Vivoune

Rafli's review is minimizing the issues with the throttle that are for him, understandably, issues that he can overlook. I personally cannot. At the beginning of developpement that throttle has been annouced around the 239€ mark. Now it's at around 400€ delivered. I'd be willing to overlook things around 250€ but the way I see it, at such a high price point as currently it has to be perfect and flawless in terms of quality, functionality and customer care. It simply isn't and suffers from flaws that aren't acceptable at that price point. I was about to order one but I'll have to pass for that reason. I don't want to piss on the parade but apart from the joy of getting on the last piece of tech which I love as much as the next guy, a second-hand Warthog throttle will give you immensly more bang for buck and they are out there ready for you to pickup anytime. The biggest value to that throttle imho is to wake up a market that's been stagnating for ages. Hopefully things will get moving and competition will kick in to drive the prices down or the quality/functionality up.

Imho that's not a very practical tech for our hobby. It sounds to me as practical as practicing "air guitar" or "air tennis" to play with an "air HOTAS" like that, I reckon I'd get tired pretty fast without the possibility to rest my arm and hand on the hotas. I'd also lack any sense of precision in my control. It might be a temporary solution for button pushing, though what's incredicly important is haptic feedback. Imho projected sonic wave is what's next. Basically mid-air ultrasounds are projected to create the sense of volumetric volumes and/or on your fingers to create the feel of a button push, a flicker switch etc without any need for gloves or worn sensors. Quite a few companies are already on it.

Ah that's good to know there's an option! Even if out of reach for the vast majority, to see how the joystick base reacts to the extended weight and get some feedback on the benefits/downsides of a metal grip for this MCG. Thanks for the answer

Any news on any plans for a metal version ?

I love the mold, the shapes design (and not simply going the easy route of releasing one 'block' compared to the competition. I love the ergonomy of the throttle grips along with the modular design. The buttons choices though I'm not so sure, it seems the emphasis is a tad too much on huge push buttons. I understand the "VR complient" approach but at least a couple of switches would have been nice. No comment on Europe market availability, I beleive they got the message already, it's just frustrating for us but hopefully VKB will get their product there in time, if not there are options now that'll benefit other manufacturers.

"keep an eye out". Sadly, that pretty much sums up the extent of VKB's impact on the market. I'd love to buy VKB but like you said one can only keep an eye on VKB's products. It suffers from delays after delays and should they succeed in putting a product on the market it's in such small batches that only a small sniper minority gets the provilege. Their forum and messages are mostly ignored. It might not be perfect (although it does sound damn close to me) but Virpil gets their quality products online and in decent batches, Virpil gets their products sold and manage to do so with a great communication and finally think globally in term of sale and put efforts to reach every consumer. VKB just barely consider Europe. It's as if they don't care. "We've got such a good margin on our product it doesn't matter, people are so eager for it anyway, we should care for our business, not our consumers" is the message I get from VKB's communication, eventhough I know that's certainly not their intentions. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to buy VKB, but let's be realistic, it won't be out for quite a long long while still. They're gifting away market shares that will be very, very hard to re-acquire over the years.

Great news, the pro version with metal casing sounds like my next purchase then. (Should it be available in Europe at some point)

VKB North America only*

There had been issues in the past due to unforseen human management problematics. Since then I feel Aviodev communicates enough on their progress and more importantly, progress is being made. I would suggest taking a minute or two to look at the forum before commenting on the lack of news and particularily about giving lectures on public communication habits or work schedule 101, considering there are plenty of info and news to read in the past few weeks alone about the C-101.

How quick/easy are the table clamps to mount and unmount?

Tactile doesn't mean audible. An audible click isn't important, it's the tactile feel that matters. That haptic feedback that you can feel in your finger and hand sending you a clear message that the button has been pushed, that the signal has been sent. Imho it's an important part of connecting the man to the machine, especially for simulators where we can't feel any guns/weapon release vibrations. Personally I think it's more improtant to have tactile feedback on a trigger rather than a foldable trigger button for weapon safety measures in a simulator. But that's just me. Does the foldable trigger in the real aircraft has haptic feedback or not? (I can't say I've had the pleasure to be in a Ka-50 in real life :))

I think it's a fair trade-off. But I also think the lack of any sort of feedback in a trigger's use and travel shouldn't be underestimated, especially in the heat of the action.

That's a good resume of the TM throttles weak points and the few features it is lacking. :thumbup: I would emphasize on : - A quality slew control that is useable - A couple more axis would be very handy (binocular zoom etc) - Throttle should feel solid and planted (No wobble left & right on the gaz handles) - Throttle friction control to customize travel resistance - A tad more ergonomic handles if possible (our hands will rest on it for hundreds of hours) - Weight and size to a minimum - Aluminum/metal wherever possible if it makes sense

That's great news, thank you for the update. So they aim for both Gunfighter and MCG by the end of April for Europe. I can understand a month or two of delays and will respect that. It's great to hear the price shouldn't be too different from the rest of the world. I hope the first production runs will meet most of the demand. Any word of a possible Gunfighter+MCG package? Instead of the default KG12. (Eventhough the base can be ordered alone)

Awesome, thank you for this detailed overview and all the nice pictures. I might part with my warthog joystick sooner than I thought. Does Virpil deliver to Europe? Is the end of March still the target for new orders? Could you tell us a bit more about the base feel? Does both axis blend and transition smoothly or do you feel both axis distinctively?

http://www.mudspike.com/ comes to mind. :)

I hope I'm not out of place asking this (I didn't read all 30 pages :S) but as there been any units out yet for review? (Trying to figure how does it compare to the upcoming VKB gunfighter base) Considering it's a bit cheaper and that VKB isn't too interested in selling to Europe.

