FeistyLemur

Money is money. If you can make the product and make a profit at all, possibly increase the opinion of the company with enthusiasts who are more likely to evangelize your brand name, it seems like a good thing. If over 1700 people in a fairly short timeframe are willing to wait 3 months to send 400 euros to a furniture maker from Croatia for a set of pedals I have to think thrustmaster could turn out a smooth reliable cam based joystick that at least makes money. Or even an upgrade base for the warthog. If you made a warthog mk2 base that was cam based and really awesome, sold it as an upgrade as well as a full product just like they did with the Mamba, I think it would be worthwhile. I'd buy one in an instant.

In real life you would take your left hand off the less important throttle most likely I would think. I've thought of getting a second ambidextrous mouse and having one on either side. Downsides to this idea are finding a good place to put it, and being utterly useless and uncomfortable at using a mouse with my left hand.

Just adding this here, not sure if the info is welcome or not but nevertheless, here it is. I used to use this method of modifying the lua files for the warthog toggles, but I've actually found it more convenient to use autohotkey scripts for each individual module that intercept the toggles and map them to the keyboard commands. The following is a single button example of the remapped WH throttle stop button for the mig21. ; --- HOTAS WH Throttle Button 29 3Joy29:: ; Sets for Device 3 button 29 your device ID may vary Send +#e ; Send throttle stop toggle SetTimer, WaitForButtonUp29, 10 return WaitForButtonUp29: if GetKeyState("3Joy29") return Send +#e ; Send throttle stop toggle can send different keyboard command here for true toggle functions. SetTimer, WaitForButtonUp29, off return Yes this gets out of sync on commands like the throttle stop which have a single command rather than supporting on / off states, but I do find it more reliable, and it works fantastic on the functions that do have separate on/off states in the module. I was finding by editing the lua file for the toggles as described in this thread, I was for some reason having them time and become unresponsive as well, necessitating flipping the switch a second time to get it to respond if a switch was left in the on position for an extended time. Using autohotkey it's been extremely responsive, never times out, and I actually find it more convenient because you don't have to replace or potentially go over your lua files every time there's an update. Use that info for what it's worth if you find it benefits you.

I use a powered usb hub as well and it's the best thing ever. Not only for convenience but I have no issues with assignments being lost either.

This is a product with obviously much greater demand than supply. I don't know why there aren't more high end joysticks being brought to market. You would think someone at Guillemot would be looking at this thing and scratching their chin by now.

Click edit profile. Scroll down to special commands, which are the singles at the bottom of the window. Look for the current profile switch commands, there are a few, eg f15-c the mustang, the a10. They're all listed as (suffix - Select Profile). Delete any you don't use, eg, I deleted the p51 and the huey. Modify the ones you want to use. For example right click f15-c and hit edit, change the "when I say" field to what you want, eg eagle. If you want to add ones for profiles that aren't already listed, just right click and duplicate, then change the settings for the duplicate to be appropriate. That means changing the "when i say", and the when this command executes do the following to select the appropriate profile. Just click the existing one, edit, in the new window that comes up change the profile it actually chooses and save it all. I just modified mine to have a command for each profile I used, deleted all the default ones from every profile, then when you right click you also can "copy to" and copy the new suffixes to all of your profiles so they're all the same and it saves time. For example, my black shark profile has the select profile shark command that points to itself too just because it was easier than keeping track of what profiles have what, just do one and copy the new suffixes to every profile in the list you have imported. I also made mine auto swap my autohotkey scripts which is convenient. Here's a picture of all the suffixes in my list. They all land on the first try pretty much every time i use them. Just be careful with the Mig 15 so you don't offend your neighbors shouting that code name.

You're going to need a mod where you ride on the back like the plane was a horse. This would go well with that western nav mod another guy was after. Or to turn your head further like the above photo. Actually there is an option for that, it's the Mig 15 module.

The warthog is great but I really can't stress enough that you need to gut it and re-grease it / polish the plastic parts to get the most out of it. And putting at least a 10cm extension on it should almost be considered a must. Which adds to the cost unless you make your own. And of course it tends to be a gateway drug in the controller world. Because it has no twist grip, you're going to need pedals, and the throttle you might as well have too. Then you need a way to mount it all and use it. The end result though is far more rewarding than playing with a 50 dollar stick. I know someone who has used an x52 for ages and makes due with the twist rudder and he's perfectly satisfied with it as well.

