Jonesie

My opinion of Saitek is that it's cheaply made and unreliable. I say that as an owner of an X-55 HOTAS and Pro Flight Pedals, with a pair of Combat Rudder Pedals on the way to me too. Thankfully, I haven't paid very much at all for my gear. The X-55 stick and throttle were bought off Ebay for less than $90 shipped - they were sold as a defective unit because neither throttle works properly. One doesn't really work at all but the other is useable and when they're locked together they aren't a problem. Works totally fine for Black Shark and A-10C so I'm okay with it. It doesn't say much for Saitek build quality though. The X-55 stick worked perfectly when I bought it but it is now having problems too. The thumb button is sticking to the point that I can't use it any more and one of the hat switches is starting to stick too. I'll probably take it apart at some point to see if I can fix that. The rudder pedals were bought used for about $85 shipped and while they work fine, they just seem cheap. I'm not impressed with the build quality at all but since they're my first pair ever, I have nothing to compare them with. I picked up a barely used set of Saitek Combat Pedals too just recently so I'm going to try them to see if I prefer them. I'm aware that the only real difference is the pedal material/style so I'm not expecting much and I'll just keep whatever pair I like better and resell the other one. I'd be pretty angry if I'd paid retail price for this stuff because it's just not worth it. By getting used gear, I paid less than half what it would have cost new. My advice is if you can't find Saitek equipment at a significant discount then don't even bother getting it. Either stick with lower end gear (my $50 Thrustmaster HOTAS X still works perfectly after hundreds of hours of use) or save up for a Thrustmaster Warthog setup. If you just have to have Saitek and won't buy it used, make sure you buy from somewhere with an excellent and lengthy return policy. If I'd bought this stuff new, there's no way I'd ever deal with the garbage that is Saitek's customer service. I'd just return it to where I bought it from for a full refund, I wouldn't even mess around with warranty service. Having to ship off your new HOTAS or set of rudder pedals for warranty service and then wait weeks or months for a replacement (of dubious quality as well) is completely unacceptable in my opinion, and I'm surprised so many are willing to accept it.

I had a lot of trouble telling what state each autopilot button was in too, and I'm not even colorblind (according to every eye test I've ever taken, anyway). I could never tell if they were on or off just by looking at them. Using a cockpit mod (Ricardo's or Devrim's, I can't remember which) solved it for me but Inrodeo's color mod above is even better, especially for anyone who is colorblind. Nice work :thumbup:

XFX Radeon HD 6870 1GB

I wanted to mention my experience with JSGME in case anyone runs into the same problem I had getting mods running in DCS World. It took me a few days to figure out what I was doing wrong. I'd installed DCS World awhile back and tried learning the Black Shark (not very successfully) and gave up on it but last month decided to give it a second try. I'm so glad I did, I'm a much better helo pilot this time around after reading up on it and putting in some practice. I'd read this guide repeatedly as well as anything else I could find on JSGME, examined my folder structures countless times, renamed the mods "aircrafts" folder to "aircraft" wherever necessary, tested JSGME to make sure it was working and it seemed to be because the files were being changed/overwritten with the modded folders and files from JSGME. After all my checking and re-checking, none of my mods would show up in Black Shark 2 when I ran it and I had no idea why. I finally realized that the problem was I had 2 installs of DCS World on my computer. JSGME was pointed at my "C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World " folder but for some reason my DCS World desktop shortcut was linked to a previous install of DCS World under "C:\Games\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World" Even though JSGME was working perfectly by modding all the files and folders it was supposed to, my DCS World desktop shortcut was opening the wrong version of DCS World, an older install that JSGME wasn't linked to. Basically, I was modding one DCS World install with JSGME but playing another. I changed my DCS World desktop shortcut to the proper DCS World folder (the one JSGME was pointed to and was modding) and everything worked perfectly after that. If you've gone through all the troubleshooting tips and still can't get your mods working, check where the DCS World shortcut you start the game with is pointed to. When I got back into it last month, I did a reinstall of DCS, not realizing there was still the previous install my shortcut was linked to. Edit: Oh yeah, and a huge thank you to Ebs for creating this thread and to all the modders out there who put the time in to create this stuff for us. These mods (terrain, cockpit, wingman AI, rudder mod, skins, shkval and HUD mods, etc) add so much to the sim. Your hard work is definitely appreciated.

Try the steps posted by Lizzard and Tone71 first because usually the problem for the majority of people having trouble with mods is incorrect folder structure in your _MODS folder. I also wanted to mention this too because I had the hardest time getting my mods running in Black Shark 2 (really the only DCS module I'm using right now, I'm still learning it) and it took me days to figure out what I was doing wrong. I'd read the guides and most of the threads on JSGME, examined my folder structures countless times, renamed the mods "aircrafts" folder to "aircraft" wherever necessary, tested JSGME to make sure it was working and it seemed to be because the files were being changed/overwritten with the modded folders and files from JSGME. After all my checking and re-checking, none of my mods would show up in Black Shark 2 when I ran it and I had no idea why. I finally realized that the problem was I had 2 installs of DCS World on my computer. JSGME was pointed at my "C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World " folder but for some reason my DCS World desktop shortcut was linked to a previous install of DCS World under "C:\Games\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World" so even though JSGME was working perfectly by modding all the files and folders, my DCS World desktop shortcut was opening the wrong version of DCS World, an older install that JSGME wasn't linked to. Basically, I was modding one DCS World install with JSGME but playing another. I changed my DCS World desktop shortcut to the proper DCS World folder (the one JSGME was pointed to and was modding) and everything worked perfectly after that. The chance that this is your problem is probably pretty remote but I thought I'd mention it in case you or anyone else can't figure out why their mods for Black Shark or any other DCS module just won't work after trying all the other JSGME troubleshooting tips.