Elite Dangerous Flight Assist Off Mouse and Keyboard Tutorial

Setup mouse and keyboard controls for FA-off control.
No need for expensive HOTAS or dual joysticks. It is possible to play Elite with just a mouse and keyboard and still achieve a good level of precision.
Controls used:
Mouse Y axis: Pitch
Mouse X axis: Yaw
Q and E: Roll left and right.
Mouse Thumb buttons: Forward and reverse thrust
WASD: Lateral and vertical thrusters
Relative mouse control ON
Flight Assist off
Flight Assist Off Guide • Elite Dangerous Flight...

[@xXTheWhiteSheepXx]

_There are indeed plenty of wealthy Russian people...in London._ ELITE BANTER M8

[@twsx]

Just want to say, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for the hint about the relative mouse axis'. I just couldn't get it to work for me with FA Off. That simple setting made all the difference. So, thanks again!

[@jokerlaughsfirst8776]

Damn. Starting off heavy with the Russian ruble exchange rate. My goodness look where we ended up now. Anyway this was helpful. Thank you

[@fllavour]

I've been flying with mouse and keyboard FA-off since I started, my settings are pretty similar but I don't recommend having any mouse deadzone AT ALL. You want your movements to respond right away, especially when you get better at controlling your ship and can fly faster. I also have different relative mouse rate and mouse power curve, I dont know about the power curve but I suggest having higher mouse rate so that the mouse centers faster in relative mode. I also tried using mouse buttons for thruster controls, however these are buttons you will tap very frequently..And pressing mouse buttons + firing at someone with mouse 1/2 will become a bit awkward for your hand and restrict your mouse movement, Instead you might want to try thrusting forward/backwards with W/S and thrust up/down with left shift and space. This is just my opinion and most of my settings are actually from a youtuber called Falkrum7. Here's me after 15 hours of practice /watch?v=wbzzsnBSYdU

[@Tommyttk]

***** Excellent. I didn't try adjusting those mouse options away from their defaults. And you're probably right about the mouse buttons generally. On my mouse it seems ok as I can rock my thumb between two buttons without moving it much if needed but thats not the case on all mice.

[@publicminx]

using WASD is actually a bad habbit. bad desigers did what bad designers do, they copied another design, not because it was a good design but because it became more widespread due to some games (like halflife). but the first thing people should do is to correct this mistake = change from WASD to ESDF. this is also like the base position of the 10 finger type writing for a reason: you reach with one hand more keys (= more options). It was better designers/and users change consequently to ESDF. there is almost no retraining, because its pretty similar, but you get with this little change better results (in all games on the planet where such a setup matters) ...

[@lostfan10000]

Looks at the flight demos. *Thinks to self*: One day.

[@plinker439]

How is your FA off flying today? :)

[@lostfan10000]

@@plinker439 I'm gonna be honest, I haven't seriously touched Elite since before the pandemic. XD

[@elvenadohostil8607]

I bought the game today, thinking that it wasy fairly new because the concept seemed so cool to me (I am fairly new at PC gaiming ) , only to find out people discussing if it´s death or not and that is 5+ years older lol , I am loving it so far, super relaxing and fun, but it sucks that I have to pause and open the settings each time to see what key does what, I am here to solve that once and for all lol.

[@JoeJoeV12]

I learned FA off a couple years ago using CMDR Hobbs' guide but never had good aim in a fight. I have only just learned that having roll on mouse and yaw on keyboard was making aim control VERY hard. The good/bad: I have switched to mouse yaw (relative) and WASD laterals with QE roll. SPACE and Lctrl forward backward. My aim is better but I have to learn to fly all over again! I can now barely hold a station tether, lots of work to do. My reccomendation: BIND YAW TO MOUSE before training your muscle memory. o7

[@tanryokurockbuster374]

I know I'm very late on this vidéo but I just tried getting back into Elite. I must say it is reaaaaaally tough learning to play FA off, much more rewarding for sure, but man ^^" finding the right settings and keybind is a chore. Really like your videop though, helped through it, hopefully I'll have decent control in not so long, practicing with the competent challenge for fighting and the docking one for movement. But it's hard man ^^" anyway thanks.

[@TheRomanRuler]

Haha, i love your jokes! "I was not implying Russians are poor and can´t afford anything. There are indeed plenty of wealthy Russian people. In London" Pure gold

[@Korelon7]

7 years later and the joke about Rubels is back xD

[@TheBDU]

Your controls are absolutely perfect except for 2 that I just want to throw out there in case it helps anyone else (not an attack on your setup, just a preference). I keep foward/reverse to w/s just like a fps game, then thrust up/down to space (like jump in fps) and shift for down (you could alternatively do left cntrl key to be like crouching in an fps). I find that it makes for less mental gymnastics when switching games/genres.

[@user-25352]

yeah, good comparison. So used to have W as "forward", dont want to change it. Ctrol does feel better as "crouch" but perhaps it could be a bit harder to reach with fingers than Shift

[@TheBDU]

@@user-25352 Yeah, that's exactly why I use shift instead. It still feels intuitive.

