Masters of the Air

has anyone tried using flight controls in warthunder???

I tried way back... did ok first time up as the controls worked fine... later they did some programming...

too many of the players use keyboard n mouse... guess the warthunder people felt controls was unfair???

anyways IF you use flight controls... at least the last time I tried... fidgety jump all over never smooth flying...

tryin to deal with other planes while you controls are doing this is very bothersome...

so left the air part alone... also if you run tanks and find a good hull down...

a player can up a plane and dive bomb you out... and it cost the other player nothing to do so...

IMHO is unfair but???

Quote from slamfire

Well, my take on DCS is there's a bewildering amount of buttons and control interfaces to deal with, so yeah I can see if you get a "system" that has like 50 buttons, it could be preferable for DCS.

Virbl is modular. It began a long time ago as a guy making titanium replacement gimbals and drop in hall sensor replacements for the TM Cougar HOTAS. That system shipped without grease and shitty gimbals that ate themselves, and this guys hardware made them invincible. With the hall sensor setup the HOTAS became pressure based like a legit gen 4 fighter stick.

Nowadays you can get 2 stick bases, the warbird base or the mongoose base and use any stick with them. The warbird base has a lot more throw. The mongoose is higher quality and you can adjust it while using it. So you can lock some things in place and there's no center return, it's a legit floppy stick. They have extensions so you can floor or seat mount it. There's 5 right handed and 2 left handed options for sticks, the cheapest one of them a stripped down warbird stick that's great for AH. It has followed sim racing where you get a wheel base and many wheel options so you can hot swap to whatever you're driving that session.

They only have 1 throttle option but it's a split throttle which can lock together so it's a really nice feature to have in any game. I continue to be a huge fan of CH pedals. It's what I always used... but Virpl pedals are better, and you can get a damper accessory that makes them feel really nice. The spring return on CH feels like shit after you use dampened pedals. I'm sure eventually that damper will be force feedback too.

Button boxes are one of the most underrated things to have. Virpl's are crazy overpriced though. iRacing ones are cheaper and have the same amount of buttons. You don't need shit on your stick, but it's nice to not have to use the keyboard for landing gear or engine starts, something that has no place on a limited button warbird joystick. More convenient and easier to mount than the traditional keyboard-under-monitor.

Quote from El Sluggo Loco

Does anyone just sell... what I would call a "Modular USB Switch Stack"? Just a stackable box with "X" amount of assignable switches/knobs on it? Is the FS community large enough to even pretend to cater to anymore? I remember back in the day talking about cannibalizing old broken/worn out sticks for the switches...

Close. That's the "Button Box". They come in so many different flavors it's ridiculous. They're all usb and you can assign anything to anything in most sims or games. RicmoTech, RealGear, ignitION, Extreme Simracing, Racebox. They come in generic versions, and ones specific to space sims, flight sims, farming sims, racing, streaming, etc. Stack as many as you have usb ports for. You can have custom built ones made for you on Etsy now.

Sim hardware is the biggest and best it has ever been, even for flight sims. There's now youtubers that do nothing but DCS and have 500k subscribers.

Quote from slamfire

Well, my take on DCS is there's a bewildering amount of buttons and control interfaces to deal with, so yeah I can see if you get a "system" that has like 50 buttons, it could be preferable for DCS.

When I was playing DCS, it was stick, rudder, throttle and a few select things (all combat related) mapped to what buttons I had. Otherwise, 90% of the experience was turning my head around and manipulating things with the mouse push/pull. It's cool as flight simulator, but it got old as a combat sim very fast.

But I'm a CH guy through and through. I got the Thrustmaster HOTA set in the attic (all metal, top dollar). I could never stand it, and never used it in any serious way. I cannot stand fighting against controls that you have to muscle around. Horrific ergonomics.

I would never shell out the kind of money Virpil goes for, just to gamble if I like it or not. I think I would only go there if CH went out of business and I just wore my stuff out.

-gg- isn't lying about hating no-combat fly-around sims. I tried to get us all on MS Flight Simulator years back - I was thinking... yeah, fly planes online, drink, socialize - hey could be fun - but -gg- would have none of it. AH or GTFO.

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You don't need a gazillion buttons/hats for the WWII aircraft and if you don't have issues keeping your CH gear working for DCS then it would be just fine.

There is a 3rd party program that lets you use the mode switch on the throttle. 78 buttons on the throttle x5 = 390. I probably won't use all of them but it would be nice to use different modes for takeoff, landing, air to air and tool shedding. And of course I won't need the extra modes for the prop planes.

When I had to stop making baits for awhile I bought my Virpil stuff with the money I had left in my business account plus the coin that came in from the last few orders. It's the only time I paid myself for 3 years worth of labor. (*Edit* DCS videos was my backup plan and still is.)

I might actually play AH again sometime but it will definitely have to wait until I get my own place again.

Making your own button box wouldn't be that big of a project - you would need a USB-Hid interface and some analogue buttons. Basically it's a small circuit board that you program and wire the buttons to. Push a button, it will create a keystroke character of your choosing.

So, if I was going to do something like that, I'd make a box with a grid of many buttons. I'd have overlays made up with holes punched out that sit on top of the box with holes for the buttons. Have one for MS Flight Simulator, Aces High, Warthunder, DCS. I have friends that own an industrial print shop - I'd have the overlays made out of a rigid but thin material. Maybe a magnet mount system.

BTW did you guys know that many public libraries nowadays have 3d printing services ? They do. You can get some CAD software(free open source!), design parts, and send them via the library's website - and they put it in a stack to get printed - you get an email when it's ready to pick up. You pay for the cost of material - which is dirt cheap.

Libraries have gotten VERY creative finding ways to stay useful/relevant.

