Binding a VKB Gladiator NXT to ED

[Riverside]

I was thinking one could purchase a Mk.III grip at lower cost for parts. It would not connect to the NXT base but all the other parts are there. Still two NXTs at $300.00 would be cheaper and might outlast ED! Add in the NXT base supports multiple grips. Decisions, decisions.

A MkIII Grip?

The Gunfighter MkIII is the base, the picture you showed has a space grip installed & maybe VKB sells them as a combined starter pack in the US or something but you can buy the grips separately anyway

VKB do the Gunfighter series (metal bases for flight sim cockpits), and the Gladiator series (good quality but mostly plastic complete controllers). Each has evolved over time & the Gladiator series recently became available to buy with the space sim grip already installed. AFAIK you can't buy a Gladiator base without a grip.

Mine is a Gladiator MkII, which I converted with an optional accessory pack to accept Rev.B socket grips. I have a Premium Space Sim grip fitted, I could fit any other Rev.B grip too. I believe the NXT base uses the same gimbal I fitted to mine, you should be able to swap grips on an NXT too I believe (I've not seen one IRL to check).


ETA Sorry for the rant I should answer the question you asked about spares. Yes you can buy a grip for spares, but VKB have a forum & pretty good support dept for spares & replacement parts. You'll need to specify the NXT, or the kosmosima grip and not a MkIII anything (or Gunfighter) to avoid confusion.

 

[Lyvan Kitaen]

I remember reading that VKB will offer other grip options for the NXT in the future. Too bad you can't just buy one of their other grips and mount it on the base, but the way the grip mounts is slightly different than their premium bases.

 

[Dahill]

First impressions it nails roll, pitch and yaw precision that the X-56 series currently charging players $450.00 cannot even get close to its accuracy. Now I'm figuring how to setup all these new hats. It's weird having zero dead zones on roll, pitch and yaw. Let go of the stick, it centers and the ship flies straight ahead.

I am literally running the same setup right now and cannot wait to see how the TECs throttle works out when it debuts.

 

[Hooplah]

...ETA Sorry for the rant I should answer the question you asked about spares. Yes you can buy a grip for spares, but VKB have a forum & pretty good support dept for spares & replacement parts. You'll need to specify the NXT, or the kosmosima grip and not a MkIII anything (or Gunfighter) to avoid confusion.

Thanks for the info should I ever need to order an NXT grip. By then they might have another toy to buy. VKB seems to have it together. No problem ranting and my post saying the NXT could have multiple grips was wrong because of a typo I didn't catch before posting. The Mk.III has this not the NXT. I've since updated the post. Don't get old missing the details!

 

[Hooplah]

I am literally running the same setup right now and cannot wait to see how the TECs throttle works out when it debuts.

I've seen the VKB awesome post in 2017 but I'n not sure that they are doing anything about it.

 

[Lyvan Kitaen]

TECS update:

VKB TECS: MODULARITY FULL AHEAD - VKB-SIM

forum.vkb-sim.pro

 

[Hooplah]

Using the VKBDevCfg-C.exe app I figured out how to change the light blue light at the top of the NXT grip to a soft green matching my keyboard, mouse, throttle, a mike in mute mode and an old Logitech G-13 programmed for ED camera abilities. The blue light next to the F1 button 27 doesn't like me but oh well.

Why green? It's a Thargoid thing from Frontier: First Encounters (c1995) where they seem to like green a lot. Maybe if I go green someday they will like me.

 

[Hooplah]

OK, issues with the C1 4-way hat with push button. I setup the hat for thrusters and the button for secondary fire. If I fire without moving the thrusters great. If I move the thrusters in intense combat then the weapons won't fire. Frustrating using rail guns needing a charge before firing. I did the same setup with the X-56 grey and it fired not caring about the thrusters. So I'm playing with the four trigger options and figure out something else with the C1 button. In the SRV it is the brake important at Guardian sites dealing with Sentinels.

 

[Riverside]

OK, issues with the C1 4-way hat with push button. I setup the hat for thrusters and the button for secondary fire. If I fire without moving the thrusters great. If I move the thrusters in intense combat then the weapons won't fire. Frustrating using rail guns needing a charge before firing. I did the same setup with the X-56 grey and it fired not caring about the thrusters. So I'm playing with the four trigger options and figure out something else with the C1 button. In the SRV it is the brake important at Guardian sites dealing with Sentinels.

The hats are only 4-way too, not 8-way so not ideal for thrusters, and I find it difficult to reliably hit the C1 hat's down-press & I have replaced it with the button instead.

I use the A3 hat for digital thrusters with depress as boost, and the analogue hat on my TWCS throttle mapped to analogue thrusters (also with depress for boost). It means I have those high priority actions available for either hand depending on what else I am doing at the time.

I use both D1 (pinkie button) and A2 (the red thumb button) for secondary fire, in practice I almost always use the pinkie button unless my finger is getting tired because squeezing it has less of an effect on fine aim control. Most of the rest of the stuff on top of the stick is target & firegroup selection.

 

[Dilligaf666]

I have just ordered 1 of these I have an X52 pro and its been great however teh ps/2 din connectors are starting to paly up so i plan to keep teh X52 throttle and replace teh stick.
Hoping to keep most of teh bindings similar to my current setup where possible to help remember where everything is...

 

[CMDR Harada]

Congrats on the VKB. You'll be very happy with the purchase.

