StarKeys-vMFD

COMPLETELY Immerse yourself in your games

Virtual Game Controller

brought to you by The Jedi-Temple a Star Citizen (TJT) Org/Community

 
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Sample tabular grid style panel for Star Citizen

Sample tabular grid style panel for Star Citizen

StarKeys-vMFD is a virtual controller for your PC using a tablet, smartphone, touch screen laptop, or any computer with a mouse, to behave as a input device. Immerse yourself in the game, mapping complex keystrokes to a button press. Create custom panels to mimic the style of the game, extending the on screen display into a virtual cockpit with live interactions to control any elements in the game. Start Engines, Raise Landing Gear, Access Communications, Spool your Jump Drive, or Engage Quantum. The options are limitless!

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How does it work

StarKeys-vMFD uses a very simple html based web client to send commands to a PC using web sockets.  Therefore, a small application starkeys-vmfd.exe needs to be running on the Game PC to receive the requests.  For security reasons, the web client only connects to the PC over the local network, so no external ports are opened.  However, you need to make sure the client device and the PC connected to the same home network. Secondly, the client never directly sends keystrokes to the PC.  Instead the client only ever requests the PC to execute a particular macro such as macro:5. This way the client html can be hosted anywhere, and the user controls what macro mapping file is loaded on the PC, through the starkeys-vmfd.exe app.

You’ll have a separate macro file for each game, that defines all the key mappings for each button on the game panel. It’s a simple json file format that can be easily edited in a text editor of your choosing. The macro file is loaded on the game pc server application starkeys-vmfd.exe, and the rest is taken care of for you. Minimize the app to the tray, start your game, and you’re off to the races.

      "macro8": {
        "value": "{F11}",
        "description": "Comm's"
      },
      "macro9": {
        "value": "N",
        "description": "Landing Gear Toggle"
      },
      "macro10": {
        "value": "+2N",
        "description": "Auto Land"
      }

The concept is a simple one, press a button on a tablet or phone or other device and have it virtually press a key on another computer. Many similar apps require you to install an app on a tablet or smartphone. I've specifically designed this to be web/html based with a simple java script wrapper for web sockets. That means there's nothing to install on the client, so it'll run on almost ANY device, even the really old tablets that are too old to update the OS and therefore too old to install a cool virtual controller app onto. With StarKeys-vMFD it should support your oldest devices, and since it's web based it'll also support a laptop, or computer with a mouse as a valid device too. Better yet, get a brand new laptop with a touch screen and when you're playing Star Citizen, it can be one of your controllers.

I chose to use a web/html design to make it really easy for you the gamer to create your own custom game panels. Anyone with a little design and web skills can develop their own layout, or use one of the existing sample layouts and change it. Lets say you have an old game that you still go back to now and again, well no worries of it not being supported, just edit the html, change the button names to what you want, copy and update the macro file (on the game PC) to map the macros to keys (ie: macro:1 = Press the K key, macro:2 = Hold the H for 2 seconds, etc...) and you're off and running.

Not everyone is going to be creative to design their own panel, or maybe you don’t have time and just want to jump into the action. That’s where this community portal site will extend the game capabilities by providing an integrated community sharing site to upload or download existing game panels for all your favorite games. If you don’t have time to create the game panel, chances are someone else has already done it, so just download their macro file and run the panel on your favorite device of choice and you’ll be up and running.

My first sample panel being provided with the alpha build is for Star Citizen, and is designed to be a really simple tabular layout with the keys I thought most useful. I personally don't want twitch finger style keys on the panel such as chaff or flares. They're mapped to my joystick, so when I need them I have really quick access to them. But for other more relaxed items like start engines, landing gear, quantum jump, etc... they're perfect on the panel. You might disagree and want all the twitch stuff on the panel, and that's fine, it's real easy to edit. You might also want a variety of page/panels for different modes, instead of 25 buttons crammed into one page, and that's fine too, and easy to change.

Some people will want a real immersive style panel, like some other competing products I've seen. If you're at all graphical with web design (I'm not) that's super easy to do too. The possibilities are limitless.

The simplicity is in the client being HTML/js based, while the magic happens on the small gaming app running on the PC which listens for remote client requests, translates the requested macro to a keystroke (or combination of keys) then performs the execution. And you can simultaneously run any number of web clients connected to the same PC, using a single invocation of StarKeys-vMFD.exe listener running on that PC. I'm trying to make it really easy.


 

MY PROMISE

I want this project to empower the community with an easy and intuitive way of creating custom game panels that can run on nearly any device and provide a new level of immersion in our game play. It’s my goal to provide a very light weight application to run on the gaming PC, and simplify as much of the setup effort allowing less technical people to enjoy the same experience while empowering those who want to take the journey the ability to create wonderful and immersive gaming interfaces.

 

SEE some of the great game panels the community has created here


About Me

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MY NAME IS Larry

I’m a gamer like you, and I love the immersion of modern day games. I’ve been a professional programmer throughout my career, and most recently focused on cloud architecture, designing highly secure, robust and resilient public cloud solutions.

In the evenings my passion is gaming; both as a gamer and a game developer. For years I’ve wanted to build a very immersive game such as Star Citizen or Elite Dangerous. When these games were released, my focus shifted to enjoying what these games have to offer.

After some time I had the itch to program some more, and after running out of buttons on my HOTAS I wanted another option. I heard a lot about a product “StreamDeck” from Elgato and thought how cool. Then I thought how much it looked like a tablet. When I didn’t find a comparable app for my very old tablet, I decided to create one, and that brings us to today.

I’m also a husband to my beautiful wife of over 30 years, and father to three terrific grown children.