That's true. But there is already a WWII dedicated KG12 joystick that's exclusively made for WWII pilots for you to enjoy. :smilewink: With that grip the ergonomic design is for the canons to be shot with the dual trigger and missiles/bombs with the weapon release button top left. There are so much things to map in modern jets between cms, radar operation, slewing, target management, trimming and many other menu, hud and system management one more clickable quality hat would be a great addition under the thumb and would free one on top to be used as analog or vice-versa. Nothing prevents you from using it as a simple push button if you want to for WWii birds anyway.

I'm not a fanboy of the warthog. I personally always preferred Russian or European grips. But imho currently the Warthog is what's best in terms of quality and ergonomics for managing complex aircrafts. If a stick has a great feature with good ergonomics, I don't see what's wrong with suggesting its implementation on the MCG especially when it's possible and mostly a matter of replacing one button as the mold is already compatible. Much like I would have suggested the Warthog to have their 4 way hats to be toggled as analog axis if the MCG was our current standard and the Warthog in development. I'm not saying the top side button should be removed, just that having a 4 way up there for the index might be an ergonomic mistake and might offer better usability under the thumb for ease of use. Having a 4 way clickable hat under the thumb is the best of both worlds, you have a hat at your disposal should you need to, if you don't, you can just use it as a simple push button (I often do so with the TMWarthog for the more simple birds). This is a grip designed and advertised specifically for modern jet pilots with countless systems to manage and navigate, I think the focus should indeed be on hats and dual triggers (while still having quality simple push buttons I completely agree). Especially considering VKB's default and only commercialized grip thus far is a WWII exclusive replica. ;)

It's an awesome design. There are still a few things that I'd like changed before parting with my warthog grip. 1 - A metal version, or at the very least a dual stage metal trigger. (It is so hard to get back to plastic after the warthog). Especially in the VKB's price ranges. A future "metal housing upgrade kit" would be lovely. 2- I would leave the 'finger index' button on the top side a 2 way button, but instead would bring a quality clickable 4 way hat (analogue or digital) on the thumb button in the middle of the stick (instead of the simple push button). Using my experience with the Warthog it won't be practical and precise at all to use a 4 way switch at the tip of the finger all the way 'up there', a simple push button is troublesome already. The index has to leave the trigger and force the whole wrist to twist, forcing an uncomfortable change of grip. That means the whole hand not only has to loose its grip (troublesome while pitching up) but also has to stop and dedicate solely to the finger index operation, thus I reckon it'll be mostly impractical no matter the hand size considering the issue is based on the low lateral amplitude of the index finger, as opposed to the thumb. While using a pushable 4 way hat under the thumb at the middle of the stick is natural, intuitive, easy, allows for precise control and doesn't dedicate the whole hand to its operation. Particularly because your thumb can easily and naturally stay and rest on top of the button or very close to it when not using other hats just like it can easily travel between the top and middle hats without bothering the whole hand and/or other fingers (unlike the index). :thumbup: That said, the analogue brake lever and the two 8 way clickable hat switches that can be toggled as 2 axis analogues hats are an incredibly strong argument for that stick and might win me over should they be quality buttons (clear distinction between all 8 positions, being able to push it without accidentally go in one direction, smooth and precise analogue operation). I might jump on a gunfighter base in the coming weeks (if they ever get sold in Europe at a reasonable price?) just to enjoy that stick (should it get for sale in Europe too).

They're in the process of implementing a real skeleton for infantry (though we haven't heard from that in some time), and with the incoming 2.5 level of detail ground work should be that much more pleasing. I think infantry shouldn't be a feature 'on the side' considering how a lot of air operations are directly linked to the forces that have their boots on the ground.

With the Rift you can peak through the nose gap, that's not very usable but doable. With the Vive you can use the front cam to draw or see your surroundings keyboard, button boxes etc, it can be a hassle software-wise (or not). If you know your HOTAS and button boxes you should find the right button easily enough after some time. Much like many are hardly looking at their keyboard when typing other than finding the first few keys to place your hands & fingers. With clever keyboard, hotas and button boxe's bindings I found I didn't need to take my Vive off. Finding the mouse was funny though, as it's always moving around (where you left it). With 4K you go the route of exceptional image clarity (compared to 1080p) and normal immersion. With VR you go the route of exceptional immersion and sub-par image clarity (compared to 1080p). If you planned on going 4K you probably are loving a high definition experience. If you can, try before you buy VR, it is absolutely awesome and for the most part usable but the resolution is still quite low and not even in the same league of 1080p, much less 4K. ^^

Super sampling is the most brute force way and least effective way to reduce anti aliasing. That's all it does, anti aliasing, it doesn't improve resolution nor the pixel density of the hardware. It only exists as a very ressource intensive last resort to mitigate the low resolution of current VR screens. A bit like you'd add pepper & salt to a tasteless bland dish, it only helps so much. It's best to have a savorous dish to begin with. ^^

Bistrot! ;)

Odd, I found the difference to be a game changer. That shows how everyone has a very different and unique experience and how there's only one good advice, try both before you buy. Anyway, there's a 2300£ Infinitus Prime TVR Headset if you want, that's a 140° fov with 20k resolution display. :P But yeah, back to the reality, here's to the second generations arriving sooner than later.