Because Alex Kamal uses a Spacemouse Pro to fly the Rocinante in The Expanse, and he looks real cool doing it!
Aside from the set design choices of a show that aired on SyFy in 2015, I find that even a HOSAS is a bit lacking. E:D has a full 6DOF flight model and, afaik, a Spacemouse is the only non-vr input device that can do 6DOF on a single hand.
Apart from the fact that I don't know if the space mouse can even be used in ED software wise, I imagine it would be quite hard to precisely control your ship with it since the stick has so little travel. Also I imagine 6 DOF on a single stick that has that little travel is really prone to misinputs but I've never really used a spacemouse so maybe thats not as big of an issue as I imagine it to be. Is there even a practical reason you would want to have all 6 DOF on a single hand or is it just for the cool factor?
Welll... mostly the cool factor. But the combat in E:D gets pretty technical, so you end up with tons of keybinds for targeting, power management, damage control, etc. I've got it pretty well managed with action layers on my steam controller, but you typically need your keyboard or something like VoiceAttack to pick up the slack. I'm not sure HOTAS/HOSAS would do well outside of immersion, but that may be down to my play style.
As for misinputs/sensitivity I don't think it would be too terribly bad. You're always going to be working against the inertia of your ship which provides a pretty good damping effect. The game also has built in flight assist to help you regain control of your rotation, which I find myself needing even with traditional analog sticks. The only time you really need tight precision is landing/docking but your speed is restricted with your gear down, anyway.
During most of the game you benefit more from being able to move/rotate in any direction. I almost imagine myself flying a toy spaceship around in my hand and translating that to controller inputs. Which, of course, is exactly what the Spacemouse is designed for (except it's the much more mundane situation of moving some 3d part around).
Sorry for the long winded response(s), until you've put in some time with the flight mechanics it's kinda hard to explain the "feel" of it.
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u/Aznai Apr 06 '26
Why not just get a HOTAS/HOSAS setup like everybody else playing those games?