Broadside uda Barn 0 Posted July 13, 2009 My Sidewinder FF has 8 buttons, a throttle, and an 8 way hat. Wondering what would be best for these 8 buttons. Button one is trigger of course, Button 2 is bombs I have a button for cycle view (is this against the DiD quarum?) one buttone for next target one button for zoom in one button for zoom out now's the time to change buttons, tho....before I get used to it. What commands do you recommend for the stick? and as an aside, what are your most used keyboard buttons (besides mashing U for unjamming guns ) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BigJim 0 Posted July 13, 2009 (edited) My Sidewinder FF has 8 buttons, a throttle, and an 8 way hat.Wondering what would be best for these 8 buttons. Button one is trigger of course, Button 2 is bombs I have a button for cycle view (is this against the DiD quarum?) one buttone for next target one button for zoom in one button for zoom out now's the time to change buttons, tho....before I get used to it. What commands do you recommend for the stick? and as an aside, what are your most used keyboard buttons (besides mashing U for unjamming guns ) Depends on what you have with the stick? Like trackir? My setup is a complete CH HOTAS, Combatstick 568, pro throttle, and pro pedals and right now I use one hat on the throttle for views, 1 4wayhat for zoom/fuel mix. one 4wayhat for the "unreal" targeting from CFS3. On the stick I use one Hat for "wingman orders" 1 4wayhat for the various views, cockpit, no cockpit, etc etc as you can see I have alot more buttons than you As for most used I guess it is the "map" button Edited July 13, 2009 by BigJim Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Broadside uda Barn 0 Posted July 13, 2009 I have TrackIR and pedals Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
von Baur 54 Posted July 13, 2009 Hey, BuB. Welcome to OFF. Look forward to seeing you online (every Sunday this month at 2PM EDT). Sidewinder FF2 Pro w/o pedals here, and only TIR3, but I do have Vector so it's kinda like your setup. I'll give you what I use and you can do with it as you wish. Since the hat isn't needed for views I've mapped it for my mixture control. Left is full lean (to kill the engine when I'm landing) and right is full rich (if I need to add power). Down decreases the mixture incrementally to lean it as I increase altitude and up increases it as I descend. If you choose to use auto-mixture you'll obviously not need to worry about those and can do something else with your hat. Button 1 is "Fire all" and I've mapped button 2 to F12, to provide a handy recenter for Track IR. Button 3 is "Zoom In" and button 4 is "Zoom Out". Button 5 brings up the HUD info (F5), but for realism's sake I've disabled all instruments...I use it to keep an eye on my ammo and on my fuel state in the aircraft that don't have fuel guages. Likewise, button 6 is mapped to "Z" so I can check my latency when online, my framerate and my altitude and heading in aircraft without altimeter and/or compass. Button 7 selects weapon (bombs or rockets in aircraft so equipped) and button 8 releases the weapon. There you have it, sir, my setup. As I said, this may or may not be useful to you, as what each person considers an important control varies. Hope I helped. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BigJim 0 Posted July 13, 2009 Hey, BuB. Welcome to OFF. Look forward to seeing you online (every Sunday this month at 2PM EDT). Sidewinder FF2 Pro w/o pedals here, and only TIR3, but I do have Vector so it's kinda like your setup. I'll give you what I use and you can do with it as you wish. Since the hat isn't needed for views I've mapped it for my mixture control. Left is full lean (to kill the engine when I'm landing) and right is full rich (if I need to add power). Down decreases the mixture incrementally to lean it as I increase altitude and up increases it as I descend. If you choose to use auto-mixture you'll obviously not need to worry about those and can do something else with your hat. Button 1 is "Fire all" and I've mapped button 2 to F12, to provide a handy recenter for Track IR. Button 3 is "Zoom In" and button 4 is "Zoom Out". Button 5 brings up the HUD info (F5), but for realism's sake I've disabled all instruments...I use it to keep an eye on my ammo and on my fuel state in the aircraft that don't have fuel guages. Likewise, button 6 is mapped to "Z" so I can check my latency when online, my framerate and my altitude and heading in aircraft without altimeter and/or compass. Button 7 selects weapon (bombs or rockets in aircraft so equipped) and button 8 releases the weapon. There you have it, sir, my setup. As I said, this may or may not be useful to you, as what each person considers an important control varies. Hope I helped. There ya go much better than I could since I don't have your setup, I do have TrackiR5 otw tho which will free up my throttle hat for TrackiR commands I guess Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Olham 164 Posted July 13, 2009 THRUSTMASTER T.FLIGHT Stick X (34,- Euro) The up-stick buttons: 1 = guns 2 = "Precision" (TrackIR command) 