HOTAS Mapping Support

[Dale Franks]

Previously, there TM T.Fliught was the only XB HOTAS available. Now there are new options, such as the Honeycomb and Thrustmaster flight yokes. I just got a Thrustmaster TCA yoke pack. It's great, but the in-game controller mapping doesn't recognize most of the buttons. I know this isn't an issue with the flight yoke itself, because it works right out of the box with MS Flight Simulator. All the buttons are mappable in that game.

But the button mappings in Elite are very restrictive, and only seem to recognize a limited number of buttons. For example, it only recognizes one of the three different throttle controllers. Most of the other buttons on the thrust module simply don't work at all. The landing gear switch and other switches on the Yoke aren't recognized. One of the hat buttons can only use the horizontal, but NOT vertical axes on the hat. So I have this great HOTAS with 35 different mappable buttons, and Elite recognizes...9 of them, plus the pitch and yaw.

Is there any possibility of improving the controller mapping on consoles so we aren't limited to the analogs that exist on the standard controller? It appears that the PC version can use high-end HOTAS mappings. Be nice to extend that to consoles, so that 2/3 of my "mappable" controls aren't useless. Especially considering there are multiple high-end options now, as well as another one coming out in June or so.

 

[GraphiteGB]

Don't count on it....
Honeycombe units are Series s/x games only and the game is NOT series s/x native so wont have series s/x controllers built in....
None of the Flight sticks are Even focused on Ellite dangerous... just like with hori hotas version was not and it never got a keymap..

If the stick just emulates the legacy/pad controller then they wont add it, just like the hori hotas was never added as you say you will just have to remap manualy once...
Even the hotas one was not released for elite dangerous but was an Ace combat promo controller thats a true Hotas with native PC windows support as a hotas, legacy/pad controller mode is pad emulation only not native hotas mode...

True hotas mode support is unlikely to come as they ignored other hotas use allready...
You were just lucky Thrust master put in legacy/pad mode as they know many titles will not go native mode at all ( BF COD and more ) just like many driving games have zero usage of their advanced steering wheels...

 

[BulletTrev]

Oh the memories..

 

[Deleted member 254248]

Playing Elite with a yoke??? I just threw up in my mouth a little.

This also isn't just an Elite issue, it's a Microsoft issue. The reason we don't have full support for any HOTAS like the PC is because of the Xbox hardware APIs. Microsoft has to certify everything, both software and hardware based that connects to their boxes, and they're not going spend the time to do that for the hundreds of HOTAS types, brands and combinations out there. They're going to do what they've always done, and that's certify a game to use a controller type and that's it. Also, guess who pays Microsoft to do the certification process for each different controller on a game? That's right, the game developer does, so don't expect FDev to shell out money to have Microsoft certify different HOTAS to work with consoles.

It's easy to see why there are so many controllers that work with Flight Simulator, when it's Microsoft certifying controllers for their own game. Also steering wheels, etc. for Forza are plentiful. That's because that game is developed by Playground Games, which is owned by Microsoft. Same thing.