X-31_VECTOR

Hi Infiltrator. I haven't tried (or even seen before) that stand, but I'd guess you could do it if you were willing to make your own mounting plates. I did that fairly cheaply for my Wheelstand Pro Super Warthog, to center-mount a Virpil WarBrd base. Wheelstand Pro actually makes a center-mount plate for the Warthog stick (thought they charge extra for it), but in my case I just used a piece of MDF cut to size, and this thing, chopped off and modified slightly with a Dremel. The biggest issue I see that you might have with the Arozzi is that the center plate provided is too wide to sit down between your legs (not an issue I guess with steering wheels that sit up higher). If they would sell you an extra side mount plate, you could use one for throttle and one for stick I guess, but again you'd probably need to cut something to go between their plate and the bottom of the Warthog stuff. FWIW, the Wheelstand Pro, while more expensive, is rock solid and very adjustable. Good luck with your search!

I've read these forums and Hoggit for years, and I have to say that I'm kind of amazed by all the ED hate out there, and the general sense of entitlement among the very small but very vocal minority that expect to get everything they want, when they want it, usually for free. Maybe this is an artifact of having been a kid in the Atari era -- when a game came out and it was what it was and was never gonna be fixed or improved -- but I'm kind of wowed by how much ED invests in constantly improving DCS. I know it is a business decision, and they wouldn't do it if it wasn't profitable, but even so... they could do a lot less and still get most of our simming dollars, being pretty much the only post-WWII serious military flight sim on the market. Hell, if they were one of the big-name game publishers, we'd be getting sold loot chests instead of being given free cockpit redesigns. I also feel like they're pretty transparent about what we're getting. When I bought F/A-18C, I knew it wasn't finished. Beta means beta. But I decided it was worth my money as a Beta, and I've more than gotten my money's worth. There are scores of things I'd like to see fixed or changed or improved in DCS. But at the end of the day I'm blown away by the incredibly supportive user community around DCS, and impressed with ED's willingness to engage in that community, if not always respond to every (often conflicting) demand. I'm not disputing (and won't debate) the legitimacy of any opposing view. But I do wonder sometimes if we'd get even better service if more people said thank you to BigNewy and Nineline and Wags etc., and fewer people told them how much their latest everything sucks. If every time I did an honest day's work I had dozens of people telling me what a POS my work (and I) was, I sure as hell wouldn't feel motivated. Anyway, thanks to everyone in this community who makes DCS what it is, and thanks to the ED gang for continuing to listen and engage.

Thank you Sobe (and Capt. Zeen)! Amazing community support for an amazing product.

Apologies if I missed this elsewhere in this thread, but I have a Helios noob question about export.lua and Vaicom. Last night I followed Capt. Zeen's excellent tutorial video to install Helios, and when I went to copy the export.lua downloaded with his F/A-18C profile to my Scripts folder in Saved Games, an export.lua was already there for Vaicom. It only contains one line. So my dumb questions are: 1.) Can I just copy that line from the Vaicom export.lua and append it to Capt. Zeen's export.lua? I see that his contains lines for other programs like Tacview already. 2.) When I download other profiles, do I just continue using the original export.lua I downloaded with the F/A-18 profile, or will the export.lua need to change? 3.) Can you (or should you) have more than one export.lua? I actually tried changing the name of the Capt. Zeen one to HeliosExport.lua, but as I'm sure you can guess, when I tested it DCS was not sending data to the profile. Thanks for your help, and apologies if explaining this seems a bit like trying to teach string theory to a baboon.

Good stuff FragBum! Apologies if off topic, but RE your cyclic: Do you get any "sticktion" or binding in the dampers? I fly both fixed wing and rotary, so don't want a pure centerless feel on my stick, but would love to damp out the springiness and restrain my PIOs when hovering. @solrakbargol, do you have a rotating throttle on that thing too? That's one of the best looking DIY jobs I've seen btw.

Thanks FragBum. I've looked at those same motorcycle steering dampers and will give that a try before going the more arduous route. I've never met a project I couldn't needlessly over-complicate...

Thanks both! BaD CrC, do you notice a performance hit from Helios? I know that adding a screen will affect performance just from the GPU driving more pixels, but have you ever looked at CPU utilization when running Helios?