[@user-25352]

@@TheBDU hm what do you have boost on? Caps lock, or Tab?

[@TheBDU]

@@user-25352 tab still. Could make it shift like sprint and then cntrl for down thrust but feels like you're sacrificing the good hand position just to force old control styles.

[@roxonogueira]

This video helped me decide to get the game on steam sale. Thanks for ruining my free time :)

[@4geraX]

Relative mouse axis was something I forgot about completely, it's very usefull in FAoff but I turned it off when I started playing lol

[@watsinhorde]

Thanks for this mate, I think I’ll give this game another chance now :)

[@ventusprime]

The reason i qit elite because of controls in 2018 now I have some free time and thinking going back

[@eckitownz8298]

Won't it throttle me in ``J`` mode, with these controls? Please help

[@PyraHydrokorra]

the relative mouse thing is usuful with flight assist off but what about flight assist on? im never gonna have flight assist off forever and it makes supercruise extremely difficult

[@Feroand]

I know this is late but better than never. I use secondary button controls with space+s, space+w, space+a, space+d, space+q and space+e for better supercruise performance.

[@barnyed]

This. This is awesome. One question: I bought the T16000m 2 days ago. Is there a joystick/keyboard setup you could recommend?

[@wisewizard9552]

I also have pitch and yaw on a mouse, thought it was really intuitive because you can move the nose of the ship as in every First person game ever, but I have roll on a A and D, thrust on W and S, and latheral thrusters on default Q, E, R, F. Do you guys think I can learn to fly FA-off with those controls.

[@flute136]

I tried this but i couldnt go faster or slower in supercruise. What do you do for supercruise throttle controls?

[@LyleGlenn]

You can assign different keys, e.g. arrows.

[@Jazod]

I play with the default keyboard and mouse setting. Except I switched the yaw to the mouse and roll to keyboard.

[@fllavour]

nice video

[@bidet1515]

nice disclaimer about russian people ..;) thanks for this guide very usefull

[@gigiligi2424]

Show me a video with this controls during some Bounty hunting with gimbaled weapons.This slow motion moving in the Video wont work for fights i bet.

[@nirui.o]

I thought this video was just uploaded after hearing the Russia joke.

[@CmdrTigerKing]

i can do that in a corvette

[@dredmondier4532]

How did he know about Russians economy? (im from Russia btw and its rlly very hard to get one of these HOTAS things)

[@linceaerian]

For what I saw in YT video there's some group of russians playing this game, IMO he just discussed with people in/against his wings

[@ShystemShock]

so basically relative mouse makes it possible to shit all over people whilst using FA off

[@crisgogo4062]

Da 3 kliketeers!

[@ironmanTetsuoTV]

I use M&KB but don't like relative control being active when in FA-ON as doing something as simple as a 180 flip means picking the mouse up off the mouse mat to keep adding more one direction of travel, is there a way to toggle relative control between FA-ON and OFF in game or should I just suck it up and practice with FA-OFF till I no longer need FA-ON??

[@Tommyttk]

yeah that is a problem. i don't know of a way to toggle that function. Perhaps having a mouse where you can toggle between two DPI settings to make FA-on more sensitive would help... or make things worse!

[@MatttCZvLP]

Actually I there is an option to make your mouse "static" so you dont have to constantly drag the mouse, I use it since I am used to it from beta, I dont know what the option is called though

[@Falkrum7]

I am using FA Off all the time. So no problem for me in regular flight, but real problem with reletive mouse control in supercruse. My solution is using numpad for control pitch and yaw while in supercruse. Not the best solition, but this is all what we have. I made an offer on the official forum for the separation settings for FA Off and FA On, but it was ignored.

[@vedasisme]

+Falkrum7 That's a decent solution -- I was just about to ask about this myself!

[@Panzerfaust88]

i cant understand why frontier after all that years didnt even once answered for relative mouse switch button. Whats the big deal?

[@WMTeWu]

Great, so now I just need to invest in good Saitek keyboard ;)

[@evilways961]

Good video, but I would guess only somewhat helpful to me as the issue I have with the game is; Its a game about a ship... and ........Not a game about a pilot in a ship. The pilot should be the primary focus and its not... The primary focus is a HUD out of the 80s. That's the true core problem with the game. I either have to have all the controls on the keyboard and use the mouse exclusively to be able to MOVE My Pilots Head around... as you cannot fly turn, and fight, push buttons AND look around at the same time.. or buy an expensive flight joy/throttle system with as many buttons as possible [already ordered].. to have all the controls at my fingertips.. Overall this whole fight sim is totally disorienting compared to any other fight/space sim as it doesn't revolve around the pilot of the craft. More like a rear radar operator staring at a HUD.. who also has to try to fly...

