Okay, so by “controller” I just mean a specialized mechanical keyboard. Endless Sky is a spiritual successor to the Escape Velocity games. EDIT: I also realized this pic is from before I wired it up, but the only differences are four screws in the corners and the Micro USB cord from my long-gone Nexus 10 tablet semi-permanently coming out the back.
- Gateron Black for most of the keyboard switches
- Also got momentary toggle switches and a light duty aluminum push button, because Millennium Falcon and Top Gun.
- “DSA” and “F10” profile keycaps
- laser cut (painted Masonite) and 3D printed (PLA)enclosure
- Layout built around the in-cockpit control mapping
- Hand-wired (aka “Dead Bug”) keyboard matrix
- QMK/VIAL programmable firmware on my last Promicro with a Micro-USB cable.
- Dymo-style embossing tape labels!!!
Get on my level scrub.
No but seriously, nice work, it looks very clean. Maybe could have been more ergonomic, but if it’s comfortable without fucking up your wrists then maybe not.
Revised picture:
This is peak. Great stuff.
Where can I start reading more on how to do this? I would love to make one for myself
This is probably the densest one-stop shop for handwiring resources. It has links to some of the other tools I used, and QMK is the open source firmware that runs many of them (I used a fork that enables a better graphical key mapper), though there are others that can be easier to set up.
On Youtube, there’s a kid who has made a cottage industry out of these. Search for Joe Scotto.
In general, searching for “hand wired keyboard” will bring up a lot of resources. Then, if you’re so inclined, learn how to do a basic PCB in KiCAD and you start closing in on a device that works every bit as well as a commercial product.
Endless Sky is excellent. It captures all the enjoyment of the EV games, and its free for everyone.
Your controller looks great. Just the kind of thing an independent ES pilot would be flying with!
I need some more games that benefit from 30 different hotkeys. Elite gets boring after a while, but I made a website that has rows of buttons for things like FSD, cycle weapons, deploy landing gear. Would load it up on a tablet and use that for those keybinds. Few games can really benefit from stuff like that though.
Apache2 hosted webpage which was all PHP, buttons and hotkeys they run were in a JSON config, includes an option to set the button colour which matches a CSS class. So colour:red would apply class=“button red” and that class sets the border, box shadow and a gradient fill of the button to give it a slight 3d effect. PHP runs shell exec, so you could run any bash commands with it. Xdotool/ydotool allow entering key inputs from a bash command.
This is fucking sick!
That’s an amazing piece of work! I enjoyed playing Endless Sky a lot in 2018 (I only remember the date because it was on a Fedora 28 PC). Cockpit controllers really give the feeling of immersion when playing.
You should try it again. They’ve added a lot of content, a few QoL features, and made a few balancing tweaks, but even back then the engine was pretty simple and solid.
The tape labels really fill out the look. Fucking badass :D
your controller is awesome but i am very excited to find out about endless sky
Oh, it’s a lot of fun, and once you get the hang of it it’s very easy to jump in for a casual session, or come back to after a layoff, but at the same time it often gets that “one more mission” or “one more custom loadout” time-murderer vibe. The main campaign for humans is a bit on rails, but it’s very well-written for a game like this. It is funny to hit a dead end in other mini-campaigns where it’s like, “Uhhh, that’s all we’ve written so far. Knock yourself out!.”
Very cool! Just downloaded Endless Sky and I’m excited to try it out.
This is dope. I want one!
What’s the keycaps on the top corners? I’ve been looking for something like them.
They came in a large bag of random keycaps from Signature Plastics, one of the “big-two” western keycap manufacturers, but they’re obviously relegendable, and I think they’re the F10 profile like my “COMMS” cluster.
Escape Velocity Nova is soo good. ARIPA was a great mod too