Doom, the main downside of a TV versus dedicated monitor is typically input lag (which is also worse at 4K than HD if I'm not mistaken). This has gotten better with time as TV makers have begun to cater more to console gamers with low-lag "gaming modes" built in. But I've seen input lag in gaming monitors as low as 2 milliseconds, and 4K TVs (that lacked gaming mode) as high as 150 ms. Also note that input lag (time between your input and a change on screen) is not the same as response time (how fast a pixel can change colors, basically). A lot of TVs advertise high response times but don't publish input lag, which will be considerably slower. While flight simming is not twitch FPS gaming, I'd still suggest you look for as low input lag as you can find if you go the TV route, especially if you go 4K. Also check to make sure the TV has the inputs you want (many seem to lack DisplayPort). Best of luck!

Hi Solrakbargol. I assume the damper you used is enough to keep the collective from creeping down under its own weight, but do you notice a difference in the amount of force it takes to lower versus raise the collective? I'm working on a collective project of my own, and one challenge has been that, according to UH-1 maintenance manuals, the amount of force required to move the collective up or down is supposed to be the same. In the UH-1 this was accomplished with a system of springs to counterbalance the weight of the collective shaft and button box (and any change to the button box was supposed to be accompanied by a re-tuning of the balance system). I'm planning to use either a bell crank and counterweights, or gas springs with differential forces used in opposition. But in actual practice I'm not sure if it's worth the effort... do you notice the difference in up versus down force required when flying?

Also, the Wheel Stand Pro for HOTAS has a keyboard and mouse mount too. The mounts are interchangeable so you can put it in center if you prefer side stick. It isn't cheap, and would replace your current mounts (which I'm sure you could sell), but mine is solid as hell and works great. It also has the benefit of anchoring your pedals. (They don't have a native mounting plate yet for Virpil or VKB sticks, but I made one for my Virpil without much trouble).

I'll just put in a second recommendation for an Elgato Stream Deck (or two). Since getting mine I pretty much never use the keyboard in flight, and they are small enough that you could make a mount to place them on either side of your throttle (or just above it) without much trouble. I have a profile for each aircraft and folders for engine management, weapons, external views, etc. It also means you don't have to remember if the command you want is LALT+LSHIFT+LWIN+" or LCTRL+LALT+LSHIFT+: or whatever... once you program a button you just have an icon or label on the button. And of course each button changes when you go into a different folder. Of course, some would argue that Vaicom/Voice Attack makes even Streamdeck unnecessary, but if I'm not in VR I'd rather just press a button than say "Left Main Fuel Gauge Snap View." Plus making Stream Deck icons is a fun diversion when you get rage-triggered by the KA-50 autopilot modes...

I have no first-hand experience with the CH quadrant, but the Saitek Pro Flight appears to be a close cousin. It's marketed more toward civil aviation simming, so I doubt it's attracted many DCS pilots. It doesn't sounds like you want to part with your Warthog throttle, but the latest Virpil throttle (T50CM2) has four rotary encoders (two on base, two on handles) a slider on the handle and a "flaps lever" on the base. And if you fly WWII aircraft, its lack of afterburner detents probably wouldn't be an issue. Best of luck in your search!

Hi all, I’m new to the forums (as a poster) but not to DCS. I’ve read a massive number of posts here on Helios and Ikarus, but would love to get users' opinions/suggestions on which one is better for my use case: - I run DCS now on one 2560x1440 monitor (using TrackIR). - I want to add a 1920x1080 touchscreen below the main monitor to a) better see instruments/MFDs, and b) interact directly with cockpit controls without using a mouse (e.g., push MFD buttons, flip toggle, turn rotaries via touchscreen). - I fly UH-1, P-51D, F/A-18C, KA-50 and A-10C (so far all SP, not MP yet). - I'd rather not have to make my own profiles from scratch, at least to start. And the less editing of .lua files, the better. (As it is, I seem to spend 5x as long preparing to fly DCS as actually flying). - I also hope not to take a large performance hit (I’ve read that both Helios and Ikarus can hammer your CPU and cause double-digit frame drops). Currently I’m running on an i7-6700K at 4.3 Ghz, GTX1080 and 32GB RAM. Thanks in advance for your recommendations and expertise!