Help a noob with his joystick

[sebastianpwns]

Hey guys just got this joystick off my friend who is moving its a "Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X Flight Stick" its all i got and im sticking with it for a while-http://www.amazon.com/Thrustmaster-T-Flight-Hotas-Flight-Playstation-3/dp/B001CXYMFS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1354058240&sr=8-2&keywords=joystick

 

Ive played a10c in my group for a year with a mouse and keyboard just fine (no track ir)

First off i dont care if you tell me the joystick is crap or something just tell me this:

 

how do i configure it to A10C?

whats the best setup for the joystick buttons (just look at the buttons and tell me)

is there a steep learning curve using a joystick?

Edited November 27, 2012 by sebastianpwns

[Eight Ball]

That joystick isn't crap at all.

 

Now regarding the setup it's entirely up to you.

Since you play this game for a while you're probably aware of what should be on your stick and what can stay mapped to your keyboard.

 

Don't be scared to "sacrifice" a button to make it a modifier, sure helps alot when you don't have a TM warthog (actually even when you have one)

 

Take a look at the quick start guide p-39 and you'll see the real setup

In addition you can also look at the flight manual (p87 to 92)

 

And Strongharm made this a while back

 

And Red Baron made this :

Edited November 28, 2012 by Eight Ball
mixed the flight manual and the quick start guide...

[Mouse]

Don't worry. I don't think anyone around here is going to judge someone based on the flight stick they use. And although a fancy HOTAS is nice, it's actually easy to operate the aircraft efficiently using mainly keyboard commands.

 

I learned to operate all the HOTAS systems first on the keyboard, as I only had a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro at the time; the main barrier isn't the keyboard but the default bindings that sometimes require two keys to be pressed. Reworking those could make the keyboard pretty comfortable.

 

The only other thing to work out is which commands you'd like to place on your flight controllers. That's down to personal preference, and it might change as you get more experience in the sim.

[Priest]

You'll do fine with the Hotas X, just give it time. Use the stick for basic functions at first (ex. flying, firing the cannon, and releasing weapons) and learn the keyboard commands. They're actually fairly logical once you get into it. You can add control functions to the stick as you learn the sim and in the end it'll make a lot more sense. Protip though, since you have a stick and don't need the arrow keys for flight control, re-map keyboard slew commands to the arrow keys instead of the default comma, semi-colon, slash, period keys.

 

 

I used a Logitech Wingman Extreme 3D Pro (lots of buttons, but only one hat switch) for a long time and eventually had most HOTAS functions mapped out using modifiers. I went about it by adding things I learned and frequently used the keyboard for rather than try too make the stick do everything at first and then learn the sim. The TM warthog doesn't even do everything. I still need the keyboard.

[MRSEAT]

I have one of these joys and do just fine. The one real big help is binding the AIRBRAKES to the SE and ST buttons at the very bottom of the stick, makes them so easy to get at whilst landing!

Just experiment with the others, there are no hard and fast rules.

Not the greatest help! Have fun.

[ApoNOOB]

I use that Joystick myself and have to say it's fine for DCS. With the feature to set multiple modifiers you can use your POV-hat for nearly anything.

 

http://imgur.com/He2Lq (Example: Button 10&9 + POV Hat = Fwd/AFT China Hat ; 7&9+POV Hat/Button3 = Boat Switch FWD/AFT/CTR etc.)

This is an Old setup with a few things changed, but i hope you get the idea. Make a list like that yourself and in a few hours/a day/ a few days depending on how good you remember stuff you will fly like a champ.

Before I had Track IR POV Hat without modifiers was just looking around in Cockpit while I had zoom In/Out on a modifier.

 

My only real issue with the Joystick is the small throttle. I like to think with a X52, Hotas or any other joystick that has a "real throttle" stuff like refueling would be much easier.

 

As it is now, my 50% setting is at ~85RPM and if you want to play in the 1mph range you will often find the throttle disagree's and wants go 3mph more. :) But maybe that's just me and my clumsy hands. ^^

 

Hopefully I could be of some help. Good luck with that solid joystick I have it for 1 or 2 years now and no issues beside the throttle and lacking software. All in all its solid hardware that doesn't seem to break. (I threw it once or twice on the ground too :D)

Edited November 28, 2012 by ApoNOOB

[snafup]

Hi,

I got this lua from another member of the forum and tweaked it to suit me.

It has most all you need though it can be a pain when having to press multiple buttons for a certain command.I've attached the lua and a picture of the commands as on the hotas. Again i can't take credit for the original lua file or picture but the edited version here is what i use. The command for the radios are blue state with 5,6,7,8 buttons.

hope it works for you.

joystickhotasx.lua

[docbrown]

Thanks for the profile Snafup, works great. Just wondering, how did you manage to get TrackIR to recognize button 12 with shift button 10? Every time i try to set the two buttons as pause in TrackIR, it only recognizes one button.

 

*Edit:

 

Found Cubpilot's thread about using a short/long joystick combo for the HOTAS Warthog stick.

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=87543

 

I modified his Autohotkey script to work with button12 (while holding down button3 modifier) to trigger Center (short press) and Pause (long press) on TrackIR. I have attached the modified script. If you'd like to use it, follow Cubpilot's instructions in editing your TrackIR profile to modify the hot keys for Center and Pause as F15 and F16 respectively. Need Autohotkey installed to get it going.

 

http://www.autohotkey.com

 

Works great, all credits to Cubpilot and Snafup =).

TFlight_DCS_A10_TrackIR_Short_Long.zip

Edited January 8, 2013 by docbrown