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Short of buying a gamepad, what can I do to improve my control of helicopters using the keyboard in GTA IV - The Ballad of Gay Tony? I am stuck on a mission where I have to blow up a yacht and then chase and take out three moving boats. Whenever I press a key, the movement becomes too much to handle and compensating for it causes me to spiral into a watery death.

I am using the default controls for flying:

  • Number pad 4/6 for left and right rotation
  • W/S for altitude
  • A/D for banking left and right
  • Mouse 1 for shooting

I turned off mouse control for helicopters in favor of the keyboard as this would just aggravate my control (or lack of it) when flying.

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  • I'm also flying with your setup. Using WS for altitude, AD for banking and 9 and 3 I believe for going forwards / backwards.
    – Devator
    Commented Mar 24, 2011 at 19:00
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    Actualy after some time chasing em. They stop in a small beach. And then theyll be running on the ground. Much easyer(but stilldont get off the heli).
    – Helper
    Commented Nov 18, 2013 at 13:44

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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I don't have experience with GTA IV, but it sounds similar to the controls/physics for Vice City:

  1. Don't hold the keys down as much, try tapping more. This will give you more incremental steering until you get used to the controls a bit more.
  2. Finish your turns early, there's usually a bit of inertia that will keep you banking.
  3. Relax, you're going to be more tense when you feel clumsy, take a few attempts and mess up on purpose just to get a feel for the heli, crashing into buildings/water, flipping upside-down etc.
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    The keyboard controls are pretty much the same across all GTA PC versions.
    – user7797
    Commented Mar 25, 2011 at 0:16