Looking for New HOTAS advice
- Thread starter michalfoc
- Start date
Using the yaw as you do Malcolm is it good for tiny increments. Reason I ask is that in normal space travel/flight I very seldom use yaw. I really only need it for fine tuning on entering the letterbox type stations in the correct channel. Setting the course from the star to destination is not really a priority so if your way works like I need I think I will go for that and buy the CH fighter stick when it becomes available again. Any opinions on the two other CH sticks in relation to ED?. They are both available as is the throttle but it will be the end of August before the fighter stick is.
I have never used the combat stick - in E D I think the more buttons available the better - the Combatstick replaces two 4-way hats with buttons.
I bought a second Fighterstick some time ago, from amazon.co.uk but it was sourced from the USA - it arrived very quickly, within the two weeks listed, so if you don't want to wait for the stock coming in elsewhere that is an option (£131 approx incl. taxes).
So you have to decide if you want the two hats and are prepared to pay an extra £30 with a two week wait.
Good luck
(P.S. Don't even consider the Flight Stick Pro as it has minimal buttons.)
Sorry I forgot to address that - yes, the Yaw to Roll is a gentle, slow yaw - that is why I use the thumb-HAT fore and aft for stepped yaw inputs - much quicker movement, not needed often.
When docking though you need the x-axis to roll so as to match the station rotation and then, if I need to, a quick blip on the HAT can correct any heading error whilst still rolling the ship - so it is not so big a step to be uncontrollable.
P.S. It sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is, it was very easy to get used to.
I've had my x52 for years without issue (one button cleaning). Only yesteday did it start having a power issue in the stick. By year, I mean nearly 10.
Virpil makes some good stuff but very expensive. No seller in the US either, but that might not be a problem for you.
Virpil makes some good stuff but very expensive. No seller in the US either, but that might not be a problem for you.
Holy crap - 21 percent VAT in Europe?!
Ouch!
As a filthy American Southerner ...
... wonder how I'd get one of those things shipped here to good ole Chattanooga?
VKB sells in the US. I went with the Gunfighter III and the metal gimbal, I got tired of replacing cheap sticks. Most of the Logitech and Thrustmaster stuff out there is just plastic garbage with shoddy wiring.
I'm pretty impressed with the ability to adjust and fine tune the feel of the VKB stick, and even a mechanical dummy like me can change the cams and springs out of the steel gimbal. Space cams and lighter springs made the experience much better. The steel springs will eventually wear out with time, and that's okay. They give you a whole bag full of spares, fix it when it starts feeling off.
The VKB is solid built, the triggers and switches feel like they're made to keep going. If they don't, the stick comes with spare parts to replace this stuff years down the line. It's a precision instrument, there is no drift, no input slop, and no ghosting inputs. And VKB has TWIST axis. We are playing a space combat game that requires fine yaw control, and I can't do that with my huge size 13 (47 EU) feet.
I liked the X56 but there was a millimeter or two of no-spring slop around the center detente. So you have to set a dead zone there and it makes things like the interdiction game miserable. The X56 switches would occasionally "miss" input. The T16K sticks were just trash quality, where the sensors/wiring would go bad and start to drift on some axis after a month or two of use.
I'm pretty impressed with the ability to adjust and fine tune the feel of the VKB stick, and even a mechanical dummy like me can change the cams and springs out of the steel gimbal. Space cams and lighter springs made the experience much better. The steel springs will eventually wear out with time, and that's okay. They give you a whole bag full of spares, fix it when it starts feeling off.
The VKB is solid built, the triggers and switches feel like they're made to keep going. If they don't, the stick comes with spare parts to replace this stuff years down the line. It's a precision instrument, there is no drift, no input slop, and no ghosting inputs. And VKB has TWIST axis. We are playing a space combat game that requires fine yaw control, and I can't do that with my huge size 13 (47 EU) feet.
I liked the X56 but there was a millimeter or two of no-spring slop around the center detente. So you have to set a dead zone there and it makes things like the interdiction game miserable. The X56 switches would occasionally "miss" input. The T16K sticks were just trash quality, where the sensors/wiring would go bad and start to drift on some axis after a month or two of use.
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Just go to the VKB North America site.
VKB North America
We sell VKB Flight & Space Simulation Controllers for customers in the United States and Canada.
vkbcontrollers.com
Shipping isn't fast since it's from overseas, but it's worth the wait.
Only in some countries. Germany got 19% usually, 16% right now (as Corona stimulus).
Ök, this is getting dangerously close to political, wich will get at least this post deleted: it's the price we pay for healt care, schools, universities and decent police training.
You were doing fine until that bit.
That sounds great to me. They've been out of stock for ages and I put an order in on the UK Logitech website over a week ago and have heard nothing since. The website is #### with very little info on your order and no way to contact an actual human. I'm an angry customer so I just wanted to give that website some negative rep. Job done.
EDIT After almost three weeks with no information or way to contact the sellers I've received the dispatch notification and tracking info.
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Congrats on the virpil, I hear they're solid.
Amazon was not bad from initial 4 weeks it melted down to just over 2 weeks from pre order to delivery.
Just an update after the last weekend: i above wrote that my Logitech built X-56 was problem free for a long time. Now i can tell for how long: three years and four months. Which indeed was way longer than any of the Saitek build X-55/X-56 lasted, yet i find it short for a product of this price.
The last weekend the pinky button was not responding any more. I opened up the grip, one of the cables broke where it was soldered to the switch. Luckily the cable was long enough that i was able to simply strip a few milliimeters of isolation and do new soldering, so my stick is fine again.
Nevertheless, the first cable broke now, so i kind of expect more trouble to come. This new development puts my above statement of "no problems since years now" into perspective.
(On the positive, as i had the grip open already, i also cleaned up the upper buttons, so the "sugar glue" from an accident with a soda bottle a year or so ago now also is completely gone. But that problem was created by an outside source and thus not the sticks fault. Broken cables and soldering is. )
The last weekend the pinky button was not responding any more. I opened up the grip, one of the cables broke where it was soldered to the switch. Luckily the cable was long enough that i was able to simply strip a few milliimeters of isolation and do new soldering, so my stick is fine again.
Nevertheless, the first cable broke now, so i kind of expect more trouble to come. This new development puts my above statement of "no problems since years now" into perspective.
(On the positive, as i had the grip open already, i also cleaned up the upper buttons, so the "sugar glue" from an accident with a soda bottle a year or so ago now also is completely gone. But that problem was created by an outside source and thus not the sticks fault. Broken cables and soldering is. )
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If you're lucky... 23% here in Portugal. We can barely stick our heads outside the window without being robbed by the government.
Thats about 3x longer than my T1600 lasted without issues, rudder axis became problematic just after a year of use.
The rudder axis became problematic after a year? Does the thing not use hall effect sensors?
Means, that's the one thing i never had a problem with on the X-56: the different axes. Hall effect sensors last forever, modern switches also last for a long time. According to many reports and actually my personal experience, it's most often the wires breaking on the X-56, along with some other mechanical breakdown once a while.
(Like one of my X-56 got replaced as the centering spring of the twist axis broke. On the positive, that one i didn't have to send back, support at that time just asked me to send a picture of my device with the cables cut off and that i would dispose if it myself. Which means, i now have a supply of spare parts.
)Edit: anyway, i am astonished. I don't know if your problem is frequent for the T1600. But just one year on an axis is either bad luck or very low quality.
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