Basic questions about HOTAS controls

DjVortex

DjVortex
I just got a silly idea: Could the game be playable with the stick alone? A "HOS" setup, I suppose.

If I count correctly, there are 23 buttons available, plus a thumbstick, plus three levers. The middle lever looks like it's designed to be used as a throttle, so if it can be mapped to the throttle control (I don't know if it can, I have yet to try it), it could be used with the left hand for throttle control (plus, of course, the left hand can use the three buttons on the base of the stick, as well as the other levers, if they have some use). If any functionality cannot be fitted into the 23 buttons, well, the rest can be mapped on the keyboard.

I suppose the primary hurdle for this is whether that middle lever on the base can be mapped to act as a throttle. I need to try it. (Sure, it's not as good as an actual throttle controller, but hey, beggers can't be choosers.)
 

Zieman

Zieman
DjVortex said:
I suppose the primary hurdle for this is whether that middle lever on the base can be mapped to act as a throttle. I need to try it. (Sure, it's not as good as an actual throttle controller, but hey, beggers can't be choosers.)
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It's an axis, so yes it can be mapped as throttle.
 

Helmut Grokenberger

Helmut Grokenberger
You can use that lever as a throttle, it is an analog axis. If using only one stick, the best strategy is probably to dedicate one button as a shift button. Elite allows to use button combinations, so using a shift key doubles your available buttons.
 

DjVortex

DjVortex
Helmut Grokenberger said:
You can use that lever as a throttle, it is an analog axis. If using only one stick, the best strategy is probably to dedicate one button as a shift button. Elite allows to use button combinations, so using a shift key doubles your available buttons.
Click to expand...
Yeah, as a long-time controller user I'm very accustomed to button combos. (Perhaps a bit too accustomed. It will take me a long time getting used to a completely new and different form of controls...)

I suppose one of the buttons on the base could be such a modifier key. If not all three of them.
 

Shurimal

Shurimal
Crank Larson said:
Or one can actually try a device rather than theorycraft from afar and build up opinions based on little other than hearsay and hyperbole.
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Not "theorycrafting"; not "hearsay", not "hyperbola". Making informed buying decisions based on the experience of sim gear enthusiasts who have tried the product under question and my own experience with different joysticks. Single spring ball-and-cup gimbals like on the turtle beach, logitech and thrustmaster stuff are bad and it doesn't matter what sensors you put in there or who makes them or how expensive they are (Warthog is a total joke in 2024!), you will not get good precision out of it. Pincher gimbals as used in Gladiator are far more precise and have good axis separation, though cam-based gimbals are even better and allow custom resistance curves. Ball bearings as used in Gladiator eliminate stiction, reduce mechanical play and last a lifetime. These are facts of how mechanical components in a joystick work; no marketing or hype can change that.

And don't think I'm trashing on turtle beach specifically. I'm trashing equally on thrustmaster and logitech, too, because whether we're talking about flight gear or simracing gear, these companies make toys that are mediocre at best (TM pendular rudder pedals are an exceptions, these are good, but you can get as good pedals for less money from eg MFG) and experienced simmers will always, without exception, guide you towards VKB, Virpil, Slaw, Winwing, MFG, Fanatech etc if you want quality gear that'll last you a lifetime.
 

Lhorndra

Lhorndra
DjVortex said:
I suppose one of the buttons on the base could be such a modifier key. If not all three of them.
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Yep, I had a modifier button in my previous Thrustmaster setup. Worked very well. Additionally, you could also program your Gladiator with the VKBDevCfg software. It has an insane amount of options, which is both its advantage and disadvantage. For example, clicking, double-clicking and long-pressing the same physical button could be mapped to totally different logical button numbers, should you need more buttons.
 

DjVortex

DjVortex
There's a small problem. The game doesn't recognize the thumbstick on the joystick as an analog stick, only as a digital hat switch. This makes controlling lateral thrusters less than convenient.
 

DjVortex

DjVortex
Helmut Grokenberger said:
Which version of the stick do you have? Only the premium does come with the thumb stick, the standard comes with a POV. If it is the premium, the center click of the stick toggles between pov and analog mode.
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It's the premium. I had no idea of such a functionality. I'll have to try it.
 

