CastrolR Posted Saturday at 06:01 PM Posted Saturday at 06:01 PM nullWhat I'm solving As a long-time VR user in DCS, I have always had a bit of an issue with having to take my right hand off my HOTAS stick to use the mouse to click cockpit switches and levers. This obviously causes issues with aircraft control, sometimes terminally so! I also have to fiddle around with lifting my headset up to find keys that are not on the mouse or HOTAS e.g. Function keys, Next and Previous pages on the kneeboard, etc. This is an immediate immersion-breaker. One particularly annoying scenario is on the Harrier, which needs to be perfectly level for the Automated Flight Control to be enabled. The Harrier is often fiddly to trim perfectly, and if it's not, it will deviate as soon as my hand comes off the stick to use the mouse to enable the AFC, and then I have to start the process again, clearing warnings, re-trimming, letting go of the stick to use the mouse. Repeat ad nauseam! Without the money or the correct room layout for Capto Gloves and not wanting to have to faff with a VR controller as well as my HOTAS, I was looking at alternatives. My mate had the fantastic suggestion of using my Razer Tartarus Pro gaming keypad for cockpit actions. This had the potential to allow me to take my hand off my throttle and use the keypad for in-cockpit interactions without having to take my headset off or fumble with my mouse or my keyboard, all while retaining full control of the aircraft with my hand still on the stick. After a lot of trial and error, I've come up with a solution that works great for me. Razer Tartarus Pro gaming keypad setup: In the Razer Synapse application, I navigated to "Keypad". I set up a new Profile and called it "DCS". I clicked on "Linked Games" and selected DCS from the available list (if you can't see the DCS in the list, click on Don't see your game? > Add and, if it's still not there, hit Still don't see your game? > Browse and navigate the pathway to the executable file). Navigating back to the "Keypad" menu, under the new DCS Profile, I deleted all the default keymaps apart from Keymap 1, which removed the profiles that might use the D-Pad as a joystick (initially I was vexed by trying to assign commands to the D-Pad only for it to be acting as a joystick in-game!) I then went to the "Customize" menu, clicked on the triple bar icon on the top lefthand side to bring up the Buttons configutration. Please see photo attached for reference. I set all of the buttons as "Joystick (Analog)" and selected the "Button" radio button. I then simply numbered all the buttons in line with their numbers as they appear on the actual keypad i.e. 1 through 20, with the additon of numbering the D-Pad clockwise from Up at 21 through Left at 24. DCS setup: General Options menu From the gear icon on the main menu, I navigated to the "VR" tab and unchecked "Use Mouse". This means the cursor is now locked in the headset field of view, so wherever you point your headset is where the cursor ends up. I then configured the keypad in-flight for the Harrier. Control Options menu In-flight, accessed through Esc key > Adjust Controls Under the Control Options menu, I configured buttons under the "Joystick (Razer Tartarus Pro)" column. Having set up the keypad profile ahead of time in Razer Synapse and having linked the game as described, DCS recognised button presses when going into the Assignment Panel for a given command. The most important configuration for me was the D-Pad as this was how I wanted to control the switches in the cockpit. Dropdown selection: UI Layer > UI Command "as left mouse button" > Up on D-Pad (JOY_BTN21 from my keypad Profile) Command "as right mouse button" > Down on D-Pad (JOY_BTN23 from my keypad Profile) The keypad scroll wheel defaults to the same as a mouse: scrolling rotates dials clockwise and anticlockwise, and the scroll wheel push toggles the kneeboard on and off. AV8BNA Options configured from AV8BNA dropdown (should be the same process for all modules) From "Kneeboard" menu Command "Kneeboard Previous Page" > Right on D-Pad (JOY_BTN22 from my keypad Profile) Command "Kneeboard Previous Page" > Left on D-Pad (JOY_BTN24 from my keypad Profile) Thus, I now have D-Pad Up and Down to flick switches, scroll wheel to rotate dials, scroll wheel click to toggle Kneeboard on and off and D-Pad Right and Left to change pages on the Kneeboard. I set the top row of keys as Esc, F1, F2, F3 and Pause, and then set the rest of the keys for other Function keys. I set F10 Map to button 13 as this has the raised ridge on it so it's easy to find by feel, and also the All Labels key right next to it to declutter the screen easily. After a couple of hours of playing, this has proven to be an infinitely more seamless VR experience and has bumped up the immersion another level! Not to mention enjoying the original benefit of maintaining full control of the aircraft at all times! Drawbacks: My main bugbear is that the cursor crosshair is always visible, but I've very quickly subconcsiously adapted to ignoring it unless I am interacting with the cockpit. I have seen some threads suggesting it used to be possible to toggle off the crosshair, which I would ideally assign to Key 20 (under my thumb), but I think that functionality no longer exists. This would be a good addition to a future release! The other tiny drawback is that the F10 Map and Mission Editors are a bit trickier to use. For F10 map, you have to click and then move your head to move the map, which is unavoidable; for Mission Editors, etc., you can simply go back into the Options from the main menu and check the "Use Mouse" box again. Hope this is of help to someone!
CastrolR Posted Saturday at 06:11 PM Author Posted Saturday at 06:11 PM Oh, and also in Razer Synapse setup, I dsabled the lower set of axis commands on the D-Pad just to be safe!
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