Do you speak Russian and have a way with persuasion? They aren't making anymore. The gunfighter mk1 model is supposed to be the enthusiast model they make next using the same gimbal. No idea when that might be up for preorder, but basically you have to be lucky enough to spot it up for preorder and get one before they sell out. gostratojet.com is the north american reseller partner for them. But he doesn't reply to email inquires about when more might be available, so your guess is as good as anyone's. The forum says 2016 quarter 1 for the gunfighter model, I'd have to guess after they finish shipping the order of Mamba MKIII they took in november. If you want one basically best case scenario I can see is check their forum daily watching for a preorder announcement.

Just wait for him to run out of 27er's when they all miss.

The hotas warthog is nice but only if you're comfortable tinkering with electonics. You pretty much have to be able to tear the stick apart to fix and maintain it. I wouldn't buy one unless you're prepared to do that. The CH products set is pretty highly regarded I think. They've been around forever and are very reliable. Probably the stick I'm most interested in is the upcoming gunfighter by VKB. Sadly they are really hard to get, and based in Russia. If it were me right now. I would wait to see what pascal brings for performance in a few months as far as video cards go. And probably would be looking at that upcoming ROG 34 inch curved ultrawide, having seen a video recently of someone using an ultrawide it looked awesome. Trackir with the trackclip pro I highly recommend. The trackclip pro gets a lot of negative reviews for durability but I love it, and wish I had bought it sooner. Mig 21 is a great first module to start DCS with. It was the module that brought me to DCS as well. Roughly 1500 dollars into stuff just for flight sims at this point, so you could say it's easy to spend to much.

That video is interesting. I was considering a 34 inch ultrawide as well, Now I'm kind of reconsidering it again. Maybe after pascal comes out and technology marches forward just a bit more. I was really liking the look of the ROG one but it still isn't out yet that I know of. When it comes out it might be too tempting. I too like a crisp high res monitor and VR doesn't interest me much in the current generation of gear.

I'm not going to show what the wiring looks like inside mine because it's like a hotdog, you're better off not knowing what's on the inside. (Read tangled mess of really annoying wires I wish I'd done differently). Live and learn for the next one. My next one might be a bit more similar to yours, it will likely sit upfront. I see you used the actual leo bodnar board, I might give his a go this time around because it does pretty much everything on one board, and I don't really need pulsed outputs any longer since I'm comfortable with autohotkey. I'd really like to get the hang of 3d design software so I could get replicas of the cockpit knobs 3d printed on shapeways. Particularly that red plus sign radio dial that's common to Russian planes. Should you ever want some of the same color paint it's codes are as follows. WB2010 104.3 104.3 WB01 151.2 46.9 WB30 176.1 24.9 WB06 184.6 8.5 WB42 187.8 3.2 WB41 188.2 0.4 I have no idea how that works or what any of it means but it's on the label and I was told more could be made from the codes without resampling. That's for DuPont Cromax Pro waterborne urethane. Local auto body supply shops that make spray bombs should be able to use that I would think.

I think I'm saying it's more like when guys buy an AK and jam an AR stock on it. Just not right.

I put all the switches back in today. I think mig green looks better next to the warthog than I expected.

My plan is for it to be a pretty generic switch box for use with all DCS modules, but to be mig 21 themed. I've already been using it for some time partially finished, it mounts in a small MDF box I built and painted gloss black. It has 15 SPST pulse generating toggle switches for a total of 30 joystick buttons. It may not be evident in the picture but it's 1/8th thick steel plate that I had cut with cnc plasma because I wanted it to have a rough and heavy look to it. I typically use the top row for the ASP switches, the middle row for weapon arming related things, and the bottom row for less important things, like pipper on / off, drag chute, rsbn / arc. The paint and finishing stickers have been a long time coming because A: I have to get the paint made quite a ways away, no auto paint place that makes matched spray bombs here. And B: because I've been using it and didn't want to tear it down to paint it. I plan to label it for mig21 in cyrillic white on black labels that match the Russian cockpit, just for show. Since I use it with other modules and just have it all memorized anyway. As this is my first panel, it's pretty modest. I'd like to do a second one with rotary encoders and more 3 way toggles next. At some point adding an analog brake lever is also something I'd like to do.

It's probably coming about the same time the mod to add aim 120c capability.

After ordering some akan modeling paint on Ebay that someone recommended here, I finally got it color matched in an automotive grade spray bomb and got my Mig themed toggle panel painted. Still not reassembled yet and I need to get some white on black label tape to make the authentic looking black with white text labels. I do have the dupont paint codes for the exact color now if anyone else wants a can of Mig 21 cockpit green.