Shurimal

Shurimal
I think that the small red LED on the grip also indicates whether the ministick is in analog mode (LED on) or hat mode (LED off).

Why I'm not 100% sure about it is because I have tinkered with the configurator software of my Gladiator K so much that the the stick barely behaves like out-of-factory anymore🤪 Remapped all the logical buttons and managed to fit all of them into the 32-button limit, changed the behaviour of the LED-s, changed the curves on ministick axes, changed the switching between analog and digital mode of the ministick to long press and made the short press a separate button and so on...

On the physical side changed the ministick and hat button covers, painted the embossed labels white, modified the trigger to be less "pingy" with some foam, applied textile tape to the contact surfaces of the grip shell parts to reduce some creaks it had, modified the palm rest to be bigger, reworked and regreased the gimbal (Gladiator K has the old, simple gimbal design of Gladiator MKII).

It's, along with my TWCS throttle, fully Grade 5 engineered and experimental effects added🙃
 

DjVortex

DjVortex
Pressing the thumbstick does indeed switch it to an analog mode (that red led indeed indicating which mode it is in). Which, I suppose, means that technically there would be four additional "buttons" on that stick (not usable at the same time as the analog functionality, of course).

I figured that if I use the three buttons on the base as combo buttons with the central hat of the stick, it kind of resembles the configuration of a gamepad, where the three base buttons act like the X, Y and B face buttons of the gamepad, and the central hat acts as a d-pad (after all, it even looks a bit like a d-pad), which somewhat allows transferring muscle memory. (Still need to figure out what to use as "shoulder buttons", but I suppose the secondary index finger trigger can do that work, as it has two buttons to it.)

That being said, moving from having used a game controller for two years (and for a couple of decades with other games before that) to using the joystick feels a bit daunting at first. While in principle the controls resemble those of the game controller, it's still completely different in terms of muscle memory.

There's also the thing that a game controller just acts almost perfectly as a universal controller regardless of where you are in the game. In menus, in the different in-ship panels, in FSS mode, in the system map, in the galaxy map, flying the ship, controlling the external camera, driving the SRV, and even on foot, a game controller (especially a modern one like the Xbox Series X controller) has been polished and perfected to be fluent in any use, even in completely different situations (like navigating UI menus, driving a vehicle, or even walking in first-person perspective). Of course it's not absolutely perfect in every possible situation (most prominently in first-person shooting because of the limited speed and accuracy of aiming), but it's very usable and fluent even in those less-than-perfect modes, especially when one has 20+ years of experience in using a game controller precisely for such forms of control. In other words, the game controller is perfectly suitable and adapts to any part of the game, any mode, any screen, any form of control, seamlessly, easily and effortlessly, and even the default button mappings for the most part are very good for all of those modes (requiring only a few tweaks). I don't need to switch controllers if I eg. fly a ship and then go on foot, or start driving an SRV, or start navigating the game's menus.

The joystick, on the other hand, doesn't feel as universal. It feels significantly more specific and less suitable for some modes. Navigating menus is passable, but a bit awkward. Driving the SRV is less than ideal (a game controller, in contrast, being pretty much designed for such a thing), and it's very unsuitable for on-foot content.

Of course this is just talking from very little experience on actually using the joystick in practice, but still...

(Also, I wish the game supported dual settings for everything, so that I wouldn't have to choose between the joystick or the game controller in the control settings. It does support this for most if not all button presses, but it doesn't seem to support this for analog sticks and triggers. For some reason only one setting is provided for these. This means I can't just change between the joystick and the game controller if I wanted to, as it would require going through the analog stick settings and change them.)
 

DjVortex

DjVortex
The one advantage that the joystick (or at least this joystick) does have over a game controller is that it allows controlling all six axes of freedom simultaneously and in analog mode. The stick itself offers three axes of freedom for rotating the ship (pitch, roll and yaw), the analog thumbstick offers two axes of freedom (for horizontal and vertical thrusters), and the middle lever in the base offers the sixth one (for throttle).

