reported Thrustmaster MFD's are locked to literally the left and right MFD buttons

[Hawkeye_UK]

Guy's,

I'm not going to route out the old posts, of which there was a few.

Thrustmaster MFD's are locked to literally the left and right MFD buttons, which is insanity given with a modifer we still cannot use them for anything else.

Also and more importantly as people (like myself) who move on from them to say total controls or the excellent Winwing MFD's these original mfd's would be extreamely helpful to be able to use on other keybinds, aka CMS panels, Stability controls, manual reversion, radio's you get the drift.

Note people in the community have already wrote and made the change, however with pure clients on it will fail.  
Please can you literally copy paste the keybinds section into these and open it up for all - its very limiting and has been for along time!

Why this was ever done in the first place god alone knows - its a mistake (its the only module also to have this). Please can you at long last resolve for all the A10 community with MFD's.

[ColinM9991]

1 hour ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

Thrustmaster MFD's are locked to literally the left and right MFD buttons

What do you mean by this? What buttons are locked?

1 hour ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

Note people in the community have already wrote and made the change, however with pure clients on it will fail.  

This is typical and likely how it'll be for the next 7 years. It's not like ED to fix an issue that could be addressed in seconds. Even when the community provides evidence as to something being an issue that they introduced.

Edited April 2, 2023 by ColinM9991

[Rudel_chw]

I don't get how we can have a 7 year old issue on an aircraft that was released 2.5 years ago 

[Hawkeye_UK]

@Rudel_chwso im including the A10C - the A10C2 is literally a few extra things added, and the lua code for the thrustmaster MFD's is legacy from both along with 99% of the code, so yea its been a long time.

Its an easy fix, and one that should have been done along time ago (esp pre ARC210 days so could use the MFD's to control radio's with a modifer)

4 hours ago, ColinM9991 said:

What do you mean by this? What buttons are locked?

This is typical and likely how it'll be for the next 7 years. It's not like ED to fix an issue that could be addressed in seconds. Even when the community provides evidence as to something being an issue that they introduced.

 

Buttons are locked so you can only bind the MFD keys on the cougar MFD's to the left and right MFD buttons in game.  You cannot add anything else to them (greyed out in options menu) so for example if you have a modifer on your stick no secondary functions.  If you have addional MFD's and the cougars become secondary button panels they are useless completely.

[jaylw314]

27 minutes ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

@Rudel_chwso im including the A10C - the A10C2 is literally a few extra things added, and the lua code for the thrustmaster MFD's is legacy from both along with 99% of the code, so yea its been a long time.

Its an easy fix, and one that should have been done along time ago (esp pre ARC210 days so could use the MFD's to control radio's with a modifer)

Buttons are locked so you can only bind the MFD keys on the cougar MFD's to the left and right MFD buttons in game.  You cannot add anything else to them (greyed out in options menu) so for example if you have a modifer on your stick no secondary functions.  If you have addional MFD's and the cougars become secondary button panels they are useless completely.

They're not just normal DirectInput buttons like every other USB device out there?  If they show up in the "USB Game Controllers" applet they are, and you could just map them to a vJoy device using Joystick Gremlin.  Then the vJoy device wouldn't have the artificial limitations in bindings due to the Cougar device profile and you could assign them to anything

Edited April 3, 2023 by jaylw314

[Dangerzone]

On 4/3/2023 at 11:34 AM, jaylw314 said:

If they show up in the "USB Game Controllers" applet they are, and you could just map them to a vJoy device using Joystick Gremlin.  Then the vJoy device wouldn't have the artificial limitations in bindings due to the Cougar device profile and you could assign them to anything

While this is possible as a work-around - I think what the OP is asking is fair - which is to please consider making the change so that workarounds to fix issues aren't required.  

Edited April 4, 2023 by Dangerzone

[Hawkeye_UK]

9 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

They're not just normal DirectInput buttons like every other USB device out there?  If they show up in the "USB Game Controllers" applet they are, and you could just map them to a vJoy device using Joystick Gremlin.  Then the vJoy device wouldn't have the artificial limitations in bindings due to the Cougar device profile and you could assign them to anything

 

Its a 2 minute copy paste job for ED - it should have been done years ago.  I have gremlin in operation for discord - and the issue is it can and does chance devices sometimes (i have like 10 hardware USB's plugged in.  So it far from ideal in itself as a piece of software.

What im asking for is something that is only on the A10, and stupid to even have the locks in place anyways.  Doesn't need work arounds - just ED to not lock pointless things down.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Hawkeye_UK

[Yurgon]

9 hours ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

Its a 2 minute copy paste job for ED - it should have been done years ago.

I agree with the thread's goal to add all assignments to the MFD Cougar frames.

As to the assertion how long it takes, you might be surprised to learn that not every 2 minute action can be finished in 2 minutes.