3 = wingmen help 4 = "recenter view" (TrackIR command) The stand buttons: 5 = pause 6 = in flight map 7 = wingmen attack 8 = wingmen split 9 = wingmen return 10 = target marker 11 = zoom view out 12 = zoom view in Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fortiesboy 3 Posted July 13, 2009 You'll find that with Trackir being available instantly all the padlocks and next targets are totally worthless, unless of course if you feel you need them I use the padlock to occasionally look at the enemy plane ( to assess his damage ref my mods ). As I go into a dogfight, I use TAC, select the enemy and padlock him on a button. The i leave padlock, and leave TAC- Now flying on trackir . However, I also have F4 on a button, and with that I can scroll thru the views, and because I had padlocked the enemy, one of the views includes an external of the enemy plane. So when he's going in, i can have a close up view of why! Must be the sadist in me - Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
HomeBoy 1 Posted July 13, 2009 Here are the commands I think are most important. I've listed them in order of importance. Most sticks (e.g. Logitech Wingman) have at least eight buttons so the first eight are the ones I think are the critical ones. Fire all guns (Space Bar) TrackIR Center (F12) Virtual Cockpit (unassigned, must set this to something) Go to gunner/bomber position (F7) Toggle Aircraft Labels (CTRL SHF l) Mission Map (m) Info (z) Auto Pilot (CTRL SHF a) Zoom In ( ] ) Zoom Out ( [ ) Toggle TAC (Shift t) TAC mode select (t) TAC range cycle (CTRL SHF t) Weapon Select (Backspace) Float View (SHF F6) Pause (p) Quit (CTRL q) If you still have available buttons, these are also important to me: Start Engine (e) Accelerate Time (CTRL SHF e) -Much better than using warp IMHO Decelerate Time (CTRL SHF r) Next Waypoint (SHF w) Previous Waypoint (CTRL w) Finally, if you have two extra axes on your controllers, these axis assignments are very handy: Mixture Elevator Trim Since moving all my Wingmen "hand signals" to voice commands (Game Commander 2), I don't take up any more button space for that. If you are cramped for button space you could consider that. Another thing I highly recommend is go to the Game Controllers utility (from CFS3-QC) and carefully look through all the axis assignments and delete any unwanted axis the idiot MS game interface might assign in it's attempt to be helpful (NOT!!). For example, you may find that your CH Pro Pedals toe brake axes (X & Y) are assigned to your pitch and roll axes (I've seen that)! This will certainly make flying the plane rather difficult with two controllers trying to control your elevator and ailerons. Also, you may want to un-assign all key commands you know you'll never use (e.g. Toggle Cockpit, all the PadLock commands) so you don't accidentally hit them while flying. These are the ones I've settled on. For a while there, I was shuffling things around almost every time I flew. Hope that helps -mark Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Check Six 2 Posted July 13, 2009 I have a Saitek X-52 and throttle, and I have programmed the following keys: Button 1, fire all guns Button 2, drop ordnance Button 3, Select Ordnance Button 4, Virtual cockpit Toggle 1 - Next Target Toggle 2 - Previous Target Toggle 3 - Auto Trim Toggle 4 - Auto Pilot Toggle 5 - Accelerate Time Toggle 6 - Decelarate time I haven't assigned any of my hat switches to anything yet. On my Throttle, I have a button for "Take Screenshot" (which I find useful for claims...I hit "Z" to bring up time, lat, long, altitude etc, then take a screenshot whenever I get lucky - when it comes to a claim form, my information is all there for me to copy). I also have Auto Cut off (Can't recall the correct term or Key assignment it performs as...cuts your engine off). I would really like to use my Throttle trim-pots (adjustable wheels) as elevator trim and aileron trim but I can't work out how to do that yet (any ideas Homeboy?). I also have now got my G-19 keyboard, that has another 18 programmable keys, so I'll reprogram everything when I set up on my new beast (now that I'm more aware of what I use the most). The keyboard can also proram a "pause" so that I could use one of those for a "kill" key...Hit "Z", pause for a moment, take screenshot, hit "Z" again, return to sim Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
