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First off, apologies that this is the kind of thing that anyone can think of, I just thought it was fun and works well with this game so I'd share, and here seems as good a place as any to do it, since I don't know any Raptor fansites.

I've had this game since MS-DOS was my primary OS, and its one of the best of it's kind because the score actually counts for something useful in game, and the control feels nice and unique with the mouse. However, once you have enough to get the twin lasers, you hit the power tree ceiling, and somehow it is sightly disappointing to have the best weapon... all the other weapons feel redundant, and the cool variety goes out the window.

Which is where xpadder comes in. I only found it the other day after trying out my friends xbox wireless controller, so I was messing around and experimenting with what I could do with it with many different games. The gist of it is, you configure one of your joystick buttons to the change weapon key, and set the turbo delay juuuuust right, and then you can rapidly cycle through all your weapons getting the benefit of all of them. It's quite hard to tune it, but I find 12.5 repeats a second seems to be the fastest, you can go, the more weapons you have on your ship the slower it cycles through, but anything up to 4 is a good number.

The fun doesn't stop there though, because xpadder can also be used to cycle through the weapon hotkey numbers, and with some careful timing experimentation, you can really squeeze the most out of your ship when it is fully loaded out. And if all of this sounds like too much hard work, here is the config I have been working on, copy it into a textfile with .xpaddecontroller extension and load it up, it should work with any xbox controller, but of course you can tweak it for your own controller.

X cycles through homing weapons, Y fires disruptors and lasers, A cycles through ground missiles and air to air missiles (useful for either smashing buildings and ground targets or leaving a trail of missiles while strafing) and B just cycles everything. The triggers fire, every other button releases a megabomb.

NOTE, the game must be set up for mouse control for it to work (but this actually results in better joystick control than the game has already, funnily enough.). Right alt must be your cycle weapon key.

;----------------------
; Xpadder Profile File
;----------------------

Version=5.3

[Profile Settings]

[Set Settings]
Set1StickDeadZones=72,64

[Assignments]
Set1Button1Slots=7,PAUSE 0.01s,6,PAUSE 0.01s,4,PAUSE 0.01s,1,PAUSE 0.01s,4,PAUSE 0.01s,5,PAUSE 0.01s,4
Set1Button1Turbo=1
Set1Button1TurboRate=66
Set1Button1Rumble=1
Set1Button2Slots=Alt Gr
Set1Button2Turbo=1
Set1Button2TurboRate=8
Set1Button3Slots=2,PAUSE 0.02s,3
Set1Button3Turbo=1
Set1Button3TurboRate=23
Set1Button4Slots=0,PAUSE 0.01s,9,PAUSE 0.01s,Alt Gr
Set1Button4Turbo=1
Set1Button4TurboRate=29
Set1Button5Slots=Middle Mouse Button (3)
Set1Button5TurboRate=2
Set1Button6Slots=Middle Mouse Button (3)
Set1Button7Slots=Escape
Set1Button8Slots=Enter
Set1Button9Slots=Middle Mouse Button (3)
Set1Button10Slots=Middle Mouse Button (3)
Set1DPadUpSlots=Arrow Up
Set1DPadRightSlots=Arrow Right
Set1DPadDownSlots=Arrow Down
Set1DPadLeftSlots=Arrow Left
Set1Stick1UpSlots=Mouse Move Up
Set1Stick1UpMouseSpeed=71
Set1Stick1RightSlots=Mouse Move Right
Set1Stick1RightMouseSpeed=71
Set1Stick1DownSlots=Mouse Move Down
Set1Stick1DownMouseSpeed=71
Set1Stick1LeftSlots=Mouse Move Left
Set1Stick1LeftMouseSpeed=71
Set1Stick2UpSlots=Mouse Move Up
Set1Stick2UpMouseSpeed=30
Set1Stick2RightSlots=Mouse Move Right
Set1Stick2RightMouseSpeed=32
Set1Stick2DownSlots=Mouse Move Down
Set1Stick2DownMouseSpeed=30
Set1Stick2LeftSlots=Mouse Move Left
Set1Stick2LeftMouseSpeed=32
Set1TriggerLeftSlots=Left Mouse Button (1)
Set1TriggerRightSlots=Left Mouse Button (1)
avatar
chilvence: However, once you have enough to get the twin lasers, you hit the power tree ceiling, and somehow it is sightly disappointing to have the best weapon... all the other weapons feel redundant, and the cool variety goes out the window.
For me, the bigger problem is that the difficulty is basically gone once you have twin lasers. Even on elite mode, the only mission in the game that's remotely challenging to a fully-equipped player is the last one. It's not like twin laser is that hard to get, either. If you pinch pennies you can afford it mid-way through Tango sector.
That's a fair point, although I've taken to playing it with a pad now for the same reason. Or left handed. Or with no plasma shields. You have to set your own challenges sometimes :).

Anyway, it's always fun to find ways of blowing stuff up more efficiently.