Does ED supports "switches"?

WeirdCulture

WeirdCulture
Hello Alpha and Beta Commanders,

First a "Hello" to all. :)

I am following the development and this forums allready for a while, but I didn't granted me the access to the Beta systems yet (I think I will join you the next days).

I have some FlightSim hardware here like the Saitek Switch Panel:
shot2.jpg


and the VRinsight Switch panel:
41KRO07qgPL._SY355_.jpg


Now my question, is ED possible to configure for "switches"?
I mean, the second one is a panel which just handle like 32 Joystick buttons, so when a switch is set to "on" the Button stays pressed. Could this be a problem?

Cheers
WeirdCulture
 

alexios

alexios
WeirdCulture said:
Now my question, is ED possible to configure for "switches"?
I mean, the second one is a panel which just handle like 32 Joystick buttons, so when a switch is set to "on" the Button stays pressed. Could this be a problem
Click to expand...

Some of the controls have ‘hold’ toggles, which supposedly do just this. I think this is currently only available for toggle-type controls (landing gear, scoop, maybe lights), but there's a call to add the feature to more controls. But it looks like you have more switches than you can use with ED. :)

It's also possible to use something like VJoy or another similar tool (or even the software that came with your switch modules) to generate appropriate events.
 

Gamma

G
In the Elite settings you can change some settings from "Toggle" to "Hold" which is what you want. Unfortunately it doesn't work with everything. For instance, cargo scoop can be set to hold while gear up/down can't, nor lights on/off.

I'm rocking a warthog thruster, so I am in a similar situation to yours, so hopefully they will improve the configuration options in further builds. It's ofcourse possible to work around this with custom scripts like autohotkey for instance, but that is far from ideal.

edit: Beaten by Alexios
 

Cabe

C
Some of them at least are "Hold/Toggle" selectable.

See - http://imgur.com/mMusZ4F for the Beta-1 control set.

As long as they appear as joysticks in Windows, simply select "custom" from the input screen and config away!

I would love more Toggle options, Landing Gear and Deploying Hardpoints spring to mind, but that's only because I want to build a cockpit. Everyone knows more buttons = better :D
 

CATPAIN KIRK

CATPAIN KIRK
WeirdCulture said:
Now my question, is ED possible to configure for "switches"?
I mean, the second one is a panel which just handle like 32 Joystick buttons, so when a switch is set to "on" the Button stays pressed. Could this be a problem?

Cheers
WeirdCulture
Click to expand...

It is for some functions as long as there's a hold option in the controls setup - and some can be utilized by using workarounds employing the controlers configuration utility.

I just wished there were more commands with optional hold functionality, like landing gear controls for instance.
 

Thunderchief

Thunderchief
Rather than "hold" I would much prefer separate On and Off bindings. The problem with "hold" is that if your switch is not in the right position upon resuming a session, then you could get unintended problems, like the gear retracting immediately on launch which could cause damage.

On/Off states please FD, pretty please! :)

I want to use all the toggles at my disposal! :D
 

Bourrinopathe

Bourrinopathe
On and Off bindings would be very helpful, for anyone (not only for the HOTAS users).
Push the key/button and you're sure your lights/gear/… are on/retracted/deployed/…
 

Cabe

C
The "On-Off" binding would work well with momentary On-Off-On Toggles, or simply a pair of buttons. I would also love to get a "systems state" out the game, so that you can use indicator panels Gear Down? Red Light, Gear Up? Green Light! for example.

Other software has had to do clever things like directly reading memory states, because the developer hasn't provided an API for it.
 

CATPAIN KIRK

CATPAIN KIRK
Thunderchief said:
Rather than "hold" I would much prefer separate On and Off bindings. The problem with "hold" is that if your switch is not in the right position upon resuming a session, then you could get unintended problems, like the gear retracting immediately on launch which could cause damage.

On/Off states please FD, pretty please! :)

I want to use all the toggles at my disposal! :D
Click to expand...

Not sure if I understand what you mean correctly, but what I think you actually want (correct me if I'm wrong) is to flip a switch and then the landing gear is retracted/scooped regardless of the initial position.

If that's what you want, it's actually pretty easy to do - that's what I currently do with the landing gear when I want to map it to a switch on my Warthog:

Assign the keystroke I have bound to toggle landing gear to both positions of a two way switch in TARGET as a pulse and there you go - each time I flip the switch, the landing gear is deployed/ retracted, regardless of the switches position when starting up the game.
 
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Thunderchief

Thunderchief
CATPAIN KIRK said:
Not sure if I understand what you mean correctly, but what I think you actually want (correct me if I'm wrong) is to flip a switch and then the landing gear is retracted/scooped regardless of the initial position.

If that's what you want, it's actually pretty easy to do - that's what I currently do with the landing gear when I want to map it to a switch on my Warthog:

Assign the keystroke I have bound to toggle landing gear to both positions of a two way switch in TARGET as a pulse and there you go - each time I flip the switch, the landing gear is deployed/ retracted, regardless of the switches position when starting up the game.
Click to expand...

This is how I have it set up at the moment, but with this it is possible for the switches to get out of sync, then you have to manually change the state in the menu.

With separate binds for on and off (or up/down, In/out :D ) you don't have to mess about you can just flip the switch again.

Cheers
 

CATPAIN KIRK

CATPAIN KIRK
Thunderchief said:
This is how I have it set up at the moment, but with this it is possible for the switches to get out of sync, then you have to manually change the state in the menu.

With separate binds for on and off (or up/down, In/out :D ) you don't have to mess about you can just flip the switch again.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Got it - thanks - yeah - sounds like a good option to have.
 

Cabe

C
Target really is a pretty great bit of software, but its limited to Thrustmaster kit. Xpadder has some advanced features, so I wonder if that's also worth looking into for people without access to Target.

This is what you need for gear or other "state specific" stuff -
8161713.jpg


Its a momentary toggle, returns to centre on release.
 
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HoshiQaVam

H
Switches are really easy to handle using an Arduino Leonardo.

The Leonardo is detected by Windows as a HID compliant keyboard, so you just code it so that when it detects a switch is pressed, it basically tells windows to press a specific keyboard key.

That makes it painfully easy to map in elite as you're literally just mapping keyboard keys.

I am already in the process of doing precisely this. You can see a prototype example that I added to youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=777xsV39ym8

So switches are easy, as they're either on or off, but you can be a little more clever than that. If you use a resistor tree, you could easily have 5 switches connected to 1 Arduino analogue pin, so you're just reading the voltage on that pin, which will change depending on how many resistors are between the switch and the 5v output.

Rotaries are also fairly easy to handle. You just have to read if the rotary voltage is higher or lower than it's previous setting - you then effectively have two switches out of it, which would be useful for things like radar range. Higher = rader +, lower = rader -.

I believe Elite allows for multi-key bindings as well, so L+G could be bound to landing gear, for example. That means you could code your Arduino to only use multi-key bindings, which means you're still left with all the normal keyboard binds. If you're smart, you could actually use the numpad, such as 00 for landing gear, 01 for ship lights, etc etc.
 
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