[@shanecox7942]

"if your from Russia all of your money" pmsl

[@knownuser09]

anyone can fly though tight spaces if they fly slow as shit.. easy to to fly with a mouse & keyboard, problem is all these commands for docking, picking cargo up ect are not explained in game or on any of these tutorials..Also how do you even find where these missions are you pick up. who knows coz no one ever tells you what to push to navigate there. 10th video now & still no explanation of any controls for these things.

[@Tommyttk]

+AFTER DARK I think the in-game tutorial goes through the docking and undocking process. Not the best tutorial but it should do the job. Pickup cargo by either buying stuff in a commodity market, or set a control for 'cargo scoop' to pick up free floating cargo you find. Missions are found on 'bulletin boards' whilst docked at a station. I never made any tutorials on those aspects of gameplay, I kind of assumed Frontier would cover them adequately, I guess not!

[@knownuser09]

Cool thanks for the info.. Still lost on many things in game. Like warping to planets. i just fly past them idk why when it set it to that planet. also can never find where to hand bounty's in as i always get ppl attacking me & i get some pay for it, but idk where it goes. So few details in game as to what to do. Looks cool & all, but just cant figure out how to make money ect as im stuck on a lot of stuff.. thanks for giving me some info on what to do..

[@REALSWAG3D]

hi i have set my keys like you explained in the video but some how when im going to frameshift (is it frameshift?, i pressed *J* , sry im a noob) , so then i can travel from star system to star system but when i get in supercruise i cant get over 30 km/h so does this is because of my controlles with throttle up and trust ( www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/2dzom0/supercruise_wont_accelerate_past_30kms/) so it would be nice if someone could help me because travellling in supercruise with 30 km/ is pretty shit. (sry for my bad enlisch) :D

[@REALSWAG3D]

Im open for questions :)

[@ransombot]

Doesn't really relate to the video. Flight Assist has nothing to do with supercruise, or frame shift. Default for "intelligent" FTL (faster than light) engines is J which will take you into both supercruise and frame shift. You need would need to bind some manual ones to do a forced supercruise. If your acceleration is set to 10% or so press and hold or repeatedly press your accelerate key to go faster and don't get stuck in a gravity source IE station/planet etc. Though you've probably figured it out since then, or given up.

[@REALSWAG3D]

Yeah iw anted to play the game so badly but i was just desperately thanks for your report im gonna try it out :-)

[@y.decimal]

There are indeed plenty of wealthy russian people... in London

[@NeoUzzy]

I feel like im the only one who didnt find the controls all that hard :\

[@TESI303]

Mouse and keyboard is for word processors, fps, and spreadsheets. Get yourself an inexpensive gamepad if you don't want to spend $$$ for a Hotas.

[@ironmanTetsuoTV]

gamepads are for frogger and pacman not expensive space sims... Sorry, I couldn't resist that...

[@zeph6182]

0/10 your offensive slurs about Russians were largely inconsistent and needed to be spread out throughought the video. New sub here tho.

[@InkubusGames]

As non Russian: brit would rather die than miss opportunity to mock someone.

[@iver1343]

As a Russian: true :(

[@gringopimpson]

that rouble joke aged very well considering the times.

[@gewinnste]

Funny that this turned out to be way supperior for pvp combat (or any fixed weapon combat for that matter) and literally every top pvp pilot (like Harry Potter etc.) use it. I wish I had never adopted to HOTAS - now I have to relearn the whole biz.

[@shenshih8794]

it works great for normal speed, but supercruise becomes unplayable with the relative mouse axis set to on

[@emiliouchila]

It’s I wish that there was a workaround that

[@ItsMinoAgain]

I play with the pitch axis on my mouse and keyboard. That way when I'm in supercuise I can move about quickly and casually on supercuise

[@BamberBains]

But my fa doesn't toggle. I have to hold the button :(

[@kou4997]

mouse or other flight sticks? i use pen tablet, you know the stylus pen for drawing :)

[@pimentarules9826]

He explained the joke lol

[@tparker]

I've got to try this. Wasn't sure it was worth the effort learning FAOff without a HOTAS. Still want a HOTAS, but this is great!!!

[@wildcat0871]

I know 3 years passed and the chance to get a reply is very low but if some good soul read this and can help me out, I really appreciate. My doubt is about throttle, it seems to me that with FAoff people use just forward thrusters and never the throttle, could someone confirm that? thx

[@LyleGlenn]

I can confirm that.

[@OrpheusOverdrive]

I noticed a LOT of bad texture pop in on your video. Is that your settings or unavoidable no matter how you crank video settings? I'm curious because it is on sale atm on steam and I just can't take that level of pop in. I've only seen worse in Archeage.

[@Tommyttk]

+OrpheusOverdrive i think its that they never really intended people fly around the station like that even though you can. there isn't really much popping if you're flying in the places you're meant to be flying in.

[@OrpheusOverdrive]

+Tommyttk Thanks. I figured that might just be an artifact of going somewhere devs didn't expect. I assume it doesn't do that on the interior of a station?

[@blaze909]

how much for this DLC

[@ripexo]

Yow

[@PhantomDoge]

try that with relative mouse off.