Another grumpy one

[TorTorden]

Par for the course.

For the A-team at least

[LeDoyen]

As requested, here's a little preview of my DIY controller.

Basically, the goal was to only use the keyboard to type messages and NOTHING else. All ship controls on the HOTAS or this controller (yes, i am lazy).

I used a spare box i had from work that had neutrik XLR socket holes, that came in handy later on to fit a proper USB socket in place of an XLR one.
For the electronics side of things, i used an arcade cabinet controller, usually used to make ... DIY arcade cabinets
http://www.ebay.fr/itm/141745933876

First, i made a list of the controls i needed and then worked out a layout after spending hours online selecting switches...



The front panel was cut from a spare Kydex sheet i had from knife sheath making, drilled and populated. Those floating wires are a giveaway these two were salvaged switches :p all momentary but the ones with flip cover.



Fitted the USB socket, and the arcade controller PCB.. wired everything trying to keep it tidy. There's spare contacts and room on the front panel to add more switches if i ever feel the need..



... Attached the whole thing to angled brackets (i ended up using two brackets on top of each other to reduce the bounciness when pushing buttons. it's useable now!)
Clamped that puppy to the desk to figure out a good angle to install it, relative to the throttle..



Lil view of the USB socket, just because..



And that's how it looks once the support was made to fix it to my chair's armrest (same stuff for the main stick)



... And a blurry view of the whole rig ^^



3x 27" ASUS Gsync screens running off a single GTX1080.. that's like 7680x1440 @120Hz. Runs pretty smoothly, around 60 fps in stations and always over 100 fps in flight. The monitors have been recently retrofitted with monitor mounts clamped to the desk edges.. more room under, and i can now tug them to the edge of the desk and shove them in my face.. totally different experience when using multiple monitors.

So yeah.. there it is

[Cmdr Kharma]

Noice controller and setup.....Here's the one I built around my joystick.......

I too am a lazy bast......LOL

newbut1.jpg (80.29 KiB) Viewed 6544 times

Never did get around to MKIII........

[TorTorden]

That's because you keep running out of socks and ruining your wrists.

Personally I find a bit odd you need these. I just use shift buttons. But I have two easy to reach buttons on my throttle.
That unused as shift buttons, or b1+x button combos.
Take my targeting hat on the throttle.

Unshifted its target forward, nearest threat and cycle next and previous.
First shift button, cycle becomes locked to cycling hostiles.
Second shift button makes it my wing man selector, for wing 1, 2, 3 and wing mans target.

All on the same four way hat switch and I have three of those on each hand.
That leaves me 72 different button mappings available.
And that's not counting the two pov hats.

[LeDoyen]

there's 3 modes on the X56 so technically i could use just the X56, but....
... Saitek have a degree in making controllers unusable to normal humans.
The X52 had buttons on the actual joystick base.. i hate having to fiddle between throttle and joystick with my left hand because i can't let go of the joystick to push buttons with the right hand. At least they figured that out for the X56.
The X56 back toggle switches i always bump with my palm.. so i end up triggering heat sinks and deploying landing gears by throttling up and down.. so all those are just unused now.
The toggles on the right of the throttle are also very badly placed, and i kept using the wrong ones or just catching them with my thumb at odd moments.. they are also unused..

All in all i only use the throttle buttons that are on the actual stick, and the joystick buttons, plus the two rotaries on the throttle for radar zoom. The rest is on my controller, color coded, out of reach in normal flight, and easy to access when i need them. It's just a matter of ergonomics to me.
Now i don't need to look at the throttle to use the right toggle.. i just lay back and never have to look at what i hit.

Technically not needed... but so much better with it

[TorTorden]

Which is why I didn't go for a saitek.
I instead went with the CH fighterstick and Pro-throttle, and of course the pedals.
I got three modes but don't use them, I just bound the button pushes directly in ED.

They might look like something out of an 80's excavator but they where built for function not "see how many colours the led's can make!" I don't see those with the rift on anyways :p .

I am curious about a warthog stick though...


And I'm jealous since I dont even own a soldering iron :p

[LeDoyen]

Yea, the thrustmaster gear looks nice on paper but i fly spaceships, not a cessna :p Pedals for a space sim, i am not fond of, just like i don't really like stick twist for proper planes. that's the one missing feature that makes me stay away from thrustmaster. So.. built for function.. depends what functions you're after i guess ^^

If they make a space sim dedicated HOTAS, not made for giant hands, with well thought out controls and ergonomics, i'd jump on it no questions asked! With the advent of VR, Controller manufacturers should start thinking of designing gear you can use without having to look at them.. (that's what makes me stay away from VR too.. )

[TorTorden]

I have had stick twist before, it doesnt really work for anything, the human wrist doesnt twist without also rolling or pitching, its physically impossible, usually its a combination of both.
Pedals give extremely detailed control on the yaw axis and for unrealistic dog-fighting games like ED they can give a great benefit.

As for ergonomics, that's the thing. They all are.
You wouldn't mount a steering wheel on the floor, so why place a joystick on a desk?

After a week I got my HOTAS, I was getting some cramps in my shoulder so the i was looking at either spending a grand a month on physical therapy or stop playing.
Not really an option.

I then had an idea, all these sticks and hotas where modeled after real world sticks to quite some degree the saiteks have been designed from the f-16, the warthog is a 1:1 replica from the A-10.
And from this I realised all cockpits these came out of had the sticks pretty much mounted at knee height.

Once I modified my desk to support this new mounting I get nearly zero fatigue from playing and I reach all buttons with ease, since my hands come in from a different angle.

As for vr, learning a completely new controller would be difficult but if you have a modicum of familiarity with your stick, I don't think you would have an issue.

Might help me that I started with a blank control scheme.
That way I just picked buttons I thought made sense to me, and when I needed to remember the bind I just had to think where I would put it, and I would be right most of the time.

[LeDoyen]

Playing on the desk was fine to test the hotas out of the box but yea.. down they went at armrest level!

For the pedals, since my chair is on wheels and rotates.. doesnt work ^^

Using a wheel and pedals for racing was a pain already. I spent more time pulling myself forward than driving.
In the end its all personal preference. The best solution is simply the one that works in our particular rig and doesnt cause RSI after 20 minutes

[TorTorden]

I throw a carpet under my chair it holds it ok, and even though I have hard floors surprisingly not a big deal even without.

But yaw pedals different from racing pedals.
Chiefly the pedals are linked so you dont need to push as much.

Its more like i rest my feet on them and l relax my lett foot to allow the right to go forward.