Gman109

BlacleyCole, I'll be watching for your review - did you purchase one glove or two? I too like others don't want to give up my hotas, but would absolutely use these things if they work well at manipulating switches, buttons, dials, etc in DCS. I hope you're able to test this out, and if it does work pretty well - I realize they are still developing their tech - I'll be buying a couple pair at least myself.

What I did was use my lenses from VR Lens Lab (very cheap, made for the Rift, work great), and then bought a 25$ adapter which lets me use them in the Odyssey from Ebay. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Oculus-Rift-Adapter-Frame-for-VR-Lens-Lab-Lenses/142391930424?hash=item2127386e38:m:mL9V0BHO6xAgkBgAcBgSkBw#shpCntId

Such great news, way to go again Razbam! Anyone else read the book "Red Eagles" about the (sort of) secret USAF unit flying Russian/Soviet aircraft? The chapters in that book about their Mig23s they flew gave me an entirely new respect for this fighter, the USAF pilots sure described it as an incredible machine, which tbh surprised me. I can't wait for this one, boy oh boy oh boy.

Vive Pro 2.0 kit, yes. Gets here tomorrow, should be interesting.

Having sold off the 3 Vives we had, and kept the 3 Rifts, we've been waiting to see how things settled out in the WMR landscape. I really wish we'd kept one Vive, now that Vive 2.0 requires the magic wall boxes to function (ordered one, and had to buy the sensors again, blarg, be here next week). In the meantime picked up a cheap used Samsung Odyssey, and decided to try it out. Wow - anyone IMO who thinks the Rift has equal or similar visuals needs to see their eye doctor. While not a revolution in graphics compared to the Rift, the increase in resolution and detail is markedly improved, certainly worth the cost of the Odyssey (I got it for $325 USD with about 2 hours total use on it, like new). I really liked the Rift, found it to be a better cockpit device than the Vive, and since we don't really do the room scale thing, where the Vive has some advantages, we ditched all 3 Vives and kept the Rifts as I said. Rifts have been working great with Aces High and DCS, Project Cars too, and a few shooters like Onward. Now, depending on how the Vive 2.0 looks and works - and honestly, for the price, I can get 2 Odysseys easily for one new Vive - I'm going to replace all 3 Rifts with the Odyssey. I like it that much. Only neg is that my $400 Asus motherboards Bluetooth don't work with the Odyssey controllers, and I had to buy a $20 dongle which worked instantly - pretty common problem, but man, you would think that such expensive MB with the wireless antenna attached MIGHT just actually work. Unsure if it's a driver issue with Asus or what, reports online vary, I just know that the $20 Staples Bluetooth wireless dongle worked within 1 minute of installing it with both Odyssey controllers. Anyhow, just my take, great tracking so far in DCS with the Odyssey, significantly improved graphics/visuals, which was my major complaint with VR - nice to see some incremental improvement, while I doubt the Vive 2.0 will be much better, I am looking forward to future advancements on this front. Very pumped to fly VR in DCS right now thanks to Samsung and the WMR experience. Anyone here try the lower cost WMR sets as well as the Odyssey? I only ask since there are refurbished units for $175 USD and even less that have come up for sale recently, and if the experience is even close to the Odyssey, I'd like to be able to recommend to others on tight budgets in other games I play to go that route.

This. Excellent summary in an incremental order IMO. The x55/56 quality/longevity seems to be a bit of a coin flip, many swear by theirs, others have nothing but problems. The lower cost TM hotas seem to be an excellent starter HOTAS, so if your budget is under $4 or 5 hundred dollars, it's probably a good place to begin. I have 2 dozen+ HOTAS I've collected over the years, right up to and including all the latest custom sticks and pedals (no custom higher end throttles, not until next month at least), and one thing I'll stand by is that any hotas is better than no hotas at all. Again, if your budget is under $150 grab the TM setup, the TWCS is actually quite good, I've got one, and IMO it's as good or better than the CH Pro Throttle, and with a decent stick, can serve very well (it has a rudder rocker if you can't afford pedals out of the gate as well). In fact, a CH Combatstick and Tm TWCS can be had for well under $150 if you find both on sale, and that's probably the best bang/$ out there for a budget hotas. The next best option is to search for used hotas. Kijiji.ca here in Canada plus the other usual suspects like Ebay/etc, usually yield one solid deal per month for me. I've purchased 3 out of my 4 Warthogs in this manner, 2 Cougars, and various CH and other units (Got my X65 Saitek for $150 USD like new there) for great deals. I've found like new Warthogs in the $250 USD range, so this is a viable option as well if you're patient - this source makes for a good "second" hotas, or your next "step up", as patience can be required for good deals to come along. As another example, I picked up a VKB Gunfighter base for $175 USD that was new in the plastic wrap still, and a 90% condition Cougar for $50 including the shipping, which works perfectly well.