The game controller can only offer four axes of freedom simultaneously in an analog manner: The two thumbsticks. This necessitates a compromise. With the default mappings you have pitch&roll on the left stick and yaw on the right stick. The right stick also (by default) offers vertical thruster control. In default mode horizontal thrusters are not mapped to anything. You can switch to "alternate flight controls" which give you vertical and horizontal thrusters on the right stick, but then you lose yaw. (Of course custom bindings would allow any combination of these, but never all six at the same time. At least not in an analog mode.) Throttle control being digital rather than analog (by default mapped to the shoulder buttons) isn't really all that crucial, but being unable to control all of the other five axes of freedom can be a bit limiting sometimes.

(Well, technically the game controller does offer a fifth analog control: The triggers. However, I have not found a fluent way to use them for controlling one of the axes of freedom, eg. lateral thrusters, that would work well.)
 

Shurimal

Shurimal
Any change in control scheme is going to need adjustment time for new muscle memory to set in—I still remember transitioning from twist stick to rudder pedals; I was really crap at dogfights for a few weeks🙂

As for SRV, I find joystick Y axis for gas/braking/reverse and X axis for steering very natural. I also tried mapping gas and brake to the toe brake axis of my rudder pedals similar to real world cars, but that didn't feel good—probably because the two pedals are so far apart that right foot on gas and left foot on brake are the only practical way to drive and brake pedal also puts the SRV to reverse. But I occasionally have to operate self-propelled scissor lifts/cherry pickers for work and these use similar Y axis for moving/braking and X axis for steering control scheme for driving, so might be why this feels more natural to me. Only thing I find kind of awkward is driving in turret view (ministick for turret aiming is not very accurate), but I don't do that so often and decided to simply not drive in turret mode—I just try to go "hull down", engage the hand brake and concentrate on shooting, then switch back to driving mode if I need to change position.

For menus I use one hat as the directional pad, press for confirming; another hat for switching between menu tabs and pages, press to go back.
 

Lhorndra

Lhorndra
DjVortex said:
The one advantage that the joystick (or at least this joystick) does have over a game controller is that it allows controlling all six axes of freedom simultaneously and in analog mode. The stick itself offers three axes of freedom for rotating the ship (pitch, roll and yaw), the analog thumbstick offers two axes of freedom (for horizontal and vertical thrusters), and the middle lever in the base offers the sixth one (for throttle).
Click to expand...
This! As a total rookie, I was sceptical at first ("Why do I need this again?"), but after many hours flying and starting to learn to fly FA off, I'm like "I do really need this!"
 

DjVortex

DjVortex
DjVortex said:
Also, I wish the game supported dual settings for everything, so that I wouldn't have to choose between the joystick or the game controller in the control settings. It does support this for most if not all button presses, but it doesn't seem to support this for analog sticks and triggers. For some reason only one setting is provided for these. This means I can't just change between the joystick and the game controller if I wanted to, as it would require going through the analog stick settings and change them.
Click to expand...
I suppose the next best thing to this is to create custom .binds files for the controller and for the joystick, as described in the "lost your bindings?" pinned thread in the PC sub-forum. While I can't just switch between the joystick and the controller on the fly, instead requiring me to go to the options menu to switch which bindings ought to be used, at least both settings can be preserved rather than having either one but not both.
 

Zieman

Zieman
DjVortex said:
I suppose the next best thing to this is to create custom .binds files for the controller and for the joystick, as described in the "lost your bindings?" pinned thread in the PC sub-forum. While I can't just switch between the joystick and the controller on the fly, instead requiring me to go to the options menu to switch which bindings ought to be used, at least both settings can be preserved rather than having either one but not both.
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Why not have both plugged in, and bind each section to your liking?
 

DjVortex

DjVortex
Zieman said:
Why not have both plugged in, and bind each section to your liking?
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Because, as mentioned, while button bindings seem to have two options for each, the analog control options appear to only have one option. So eg. for pitch control it's either the controller's left thumbstick, or the joystick, but not both at the same time.
 
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