The following is my understanding of the process, but I'm just a Closed Beta Tester, so things may be much different than outlined here. Anyway, here's my take on it.

People reading this forum aren't necessarily the devs implementing features, so it needs to be brought to their attention. And like every report, the more precise and to the point it is, the easier it'll be for the people in charge to actually implement the desired changes.

For instance, I just wrote a Closed Beta Tester wishlist item where it's likely to get some attention. I timed my actions and didn't do anything else while I was at it. It took me 13 minutes just to write the wishlist post, including a screenshot of the greyed out key assignments and paths to all files that need to be changed in order to affect both the A-10C and the A-10C II modules (unless I forgot some paths, but I don't think I did).

Since it's not a bug and by all means a very low priority item, it'll probably take time until it gets addressed.

When it does get addressed, I estimate it'll still take an experienced person with detailed knowledge of the DCS file layout more than 2 minutes to implement the actual change, taking into account that "F16 MFD 1.lua" and "F16 MFD 2.lua" need to retain their respective plug and play capability with the Cougar frames for the left and right MFCDs in both the A-10C and the A-10C II modules.

Unless the devs have pure magic at their hands, I guess starting DCS will take them about as long as it takes me, so there's another one or two minutes down the drain just to fire up DCS and open OPTIONS -> CONTROLS and check if the changes made it in without breaking anything (or maybe they have software test suites available to automate this process; they probably do). If the dev implementing the change doesn't have TM Cougar MFD frames, the actual result then needs to be tested by someone who does.

Of course for the changes to make it into DCS in the first place, the changed files need to be committed into the version management system, including a brief description of the change in question which will later be used in the changelogs, and this commit needs to be pulled by the testers, which probably happens at a later time and is not isolated to just one single commit.

Once this has gone through internal testing, it'll make its way to the Closed Beta Testers where some of us might check if everything works as expected; if it doesn't, there would need to be another round of bug reports and bug fixing and internal testing and Closed Beta testing until the feature is good and can make its way into the Open Beta, where there's a chance that some of you might find issues that we failed to spot in the previous testing phases, going into yet another round of public and internal reports, fixes, internal and then Closed Beta and Open Beta testing until the feature eventually makes its way into the Stable release, where there's still a chance that the much larger global player base finds issues that we all previously missed, possibly sending this thing into yet another round of reporting, fixing and testing.

So the next time you assert that the tiniest of changes takes only two minutes, you might want to take a minute or two and reconsider your assumptions and just imagine how many people are involved in updating four Lua files.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Yurgon

[BIGNEWY]

17 hours ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

Guy's,

I'm not going to route out the old posts, of which there was a few.

Thrustmaster MFD's are locked to literally the left and right MFD buttons, which is insanity given with a modifer we still cannot use them for anything else.

Also and more importantly as people (like myself) who move on from them to say total controls or the excellent Winwing MFD's these original mfd's would be extreamely helpful to be able to use on other keybinds, aka CMS panels, Stability controls, manual reversion, radio's you get the drift.

Note people in the community have already wrote and made the change, however with pure clients on it will fail.  
Please can you literally copy paste the keybinds section into these and open it up for all - its very limiting and has been for along time!

Why this was ever done in the first place god alone knows - its a mistake (its the only module also to have this). Please can you at long last resolve for all the A10 community with MFD's.

I have changed the tile of the thread, no matter how frustrated you are please keep the bug reports clear and to the point, dramatic titles do not help anyone. 

I dont use Cougar MFD's personally, I have total control MPD's and they seem to be working fine in respect to assigning to different cockpit commands. We will ask someone with a set of cougar MFD's to take a look. 

again I get you are frustrated, but in a bug report it is not helpful. 

thanks

[shagrat]

The in-game OSB buttons are basically hard coded into the cougar MFD Lua files, so as soon as DCS detects a cougar MFD 1 the only buttons you can bind are Left MFCD OSB 1-20 and the ADJ, BRT, SYM and CON rockers.

Edited April 3, 2023 by shagrat

[jaylw314]

14 hours ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

Its a 2 minute copy paste job for ED - it should have been done years ago.  I have gremlin in operation for discord - and the issue is it can and does chance devices sometimes (i have like 10 hardware USB's plugged in.  So it far from ideal in itself as a piece of software.

What im asking for is something that is only on the A10, and stupid to even have the locks in place anyways.  Doesn't need work arounds - just ED to not lock pointless things down.

That's true.  I'm not sure what you mean by that JG changes(?) devices sometimes, but that's not really germane to the topic.

[Hawkeye_UK]

9 hours ago, Yurgon said:

I agree with the thread's goal to add all assignments to the MFD Cougar frames.

As to the assertion how long it takes, you might be surprised to learn that not every 2 minute action can be finished in 2 minutes.