Then fundamental difference is that VR doesn't take into account the eyes peripheral vision. While a real pilot only need turn his head to say 4 oclock in order to see dead 6 oclock and thus right behind his fighter thanks to peripheral vision, in VR, you actually have to look almost dead 6 to SEE dead 6. This means you pretty much have to turn your chair (if it even swivels) an awful lot in order to get your head pointed to 6 oclock due to the nature of body mechanics. TrackIR of course has scaling/etc which allows you to see directly behind your aircraft with very little head movement at all - again, the opposite of VR right now, until we get good eye tracking in VR devices.

Wags, I'm sure you're concerned that the Hornet stick may not be working quite perfectly, if you send it to me, I'll give it my opinion and help you out bro. You can even pay the shipping both ways for me helping you out...

I looked into this company a bit earlier this year. I typically buy all new sim hotas stuff anyway, so long at it's under $1000 per unit - I can't recall what the prices where on this stuff, but IIRC it was still under this, so I'll probably be in. I do have one of the Saitek X65 hotas in my collection, and the force sensing system works better than I thought it would. More than well enough to play, especially less competitive single player experience stuff, although I did find that in multi/PVP competitive stuff like Aces high that I fly, it was a bit less than ideal. Perhaps this company will have more spun up tech than Saitek did with their brief and, IMO failed attempt, and bringing force sensing hotas to the masses. I'll stay tuned, for sure.

Great job Cypher - very happy to keep on supporting you guys, such a great company, all my dealings have been 6 stars on the 5 star scale. Your rapid help when I needed tech support one time (2 hours you guys replied, so FAST, and problem was solved in about 10 minutes tops)...I'll not forget this anytime soon. I love my T50s, and everyone else I let use our 3 gaming systems set up for flight simming always want to use the system we currently have set up with the T50 and a TM throttle on the fantastic and inexpensive desk mounts/clamps. Seeing those throttles on that assembly and testing bench - I'd love to swoop in and buy every single one. Alas, I'll have to be happy with the one I'll purchase as soon as they're available. Great job again, and Cypher, I'm sure the rest of the DCS community and those of us who love to follow this part of the forum in the input subforum here, really and truly appreciate the work you do giving us updates like this, including the information and visuals/pics. Thanks again. Both of us here (missus flies a bit as well when she's not into her Fortnite addiction, heh), are very appreciative of posts like this one with the new sticks/throttles. Heh, may have to purchase T50 base #3, or probably the new WarBrd base, to get an example of your new "space" Constellation Delta sim stick. Looks very interesting, and my nephew is a big time Star Citizen and Elite player - see what he thinks of it, he loves the Mongoose already, so...

Hrrm, maybe I've given up too soon on SLI, I'll try out your link there Cowboy and see if it works in our 1080ti SLI system. As far as I know and have read here, SLI doesn't work in VR, nor in any other game. Is that outdated info too?

I'm going to try this out myself, I have a 256gb 960m.2 drive I have DCS and just Windows and associated other productivity type stuff on installed on right now(swapped some drives around), and I've found recently that I ran out of space during an update with my DCS install - I have every module except the Russian transport helo, and every map/WW2/whatever, and my folder size is 130gb. Anyhow, going to try this out, very interested in being able to pawn off installs on my regular SSD or even my Black WD spinner drives. Thanks for posting this, later today I'll try it out on my primary DCS system.

That’s the question isn’t it, and IMO, no, it doesn’t, at least not very much. Any performance gained in DCS through SLI is mostly a placebo effect, again IMO.

Just my opinion and experience, but having tried sli with 6 different 1080 and 1080ti combos, I felt the advantage was..minimal, at best, and non existent at worst. I wish it wasn’t the case, believe me.

I realize it's the wrong section, but if anyone is looking for a like new Gunfighter 2 desktop, I'm selling one of mine in the for sale section here. If posting this is "out of bounds", apologies admin, just wanted anyone after one of these back ordered and hard to get a hold of units to see the add.

