Hardware & Technical The great controller saga...

[CMDR Kyle Donovan]

Posted for nothing but amusement and because it was a way-too-long road to get here...

Back in the day I owned a Saitek X-45. Played X-Wing, XvT, and X-Wing Alliance on it. Also Mechwarrior 3 and 4 on my old janky, junky Celeron-powered Compaq. Time passes, I get married, we move from Iowa to Washington state... and I hear about this new game coming out called Elite: Dangerous.

"Well..." I think to myself. "This looks like something fun!" And I tell my wife "I don't want anything elaborate. Just a control setup to fly this game." She agrees. Says it looks fun.

I get into the beta, play, fall in love, and immediately start spreading the word of this amazing thing to friends and family alike.

I look at my old 45... think "Saitek makes good stuff! This is as reliable as the universe!" and hand it off to my best friend so he can have a good quality HOTAS while I move to the next generation: The X-52 Pro. ... Right about the time my wife gets involved and says "This old Cyborg isn't going to cut it for Elite, is it?" ... So! She gets my 72 hour old 52, and I go "ooooh! I've got budget. I should check out this 55!"

... as my wife likes to tell me "Every time you sigh, another Keelback gets built." Well... this story is going to generate a fleet of those little so-and-sos.

I get an X-55. Flies well. has some issues. Nothing a little TLC and detail work can't fix. Things are going well! Until about six months later. November 2014 to May 2015... then the throttle stops working. Open it up. ... "What in the actual...?" Yes, the throttle sawed its own wiring loom in half. Lovely. I return it, get a new one... back in business!

May to November 2015... X-55 #2 fails. Trigger locks in idle position. Internal switch locks in "fire" position. First Python becomes new debris cloud around Jameson Memorial. Check internals... Switch is well and truly $&%@ed. Wiring loom also partially sawn in half. Return it. Get told "Will receive replacement when stock is available" ... I don't like the sound of that...

Seeing the writing on the wall, I spring for CH stick, throttle, and rudders. Now we're in business! (other than the fact that I can't fly with regular rudders... I always have to invert the axis for it to feel right... Oh well, prevents starship thieves.) Love the throttle... linear slider, plenty of controls... flies like a dream!

Wife's X-52 craps out. Throttle starts drifting, then the internal detents fail, throttle is physically incapable of going to zero. She pops it open, and I can hear the anguish as she looks upon the finest QC that Madcatz could muster. (In her words: "Dear Madcatz: QC does not mean 'questionable construction'!" and "Who in the actual HELL though that 'slather grease over everything' was going to be a construction method for anything? Is it magic grease? Is it meta-alloy grease? Maybe I get a beanstalk if I plant this thing in the back lot?")

At this point, we both say "screw it!" She gets the CH setup, I get a Warthog and another set of CH pedals, and we've flown happily ever after. I even bought a proper cockpit seat. Got triple monitors, put everything together... she came home, looked at the setup, looked at me, looked at the setup, and finally said one of the most glorious things I've ever heard:

"I'm mad. But only because I don't have one."

So now we fly together with this:

Spoiler

(The wiring's been cleaned up quite a bit, that's still one of the in-progress shots)

Epilogue:

Ten months later I received a package. Heavy. Slightly smelling of brimstone, broken promises, and janky construction. Sure enough, I open the shipping box and it's a brand new, first-run X-56.

I mailed it to an ex-GF, unopened.

 

[Bill Clement]

Ah, I love a good romcom! Thanks Kyle (and Mrs D!).

My wife prefers Kindle games to PC ones, but she's happy enough with me getting new shinys. Which is just as well, 'cause my HOTAS is on it's last legs.

My X-55 lasted a wee bit longer than yours- 33 months to first throttle failure, stick still operational as of now, 35 months since purchase. I've patched up the throttle, but it's all downhill from here, methinks...

I'm looking at three plans- what d'you think?

Plan A is to trust Logitech when they say they've fixed everything. I've got some older kit of theirs that's still going strong, including one of the very first lazer, wireless mice to hit the market. Very trick a couple of decades ago! One of their new X-56s will drop right into my simpit and I won't have to learn too many new button pushes.
But I have some trust issues. While I believe them when they claim kit they designed is going to be reliable, I can't see how they can get around the basic design of the wiring loom and that looks bound to fail again. So I'd be buying a crazy expensive device with a relatively short service life...

Plan B. Get a Thrustmaster TWCS throttle and see how long my X-55 stick holds out. Very cheap- and I am Scottish!
I'd lose a lot of switches though and I'd have to re-learn a new control setup. Attaching it to the rig looks like a bit of a pain, too. Lining up invisible screw holes could be a bit of a faff.

Plan C. VKB think they'll have stock in by late March. Their 'MGC PRO' grip, with a small base and curved extension is the stuff of (my) dreams. It has enough extra axes and buttons to cover future failures in my throttle while they sort out their TECS Throttle Control System, allegedly shipping in the third quarter of this year.
It'll be insanely expensive. It'll require a whole new muscle memory to use all of the new features. The European website is an absolute mess and the North American one won't ship to the EU.
Did I mention the expense?

