Nereid

Well, nice to hear. I had owned the first throttle from TM [incorrectly was TH before edit] about 15 years ago and at those days the options were quite limited. And the documentation from CH is also far away from ideal. At the moment its hard to decide between CH and TH I think. Two throttle axes are nice at the warthog but I would miss the mini-stick of the CH Throttle, because I still dont use Track-IR for viewing. André

Just my two cents: I own the CH HOTAS for several years now and I have seen a Warthog HOTAS in a store. First the Warthog is impressive and two axes for the throttle are nice (that the only thing I'm really missing at the CH Throttle). But: The Warthog is a little limited in use in my oppinion. Also some users reported its well build outside but the inner mechanic is plastic and dont last that long (but I do not have experience myself, so dont take this to serious). The CH HOTAS is - well plastic all over but none of my sticks broke so far or developed some kind of misfunction over years. A friend of mine had a CH Fighterstick and spring broke someday. He has written a letter to CH and they send him 5 (!) new springs (to germany!!) so he could repair his stick. Conclusion: sturdy and good support if needed. Also keep in mind the flexibility of the key assignment software. I don't know the if TH has a scripting language for his HOTAS but CH has. Take my other post (http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=87629) as an example. But to honest: For the A10 I'm also thinking about the Warthog HOTAS. But some user reviews and the price are still keeping me away so far. And I still like my CH HOTAS, even it looks not as cool as the Warthog. André

Well, I dont know how many people are using the CH Products HOTAS here, but perhaps some are using it for A10 and have never used the scripting language and a CMS device so far. I'm using the Fighterstick, Pro Throttle, Pro Pedals and the MFP with a total sum of 90 keys (shift and layers not included), but even this amount of keys is not enough for A10 in my opinion. The main problem is building group of keys that can be remembered easy. Unfortunately there are some key combos in A10, that use up many keys on the HOTAS. Take enginge startup/shutdown as an example: LALT/LCTL-POS1 for left/right startup, LALT/LCTL-END for left/right shutdown. If you dont like shift layers (and I don't, because you have to press two buttons at the same time) this will use up 4 buttons an the HOTAS or MFP. Another example are three way switches as the Master Arm Switch or the Autopilot Select Switch, which have 3 keys to assign but assigning three buttons on the HOTAS is just a waste of keys and hard to remember in some cases. So I have played with the scripting language a bit (but I don't think I'm the first one ;), so you might find similiar ideas/solutions and perhaps better ones in other places) and configured my buttons on the MFD (but buttons on the HOTAS can configured in similar way) as follows: three-way switch: -------------------- - button pressed and released immediately selects first switch position (you can hear one "click") - button pressed and released after about 1/2 seconds selects second switch position (you can hear two "clicks") - button pressed and released after about 1 seconds or later selects third switch position (you can hear three "clicks") => one button: three keys! rotation knob: ---------------- - button pressed for longer than 1/2 second: knob is rotated clockwise - button pressed for less than 1/2 second and immediately pressed again: knob is rotated anti clockwise => one button: two keys, no shift key two buttons (to avoid a second layer or a shift key): ------------------------------------------------------------ - button pressed for less than 2 seconds, a release will give key x (e.g. right engine right) - button pressed for more than 2 seconds, a release will give key y (e.g. right engine stop) => one button: two keys, no shift key; => second key function is secured, because you have to press the button for a long time For BS2 other functions are possible: e.g. first short press opens close cover of a switch, second press toggles the switch. If somebody is interested I could give a description how to implement this. Its quite easy to do, but a bit complex to describe. So I will do that only if someone wants to try it out. André

Yes its just easier. But I would like that option too. Trimming even with a HOTAS ist still a pain in the ass in my oppinion. In BS2 I would like to get the option to reset the rudder only or to trim the stick only.

Easy (but naive) answer: You could use the fullscreen mode (FSM) with this feature (and use another application to draw the MFCDs on smaller displays). Fullscreen mode renders faster on most graphic cards so you will gain a few fps. But the problem (thats the reason why the answer is a bit naive) might be, that in FSM the graphics card could not render the images for the MFCDs, so it hat to be done by software. In one or two years all of us have better graphic cards, better cpus and even on my current machine (K2600, GTX 560 Ti) the fps impact for using two small USB TFTs and a second monitor (running A10/BS2 at 4000x1080 at the moment), is not that big. Even with mirros on its playable. Conclusion: Time will solve the issues with fps. I'm currently only testing not flying for real with 3 and in a few days 4 monitors. Its still playable in window mode at this resolution - and normaly I'm very picky with fps rates.

Nice idea. If there were some documented TCP/IP interface, I would allready written a program myself to export those displays on external monitors. There are 8'' USB TFTs out there which are great for displaying ABRISS, SHKVAL or MFCD displays. I'm currently planing to integrate two TM Cougar MFD with such TFTs (and lots of buttons and switches) in a case for that. But unfortunately I dont think it will be implemented soon (or ever?). So we will have to use the windowed mode. For myself the fps impact is not that great, but the configuration in the lua is a mess.

Well, it's not on top of my wish list, but easy to implement: A bit more flexible control options. The options in the configuration screens are quite good but key consuming on the HOTAS (and all other auxiliary input devices) have some disadvantages. At least every switch/button on the virtual cockpit should have a (optional) key command to toggle its state. In A10 this is not the case for all switches. The "Master Arm Switch" has three keyboard shortcuts for all its setting (which is great so far) but this means you have to configure three buttons on the HOTAS for that. I miss a control option that toggles the switch from ARM to SAFE to TRAIN. On the other hand it would be nice to have control input that set the switch to the state of the button. E.g. Button 25 on Device 3 pressed should set the switch into "on" setting until the button is released. This could be used by other input devices that have real swicthes (switch in up position hold the button, switch in down position releases the button). I'm currently building my own panel witch switches and two MFDs. But I'm limited to 128 switches at first and I have to keep other simulations in mind also. Three button or a three state switch for the "Master Arm Switch" is just to much. Regards, André

Ah! Thank you! Searched in the wrong forum! :doh: Nice to hear that it will be fixed. :)

Hi! Don't know if someone else has noticed this allready (searched the forum but found nothing): If an ai aircraft hits a ship with a guided missile (eg. a Sea Eagle) the sim crashed immediately. For me this is 100% reproducable. Has anybody else observed this? Is this a known bug? Sim: Black Shark 2 1.1.1.1 Regards, Andre