Headtracking + mouse/keyboard = icky gaming

[Fiddly Fingers]

Bought the game, built a 3 point IR-clip, took to the skies with a smile on my face. Awesome now I could fly in one direction and look in another, something that seemed super important in ED.

Well reality soon hit me in the face like a newly interdicted Type-9. I found myself constantly losing control of the ship when I was tracking an object outside my flight path.
I quickly realised that my mouse wasn't giving me any tactile feedback of what the ship was doing and thus when I looked away from my crosshair I had no means of referencing my input or even knowing what input I was currently applying. Headtracking and mouse was clearly not the way to go.

After buying a sheap $30 joystick everything came together. Suddenly I could look where ever I wanted while applying directional input and still be in control.

Just a heads-up to you out there thinking about getting a headtracker, you WILL need a joystick.

[Avago-Earo]

Likely someone will find this post helpful.

Thanks for sharing.

[Neillm]

I've also heard people describe a similar problem when using a tracking solution where they also had mouse look on at the same time. As you can imagine, that ain't pretty!

[Xamaryllix]

If you don't mind me asking, which joystick did you pick up? I've been using a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro and I love it.