Cybersled has stupid controls - can they be hacked?

[Le Chuck]

I really like cybersled.  Its a funish game that looks neat-o, and has decent replay value for me - but the controls or dumb.  Two analog sticks?  Honestly who has space for such mumbo jumbo.  Sure you've got a couple of 360s but you still need to hit buttons.  Dumb dumb dumb. 

Even modern tanks use a steering wheel.  It's not like the sled has a turret.  You wanna neutral steer, you hit a button (neutral steering is when a tracked vehicle rotates in place).  What the sled does have is strafing, which other tanks don't, which is also pretty integral to doing well in the game. 

What I would like to see is a panel friendly control hack of this game.  A 360 (or yoke in my case) to go forward and back, and strafe left and right, then a button that changes your left and right strafe to a left and right neutral steer.  Now I have no idea how to do this, but I figure it's doable.  Already you can map the controls to a single axis and get the forward and back, strafe left and right.   If I could map them in such a way to go forward and back and turn left and right I might try giving up strafing but that doesn't seem doable.  Maybe I just haven't mapped it right. 

At any rate, this rotate button would have to remap the both Y axes to the X axis on the fly, but with one flipped.  So if you're X+ the effect would be Y1+ and Y2-, and vice versa for X-, that would get the neutral steer done. 

Imma just trying to make this game more playable.  Anybody else wish they could rock out some cybersled more easily?  Anybody wanna hack me a game?     

[pbj]

Have you tried the console ports?

[Le Chuck]

Have you tried the console ports?

There are ports?  To the googles!

PS1 - Looks promising, uses D-pad (boo) and shoulder buttons to strafe (yay)
Wii - dunno, is that even a thing?

Research also just turned me on to Panzer Dragoon so yeah, gotta give that a try

[PL1]

Imma just trying to make this game more playable.  Anybody else wish they could rock out some cybersled more easily? 

Have you tried using a USB Playstation2 controller?  (Twin analog thumbsticks, shoulder buttons.)

It seems to work pretty well for Cyber Commando, Cyber Sled, Cyber Tank, T-MEK, etc.   

T-MEK "Player 1" is the right stick/buttons and "Player 2" is the left stick/buttons.   
(The F2 menu makes confirming your setup much easier.)


Scott

[burn_654]

What about assigning the same physical button/joystick direction to multiple mame inputs? Pretty sure Mame lets you do this...(had it on accident multiple times )

Something like (I'm paraphrasing)
Joystick 1 Up - Physical stick up
Joystick 2 Up - Physical stick up (should accomplish moving forward)
Joystick 1 Left - Physical stick left
Joystick 2 Left - Physical sick left (should accomplish strafing left)
etc.

And for turning, lets try assigning multiple inputs to the same physical button?
Joystick 1 Up - Physical button 1
Joystick 2 Down - Physical button 1 (should accomplish turning one direction)
Joystick 1 Down - Physical button 2
Joystick 2 Up - Physical button 2 (should accomplish turning the other direction)

If that works you could conceivably control with a joystick and four buttons (2 for turning and 2 for shoot/missile)
If you prefer strafing with buttons and turning with joystick I'm sure that could work if you keep the logic straight.

I might give this a try myself...hmm...Cybersled was one of my childhood arcade favorites. I actually tried running it on my cab using my P1/P2 joysticks to move and reaching thumb/pinky fingers to fire buttons...that got awkward needless to say.

[Le Chuck]

^ Good call, I'll give it a go.  Will have to be the analog increase/decrease button assignments based on how mame does analogs, and would have to ensure I'm not using the Y axis while attempting or I might get unreliable inputs, we'll see how it works. 

-Scott, also a good call, was looking for a solution that doesn't involve a gamepad tho

edit:  burn_654 for the win!  Works.  Need to play with it a bit more but was just able to nug out a game on keyboard using the UDLR direction keys and two rotate keys, well done. 

Didn't try strafing with buttons yet, I'll fiddle with it on my cab and see which one I like better or if that one works.  With just keys it's every hard to turn and move, but that should sort itself out once I have two analog axes also feeding in data.

[Le Chuck]

So strafing on the analogs and turning with buttons works great, the turns are a bit jerky tho.  Need to see if I can reverse it, I think strafing with the buttons would be more natural.

[B2K24]

The PS1 port sucks, so I suggest not bothering with it.

[Le Chuck]

Just as an FYI analog turning and button strafing won't really work out without some extra help from another program.  Strafing works analog because to strafe in the game you use the X axis.  The Y axis is used for forward/backward movement and turning.  So there is no way to map turning to X and still have forward and back movement on the Y. 

All that is to say that last night I cleared the training mission in two time blocks and then cleared four opponents before getting straight up sniped by some super fast bastard.  I was using the slowest tank but most armored tank.  Didn't take any damage until the third opponent so the setup recommended above works about really well for anyone wanting to rock some Cyber Sled with one analog. 

Another game made more cab friendly!