Well, good enough, for now at least, IMO. However, as stated in the other thread, I firmly believe that TM needs to act quickly (more quickly ie) due to the success that VKB and Virpil have had, in terms of updating their high end HOTAS. Seriously, it shouldn't take a rocket surgeon (hah) to create an updated gimbal that isn't...the old one...and doesn't suck and fail so rapidly as much as the old one...and build a new HOTAS around that. A nice version similar to what VKB/Virpil have done in the TM housing, even with the same F22 and now F18 stick, and perhaps update the throttle a little bit as well, and they'd be off to the races. I'd buy such a thing, 2 of them, immediately in fact. I'm certain others would as well. This is just the simplest version of what they could do, honestly, they should be able to create something even better - tabarnac mes ami, qu'est-ce qui se passe anyway, wtf over? Get on it, step on "le gas", maintenants, si vous plait. Anyhow, I'll count myself lucky, buy a couple F18 sticks one available, stick one on one of our T50s probably (don't need no steeeekin adapter, hehe), and one on a Warty base. That'd be good times using it with the Hornet module, big time. Obviously we'll pick up a set of the peds as well, they look really interesting and high grade, I'll look forward to being impressed.

Hardwood floors are easily managed, I don't know why this is such a "thing" tbh. Various velcro/etc and other types of solutions have always worked for me, tried it with CH, Saitek pedals (2 types), Slaw, VKB, MFG Crosswinds...never had a problem keeping pedals in place with the various tricks I've picked up on from various forums and other users. I'm on carpet now, hah, so it's a think of the past anyway. Want more news. More news! The gent in the video above is using the Hornet stick, in fact both stations have the Hornet stick on the WH base. I'll be happy if this becomes available shortly from TM, but to repeat, IMO they need to update their HOTAS, particularly their old and finicky (finicky is an extremely KIND word to describe it) gimbal, and fast what with the competition that is out there. Jabbers, hear or see any rumors from TM or others about new hotas? Hope all is well man, thanks for any updates you can give us (and others there at E3 as well).

RRohde, sound advice. I've been waiting, watching, and reading opinions of others who have gone before me in this arena. We have large gaming tables from Bestar, 3 setups using 2 large gaming surface tables each meeting in the corners of our gaming rooms, and set up for our flying with DxRacer chairs, using desktops for our 2 VKB equipped systems, and the Virpil desk clamp/mounts for the other. We decided on going with Monster Tech, I'm going to purchase 3 chairs/cockpits eventually, but am going to start with 1 first, and build it and see how I like it. Going with the entire setup, not triple monitor, just a single for my 34" Asus 100hz Gsync, but will be using the Rift/Samsung mostly anyway. Monster with the arm rest/etc is how I want to go, they also provide plates for all the various sticks I have so I can quickly swap them out as I want to (I have all the TM/CH/Vipril/VKB sticks and enjoy changing them about). This was a critical issue in my decision, but not the only one - Monster offers plates for every stick/throttle type for their mounts, and I want options for side and center stick. Not going to be inexpensive, so near as I can tell, with all the stick/throttle plates I want, and the various arm rest/stick mount options I want, it'll be nearly $1500 CAD after tax, shipping, etc, just for a single unit. Ouch. Should be worth it though I think, I'll post pics once they are able to fill the order and send it out to me.

Ditto GreekBull, I've been saying for a couple years (as others have), that TM has a real opportunity to get a paddle back in the water and to put out some new hotas stuff to compete in the space where VKB/Virpil have been dominating. TM looks like they are taking on Bauer, Slaw, and arguably VKB/MFG in the rudder arena, but IMO Thrustmaster needs to do more than this, and needs to compete in the more critical stick and throttle aspects of the "summer of flight" arena. I'll be...temporarily happy with an F18 Hornet stick adapter, but not "sated", by any means. Hornet stick would personally tide me over for a short time in terms of Thrustmaster, I really hope we see or at least hear some news regarding a new HOTAS. Seriously, it shouldn't be a huge deal for a large and experienced company like TM, no matter who owns it now (bonjour, my stylo est grand), to make a much, MUCH improved gimbal compared to the gong show that is/was the Warthog. I can say this as I've gone through 4 of them (ref the videos I've put up here as proof of this), and repaired/replaced parts in 3 of them so far. A metal stick like the WH is now, with a VKB/Virpil like gimbal inside, and a new-ish throttle added on...TM would sell such things like HOTCAKES. Big time. So, TM, give them to us, damn it.

