PLEASE FD - give us the missing "toggel/hold" or distinct binding options

[lemny]

I searched and found suggestions are around for five years.

Elite is a game many of us playing with more or less complex HOTAS setups.
Why there are still so many important bindings with toggle only?
It's so sad we can't use reliable mappings on our HOTAS setups without hassle with voice attack and/or self written programs to read the log and status files.

I would love to see hold options or distinct bindings for landing gear, lights, night vision and most important the cockpit mode and deploy/retract hardpoints.
The options are already there for cargo hatch, silent running, flight assist and even rotational correction.
It should be so easy to implement for so much benefit. Please FD give us these options.

 

[Darth Wonko]

Can you give me an application for a 'hold' option for landing gear, lights, etc? I'm not sure I get your point. (NOT a criticism; I really just don't understand)

 

[lemny]

Sure,
on a HOTAS you have often many cool switches with stable positions.
And you want these to toggle the light or night vision, the problem is, if there is only a toggle option, the HOTAS don't know if the light is on or not and you can't define such a mechanical on/off switch reliable to the function.
Most important for me are the cockpit mode and the hardpoints.
The VPC Constellation ALPHA for example has a very nice switch in front of the main two-stage-trigger which can be flipped away and the stick cover can be illuminated in different colors. How cool would it be to flip it away for combat mode and illuminate stick in red.
Some Throttles have cool landing gear levers, which also will not work if sometimes the position of the gear is not known.

For all these functions there should be a hold option or a distinct button to map.

 

[Darth Wonko]

Ah.. got it.

First off, you're total b*st*rd for having the VPC Constellation ALPHA. Having said that, I've put in my pre-order and look forward to attaining the status of "VPC Constellation ALPHA-owning b*st*rd" myself.

I do have the VPC MongoosT-CM2 throttle and I have the EXACT same dilemma when it comes to the six LED buttons in the center. I want to set the status on the lights for whether or not certain conditions exist. In my naivete, I believed that would be an option for things light hard points, landing gear, etc.

 

[lemny]

Yep... the CM2 Throttle LEDs could show the status of many hold or distinct bindings too.
And I would love to set my ship in combat mode by some hard switches for cockpit mode and hardpoints.

My Base, ALPHA an CM2 Throttle are arriving by tomorrow with FedEx I got lucky with the timing of new pre order process.
Can't wait since my cheap X55 broke and I played with the XBox Elite Controller for a while.

And with MS Flight Simulator on the horizon... I am more than happy to have a high class HOTAS on my hands.

 

[Darth Wonko]

Man, congratulations on getting that stuff. I tried to get a Constellation Delta, MongoosT-CM2 grip and Constellation ALPHA-R. I got everything in my cart and then the world exploded.

Fortunately, a player in Paris saw my post on the forums and offered to sell me his Delta for 80USD since he got his ALPHA-R during that round.

I have the ACE-2 pedals, the MongoosT-CM2 base, MongoosT-CM2 throttle and now the Constellation Delta grip. I'm a very, very happy camper. The dust covers just shipped and the two remaining grips on on pre-order.

What's super-cool is I've been shopping for desks for my office and it's cheaper to buy an 'ergonomic workstation' than it is to buy a desk. Mine ships on 6/29... and I'm going to expense it.

 

[lemny]

Just tested the Throttle and Alpha... wow... incredible piece of hardware.
And I am impresses by the quality of the two small joysticks on the Alpha an on the Throttle.
They are ideal for looking around and lateral thrust.

 

[Hooplah]

I'm missing the point the OP posted. Toggle only? Others using Voice Attack have figured this out with lots of YouTube videos. It does require some basic computer programming skills. VA works very well for many players. Arriving at at station day 'land" everything is taken care of. Say 'combat' will bring up the weapons and change the pips for max distributor energy to the weapons. Voice Attack is pretty cool used wisely. What am i missing?

 

[dognosh]

I'm missing the point the OP posted. Toggle only? Others using Voice Attack have figured this out with lots of YouTube videos. It does require some basic computer programming skills. VA works very well for many players. Arriving at at station day 'land" everything is taken care of. Say 'combat' will bring up the weapons and change the pips for max distributor energy to the weapons. Voice Attack is pretty cool used wisely. What am i missing?

Some of us don't want VR or VA , for example I use the Stream Deck

 

[lemny]

So... I tested the Thottle and Stick yesterday und it's really a shame for some functions. Noticed that even the Cruise Control of the SRV has the "hold" option.
So please FD, it could not be so hard to make some HOTAS user happy.
And I missed the dedicated bindings for cockpit modes the most. This combines with dedicated bindings for the fire groups would be a dream.

Fortunately Virpil has a function to tackle the problem with older games, which could not read more than 32 buttons per device.
While the Stick has only 31 buttons and 6 axis (32, because I added one for the flipped away trigger state) the Throttle has 71 Buttons and 6 axis, but the Firmware is capable to split it into 3 USB Controllers with 32 or less buttons.