HomeBoy 1 Posted July 13, 2009 ... I would really like to use my Throttle trim-pots (adjustable wheels) as elevator trim and aileron trim but I can't work out how to do that yet (any ideas Homeboy?) .... Hi Steve, If you go to CFS3-QC and go to the Controller Configuration screen and find the "elevator trim" axis assignment screen. Once you have the proper axis selected you click the "new assignment" (or something like that) button and it will wait for you to move the axis you want to assign. You may have to move your controller a few times to make that axis appear in the window. That's all you have to do to assign a controller axis. If you bring up the controller configuration screen while sitting out on the airfield, you'll be able to test it immediately. Some of the planes have a visible mixture control so you will be able to see it move and thus verify that it's working properly and moves in the proper direction. One of the help guides I've been planning to do is a guide on setting up your controllers. This aspect of OFF is one of the ugliest parts of the game as it is MS Flight Simulator showing its ugly head. I love MSFS but controller configuration is not one of it's strong suits. So, give that a try and let us know how it goes. Take it out on the treadmill and give it a spin! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Check Six 2 Posted July 13, 2009 Mark, The trouble I've had in the past with setting up elevator and aileron trim is that usually these contols are assigned a single button (for instance the Control Key Card will say that elevator trim up is + and elevator trim down is -) as opposed to a command that says "Elevator Trim" so that I can assign it to a sliding trim-pot. I send the trim-pot to its maximum travel in one direction, and try to assign that to "up" and the other direction to assign "down" but it doesn't work. Hope you understood all that, it's kinda hard to describe. Thanks for all your very useful guides mate. Most here would be LOST without them. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
HomeBoy 1 Posted July 13, 2009 Mark, The trouble I've had in the past with setting up elevator and aileron trim is that usually these contols are assigned a single button (for instance the Control Key Card will say that elevator trim up is + and elevator trim down is -) as opposed to a command that says "Elevator Trim" so that I can assign it to a sliding trim-pot. I send the trim-pot to its maximum travel in one direction, and try to assign that to "up" and the other direction to assign "down" but it doesn't work. Hope you understood all that, it's kinda hard to describe. Thanks for all your very useful guides mate. Most here would be LOST without them. Sorry if I'm reading you wrong here but it sounds like you are confused about the difference between a "button" and an "axis." Hope I'm not "talking down" to you here. I certainly don't mean to. Elevator trim controls (as well as mixture, throttle, etc.) in OFF come in two flavors: keyboard commands and axes. The reason for that is not every one has enough equipment to support all the controls of the game. Those who do not have enough axes (i.e., analog knobs or sliding trim-pots as you describe) will have to implement these features using keyboard presses (or replicate as a button on their joystick somewhere). If you are one of those lucky few that have a controller with more axes than the standard pitch, roll, twist (on some), and throttle then you will not use the keyboard commands and will opt for setting up your available axis (sliding trim-pot in your case) to control elevator trim. You will want to go to the AXIS section of the controller setup utility and assign "elevator trim axis" to your sliding pot as I described in a previous post. It sounds like from your description that you are trying to do this by messing with the "elevator trim buttons." Am I right? Just FYI here. To make sure you don't accidentally hit, say, Keypad 7 (elevator trim down) once you have an analog control handling that function, I recommend going in and un-assigning those commands once you assign a function to an axis. In my case, I have un-assigned these keyboard commands because I have axes controlling all these functions: Ailerons Left Ailerons Right (my joystick movement left and right accomplishes this function) Elevator Up Elevator Down (my joystick forward and back) Rudder Left Rudder Right (rudder pedals) Ailerons & Rudder Center (absolutely no need for this!) Elevator Trim Down Elevator Trim Up (I have a knob at the "pinky" position of my throttle for this) Mixture Increase Mixture Decrease (I have a knob on the side of my throttle I use for analog mixture) Throttle 10%, 20% ... Full Throttle Decrease Throttle Increase (Get rid of all throttle related buttons as I use a throttle control) That is, everything that has a key assignment associated with it that I have an axis controller gets deleted. That way, I don't have to worry about accidentally hitting some key that might try to override something I control with an analog control. Again, if I'm telling you stuff you already know I apologize. Maybe some of what I've said will be useful however. regards -mark Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
von Baur 54 Posted July 14, 2009 As you can sse, BuB, there are lots of options (and opinions). The key, IMO, is to remember that with Track IR handling the views you've got essentially 8 more programable buttons with your hat. Personally I don't like to use the corners because I tend to hit one or the other side and slide into it. When you're dealing with standard a view setup it doesn't matter, but if you've mapped (for example) up to release your bombs and you accidentally hit that when you're trying to go to up-right it's going to release whether you really wanted to or not. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
