Whine and rant about games here

[bigfield]

View attachment 10521

Is that a wireless trackball?

A wireless fucking trackball?

Fuck me in the ear-hole with a jackhammer, but civilization is doomed. We can do aught but fail at everything from here on out.

I use one of those. No need for a mousepad or wrist rest. My keyboard is wireless, too, because I don't like cables snaking across my tidy workspace. I even use a monitor arm to free up desk space.

 

[bigfield]

I've used a couple trackball style mice over the years. Loved them. Now I'm inspired to go shopping.

Just beware that Logitech has some reliability problems with those. They're wonderful pointing devices but after about 2 years of heavy use (and once with far less with the one in my laptop bag) the switch under the left mouse button becomes unreliable and generates spurious doubleclicks.

They will replace this under warranty but it's still annoying. They're so far above the competition otherwise that I buy them anyway, though.

Any recommendations for a better trackball?

 

[Underseer]

Is that a wireless trackball?

A wireless fucking trackball?

Fuck me in the ear-hole with a jackhammer, but civilization is doomed. We can do aught but fail at everything from here on out.

I use one of those. No need for a mousepad or wrist rest. My keyboard is wireless, too, because I don't like cables snaking across my tidy workspace. I even use a monitor arm to free up desk space.

It never moves.

You want to charge or change batteries because you think wires are unsightly? Yeesh.

 

[bigfield]

I use one of those. No need for a mousepad or wrist rest. My keyboard is wireless, too, because I don't like cables snaking across my tidy workspace. I even use a monitor arm to free up desk space.

It never moves.

You want to charge or change batteries because you think wires are unsightly? Yeesh.

I don't care about the sightliness or lack thereof; I just like to maximise my desk space, which means I don't want cables running across it, getting the way of whatever else I've got on the desk at that moment.

I also use a wireless mouse for gaming. Not for the sightliness of lack thereof but because a moving mouse should not have a cable attached to it.

 

[another1]

How to save game data on steam, not just the game. Save files before reinstalling and then replacing them after reinstalling steam doesn;t work for morodor, and that is a large portion of my life gone now.

How to use old steam accounts, from forgotten emails and disconnected phone registration. Lost so much money to steam. It could be easier to retrieve accounts but that would make less money

 

[Malintent]

How to save game data on steam, not just the game. Save files before reinstalling and then replacing them after reinstalling steam doesn;t work for morodor, and that is a large portion of my life gone now.

How to use old steam accounts, from forgotten emails and disconnected phone registration. Lost so much money to steam. It could be easier to retrieve accounts but that would make less money

I am unfamiliar with Morodor, but if it is an MMO, then there are no local save games... your character is saved on the server.
To reactivate a 'lost' account, send Steam an email about it. They make more money believing they are retaining a customer that wants to get back into their account than from the mythical individual that "just will rebuy everything".

 

[Malintent]

are you bracketing your perigee with your burn (i.e. a 10 minute burn starting 5 minutes before perigee)?

With MechJeb that's automatic. The problem is MechJeb has some problems with long burns. It's obviously modelling things as if the whole burn occurred at the maneuver node, a good approximation when the burn is a tiny fraction of your orbit. A terrible approximation when your burn is a reasonable fraction of your orbital period. Using the Nerva engine I'm forced to thumb my nose at Oberth and eject and capture to higher orbits.

Gotcha... try using the "Kerbal Engineer" mod instead of MecJeb... I personally haven't changed over, but I hear it is greatly improved over MJ.

The node editor in MJ really pisses me off and may send me over to KE next time I pick up KSP again.. using the mouse to drag 1 pixel to the next pixel is not how one should plan a burn. Before I got into KSP I played a MUCH more realistic simulator called Orbiter. It had built-in node editing where you could increment your burn by the millijoule (or gigajoule, or any magnitude in between). I changed to KSP because it had an actual game around it and Orbiter was almost entirely a "numbers game" and so realistic it took hours just to get to LEO. It was full scale.. actual Sol system.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I use one of those. No need for a mousepad or wrist rest. My keyboard is wireless, too, because I don't like cables snaking across my tidy workspace. I even use a monitor arm to free up desk space.

It never moves.

You want to charge or change batteries because you think wires are unsightly? Yeesh.

I use one of those trackballs on my main machine also. Yes, it doesn't move--but it's sitting on a pad off to the side, not on my desk at all. I found running a wire to it caused problems and I've been a lot happier since I switched to the wireless one.

It only needs 1xAA once a year or so, no big deal.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

With MechJeb that's automatic. The problem is MechJeb has some problems with long burns. It's obviously modelling things as if the whole burn occurred at the maneuver node, a good approximation when the burn is a tiny fraction of your orbit. A terrible approximation when your burn is a reasonable fraction of your orbital period. Using the Nerva engine I'm forced to thumb my nose at Oberth and eject and capture to higher orbits.

Gotcha... try using the "Kerbal Engineer" mod instead of MecJeb... I personally haven't changed over, but I hear it is greatly improved over MJ.

