Air without Joysticks

[imported_dL.]

Is it just me, but many people are telling me that joysticks HELP A LOT when you drive planes and helis. Man, I can never drive a plane or a heli properly with keyboard & mouse... well I can now, but I can't kill anyone with it. It's too hard Maybe I'm a noob...

I just want to hear more about this...

dL

[dragon159753]

mouse and keyboard are easy to use, i am too poor for a joystick.......anyways, i am a great helo pilot with the m/k and i can evade easy, however in a plane i just can't pull up fast enough.................

[dmonkey]

Heli's are easy with the KB/M, it's the planes that get you.

[Jap1987]

I fly more now than I ever have and im fine with a mouse and keyboard. I can destroy ground targets with the plane, and in a helicopter ive yet to see someone who could blow me out of the sky in another helicopter without ground support. Joysticks have an advantage but i think the main advantage is that you dont get bored as fast, when you are sitting there and constantly moving your mouse up or down the pad to try and shake an opponent I get extremely bored, and sometimes just give up. As far as shooting other planes down im about 70% successfull with my attempts. I mainly use the bomb mode and just use my cannon so the pilot is not fully aware of me. I have come across some people who use a joystick and although they can always stay on me and i cannot shake them that easily if at all. If i dont lose interest they cant shoot me down.

Just as an example I earned my aerial service ribbon yesterday and the whole round the other fighter pilot had his lockon tone on me, I just kept moving around getting a new ground target and bombing his ass.

[Fall0ut]

Just have to get used to it.

I have no problems with Air combat, I use mouse and keyboard

[scribb]

yes, you hear right. a joystick helps alot.

[Wynterheart]

i just got a saitek cyborg evo joystick the other day. tried it out in single player and i couldn't kill anything.

for flying and maneuvering (sp?) the joystick is awesome because its more responsive when you need to turn or pull up or dive. the mouse just doesn't have that type of maneuverability.

however i find that i can aim and get my target line up better (for ground attacks) with the mouse.

i probably just need to really practice with it or somehow lower the sensitivity.

[VISTREL]

Im a noob pilot..never played any air sims, so I got joystick just for BF2 because I couldn't fly them with mouse...Ive got Saitek Cyborg Evo...

the thing I like about my joystick is that I can set my throttle to a certain amount and never touch it again..on my 4th flight with joystick I got 35 kills and 5 deaths, received aerial service ribbon...

now I finally figured out how to fly helicopter, and was able to fly through Kubra Dam tunnel three times without crashing...(hint: decrease the sensitivity to 0.3..once you get used to it - increase it little by little until you can pull off really nice stunts and hold the air supremacy )

[ChopperKill]

Get an XBOX pad and a PC adaptor for it. Works like a dream for jets and helis.

[Roderick]

It seems the way EA/DICE coded helicopters favors using a mouse and makes it very easy for the player to learn the curve of how to fly with a little practice. The same cannot be said for the jets. They need a joystick or something like a rollerball that can continously move in the direction of the turn.

I don't undertsand why jets were coded so non mouse friendly and pro joystick? The helicopters work great with the mouse and keyboard. I don't know why they did not apply the same principle to jet fighters.

[JoeHova]

What about just a gamepad for helos and planes? Anyone had any luck with these?

[The_Misfit]

mouse and kb for everything, and I'm fairly adept with the cobra/bh/etc... Had to jack up sensitivity on the mouse to keep from making too many craters :)

[seth87]

Can anyone recommend a decent joystick? Not a hugely expensive one, but one that does the job fine! thanks.

[animateddave]

You guys actually use your mouse? I can't use it for the life of me so I use just the keyboard. I don't think the joystick is something you really need. I can fly the hell out of a heli or a jet for the entire map with just the keyboard and not have any problems as long as I don't get lag.

Oh and just incase.

Flying with keyboard:
w = speed up
s = slow down
a = rotate left
d = rotate right
cursor key up = nose down
cursor key down = nose up
cursor key left/right = tilt in that direction

[openheimer]

Logitech Game Pad will help and they are cheap