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GUIDE: How to use your HOTAS for TEDAC but still be able to fly from the CPG seat.


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I'm seeing a lot of people struggling with control setups and understanding how they can use their HOTAS effectively in the front seat, so thought I'd share what I've done.

Obviously to fly you will want to have the same cyclic and collective inputs that you have when in the back seat, so it's fine to just go ahead and bind those up as you normally would. The issue for some people is that they would sometimes like to be able to use the same axis again for another purpose, for example, the cyclic stick to control the Manual Tracker and slew the TADS around.

DCS only lets you assign a physical control, whether that's a button or axes, to one sim control at a time, so in order to get this to work you need to use a modifier. This can be either normal button, hat press, keystroke or latched switch. My HOTAS Warthog has plenty of spare latched switches on the base, so that's what I've used.

To set it all up, go into your controls settings, and along the bottom on the left side you will see a button labelled Modifiers. Click it to open the Modifiers Panel.

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In here you will see all of the existing modifiers such as the various shift, ctrl and alt keys. Click ADD on the left to open the next window. The reason there are 2 boxes here is because you can either use a latched modifier such as a physical switch or held-down keypress, OR a keystroke or button press that acts like an on/off toggle. If you want to use a button press then use the window on the right side.

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In the first dropdown box, select the device that has the switch you'll be using. In the next dropdown select the ID for the switch you want to use. You can give this modifier a name in the third box if you like. When finished, click OK, and then OK in the Modifiers Panel to return to the main control settings.

The next step is to bind the controls with the modifier. For this example we'll bind the TEDAC Manual Tracker to the joystick. **I'm going to assume that you already got your cyclic pitch and roll axes bound the the JOY_X and JOY_Y on your stick.**

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Find the entry for "RHG MAN TRK Controller - X axis" then click on the corresponding box in the joystick column and press ADD. Move your joystick all the way left and right and you will see JOY_X appear in the box on the left. You will also see "Cyclic Roll" appear in the "Currently In Use" box at the bottom. If you were to press OK now then you would reassign the JOY_X axis to the Manual Tracker, unbinding it from the Cyclic Roll axis.

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Instead, use the dropdown box labelled "Add Modifier" on the right to select the modifier you set up earlier. This will appear in the "Added Modifiers field. The "Currently In Use" box should now be empty, so you can go ahead and click OK. In the box you should see your modifier followed by "+ JOY_X" if you've done everything right.

Repeat this process for the "RHG MAN TRK Controller - Y axis" using the JOY_Y (pitch) axis on your stick. That's it, you're done!

Now go and try it. Get the aircraft powered up and jump into the front seat. Press "C" to unstow the cyclic from its folded position, which also takes control away from George who is now in the back seat. He's had a long day and needs a nap.

Move your stick around and you should see the cyclic match your movements. Once you're happy that it works press "C" again to wake George up and hand the flight controls back to him. Wiggle your stick again and you'll see that you no longer have control.

Now look at the TEDAC. Make sure you have TADS selected as your sight so that you have slew control, and then move your stick around again. Nothing will happen, as the stick is still trying to control the cyclic. Switch on your modifier and try again. This time you should see the TADS slewing around to follow your stick movements. 

🥳CONGRATULATIONS!🎉 You have successfully bound the same set of axes to 2 entirely different controls and are able to switch between them at will. This will work with as many axes and buttons as you like, with as many different modifiers as you wish to add.

I'll add a note of caution though: Always be aware of whether your modifier is on or off. It's going to be a bad day if you take over the flight controls and forget that you have everything running in a different mode. (This is why I prefer to use a physical switch rather than a button press to turn it on or off!)

If, for example, you were to press your trigger to fire a weapon while the modifier is on then nothing will happen since you're actually pressing your trigger with the modifier. To get around this you will need to rebind any other buttons or switches both with and without the modifier if you want them available to you at all times. This isn't a problem as you can have multiple buttons and switches bound to the same command in the controls settings. The only reason for this guide is because you can't do that the other way around, or with axes

For example, the trigger on my stick needs to work in both modes. Therefore I've assigned both "JOY_BTN_1" and "Modifier + JOY_BTN_1" to the trigger command in the settings, meaning it will work regardless of whether the modifier is on or off. Other buttons have split uses. The big red pickle button on my stick works as chaff release without the modifier, but fires the laser if the modifier is on.

I really hopes this helps some of you who are new to DCS, and perhaps some others who haven't tried this before and are struggling to find enough buttons on their controls.

