Does DCS support protocols other than ordinary HID-based game controllers?

[skypickle]

How do ‘big’ flight simpits manage to integrate so many analog flight controls? Windows only supports 8 axes per HID device. Other flight sims (xplane) supports plugins with a well documented SDK to create them. 
 

am I destined to use another arduino for every 8 analog dials/sliders/levers I want to add?

[MadKreator]

If you’ve never checked out “ the warthog project” take a look, he was pretty detailed in his his sim pit build. Says he uses 25 potentiometers for lighting controls and whatnot, all either hooked up with Leo bodnar boards or arduino’s but still looks like only 8 analog inputs per board regardless. I’m a novice to this stuff by any stretch of the word. I’m researching and gathering info for building my own controls. But this seems to be the case with analog controls, as far as info that I have found. Seems kind of archaic for windows to only support the amount it does. But I’m not software engineer so maybe there’s a good reason why.

[Buzzer1977]

On 4/16/2022 at 1:12 PM, skypickle said:

How do ‘big’ flight simpits manage to integrate so many analog flight controls? Windows only supports 8 axes per HID device. Other flight sims (xplane) supports plugins with a well documented SDK to create them. 
 

am I destined to use another arduino for every 8 analog dials/sliders/levers I want to add?

Have a look at DCS-BIOS, especially the dcs-lua submodule. That's what most people use for their pits. 
https://github.com/dcs-bios/dcs-bios