Saitek x55 - make that mouse nub useful!

Lostdotfish · Dec 21, 2014

First post and hopefully a useful one for lots of you out there in the cold dark vacuum of space with nothing but a Saitek control system installed in your bird to save you.

The mouse nub aka "why won't you do something useful nub"

I have finally worked out how to assign useful keypresses to the damn thing.

First - go into your Saitek programming software and click the little nub in the image to bring up the bindings.

Change Mouse X to bands
Set your bands as 0 - 15% / 15-85% / 85-100% (if you end up messing your bands up and adding too many click edit bands - then the 2 little icons on the left will clear them)
Now hover over your new 0-15% band till you see the little grey arrow on the right - click it and choose new key press (I used the left arrow for my test)
Choose do nothing for the 15-85% band
Choose right for the 85-100% band

Repeat this for Mouse Y using Up and Down

IMPORTANT

Click the save button top left in the corner of the picture THEN CLOSE THE PROGRAMMING TOOL
Right click the tray icon and choose the profile you just saved - icon will turn from white to green.

Fire up Elite and you will now be able to bind that mousey nub to Up down left right - get on (using it for lateral thrust at the moment)

Hope this helps Commander.

Out

maxmcg · Dec 21, 2014

Thank you for that - I've been wanting to be able to use that since I bought my x-55.

Trevil · Dec 21, 2014

Thanks, always meant to look into this.

BoldyBald · Dec 21, 2014

I got the mouse nub working.. but I don't have mouse buttons assigned. So I still use the mouse for the galaxy map.

OnePercent · Dec 21, 2014

it's terrible though, X52 pro user here. I wish Saitek simply put a damn analogue stick there instead, Like the CH products, God I wish they did that!

P.S whats the point of binding a digital key to a squishy yet still digital mouse nub? it feels like binding a digital key press to an analogue hardware.

You might as well use the little 8 way Hat switch on the throttle to make sure that Up, down, left, right actually feels like those key presses.

Knightshark · Dec 21, 2014

Does it work 8 way, i.e. moving the nub top-left translates into up+left signal?

th3_fr4gil3 · Dec 21, 2014

edit:
nm, thought OP said x52 not 55 ><

maxmcg · Dec 21, 2014

Hmmm. Trying to get it to work to move around in the galaxy/system map but can only seem to map one key to each of either the x & Y axis.

captain828 · Jan 11, 2015

Awesome!

Was wondering how to get that nipple/nub to work like that.

Thanks a bunch!

[VR] Frank_G · Mar 26, 2015

If anyone comes upon a solution for MacOSX concerning the nipple thingie, it would be nice if it would be posted here or in my X55 thread for OSX (link in my sig).

Aussiedroid · Mar 27, 2015

Thanks for sharing. When I was playing around at the start of the year it seemed to map to the mouse already by selecting the 'mouse emulation' mode or whatever it was called. This might give it better control though.

I ended up changing mine to my analog thrusters, but needed to run the registry edit to allow ED to see it to map. I've shared my version which you can access via the link in my sig.

Even with it setup now, I rarely use it. Seem very poor when it comes to accuracy .. perhaps the worst button on the entire controller!

Sidewinder · Mar 27, 2015

How do I change the bands? Mine are on 0%-33%, 33%-67% and 67%-100%. How do I change them in yours?
Any tips?

Strychnine · Jun 1, 2016

Thanks Commander!
Have some well deserved rep!

Sylow · Jun 1, 2016

Sidewinder said:
How do I change the bands? Mine are on 0%-33%, 33%-67% and 67%-100%. How do I change them in yours?
Any tips?

When you have switched Mouse X Axis to bands, hover your mose over exactly that field, which reads "Mouse X Axis = Bands". Only when you hover over it, you can see the button "Edit Bands". Click that button and the lines between the different bands can be pulled up and down, to the values you like. (So when a band is only 15% wide, you can't see what is bound to it. It's a tiny bit inconvenient, but it works. )

Knightshark said:
Does it work 8 way, i.e. moving the nub top-left translates into up+left signal?

Yes, it does. And thanks for the info to adjust the bands. I tried that earlier, but didn't notice that you could adjust their width, so it didn't work so nicely and i gave it up again. Now with this part, which i formerly missed, i wish the game would have bindings for "slowly thrust in direction" and "full thrust in direction".

Rankaze · Jun 1, 2016

%OnePercent% said:
it's terrible though, X52 pro user here. I wish Saitek simply put a damn analogue stick there instead, Like the CH products, God I wish they did that!

P.S whats the point of binding a digital key to a squishy yet still digital mouse nub? it feels like binding a digital key press to an analogue hardware.

You might as well use the little 8 way Hat switch on the throttle to make sure that Up, down, left, right actually feels like those key presses.

Saitek is in fact putting two analog sticks on the X-55's replacement (the X-56). Definitely going to buy one. Analog thruster control at last!

Sylow · Jun 1, 2016

Rankaze said:
Saitek is in fact putting two analog sticks on the X-55's replacement (the X-56). Definitely going to buy one. Analog thruster control at last!

From all reviews i saw, upgrading from the X-55 to the X-56 is not worth it.

Rankaze · Jun 2, 2016

Sylow said:
From all reviews i saw, upgrading from the X-55 to the X-56 is not worth it.

That depends on how much you value analog atrafe coontrols.

Aside from having plenty of use in ED, it seems to me it's going to almost essential in Star Citizen.

Also, Saitek is claiming they have addressed the QC issues from the X-55 in the X-56. Whether that's actually true, we won't really know until it hits the market.