I definitely fly in flight director mode most of the time now. I love it. I haven't compared to turning off the individual channels but I'll have to try that as well. Once the hydro system is dead though it really becomes interesting to fly.

1.2 was the frustrating experience to me. It ran so poorly on good hardware.

The funnel is tough to master, or at least I'm finding. The "shooting range" instant action mission provides a great practice environment. I like to practice circling all the dummy targets and killing the tanks from above in a funnel with 30mm AP from the cannon. It really does those dummy T55s in fast when you hit them from above and behind. I've been doing the "deployment" campaign just now and I had a really fun mission experience. I was doing the 8th mission I believe it is. Where you have to fly through the high mountain pass from Nalchik and assault forces in a valley with the help of some SU24 bombers. The air defenses were mostly out or so i thought, so I had just ordered my wingmen to open fire on all ground targets and I was at a hover nearby looking through my shkval about to line up targets myself when I saw an SA18 flying at me through the shkval. Well ****. It hit me and took out my hud, shkval, etc. So I limped into cover putting out flares and avoiding more SA-18s. So I'm sitting there behind a hill blind while my wingmen are ripping the place up. So I think **** it I'm going in rambo style. So I switched to KOM rockets and decided im going in and trying rocket runs with no sights. So I got sprayed with machinegun fire from a BTR80 as soon as i came around the corner. That was it for the cannon and hydraulics systems as I saw those going. I dropped the gear immediately having learned to do that immediately when hydro is going. So I keep circling the field with no stabilization autopilot, hud or sights. Just my blind fire rockets by pointing the nose of my chopper at targets. I managed to take out that BTR and a few trucks while my wingmen mopped up the last of everything and the mission was a success. I had to give up and end the mission there with no way to make the long flight back to Nalchik without any instrumentation left working and barely able to hold the thing steady. But it was the most fun I've had with the black shark yet. Come to think of it I haven't found any other module that's such a rewarding single player experience. The first campaign for the black shark is just a ton of fun so far.

I like to nose it up and to the left and flip it around hard with the ruder that has a tendency to really get rid of momentum, and you can see what you're looking for out your left window. Such as a FARP you're about to land at or possibly a target area you're preparing to funnel around. I'm only really beginning to learn and get more proficient at the funnel manouver, but it sure feels good when you pull it off properly.

I'm waiting till this module is further along in development but am very interested in it. Having a realistic interceptor to learn besides the mig21 will be fantastic.

Well, as it happens I have an ergotron mount coming to mount a second keyboard on. When it arrives it will sit vertically and directly in front of my left hand which sits on the throttle. It still won't be suitable for quickly orienting your fingers to in a natural typing position. And no, I don't have a good place to mount a keyboard because my stick is center mounted on a wheel stand pro. My stick is directly in front of me, and the keyboard is directly in front of it. There is no way for me to reach the keyboard comfortably without standing it vertically. I already have my seating position placed with the edge of the seat practically touching the post that the stick sits on. and I have the stick sitting where in full forward deflection the nose of it is almost touching the edge of the desk. I can't get any closer than that. So I have to lean forward considerably to reach the keyboard unless I stand it vertically like a panel. Sitting the keyboard in my lap is unworkable. The stick hits a lap held keyboard in full rear deflection. A hotas setup still does not have enough buttons to replace a keyboard totally for every single function. I have a TM warthog and a 15 switch panel. I'm not replacing every possible keyboard command I might want to use with it. I'm not going to remap all the view keys for example to to the hotas. Or the scoreboard, or the multiplayer chat window controls. You basically sound like you just want an excuse to crow about your typing abilities to be honest.

I appreciate that you're one of the few people that seems to be realistic about the advantages and drawbacks of VR headsets. It's been an idea ahead of it's time every time it's been tried so far. I think it's going to be great like you say, when haptic feedback is involved and motion control actually works well. I also think the resolution race needs to advance a bit more. Once everyone can run 4k resolutions like it's no big thing it has a lot more of a chance to take off. But I have a titan X and a pretty decent system and I still doubt I can put out enough framerate 100% of the time at the detail settings I like to use in dcs. Maybe Pascal will solve that problem sooner rather than later. But probably not in the mainstream. It's still going to be the 1000 dollar plus cards being needed. It obviously has to start somewhere to drive the advancements in the field, I'm hesitant to pay 1000 bucks cad to be part of the first generation though.