic about the features we provide, knowing games with 100x our team size will definitely be able to do more.

By the way, did you try the beta branch ?

Have been gone since the HOTAS question.. will try that here in a little while now that I am back home for the next few weeks.

I guess my only answer to the above, is that it is frustrating for those like me to see a game like this on PC make its primary controller support, console controllers. I say like me, because I don't use or play on consoles, only PC. And as I said prior, for a sim that has this much potential, playing with a controller just does not give it that feeling of immersion or a simulation.

I love to play Star Citizen, Elite and most of the X series space games. Doing so on a controller would really ruin the immersive aspect of those. Helium actually has one of the best 'feels' to its flight model so I cannot even imagine playing such a sim on a controller vs a joystick of HOTAS configuration.

My critique is not to anger or insult but to try and give you a perspective from this side of things. I do a LOT of NDA testing for a lot of major well known titles and one of the needs and requirements is to give open and honest feedback and criticism, not just bug reports. Hopefully it is something you will consider for the future. I can understand the problems now that you are this far along.. but perhaps it is something that can be revisited for better support at a later time in a patch or major update.

I will give the beta branch a try in a bit to see if that helps with the other HOTAS problem I wrote about.. Will post back once I do! Thanks..

We're actually releasing the HOTAS fixes on the default branch today, so you won't need to bother with the more experimental branch.

I guess it depends on what your preferred method of interacting with a game is. For me, a game pad controller works extremely well, and has a natural, intuitive feel to it. I combine that with a mouse for point and click, it all works very well.

Originally posted by Malakie:

BTW, I currently use the x52Pro and soon will be upgrade to the x56 model...

Being an X52 Pro user myself, I'd say the best you can do is make a profile that accounts for non-mappable controller input. I'd sugest mapping it to output keyboard/mouse commands so you can remap in-game easily.

This guide is pretty handy:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/app/236150/discussions/0/611701360824525080/


Truth is HOTAS'es - being only really useful on a very small segment of games and being priced as they are - are a very very small part of the controller market and very complex, each model outputting completely different commands for the same function. One HOTAS trigger can be Button 0, the other might be Button 2. One's Throttle can be Axis 2, the other might be Axis 3.

Developers can't always put the resources needed into integrating that level of mapping flexibility into their engines in order to cover a fraction of user's cases (As is the case of Little Green Man Games). And since we chose the edge-case hardware, it's up to us to find ways to work around it: for us it's the Saitek software.