So I'm having a slight issue in Interceptor. I can't get the in game flight stick configuration menu to register my hat switch. The game DOES have hat support but for some reason when I attempt to assign functions to the hat in the in game menu I can't do it.

I also can't assign "roll" to the "twist" flight stick action, but this DOES work in game even without assigning it (it just defaults to the twist action of the flight stick rolling my craft in game).

Anyone know how I can set up my hat? I'm guessing this might be something I have to set up in DOSbox, but I can't find a dosbox config file in the game directory. I tried using the CTRL F1 at the main menu screen too - nothing.

Also, bonus points...

1) Is there a way to change the game resolution (I can't find a cfg file anywhere)

2) How the hell do I "capture" ships / aliens!?!?! Or am I being impatient and this is just a tech that I'll discover later?

I know, I know I could ask this in the game forum - but it's dead in there and I didn't feel like yelling into an echo chamber.

Plus, I'm hoping this is mostly a DOSbox issue that I'm just not understanding (my knowledge of it is slim - so any pointers would be great).

Well, for starters, try putting it on your head. Wait until New Years' Day. You don't capture them, you intercept them!


...wait! Wait! No, not the windooooOAAAAAAAAAAAAARRrrggggghhh...

Sure, you just made me laugh in another thread, then you go and make me hate you for getting my hopes up that I had a nice quick solution here! Bastard! ;)

Though feel free to do this again in about 12 hours so I get a "U.S. bump" tomorrow - hopefully with an answer.

Well, just to ACTUALLY do something besides make jokes for once and thereby narrowly justify my being here, I found this thread on Steam:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1722992
And this thing here:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-724550.html
Perhaps one of them might help you out?

Ah ha! I was going to ask whether it is a Windows or DOS game, but apparently it is a DOS?

Then I personally I wouldn't expect it to support anything beyond basic two-axis + two buttons joysticks, because IIRC that's pretty much what DOS games only supported for sure. If there was any support beyond that (like throttle controls, hat switch etc.), I think they were usually specifically for certain joystick makes and models.

I am surprised that the game even supports roll, I thought that is another thing that didn't become "standardized" until Windows/DirectX.

If the functions you want on the hat switch are currently for some keyboard keys, maybe it is possible to assign those to hat switches through the DOSBox keyboard mapper, but then apparently you tried that already? What is the joystick setting in your DOSBox config file by the way?

Scratch that. I just checked it and to me it does seem to be a Windows game, not a MS-DOS game. So no wonder you wouldn't find any DOSbox config files in the game, because it doesn't use DOSBox. The manual specficially says you must have Windows 95 for the game to function.

No idea how to get the hat switch to work nor how to change the resolution. If the manual doesn't mention anything about changing the resolution, or the game doesn't have in-game options to change it, then most probably there is no way to change the resolution, at least officially. I wouldn't find it surprising at all if it supports only e.g. 640x480 resolution because the menu screens etc. are all static 2D, and 3D accelerators from that era could quite often do only 640x480 resolution anyway (the game seems to support 3D accelerators, no idea if that means e.g. 3Dfx Glide, or Direct3D).

LOL that WOULD explain it. I looked in some of the older flight sim game subforum areas here and saw that DOSbox had hat issues once in a while (that could be fixed with the DOSbox config) and assumed this might be what I was suffering from - but I guess not :(

Not as big a deal about the resolution (usually I can turn up an ini and "force" my prefered resolution, but it's REALLY hard to find those files for this game) as the in game action really isn't that ugly.

But if anyone else has any pointers on what may be wrong with the hat I'd love to hear it! The manual even mentions hat functionality - I just can't assign it keystrokes.

(All this is irrelevant if it's not a DOS game)

The DOS-era gameport has four pins for analogue axes and four digital buttons. There are two approaches to support a hat in DOSBox; "joysticktype=ch" sacrifices button combinations so you have a hat but can only press one button at a time, and "joysticktype=fcs" sacrifices one of the analogue axes for a hat. The latter is better unless the game needs all four. The game also needs to be accordingly configured for CH Flightstick or Thrustmaster FCS.

In addition I seem to remember that I setup some game, probably a descent, in DOSBox as just "joysticktype=4axis" for access to all the axes and multi-buttonpresses, then the built-in mapper to bind appropriate keypresses to the hat.

[url=http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/X-COM:_Interceptor]http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/X-COM:_Interceptor[/url]

So I ended up downloading my flight stick's scripting software and just did it that way. Not exactly what I wanted to do (I don't like the idea of running the game through another piece of software).

If anyone comes up with an ingame way to hack this without downloading anything I'd love to hear it but I guess for now this will work.

Also, if anyone knows how to install TARGET in a directory other than X86 I'd love to hear that too.

For a "tiny" program it sure installed a bunch of junk and caused a bit of grinding during install LOL. Yes, I did D/L it directly from Thrustmaster.

Which page is that in the manual? I tried to search for text in the manual, but at least Foxit Reader fails with search (maybe it is a scanned manual and not text it can search...).

I checked the "configure joystick" part in the manual, I didn't see a mention there with a quick glance.

What do you want to control with the hat switch anyway? Usually in these type of games it is used to look around from the cockpit (left/right/back).

It's actually on the second page of the manual where all the keystrokes are listed and then again on page 98 of the manual (page 104 on my PDF reader) under the topic of Vector Control Thrusters.

I actually wanted to use the Left and Right hat to do target functions (next / previous target) and Up to match speed - I like the "quick flick" action to do stuff like that. X3 and a game called Salvation Prophecy really turned me on to using the hat for stuff that isn't as traditional, like parsing menus. Love using it for stuff like that - very easy / quality of life sort of thing.


Funny enough, as I'm using my flight stick software I was trying to assign "Cover Me" to a button on my stick. There wasn't an in game key binding for it - unlike the the other wingmate commands this one wasn't there.

So I'm making macros and failing each time to get a result. "Okay, maybe I need to delay a few seconds between the Shift and the C press - no? Maybe use Pulse instead of Press - nope, not that."

Eventually I go in game and just try to use the keyboard shortcut from my actual, you know, keyboard. Seems like no response. I then use the manual "Radio" commands to bring up wingmen, select all wingmen and... lo and behold there's actually NO option for "Cover Me" there LOL.

So maybe the Cover Me command and Hat Support made it into the manual, but not the actual game? And they just never went back to correct it because the manual was already printed and it was time to ship LOL.

I am unsure if we are looking at the exact same manual (on the GOG version?), because on mine there are no keystrokes listed on page 2 (pages 1-7 of the manual are reserved for Prologue, telling the background story for the game). This is the manual for which you can find a link in the Start Menu for X-Com Interceptor GOG version.

However, on page 98 (under the section "Maneuvering your craft"), the hat is indeed mentioned: Maybe that function is hardcoded to the hat (hence you can't assign other functions to the hat), and applicable only to ships which have Vector Control Thrusters? Have you tried with some craft that has that ability, does it work?