The node editor in MJ really pisses me off and may send me over to KE next time I pick up KSP again.. using the mouse to drag 1 pixel to the next pixel is not how one should plan a burn. Before I got into KSP I played a MUCH more realistic simulator called Orbiter. It had built-in node editing where you could increment your burn by the millijoule (or gigajoule, or any magnitude in between). I changed to KSP because it had an actual game around it and Orbiter was almost entirely a "numbers game" and so realistic it took hours just to get to LEO. It was full scale.. actual Sol system.

To get that kind of control over nodes there's also Precise Node. One annoying "bug" that I think is actually the game itself--two right clicks in rapid succession don't go to its window. (Left click = increase value, right click = decrease value.) As for Kerbal Engineer--can it actually fly rockets? I thought it only gave you a bunch of data on them.

 

[dendrast]

Still using trackball? Logitech has a nice PC wireless gamepad that's pretty similar to a Playstation gamepad for about fifty bucks. Also available on a cable if you want to save ten dollars. I really like it.

 

[Underseer]

It never moves.

You want to charge or change batteries because you think wires are unsightly? Yeesh.

I don't care about the sightliness or lack thereof; I just like to maximise my desk space, which means I don't want cables running across it, getting the way of whatever else I've got on the desk at that moment.

I also use a wireless mouse for gaming. Not for the sightliness of lack thereof but because a moving mouse should not have a cable attached to it.

Wait, you are paying extra money for something that was created by placing a greater burden on the environment, added the name of another set of batteries to fuss over so that you could save a couple square inches of desk space?

If you had just said "I have obsessive-compulsive disorder" or "I'm a gadget nut" it would have made more sense.

 

[another1]

How to save game data on steam, not just the game. Save files before reinstalling and then replacing them after reinstalling steam doesn;t work for morodor, and that is a large portion of my life gone now.

How to use old steam accounts, from forgotten emails and disconnected phone registration. Lost so much money to steam. It could be easier to retrieve accounts but that would make less money

I am unfamiliar with Morodor, but if it is an MMO, then there are no local save games... your character is saved on the server.
To reactivate a 'lost' account, send Steam an email about it. They make more money believing they are retaining a customer that wants to get back into their account than from the mythical individual that "just will rebuy everything".

Only problem is that steam can't reactivate anything unless you have an active email and phone. I burn through phones and forget email passwords. Hell I even forget email names. Lots of people are like that. Dumb steam gamers. I know so many people that just give up and buy their games again, because the urge to play is greater than the patience to deal with steam's little tricks. steam probably profits more from the difficulties they create than the supposed convenience they offer in reactivating.

 

[bigfield]

I don't care about the sightliness or lack thereof; I just like to maximise my desk space, which means I don't want cables running across it, getting the way of whatever else I've got on the desk at that moment.

I also use a wireless mouse for gaming. Not for the sightliness of lack thereof but because a moving mouse should not have a cable attached to it.

Wait, you are paying extra money for something that was created by placing a greater burden on the environment, added the name of another set of batteries to fuss over so that you could save a couple square inches of desk space?

I've used wireless mice for years. This trackball is actually about 4x more energy efficient than my previous mouse so I'm saving on AA batteries, which I buy mercury-free and wholesale, anyway. The cost of batteries adds up to...carry the zero...fuck all. And there is no wired version so it's not as if I passed up a cheaper model.

The idea of environmentally-friendly PC gaming is a good laugh, though. I'm sure it makes you feel good imagining that you're getting better pointer precision on Civ while also saving the environment from 1 AA battery per year.

 

[ZiprHead]

But how am I supposed to use a wireless mouse on the couch !?

View attachment 10521

When I was at Wally World replacing a broken TV, they had that trackball mouse for $39 and change.

 

[Malintent]

Gotcha... try using the "Kerbal Engineer" mod instead of MecJeb... I personally haven't changed over, but I hear it is greatly improved over MJ.

The node editor in MJ really pisses me off and may send me over to KE next time I pick up KSP again.. using the mouse to drag 1 pixel to the next pixel is not how one should plan a burn. Before I got into KSP I played a MUCH more realistic simulator called Orbiter. It had built-in node editing where you could increment your burn by the millijoule (or gigajoule, or any magnitude in between). I changed to KSP because it had an actual game around it and Orbiter was almost entirely a "numbers game" and so realistic it took hours just to get to LEO. It was full scale.. actual Sol system.

To get that kind of control over nodes there's also Precise Node. One annoying "bug" that I think is actually the game itself--two right clicks in rapid succession don't go to its window. (Left click = increase value, right click = decrease value.) As for Kerbal Engineer--can it actually fly rockets? I thought it only gave you a bunch of data on them.

I wasn't that familiar, but I read up a bit and you are correct that it has no automation or control functions... just a hell of a lot more data reporting. Perhaps the mods can work together.. i.e. planning with KE and execution with MJ. Not sure how that would work without playing around with it myself. Maybe if / when VR support is added for EVA / IVA I'll revisit.