Having seen the sub and read about everything wrong with it: That controller was the sturdiest fucking thing on it.
Everyone shitting on the submarine using a controller seems to forget or not know that the u.s navy themselves use them to control their submarines. source
You seem to have forgotten that the navy gets fucking lockheed martin to make their specialized $38,000 controllers, not some generic $20 logitech bullshit off of amazon. See your own source for reference.
Yeah this stuff has to pass qual testing. Extreme high and low temperatures, vibration profiles, humidity and sea water exposure, probably shock loads, stricter EMI controls (compared to FCC), ESD exposure, explosive atmosphere testing, and so on and so on.
The U.S. Navy plans to equip its Virginia-class submarines with Xbox 360 controllers, which will control the ship’s periscopes.
Periscopes. Not steering the goddamned sub.
The F710 is a pretty good controller when not being used as the primary input device for controlling craft at the bottom of the sea. It has excellent force feedback, the materials and builds construction feel good. It could use a refresh though (it uses a non-unifying dongle).
