General setup for a beginner?

[TheHeretic]

Hey guys. I'm completely new to DCS, and along with the game I bought a Cyborg X joystick. Not the best stick in the world, but the price was right. Anyway, the default layout doesn't use very many buttons: there's a lot not being used right now. Considering the insane number of commands in the game can anyone list out the most basic functions you should always map to your stick?

 

For reference, the stick has the following:

 

Two throttles. One is the collective, the other at the moment does nothing. These can be connected together to form one larger throttle.

A trigger.

POV hat.

4 buttons on the sticks head.

A scroll wheel near the top of the head.

4 buttons on the base. Easy to access.

2 buttons in front of the throttle, on the base plate itself. These face away from the user and should be rarely used/throttle related commands, or at least i'd assume!

 

There's also a shift key that can be held to alternate commands.

 

Thanks!

[Boulund]

I'd say the bare necessities that you need mapped are something like this:

Collective mapped to one throttle

Cyclic mapped to your joystick X and Y axes.

Have you got twist-stick maybe you should set it as rudder?

Trigger - cannon fire

second button - weapon release

a thumb-reachable button for Trim

 

that ought to be the things that are essential for just flying about. Start with that then add other things as you figure out you need them.

 

What I used to have mapped to my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro (similar, but I guess less advanced) was something along these lines:

plastic throttle - collective

joystick + twist - x, y, z axes

trigger - cannon

second button - weapons release

cannon toggle

trim

laser rangefinder

shkval uncage /cage

target box size + / -

shkval zoom + / -

cannon ROF selection

cannon Rounds selector

Deploy flares

Lock target

POV - slewing shkval (prefer to use it for shkval and use mouse for looking around, or freetrack)

helmet mounted sight

ground moving target

automatic turn to target

 

It's amazing what you can do with a reasonable joystick with a couple of buttons while using one of the as a shift. Almost HOTAS ;)

Edited August 15, 2009 by Boulund

[Huckle]

The above is quite a good list of what would be req'd. Mine is similar (except I use POV also for external cameras- I like to look around, and missile pov is useful to find out what's being fired at me :) plus autohover, collective brake, reticule reset/centre, auto tracking gunsight on/off, and also external hardpoints selection.

The BS controller mapping is pretty cool, allows modifiers and POV plus keypress, but before you start meddling with it, backup your game folder. I didn't, and I was sorry later.