Hardware & Technical Would you recomend this Hotas?
- Thread starter Swift
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Yup I use a x52, had it 4years.
Still works well
BB
Still works well
BB
Crap sensors are crap.
The joystick crown is nice - it's well furnished with two hats and three buttons, along with a two-stage trigger (that Elite can't actually use, to the best of my knowledge), but the resolution and accuracy of the axis sensors leaves a lot to be desired. The stick's throw is also very light, which is not to everyone's tastes, including mine. The throttle is decent, with lots of buttons, although the mouse nub is a bit of a joke.
Personally, for a low-end stick with twist yaw, I don't think the Thrustmaster T.16000M can be beaten - it has a far superior pair of sensors (14-bit compared to the x52 Pro's 11-bit) for the X and Y axes and, IMO, a much nicer throw. It has one fewer hat on the crown and one fewer trigger. This can be compensated for with shift keys. I've never used the T.16000M throttle, so can't comment on it.
The joystick crown is nice - it's well furnished with two hats and three buttons, along with a two-stage trigger (that Elite can't actually use, to the best of my knowledge), but the resolution and accuracy of the axis sensors leaves a lot to be desired. The stick's throw is also very light, which is not to everyone's tastes, including mine. The throttle is decent, with lots of buttons, although the mouse nub is a bit of a joke.
Personally, for a low-end stick with twist yaw, I don't think the Thrustmaster T.16000M can be beaten - it has a far superior pair of sensors (14-bit compared to the x52 Pro's 11-bit) for the X and Y axes and, IMO, a much nicer throw. It has one fewer hat on the crown and one fewer trigger. This can be compensated for with shift keys. I've never used the T.16000M throttle, so can't comment on it.
Yep, after playing with an Xbox 360 pad for a year I splashed out and got an X52 Pro and now I couldn't go back.
It's fantastic, it adds so much to the play experience. And yes it is easy to set up. You'll need to spend some time setting up your bindings to get them right for you but once you do that you'll never look back.
It's fantastic, it adds so much to the play experience. And yes it is easy to set up. You'll need to spend some time setting up your bindings to get them right for you but once you do that you'll never look back.
IIRC you can use the two stage trigger, tried it years ago. You can set it to an unassigned key on your keyboard in the software and bind that key in options.
I returned mine after a few days, suffered from stiction and very plasticy. I couldn't recommend it all, very flismy overpriced product in my opinion. Thrustmaster T.16000M is amazing for the money and much better value, CH products are execellent quality or Virpil gear is the top end.
You can go higher than VirPil!
(Proud VKB I hope you enjoy the new HOTAS, Swift. I've never owned one, so don't really have an opinion on it beyond much preferring it to a far more expensive Warthog HOTAS I tried out, just minutes apart, at an Elitemeet a few years back. The X-52 felt light, the button placement was intuitive and I didn't notice any sticktion or lack of precision. The Warthog, on the other hand, felt ridiculously stiff, the buttons felt overly 'clunky' and weren't well placed on the throttle body and the very stiff throw on the stick made it difficult to control the Asp the owner had set up with any sort of precision. Mileage varies, but I think you're going to do just fine with the X-52!
I looked at a lot of HOTAS, and finally opted for a little DIY...
Bought a CH Pro throttle. One of the best I saw.
Bought a Logitech 3D Pro Extreme stick. Plenty of buttons and options, good feel to it and twist. Works great for less than 1/4 the cost of a Warthog that doesn’t twist.
Bought a CH Pro throttle. One of the best I saw.
Bought a Logitech 3D Pro Extreme stick. Plenty of buttons and options, good feel to it and twist. Works great for less than 1/4 the cost of a Warthog that doesn’t twist.
It's not the best out there, but it's perfectly useable. The main issue is the detent in the throttle. It has a habit of getting loose and causing no end of difficulty. I don't know if that's changed with Logitech's regime, but if not, it's easier to simply remove it than to suffer.
I can recommend the x-52 aswell. Undestroyable, loads of modes, good software for setup. The only downside was that it was amazing loud when i was moving the stick. Right now i bought a TM 1600 after 10 yrs+. Its still working, but i took the chance of a discount on black friday sale.
The TM is good aswell, the time will tell if its compareable qualitywise...
The TM is good aswell, the time will tell if its compareable qualitywise...
I have tried out the Thrustmaster T.16000M and felt I was always battling with the stick and found it hard to get a clean X/Y axis.
I've owned a x52 for the past three years, gotten lots of time on it in ED. It's still working, but a couple of the buttons on the base of the throttle have stopped working, and the stick tends to drift slightly one directions when my hand is resting on it. It also seems to randomly get stuck sometimes, thrusters locked in down, or rolling left when the stick is in neutral. It's quickly fixed by unplugging the cord and putting back in, but slightly annoying. Still, it's been a great experience and has been the first HOTAS I've owned, I'd still recommend it despite it's flaws. QC should be better now that Logitech is producing them too.
On a side note, I'm looking to upgrade to a new HOTAS, been looking at the Warthog but it seems to have mixed reviews. Some people love it, others not so much. The Virpil/VKB seem too scarce and without much support, but I'm not sure what else would be considered an 'upgrade' at this point. I think I would like the stiffness of the Warthog stick more, I'm slightly annoyed with how loose the x52 stick is and I think I could be more precise with a tighter stick.
Anybody have any other recommendations or experiences?
On a side note, I'm looking to upgrade to a new HOTAS, been looking at the Warthog but it seems to have mixed reviews. Some people love it, others not so much. The Virpil/VKB seem too scarce and without much support, but I'm not sure what else would be considered an 'upgrade' at this point. I think I would like the stiffness of the Warthog stick more, I'm slightly annoyed with how loose the x52 stick is and I think I could be more precise with a tighter stick.
Anybody have any other recommendations or experiences?
You could look into the CH stuff.
TARGET is your friend - the stick has amazing resolution, especially for its price bracket, so you should set a joystick curve for the X, Y and Z axes in TARGET. Like all other sticks in the price range, it will feel very twitchy otherwise. Be warned that this will basically require you to rebind everything. That's not a problem with the joystick though; it's basically how E:D's control scheme works. If it can't find a device, it freaks out and loads default.
Aside from a T.16000M, you could try using a few cable binds to increase the tension on the x52 spring.
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These things are subjective insofar as if somebody doesn't know what to expect, they won't know what's "good" and what isn't.
The X52 is a decent enough joystick but these are both perfectly valid criticisms.
The Saitek spring-system is especially prone to stiction - more than pretty-much any other joystick on the market.
You see people doing all sorts of wacky things to "fix" Saitek joysticks - cable ties on the spring to reduce the spring pressure, greasing the spring-plate etc - but the actual problem can't be solved because it's the result of loose-fitting parts.
If the Saitek stick-shaft and spring-plate were a perfect slip-fit it could resolve the problem.
The only trouble is, it's difficult to make things a perfect fit so they make them a loose fit instead.
And then the spring-plate can twist slightly, you get tiny points of contact between the shaft and spring-plate and that causes stiction.
The good news is, it's really, really simple to alleviate this problem.
All you need to do is get a small "eye dropper" bottle, fill it with some kind of light oil (olive oil works well), poke it through the spring and squeeze a single drop of oil onto the shaft so it runs down inside the spring-plate.
Do that whenever your Saitek joystick starts to get "sticky" and it'll transform the feel of the joystick.
DON'T over-do it, though, or you'll end up with a puddle of gloopy oil inside your joystick.
*EDIT*
Sketch added for clarity.
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