Selling my newest VKB Gunfighter MK.II - I just bought it a couple months ago, I have 2 older models from when they first were released for sale in early 2017. This one I used very briefly for a few hours for testing/review purposes, and it's sat ever since, and I don't want it to be wasted, and will therefore put it up for sale. I paid $445 USD exactly after shipping. I'm in Canada and would prefer to sell it here, and if I do, I will pay the shipping/insurance cost and send it ExpressPost. If somebody in the USA wants it, I'll charge the $399 USD that the unit itself cost, plus whatever the shipping cost to the USA with insurance will cost by ExpressPost. The buyer will be responsible for any other charges such as duty and taxes that the US border (may) charge. So, basically, I'm not charging any "extra" amount due to the demand out there, I want to be fair and a solid member of this community, so all I'm asking is what I paid. Again, in Canada, I'll pay for the shipping and my price is the invoice (I can provide this, and will in fact for the warranty) cost I paid which is $445 USD, and for American buyers, $399 USD (invoice cost minus shipping), plus whatever the shipping cost into the USA will be for Expresspost insured for $400 USD. Pictures later today, I'll post some, and I can email them as well. It's in new condition, as new as possible after opening it, assembling it, and doing some brief flying for a few hours with it. Perfect unit. So far as payment method I'd much prefer EMT transfer, I do have PayPal and will use it if absolutely necessary, but any extra fees for that will be the responsibility of the buyer. Thanks all.

Slaws price go up? I paid 375 euros including shipping for my 109Cam Slaw pedals, which was $495 CAD total, around $390 USD. edit - time does fly, it was over 3 years ago I bought them. I do agree though that they are a small step up from the VKB or MFG pedals I have, but that gap is very narrow IMO. I'll be buying the TM pedals as well, I buy everything new in the hotas sphere anyway, but as others said, I'm more interested in the F18 stick and possible hotas news from TM than anything else. Hope they have something to show us in that area, what with the whole marketing "summer of flight" deal....

Welcome Thorhammer - tons of great modules out there, the Hornet being the newest, and it's incredible. Great time to come back, excellent timing.

I'm waiting for my adapter, still, once I get it I'll let you know. I've got a bunch of WH sticks/throttles and the T50 and Gunfighter both. Since Virpil, for better and/or worse, went with the same connector as the TM WH, you can use the WH and Cougar sticks with the Virpil base easy peasy. I've done so for a fair bit, and it works great. While the Gunfighter 2 and the Virpil T50 sticks are both great, fantastic really, the argument that the WH stick being mostly metal is superior is one I often read, and don't necessarily disagree with, although it is 5/6 and pick em IMO on that. Using the GF or T50 base with a WH stick is an excellent combo, again, arguably the very best set up in "sim" world out there. One thing about the Gunfighter though - using the 10 and 20 (stock) springs in the base, with the much heavier weight of the WH stick (again, being metal), this makes it literally flop over like an 80 year old's you know what without his viagra. The stick will MAY flop into a corner - again, just what I've read, I'll be testing it myself - unless you swap out the cam (included with the Warthog stick adapter as per the VKB website). Even with the cam, I do wonder if the heavier WH stick will have a tendacy to flop around a fair bit unless you put in much heavier springs - this is the one thing I really want to test for myself. Due to the nature of even the lightest Virpil springs being fairly beefy, I've not had that problem, not at all, using the WH stick in the Virpil T50 base. It works great, and hopefully if TM releases the Hornet stick that WigWags is using right now, I'll be instantly putting one in my T50 #2 (I have a couple of them) permanently for my Hornet flying. That, will be the best setup avaialble for the Hornet sim hands down IMO, until Virpil or VKB release a Hornet stick of their own. I really hope both of these companies create more sticks (Virpil has already made a space sim stick, so they are willing and able I think in this department), and hopefully metal stick options too. Hope that gives you some idea, again, once the adapter stock arrives at VKB, I'll get a couple and try the WH stick in my Gunfighter 2 and Gunfighter first gen bases, and let you know what I think, and put up some video of that. Should be soon they've said, hopefully before the middle of June.

Congrats ED - I'm hoping the non Steam sales are equally good - no better in fact. This bodes well for future ED/DCS content, $ is the best measure and predictor for the future IMO. I've told everyone I can as well about the Hornet module.

Just bookmark Wags YouTube channel, all you need for early access for weapons employment is in the vids right now IMO.