I saved Stray Eagle... ...with an Xbox 360 pad!!

[Raven_Morpheus]

Yep as the title says, I used an Xbox 360 pad to fly the UH-1 and rescue Stray Eagle.

 

Why?

 

Because I wanted to see if I could.

 

Thing is I'm now a bit miffed, because I find it far easier to get into a hover and land using my Xbox 360 pad than I do using my Saitek X52 Pro. In fact the landing portions of the mission were far easier than I've ever had them with my Saitek X52 Pro!

 

I mapped the collective to the D-pad, pitch and roll to the right stick, the rudder to the triggers and pilot trimmer to both shoulder buttons (because when using the rudder I can only press one of the shoulder buttons dependent on which trigger I'm using).

 

It wasn't great for level flight, but it just seemed much easier to hover and transition to/from a hover.

 

So why is my Saitek X52 Pro worse?

 

My track is attached if anyone wants to watch it.

Stray Eagle - 2 decent landings 360 PAD.rar

[FSFIan]

If you are using the twist rudder on the X52, my guess would be that on the XBox controller it is easier to control cyclic pitch and rudder independently.

[doveman]

I tried this once myself with similar results. I think it's something to do with the pad stick being smaller or more sensitive and thus easier to make constant small corrections around the centre, with less travel needed than with a bigger stick. Overall I didn't find it suitable (I think the lack of a slider to easily and quickly make collective adjustments was one reason) but it did make me wish it was as easy to balance helos with my desktop sticks.

 

I wonder if a loose stick, like the FFB2 without the motors engaged, would give similar results as from what little helo flight I've seen on TV it looks like their sticks have much less resistance than consumer gaming units and maybe that resistance makes it hard for us to make the small corrections needed?

[Pfeil]

I wonder if a loose stick, like the FFB2 without the motors engaged, would give similar results as from what little helo flight I've seen on TV it looks like their sticks have much less resistance than consumer gaming units and maybe that resistance makes it hard for us to make the small corrections needed?

 

I fly using an MSFFB2 and I would say it is the ideal stick for this application.

It has some center slop where the FFB doesn't provide force, which is good for small adjustments, and when you do get to the FFB "zone", it provides the best Force Trim implementation you can get with consumer hardware.

 

Personally I can't imagine using the faux "Trim" implementation for spring joysticks.

[Raven_Morpheus]

Thing is my Saitek X52 already feels quite loose anyway, it's not as though I need a ton of force to move it.

 

Unfortunately the MSFFB2 is getting rare and rather expensive for just a joystick, plus the fact they are all used so no warranty if it breaks 5 minutes after you get it.

 

I just wish I could get the sensitivity to hover/transition to a hover like I can with the Xbox 360 pad with my Saitek X52 Pro stick, but I've tried all sorts of things to no avail. Although I've yet to zip tie the outer spring to see if that makes a difference, that centre plate probably doesn't help either.

 

Collective control is also worse with the Saitek X52 Pro Throttle imo, I found it much easier to control the collective using the joypad's D-pad up/down set in-game as the buttons for the collective.

Edited March 31, 2015 by Raven_Morpheus

[Pfeil]

Unfortunately the MSFFB2 is getting rare and rather expensive for just a joystick

 

I own a number of them, most purchased for less than 20€. No doubt it depends on where you live, but it's worth keeping an eye on your local classifieds.

 

plus the fact they are all used so no warranty if it breaks 5 minutes after you get it.

 

True. Though the only defect I've come across so far is an intermittently wonky button on the stick, presumably from a broken wire. The Force Feedback mechanism itself appears pretty sturdy. Misuse or even abuse can break just about anything of course.

[doveman]

Wouldn't it be fairly easy to replace the motors if they burn out, which seems the most likely point of failure?

[313_Nevo]

Raven, what about some extension mod for your X52 pro? The longer stick will be more precise and also the force will be much smaller with the longer arm.

[Raven_Morpheus]

Unfortunately an extension is not something I can make use of as I don't sit at a desk on a chair, I sit on my bed with the joystick between my legs, thus I can't put the base on the floor to make use of an extension.

 

 

Having said that however, and having said my X52 Pro is crap compared to an Xbox 360 joypad, when it comes to hover/transition to/from a hover, I have just disproved that theory.

 

I was wondering if the problems was the curves I had set a while back for the X52 Pro pitch, roll and rudder axis, because I never set any on the joypad axis, so I reset them to default and tried Stray Eagle again...

 

And either I'm getting better at doing it or removing the curves worked because I managed to make as good if not better landings than I did the other night with a joypad.

 

I still can't do those kind of "rolling" combat landings or the ones where you see pilots coming in and flare all of a sudden to come to a stop, I have to transition to a hover and then manoeuvre into position (quite often whilst dropping and rotating/sliding sideways a bit wildly), so I'd be a sitting duck if there were any enemy troops around. And it's only because I know where the LZ's are that I manage to land properly because I think if it were a proper SAR mission where I didn't know where the troops are I'd have to circle a few times once I've found them to be able to even start landing, so again I'd be an easy target.

 

Definitely happy with tonight's attempt though, just hope I don't come back to it a few weeks/months down the line and find I can't do it, again...

Edited April 1, 2015 by Raven_Morpheus