Funnily enough, although plan C looks like the worst option, it's the one I'm most drawn to. Decisions, decisions...

 

[CMDR Kyle Donovan]

Tough call... I'd almost say the TWCS throttle. I'm a big fan of the layout of it, and index finger analog thruster controls are very nice. As for attaching it to the rig... perhaps consider these:

They're what I attached my throttle to the stand with, and they are SOLID. And I sympathize with price... I got a Virpil Mongoose T-50 on my warthog. Not cheap, but I don't turn my knuckles inside-out either trying to pull the trigger (and a cautionary tale to those who would use IRL sim hardware for something like Elite... we need a lot more pew pew pew on our ships because we don't have ANYTHING like a GAU-8A to roll out

 

[Bill Clement]

Gen dit, I used to play with one of them in real life!

Before they turned poor old Lusty into razor blades, we used three of them. Goalkeeper- lovely bit of kit- Dutch engineering at it's finest, mated to a superb American gun. Best bit was knowing BAE had the bare minimum to do with supporting it, so no toffee toolkit at £8k a throw!

I can't find any Illustrious footage, but Invincible was pretty much the same deal:
[video=youtube;3-pny7ZfHpg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-pny7ZfHpg[/video]

 

[CMDR Kyle Donovan]

You know... if the Phalanx 20mm CIWS is called R2-D2, that must make Goalkeeper like... an astromech droid strapped to a battlemech.

"When in doubt, throw a wall of tungsten at it."

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Posted for nothing but amusement and because it was a way-too-long road to get here...

Back in the day I owned a Saitek X-45. Played X-Wing, XvT, and X-Wing Alliance on it. Also Mechwarrior 3 and 4 on my old janky, junky Celeron-powered Compaq. Time passes, I get married, we move from Iowa to Washington state... and I hear about this new game coming out called Elite: Dangerous.

"Well..." I think to myself. "This looks like something fun!" And I tell my wife "I don't want anything elaborate. Just a control setup to fly this game." She agrees. Says it looks fun.

I get into the beta, play, fall in love, and immediately start spreading the word of this amazing thing to friends and family alike.

I look at my old 45... think "Saitek makes good stuff! This is as reliable as the universe!" and hand it off to my best friend so he can have a good quality HOTAS while I move to the next generation: The X-52 Pro. ... Right about the time my wife gets involved and says "This old Cyborg isn't going to cut it for Elite, is it?" ... So! She gets my 72 hour old 52, and I go "ooooh! I've got budget. I should check out this 55!"

... as my wife likes to tell me "Every time you sigh, another Keelback gets built." Well... this story is going to generate a fleet of those little so-and-sos.

I get an X-55. Flies well. has some issues. Nothing a little TLC and detail work can't fix. Things are going well! Until about six months later. November 2014 to May 2015... then the throttle stops working. Open it up. ... "What in the actual...?" Yes, the throttle sawed its own wiring loom in half. Lovely. I return it, get a new one... back in business!

May to November 2015... X-55 #2 fails. Trigger locks in idle position. Internal switch locks in "fire" position. First Python becomes new debris cloud around Jameson Memorial. Check internals... Switch is well and truly $&%@ed. Wiring loom also partially sawn in half. Return it. Get told "Will receive replacement when stock is available" ... I don't like the sound of that...

Seeing the writing on the wall, I spring for CH stick, throttle, and rudders. Now we're in business! (other than the fact that I can't fly with regular rudders... I always have to invert the axis for it to feel right... Oh well, prevents starship thieves.) Love the throttle... linear slider, plenty of controls... flies like a dream!

Wife's X-52 craps out. Throttle starts drifting, then the internal detents fail, throttle is physically incapable of going to zero. She pops it open, and I can hear the anguish as she looks upon the finest QC that Madcatz could muster. (In her words: "Dear Madcatz: QC does not mean 'questionable construction'!" and "Who in the actual HELL though that 'slather grease over everything' was going to be a construction method for anything? Is it magic grease? Is it meta-alloy grease? Maybe I get a beanstalk if I plant this thing in the back lot?")

At this point, we both say "screw it!" She gets the CH setup, I get a Warthog and another set of CH pedals, and we've flown happily ever after. I even bought a proper cockpit seat. Got triple monitors, put everything together... she came home, looked at the setup, looked at me, looked at the setup, and finally said one of the most glorious things I've ever heard:

"I'm mad. But only because I don't have one."

So now we fly together with this:

Spoiler

https://i.imgur.com/0Zlu4Lt.jpg

(The wiring's been cleaned up quite a bit, that's still one of the in-progress shots)

Epilogue:

Ten months later I received a package. Heavy. Slightly smelling of brimstone, broken promises, and janky construction. Sure enough, I open the shipping box and it's a brand new, first-run X-56.

I mailed it to an ex-GF, unopened.

She sounds like a keeper. My missus doesn't do any kind of gaming. She just vegitates in front of the TV.