Getting all the options and mappings down is a never ending battle.. after every engagement you think " What could have gone better, maybe if I swapped button 3 for 5, or hat 1 for 3, then.. " . Then springs.. Maybe you re-grease the 'twist".. And then you fight muscle memory. Next you start looking at the software, and response curves, and macros.. In VR it gets worse. It's a sickness, really. You're never done or happy. Eventually you reach a stage where it's been maximized to a point that it's diminishing returns for time invested and you reluctantly let it go. And then it gets funny, as you let someone demo your rig, and they can't fly worth a darn without a 15 minute briefing of the mappings and settings.

VKB Gladiator Mk II, with Kosmosima grip here.. Mine has a bunch of extra buttons on the base, and a mode switch option for up to 70+ buttons. Love this thing, even two years later. Sadly, after two years of use one of the hat buttons snapped off ( Thruster hat ! ) in combat two weeks ago. The great news is they can be fixed ( really are meant to be 'field serviced' ). Just waiting on parts. Try that with a T16k or Logitech.

I use the A1 hat for menus ( push for the tab ), the A3 for thrusters ( push reverse ), and A4 for PIPs. The main trigger and secondary for weapons, Side button ( near main trigger ) for SCBs, side thumb button for boost, and pinkie for FSD. Throttle, targeting, landing gear, and other functions are on the base and I use my other hand for. Works out very well for me.

I would love to get the Gunfighter and the new throttle. But I'd have a hard time justifying $800 in new toys to myself.

 

[here_it_comes]

NXT is hands down the best option if you want dual twist

OK, issues with the C1 4-way hat with push button.

The thumb hat is the worst part of the NXT. Terrible quality. Did your sticks come with any twist stiction or has that been corrected? Mine needed to be greased.

The minjoysticks work great for vertical thruster on landing alternates if you give it a curve to make it sensitive and low powered. Perfect for super soft and smooth landings.

 

[Dahill]

NXT is hands down the best option if you want dual twist



The thumb hat is the worst part of the NXT. Terrible quality. Did your sticks come with any twist stiction or has that been corrected? Mine needed to be greased.

The minjoysticks work great for vertical thruster on landing alternates if you give it a curve to make it sensitive and low powered. Perfect for super soft and smooth landings.

I am trying to figure out how to set this up on mine.

 

[CMDR Harada]

I am trying to figure out how to set this up on mine.

Th software package is.... either very powerful or a flaming pile of dog-poo, depending. I think it's both.

If you put the time in to learn how to use it, it will no doubt allow you to do amazing things. It can give you multiple profiles for any game you wish with custom response curves, button mappings, and even macros. Just incredible. I have buttons mapped to the keyboard defaults so I never have to worry about my bindings getting nuked as one example. My PIPs management are macros ( EI : right on the hat is down-arrow, right arrow, right arrow for full WEP with one press ). Mode switching is even more configurable, allowing you to swap button mappings between two configs in game. Oh, and you can change the color of the handle LED..

It is also obscure, arcane, and frustrating. Learning how to use it takes time. Keeping a library of configs for different games takes a while to wrap your head around ( flashing the joystick config before firing up Elite, or NMS, or .. you get the pic ). Having all those options, KNOWING you can adjust them all, leads to madness. You can have the joystick of your dreams, set up exactly the way you want, for each game you play. You start tinkering, adjusting.. and then you realize you're spending more time on the joystick setup than playing your games. The allure is impossible to resist ( for me at any rate ).

 

[Dilligaf666]

thanks for the replies - i fly in VR a lot as well so i am going to try and keep things close the the way I have it on the X52 initially

 

[Cooter]

It's all pretty subjective, so one size really doesn't fit all. For what it's worth these are my bindings for two Gladiators; I think I made just one change on the right when I dropped my throttle for a left-hand stick. *

​

Odyssey is likely to make the whole thing unreadable.

I haven't found any use for the encoder wheels. I'm pretty sure you can alter their function to a button press with the VKB software (or you can if you can understand that thing) but I really have everything I want already, so I haven't tried very hard.


Edit:
* I remember now that it was more complicated than that. I used to have some targeting functions on throttle hats, and something speed related on the right. The many buttons on the left hand stick made it possible to get all targeting on the right, and all speed on the left.

I have a question about the image. Does the circle above represent the push function of the hat? if that is the case, how do you make sure that you stay in 4 way mode when the click is made? It looks to me like all of the functions are mapped to the 4-way mode, so I am trying to understand how to keep from switching to analog stick mode.

 

[Fnord Velkor]

I have a question about the image. Does the circle above represent the push function of the hat? if that is the case, how do you make sure that you stay in 4 way mode when the click is made? It looks to me like all of the functions are mapped to the 4-way mode, so I am trying to understand how to keep from switching to analog stick mode.

View attachment 360884

A red LED above the button (next to the main blue one) is illuminated when in mini-stick.

 

[Cooter]

A red LED above the button (next to the main blue one) is illuminated when in mini-stick.

So does that mean that in that configuration, you would have to double click to use "DSS Back" and then get back to the 4-way mode so you could continue using everything else? just trying to figure out/understand why you would bind it like that.

 

[Fnord Velkor]

So does that mean that in that configuration, you would have to double click to use "DSS Back" and then get back to the 4-way mode so you could continue using everything else? just trying to figure out/understand why you would bind it like that.

Don't ask me, I would never assign anything to that button depress. I treat it purely as a mode-switch both on the rh stick and lh omni-throttle. (POV/stick RX-RY toggle)

Since @Retropolitan seems not to have been on here since 2021 I suspect you won't hear back from them. (Their absence is why I answered your post.)

 

[Riverside]

It is possible to reconfigure what the centre push does with the VKBDevCfg software, it's not something I've done though.

The non-premium space grip has a regular 4+1 hat there (A1) and a single button instead of a hat under your thumb (C1). The Premium grip comes with spare parts to convert it partly or entirely into the non-premium version.