HOTAS keyboard mapping

[Britt007]

Hi,

 

I'm new here and would like to say hello, I'm sure I will be spending a lot of time here, I don't know if thats a good or bad thing. :smilewink:

 

I'm now the proud owner of a Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog, TrackIR 5 and the DCS A-10C Warthog flight sim and think its great, I'm slowly finding my way around it but got a long long way to go.

 

I'd like some :helpsmilie: please, I'm trying to remap my left throttle button to F12 but it is not being recognised, this is what I'm doing, I go into Options then Controls, In the drop down Aircraft menu I choose A-10C Sim (as I've chosen simulator in the options) and in the Category drop down menu I choose HOTAS, then I highlight the line "HOTAS Left Throttle Button" I press Clear then ADD, In the Add Assignment Panel, Key/Button drop down menu I choose F12 then press OK, back at the Controls menu it now shows F12 as the keyboard button not Q, I then click OK to return back to the main menu.

 

I'm still flying the training mission so I load one up and when I press the left throttle button it still engages and disengages the autopilot, F12 is not recognised, when I go back into the Controls menu it's showing F12 as the keyboard button.

 

Any help in telling me what I'm doing wrong will be gratefully appreciated.

 

Thank you.

[Depth]

Welcome :)

 

Did you try also setting the game mode controls to F12? I'm not sure if the tutorial missions are sim mode.

 

I'll try recreating it.

[159th_Viper]

Welcome to the Forums :)

 

Ensure you change the relevant key-assignment in the HOTAS Warthog Throttle column - utilize the scroll-bar at the bottom to scroll from left to right to get to the Throttle key-assignments column.

[Britt007]

Hi,

 

Thanks, Yes I set it in Game to with same result ..

[Britt007]

Hi Viper,

 

In the HOTAS Warthog Throttle column it shows JOY BTN15 and if I goto change it I can only choose from the JOY BTN menu, am I missing something?

[Depth]

It should look like this

 

 

 

Edit:

Hi Viper,

 

In the HOTAS Warthog Throttle column it shows JOY BTN15 and if I goto change it I can only choose from the JOY BTN menu, am I missing something?

 

Click on the grid under keyboard to add a command from the keyboard, click under the joystick to add a command from the joystick :) You'll see it become highlighted like on the picture above

Edited February 26, 2012 by Depth

[Britt007]

Hi Depth,

 

If I clear JOY BTN15 from in the HOTAS Warthog Throttle column like your pic then the button does nothing.

[Depth]

Weren't you trying to map the throttle button to F12? So F12 would engage autopilot?

[159th_Viper]

Apologies, I seem to have gotten confused somehow somewhere - easily done :)

 

In any event I have replicated the issue and I see now that it accepts no input and defaults to AP as you mentioned. I do not know why it does this - I somehow suspect that TrackIr is to blame as when a key is assigned to TrackIr to centre the view, in this case F12, then it effectively renders the F12 keyboard assignment useless for other activities.

 

In corroboration, try the following: Open TrackIr and assign the keyboard letter E to centre view. Minimise TrackIr and then attempt to type - you will see that the keyboard is dead insofar as E is concerned. Now why this is I do not know - I'll leave it to those more technologically gifted to hypothesize over. I am however certain that it is a contributing factor to your issue.

[Britt007]

Viper,

 

Thanks for that information, makes more sense now, thought I was missing something simple.

[Britt007]

Depth,

 

No, I'm trying to map the throttle button to F12 to centre my TrackIR view.

[Britt007]

OK another question then :music_whistling: If I use TARGET to map my HOTAS when I get into the mission the plane spins uncontrollable, I've read somewhere that using TARGET is not advisable because the sim maps the HOTAS directly with DirectX can the two not work happily together?

[Britt007]

Didn't have all this trouble on my Commodore 16 in the good old days, all I needed was the game and a joystick :joystick:

[StrongHarm]

The layout of the Warthog HOTAS is realistic, I wouldn't want to change it (except for making the trim hat trim instead of view.. bleh).

 

You're using both hands, both feet, and your head to control DCS.. can I suggest you add more commands to another I/O method?

Voice Activated Commands is a great app. I've been using it for years with very little trouble. No need to train voice or anything.. just type in the command, then type in the phrase.. then when you say that phrase, that key command (any combo, sentence, or macro) is executed at the speed you specify. You could conceivably say 'plane, start up now' and have the entire startup sequence bound to that phrase. Do a search on these forums for VAC, there's some good stuff out there.

[Kalahari]

I actually bought the VAC program,but I have trouble installing it.

[Britt007]

StrongHarm I will check VAC out cheers, I totally agree with you about the setup of the HOTAS it works great with the Warthog but as there are 2 autopilot buttons on the HOTAS Throttle I thought I might as well use one for something else.

 

But as Viper said about TrackIR locking out any mapped buttons it uses then VAC might have the same problem.

Edited February 26, 2012 by Britt007

[StrongHarm]

Truth. I added a ctrl modifier to each of the TrackIR defaults. I've not found any conflicts.

[HawkMedic126]

I'm not aware of any way to make the game map a keyboard key to your joystick, however there are several alternatives. You can use joy2key, xkeys, whatever software came with your HOTAS, or ever Helios to assign a keyboard key to a joystick button.

 

You'll need to leave the keyboard key combination assigned in-game and clear the assignment from whatever button you've chosen, then it should work as you're intending.

 

Send me a PM with your specs and I'll see what I can do to write out some more detailed instructions.

 

Edit: OK now re-reading this thread it seems like it might be easier for you to clear the joy_btn15 assignment in-game and directly assign that button to your trackir profile, instead of using F12. That way you have the HOTAS button mapped where you want and are still able to use F12 for radio commands.

Edited February 26, 2012 by HawkMedic126
provide more detailed information

[Britt007]

Hi HawkMedic,

 

Thats the way I'm going to go, map the key in TrackIR and use the paddle switch as a modifier and use CMS up and down to zoom in and out, and some other combinations for gear, ect ..