HAPPY FLYING!!!🚁🚁🚁🚁🚁


Edited by frostycab
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Great guide - this is exactly how I did it (though you’ve explained it better than I could). I have my “request control” binding and modifier toggle set up next to each other on my throttle so I hit both at the same time when I want to switch to flying.

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Im wondering if the X52 mode dial could also be used in a similar way. The X52 Hotas has no latching switches but a rotary 3-way mode switch. Ive never tried using that a a modifier in DCS before, just via the Saitek programming software. [edit] the 3-pos mode switch does not seem to be flagging up as a key press so cannot be used a a mod.


Edited by Sprool
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16 minutes ago, Sprool said:

Im wondering if the X52 mode dial could also be used in a similar way. The X52 Hotas has no latching switches but a rotary 3-way mode switch. Ive never tried using that a a modifier in DCS before, just via the Saitek programming software.

That is exactly the functionality that I was going for, but for controllers that don't have mode dials. I'm currently waiting for my Virpil CM3 throttle to arrive, which does have a mode dial, but until that arrives I won't know if DCS itself is capable of reading the state of a mode dial or whether it needs to be set up within the appropriate software for your HOTAS. I did have an X-55 before my current Warthog kit, and never tried it.

If DCS can read the state of the dial then great, but if not then to get the same functionality you would need to map all of the controls within the controller's own software. In itself I wouldn't imagine this would be any more work that doing it my way in DCS. However, not all DCS aircraft controls are mapped to keys by default, so you'd need to go into DCS, map keystrokes to them, and then map all of those in the external profiles. 

Also, the taking the CM3 as an example, let's say you have 5 modes on your HOTAS. This gives you 5 sets of mappings, but I can see this meaning that you may have to come out of DCS and load a different set of profiles into your HOTAS software if you want to fly an aircaft that isn't in that set of 5.

I might be making it sound more complicated than it is, but  won't know until I get my hardware to try it on.

Regarding the lack of latching switches on the X-52 (the first proper HOTAS I ever owned!) you can accomplish things with my method by setting up your modifier in the box on the right of the Add Modifier panel (labelled "Switches") as this will allow you to use a momentary button as an On/Off toggle for the modifier. As I said, I just prefer to use a latched switch if available as I can just look or feel to see if the modifier is on or off, and don't have to try and remember if I've lost focus for a minute.

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"you can accomplish things with my method by setting up your modifier in the box on the right of the Add Modifier panel (labelled "Switches") as this will allow you to use a momentary button as an On/Off toggle for the modifier." - very interesting - I will give that a try!

No- dcs does not recognise the rotary mode switch on the X52 😞

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1 hour ago, Sprool said:

No- dcs does not recognise the rotary mode switch on the X52 😞

I suspected as much. So in order to use it to accomplish the same result you would need a second profile within the X52 software mapped to another mode on the switch. This would have to trigger key binds within DCS rather than mapping to buttons within the sim, which would also mean hours of finding spare keys to assign to currently blank commands AND mapping them in the X52 software. I think this way is easier, at least for me. 😀


Edited by frostycab
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Im still very much settling into keybind configs for the AH-64D, takes a while to bed in what I want and need. Ive finally managed to get the ministick working as a proper joystick axis after disappearling down a long late rabbit hole last night, so I'm happy using the ministick to slew the TEDAC around, and back to the main joystick X and Y-axes to fly the heli.

Now I need something to slew the cursor around....

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The way I rationalise using the stick for slewing the TEDAC is that there’s no way in hell that I’m going to be trying to control the aircraft and going head-down to the TEDAC at the same time. It would never be done IRL so I’m not about to try. The real TEDAC requires both hands to operate so the CPG isn’t likely to be playing with the cyclic at the same time. 

The other factor is commonality. I use the slew on my throttle for the cursor control when I’m the pilot, so simply for the benefit of muscle memory it makes sense to leave the same function in place for the CPG. 

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I can see using the modifier to enable flight controls, in an "emergency", in the front seat but, if I want to fly I'd rather just jump in the back seat and use the both seats as intended rather than try and solo from the front seat alone.

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17 minutes ago, Magic Man said:

I can see using the modifier to enable flight controls, in an "emergency", in the front seat but, if I want to fly I'd rather just jump in the back seat and use the both seats as intended rather than try and solo from the front seat alone.

True, but imagine you're in MP and your pilot gets killed, or someone knocks on his door, or he needs the loo. 😛

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