So I need to use Joystick Gremlin only for some additional functions and not for splitting my throttle into 3 logical devices.

The Hardware itself is a dream also. Throttle, Stick and Base are exceptionally well made and all the buttons are smart placed.

 

[BDelacroix]

Just tested the Throttle and Alpha... wow... incredible piece of hardware.
And I am impresses by the quality of the two small joysticks on the Alpha an on the Throttle.
They are ideal for looking around and lateral thrust.

Are they analog sticks? So many of the hats/sticks are digital 8 position only.

 

[Ashnak]

Are they analog sticks? So many of the hats/sticks are digital 8 position only.

Both .

The Delta has one analog thumbstick and three (4+1)-way switches. The Alpha has a few more switches and buttons.

 

[lemny]

Are they analog sticks? So many of the hats/sticks are digital 8 position only.

Booth, the throttle and stick having a XBox One Controller like sticks with click. (same good quality)
And in addition to that, the Stick also have a analog brake lever and the throttle a small slider with a middle dent.
The nice thing with the lever on the stick is that the last 5% (95-100%) having a kind of a soft end position which needs a litte pressure.
And Virpil is going crazy all the way with the metal trigger in front of the already two stage trigger you have a three stage trigger if you want.
I use this for stages: 1: fire group one - 2: (add) fire group two - and 3: Power to weapons
And the well paced mouse wheel is also a two-stage trigger. ;-)

And the base also is very well made:

I am not getting paid to advertise the hardware... I am simply very happy finding a space sim stick in this quality level.

 

[BDelacroix]

Thanks for the info. I too am particular about hotas. My first was the thrustmaster 2000 (gameport plugs anyone?). I modified it to go digital at one point. I didn't replace it until I found the x52. I know people complain about it, but it has been good. I grabbed a g13 for a side button panel because it had an analog stick. The x52 hats are all 8 position digital. One might argue the mouse nub is an analog, but it is in an awkward place to use since the axis changes depending on throttle position.

I'll keep virpl in mind if/when I need a new one.

 

[Zalifer]

Adding my support for this. We are missing what is likely an easy fix here that would make the game's HOTAS support much much better. Can't believe landing gear isn't already like this, and cargo scoop is. Add landing gear, lights, etc.

 

[Malloc.I]

+1 it drives me crazy that i can set cargo hold to toggle or hold but not landing gear. My warhog would be so much better if i could bind the switches correctly.

 

[babelfisch]

Isn't there some profiling software that could do that? I believe there is a software that translates buttons and joysticks to keyboard input, let's say you bind both switch positions to a key, flipping the switch would either retract or deploy landing gear. Obviously the game / software wouldn't know the current position, but this can be solved by doing some 'pre flight checks' manually.

 

[WR3ND]

OK... but let me get some in-game-menu hot zone throw settings for my contemporary gamepad controller's analog sticks with their round ranges of motion so I don't have an effective (as tested) ~19% multi-axes maneuverability handicap in the "corners."

This is what happens when kids don't learn which pegs fit into which holes and would rather just spin them around and around for... 20 years. "Market demand." Just saying. It only really makes sense for a fight stick with 8 digital point sides, but those sort of games haven't been mainstream for 25+ years, and I'd rather use a d-pad for that anyway. But I digress.

 

[Ashnak]

Isn't there some profiling software that could do that? I believe there is a software that translates buttons and joysticks to keyboard input, let's say you bind both switch positions to a key, flipping the switch would either retract or deploy landing gear. Obviously the game / software wouldn't know the current position, but this can be solved by doing some 'pre flight checks' manually.

You can do that (easily - well, after a few false starts) for some, but not all of the games' functions if you play on PC.
The easy part - converting a toggle into a pulse - can be done by AutoHotKey (for example - @Clicker IIRC will have some alternatives).
The slightly more difficult part, and where the limitations come in, is that the game exports some (but not all) in-game stati through a status.json file. Among the exports are weapons state and cockpit mode (which is what I use so far). Landing gear and scoop are also on the list.
I wrote a little AHK script that reads out both the status.json and the states of my two flip triggers (HOSAS here) and uses the flip triggers to toggle cockpit mode (left trigger down = combat mode) and wepons deployment (right trigger down = weapons deployed). There still is at least one bug in there that occasionally requires a flip to synchronize game and sticks, but I haven't yet been able to reproduce it well enough to find the source for this.
In any case, feel free to use it: https://github.com/markus-i/AHK-EDToggle

Oh, and AHK can read and send both stick and keyboard commands - but I found it easiest to let it read the stick and send as modifed keyboard command. The game doesn't care about unassigned stick buttons, but is rather fussy about the joystick setup.

 

[Mercury7]

All I can say is...these companies are just USELESS at marketing.

Are they using hall-effect EVERYWHERE?

My CC may just see the daylight...