I would agree with Slug - if you have CH Combastick, Pro Throttle and Pro Pedals, you have Aces High covered 100%. You will likely have a couple spare buttons with no purpose left over.

DCS, I think you could get by with that setup as well, but maybe having a button box on the side would be worth it.

I was doing good in the yak trainer, and had just started the Freedom Fighter. The Freedom Fighter is relatively simple - but the jump to a more modern fighter is daunting to say the least - and I think it would be hard to handle that without a button box as a minimum.

Jumping to Russian stuff is daunting - everything in Russian, and Meters. Maybe there's a translate setting LOL.

If I get back into it (I'm sure I will at some point), my plan still is to go from Freedom Fighter to F-16 (which leverages the familiarity of flying Falcon 4.0 years back - like at least I feel at home in that cockpit).

I have not tried any of the DCS WWII planes.

Quote from slamfire

I would agree with Slug - if you have CH Combastick, Pro Throttle and Pro Pedals, you have Aces High covered 100%. You will likely have a couple spare buttons with no purpose left over.

DCS, I think you could get by with that setup as well, but maybe having a button box on the side would be worth it.

I was doing good in the yak trainer, and had just started the Freedom Fighter. The Freedom Fighter is relatively simple - but the jump to a more modern fighter is daunting to say the least - and I think it would be hard to handle that without a button box as a minimum.

Jumping to Russian stuff is daunting - everything in Russian, and Meters. Maybe there's a translate setting LOL.

If I get back into it (I'm sure I will at some point), my plan still is to go from Freedom Fighter to F-16 (which leverages the familiarity of flying Falcon 4.0 years back - like at least I feel at home in that cockpit).

I have not tried any of the DCS WWII planes.

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Button boxes would let you map stuff you need and keep your CH gear.

The F-5 is a fun and sporty bird to fly and it bridges the gap from the FC3 aircraft to full fidelity nicely.

The language in the Soviet/Russian cockpits can be changed to Engrish and if you'd like to know how, let me know.

I didn't do so well in this flight but I did succeed in starting a fire. LOL!

Iron and I flying in this one although you can't hear him talking so it sounds like I am talking to an imaginary friend.

Quote from slamfire

Making your own button box wouldn't be that big of a project

BTW did you guys know that many public libraries nowadays have 3d printing services ?

It's a very reasonable hobby project. I do a lot of arduino work and I have a 3d printer. You can churn out parts. You can get all preassembled breakouts with rotaries, slides, even those sweet powered sliders like you see on high end studio mixer boards, tons of rgb lights, touch sensors. Even if you don't know how to code it's within reach, a couple hours with ChatGPT and you'll be compiling your custom setup in c++ and testing at least a breakout board version of what you want to build.

If you felt the urge to build your own guitar pedal, Flux.AI is really easy to learn and you can make a PCB, have it made in china in a week, 3d print a pedal to put the board, switch, and stereo plug into and you're off & playing.

you don't have to though, button boxes are affordable and do everything you'd want in flight and racing sims.

Indy is it PCBWay out in China that can make any board you want for a reasonable cost ?

The state of things re: manufacturing your own custom stuff has never been better IMHO.

I got 100 boards from PCBWay in this week. 4 layer boards that are breakout boards that hold a pair of ESP32 WROOM processors, and jst connectors for power, rgb strip, rfid reader. I can't complain at all. A friend uses JCL. Same quality boards showed up. So far we've only ordered bare boards and soldered ourselves. We're sitting in a Discord right now finishing up a parallel battery board design that 8 lipos plug into and has a lc709602 battery monitor chip that's surface mounted, and connects to these ESP32 boards. These will be the first we've had assembled in China, I don't want to try and solder these tiny surface mount devices, so I'm interested to see what shows up at our door.

I think Elfie's first button on the button box should be "Eject".

Quote from slamfire

I think Elfie's first button on the button box should be "Eject".

Hahahaha!

I actually have that mapped to my throttle base.

Quote from definitely-not-indy

Virbl is modular. It began a long time ago as a guy making titanium replacement gimbals and drop in hall sensor replacements for the TM Cougar HOTAS. That system shipped without grease and shitty gimbals that ate themselves, and this guys hardware made them invincible. With the hall sensor setup the HOTAS became pressure based like a legit gen 4 fighter stick.

Ok so that was me basically years ago - bought the HOTAs... The actually build quality of the stick & throttle quadrant were top notch in steel, but where they cheaped out or had massive QA issues was the sub components and electronics. They didn't seem to ship a unit without having bad pots or other problems - it was basically expected for the end user to do QA and fix problems after the fact. The physical feel of the stick was awful, and it had to do with the base construction. I remember that guy was selling replacement base unit parts but it was very expensive - like more expensive that the original HOTAS gear. LIke in today's money accounting for inflation, the guy wanted basically +/-$600. I considered it, but instead chose to put the stuff in the attic.

Now, their new bases, they are more reasonably priced (about half the price). If it's compatible and if I can find my old HOTAS, maybe I'd get a modern replacement base and see what I can get out of it. It should be up there somewhere, in NIB condition.

I for sure bought the HOTAs setup before 2010. I got it on massive discount - I don't even remember where... maybe a Frys... They were offloading them for pennies on the dollar. It was something crazy like $100 - they were just offloading them... maybe even Black Friday.

Yeah the Cougar HOTAS was such a mixed bag. Great feel, shit internals. I had TM ship me new gimbals, swapped those in, wrapped the electronics in a plastic bag, and used a shitload of bearing grease on the new gimbals. That kept it from eating itself, but now I'd just go Virpl. It's all the external nice bits of the TM stuff, improved, and with best in class internals now.

My Cougar might be serial... it's that old. I dunno, I guess step one is to find it and evaluate.