The following is my understanding of the process, but I'm just a Closed Beta Tester, so things may be much different than outlined here. Anyway, here's my take on it.

People reading this forum aren't necessarily the devs implementing features, so it needs to be brought to their attention. And like every report, the more precise and to the point it is, the easier it'll be for the people in charge to actually implement the desired changes.

For instance, I just wrote a Closed Beta Tester wishlist item where it's likely to get some attention. I timed my actions and didn't do anything else while I was at it. It took me 13 minutes just to write the wishlist post, including a screenshot of the greyed out key assignments and paths to all files that need to be changed in order to affect both the A-10C and the A-10C II modules (unless I forgot some paths, but I don't think I did).

Since it's not a bug and by all means a very low priority item, it'll probably take time until it gets addressed.

When it does get addressed, I estimate it'll still take an experienced person with detailed knowledge of the DCS file layout more than 2 minutes to implement the actual change, taking into account that "F16 MFD 1.lua" and "F16 MFD 2.lua" need to retain their respective plug and play capability with the Cougar frames for the left and right MFCDs in both the A-10C and the A-10C II modules.

Unless the devs have pure magic at their hands, I guess starting DCS will take them about as long as it takes me, so there's another one or two minutes down the drain just to fire up DCS and open OPTIONS -> CONTROLS and check if the changes made it in without breaking anything (or maybe they have software test suites available to automate this process; they probably do). If the dev implementing the change doesn't have TM Cougar MFD frames, the actual result then needs to be tested by someone who does.

Of course for the changes to make it into DCS in the first place, the changed files need to be committed into the version management system, including a brief description of the change in question which will later be used in the changelogs, and this commit needs to be pulled by the testers, which probably happens at a later time and is not isolated to just one single commit.

Once this has gone through internal testing, it'll make its way to the Closed Beta Testers where some of us might check if everything works as expected; if it doesn't, there would need to be another round of bug reports and bug fixing and internal testing and Closed Beta testing until the feature is good and can make its way into the Open Beta, where there's a chance that some of you might find issues that we failed to spot in the previous testing phases, going into yet another round of public and internal reports, fixes, internal and then Closed Beta and Open Beta testing until the feature eventually makes its way into the Stable release, where there's still a chance that the much larger global player base finds issues that we all previously missed, possibly sending this thing into yet another round of reporting, fixing and testing.

So the next time you assert that the tiniest of changes takes only two minutes, you might want to take a minute or two and reconsider your assumptions and just imagine how many people are involved in updating four Lua files.

 

Hey Yurgon,

Thanks for the response, i'm no PC whizz kid for sure however note simply copy and pasting the contents of keyboard bindable option largely to the thrustmaster "F16 MFD 1" and "F16 MFD 2" bindable option will remove the greyed out boxed and allowed them to be bound.  I can upload the file if you need me too.

aka take this file C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\aircraft\A-10C_2\Input\A-10C_2\keyboard

and paste contents into C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\Aircraft\A-10C_2\Input\A-10C_2\joystick\F16 MFD 1.lua

That is the "fix" this compares with how other modules are configured.  I would suggest whilst im not great in computers - this is just a pure logic base problem and i can't even "write code".

In summary both files can be "corrected" within 2 mins, so to be frank i stand by my original assumptions made. Yes testing will take longer for sure, however again to test each feature lets say it takes an hour (at the very maximum) - FYI i have already done this for you and it works.

Note its an issue that should never have been an issue given a thoughful approach of how players use their button panels (aka with modifiers for second keybind) and lets not over dramatise a simple fix.  

@BIGNEWY Apologies re title but to be fair its been an issue for a long time, so much so i didnt want to raise closed bug that had been listed (or spend 2 days finding them).  Sometimes consumer win's are easy, this is one of those occasions.  I have Winwing and Cougars - if you need me to test then let me know.

 

Edited April 3, 2023 by Hawkeye_UK

[Yurgon]

4 hours ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

aka take this file C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\aircraft\A-10C_2\Input\A-10C_2\keyboard

and paste contents into C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\Aircraft\A-10C_2\Input\A-10C_2\joystick\F16 MFD 1.lua

That is the "fix" this compares with how other modules are configured.  I would suggest whilst im not great in computers - this is just a pure logic base problem and i can't even "write code".

In summary both files can be "corrected" within 2 mins, so to be frank i stand by my original assumptions made.

Oh wow. It's really that easy?

Well congratulations, your fix just broke several thousand DCS installations, and with the next patch and angry mob is inbound the forum and the ED Discord and Reddit demanding to know why on earth ED managed to break the default Cougar MFD assignments that used to work out of the box for many years. Now all of them will have to manually assign OSBs 1 through 20 plus the 4 2-way-buttons on both Cougar MFD frames for the A-10C and/or A-10C II module in Stable and/or OpenBeta because you couldn't even be bothered to cross-check your "fix" against what we already have.

