If you read the first post, you know I'm older, struggling with memory and comprehension issues after Covid, and have been looking for a game like Elite Dangerous, but not as hard to play.
X4:Foundations was my choice. Maybe that sounds crazy, because in its own way X4 is as complex, or maybe far more, than Elite. What gave me hope was that learning commands for combat seemed within my reach. And the rest of the game is very much menu driven, with the opportunity to pause the game as needed to comprehend and make decisions.
So, in the past week since buying X4, I've been practicing the flight tutorial mostly. Learning the commands comes and goes. Some days I remember, some days it takes re-doing the tutorial from scratch, but am making progress.
Originally I'd read that many people prefer playing mouse and keyboard, and was going to try that route. After a few days, it became obvious that m&k flight was for the birds, so I hauled out my old Thrustmaster T.16000M HOTAS. What a dream. Within moments, my flying had smoothed out. Flying, getting from one destination to the next, was as simple as choosing to go there. The joy and beauty of swooping, spinning, being in space, was back.
It's a shame all the other stuff didn't come as easily. Part of the problem was in the tutorial itself. Even with the HOTAS, parts of the tutorial expected me to use the keyboard instead. Plus, I could swear some of the controls it told me to hit weren't even close to the actual keys. There was one in particular that told me to punch 2, and neither the stick, nor the throttle, not even the keyboard numeral "2", did it. Can't remember for sure, but I think the tab or escape button wound up doing the trick.
Another aspect was having no idea what commands were built into the default T.16000 profile, and which ones required keyboard controls. There's not a lot online that really helps, though I did find one Redditor asking if anybody had a graphical map of the defaults. (Nobody seemed to)
By the same token, there weren't many existing profiles I could borrow from. Youtuber Captain Collins had a fantastic video review which showed how he set his layout, and he includes links to an excellent graphic of his layout, and even a downloadable profile.
One other I found was the Reddit post Thrustmaster T.16000M HOTUS X4 Button Layout which also had an excellent graphic layout, and included a downloadable profile. Between the two, I prefer this layout, but both are excellent. This one just dovetailed better with my previous Elite setup, and I hoped it would make learning X4 easier.
I did wind up customizing two or three things, nothing highly significant. One thing I got from Captain Collins, which was to include a "Pause" command on the controller. Sounds perfect for my intended playstyle of 'pause and research'. I modified the layout for my own graphic, as a memory aid. That's as fare as events have gone. Finished changing the graphic, and decided to blog the experience so far.
Next post I'll include the graphic, in case anybody's curious. It'll take a bit, I need to figure out where to keep the file, and have it available to any readers.
Small caveat about the downloadable profiles. While I didn't try Cpt. Collins download, I did try the one from Reddit. Maybe I misunderstood something, or maybe the file structure has changed since the original post (which was some 3 years ago at this point). Regardless, it didn't work at all. With some frustration, I wound up manually entering all my controls through the X4 game settings menus. Haven't had time to test it, but that's certainly the next step. If it doesn't work as expected, I'll fallback to tying the actual key commands to the HOTAS using Voice Attack. Just like I did with Elite Dangerous.
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