Yes, yours truly is a 2 minute fix with potentially weeks of perfectly justified complaints and repercussions.

Tell you what. When you'd like a feature, by all means ask for it. I'd just be careful about telling people how to do their job.

[BIGNEWY]

9 hours ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

In summary both files can be "corrected" within 2 mins, so to be frank i stand by my original assumptions made. Yes testing will take longer for sure, however again to test each feature lets say it takes an hour (at the very maximum) - FYI i have already done this for you and it works.

This is not correct, it is not a 2 minute job, as has already been pointed out above there is more to it. 
 

9 hours ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

@BIGNEWY Apologies re title but to be fair its been an issue for a long time, so much so i didnt want to raise closed bug that had been listed (or spend 2 days finding them).  Sometimes consumer win's are easy, this is one of those occasions.  I have Winwing and Cougars - if you need me to test then let me know.

It was designed that way and was intended, mainly to make it easier for users with cougar MFD's, at the time considering other uses was not a factor. We will look to change this, but it will take time, so you will need to be patient. 

9 hours ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

aka take this file C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\aircraft\A-10C_2\Input\A-10C_2\keyboard

and paste contents into C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\Aircraft\A-10C_2\Input\A-10C_2\joystick\F16 MFD 1.lua

this is not the correct way, the old hardcoded files need to be removed and new .diff.lua for each device need to be created and tested. 

[Hawkeye_UK]

11 hours ago, Yurgon said:

Oh wow. It's really that easy?

Well congratulations, your fix just broke several thousand DCS installations, and with the next patch and angry mob is inbound the forum and the ED Discord and Reddit demanding to know why on earth ED managed to break the default Cougar MFD assignments that used to work out of the box for many years. Now all of them will have to manually assign OSBs 1 through 20 plus the 4 2-way-buttons on both Cougar MFD frames for the A-10C and/or A-10C II module in Stable and/or OpenBeta because you couldn't even be bothered to cross-check your "fix" against what we already have.

Yes, yours truly is a 2 minute fix with potentially weeks of perfectly justified complaints and repercussions.

Tell you what. When you'd like a feature, by all means ask for it. I'd just be careful about telling people how to do their job.

LOL it really doesn't break the assignments if done correctly - i have working LUA's lol and it did take me a few mins to do, once i'd figured out what the issue was.  I don't understand your attitude on this one.  Not everything is rocket science and i have no issues with directing people to improve their efficiency and output, not for one second.  Instead of the protective closed approach you should really be thanking a fellow customer for an easy solution.  If you want me to write the lua for you just let me know as i've already done it (via copy and pasting ED's own work).

As for angry mob lol - i think even if (which they wouldnt) had to rebind many users would be happy to have the additional flexability to have the MFD's run things like the radio freq buttons and SAS etc on a modifier - happy to prove you completely wrong if you wish with a poll?  Note every other module we have to bind MFD's, and on other products / Hotas.  Are we saying that all these modules are poorly implmented and the A10 is correct, on your thesis?

But mainly if i highlight issues with constructive critism, whether this upsets some sensitive developer or closed party tester is irrelevant its for the improvement of the product.  You should embrace that and sucker it up, even if it means you are incorrect. 

I do the same.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Hawkeye_UK

[BIGNEWY]

4 minutes ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

LOL it really doesn't break the assignments if done correctly - i have working LUA's lol and it did take me a few mins to do, once i'd figured out what the issue was.  I don't understand your attitude on this one.  Not everything is rocket science and i have no issues with directing people to improve their efficiency and output, not for one second.  Instead of the protective closed approach you should really be thanking a fellow customer for an easy solution.  If you want me to write the lua for you just let me know as i've already done it (via copy and pasting ED's own work).

As for angry mob lol - i think even if (which they wouldnt) had to rebind many users would be happy to have the additional flexability to have the MFD's run things like the radio freq buttons and SAS etc on a modifier - happy to prove you completely wrong if you wish with a poll?  Note every other module we have to bind MFD's, and on other products / Hotas.  Are we saying that all these modules are poorly implmented and the A10 is correct, on your thesis?

But mainly if i highlight issues with constructive critism, whether this upsets some sensitive developer or closed party tester is irrelevant its for the improvement of the product.  You should embrace that and sucker it up, even if it means you are incorrect. 

I do the same.

 

You started the thread off in the wrong tone and then get defensive when people react to it. If you had kept calm in the first place and made a bug report, linked the old issues and explained we would have taken a look anyway. 

I am working with owners of the cougar MFD's internally and we will get the ball rolling on getting this issue changed. 

please consider this request reported 

thanks