The Joystick/Controller discussion thread

[NEUTRAL]

Hi, Im considering getting a warthog Hotas. I was just curious, why would you prefer the CH throttle over the warthog throttle for the left hand ?

In my opinion, the CH Pro Throttle is perfectly suited for Elite Dangerous for the following reasons:

1. Analog thumbstick-joystick : very useful for even finer control of your ships's lateral thrusters (vertical/horizontal propulsion).
This is the killer feature in my opinion, and the number one reason I will buy the CH Pro Throttle!
The Warthog throttle does not have this!

2. Very comfortable throttle action, because you just push it forward or backwards on a flat plane.
Compare this to the circular motion of the Warthog throttle, which actually bends your wrist. When you bend your wrist there is a danger of injury (aka carpal tunnel syndrome).

3. All buttons on the CH Pro Throttle are easily accessible: you don't even need to remove your left hand from the throttle.
The Warthog throttle has extra switches on the base of the throttle, which you probably won't use much in the heat of combat.

Before buying, just go to any retail shop and test out both these throttles yourself.
The Warthog may be good for traditional flight sims, but maybe not so useful for Elite Dangerous or any other space-sim.

Hope this helps !

Also a video about the Saitek vs CH Hotas setup, which mentions the CH Pro Throttle:
[video=youtube;ceOdOytgT64]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceOdOytgT64[/video]

 

[Philip Coutts]

Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X, great stick for under £40 if you shop around.

 

[GarthVader]

X55 rhino.
Great stick and throttle.
Has more buttons than I can bind at moment (ED more triggers please)

Works great with TrackIR (have button to enable and disable tracking)

Cheers

 

[vstrider]

Thrustmaster T.Flight Hotas user here. Great stick and throttle. Unbeatable price.

 

[sun_tzu]

I can only really comment on the X55 as its what i have
I personally think its great for the job and once you get a set up you are happy with most functions are a a simple click away as you have so many buttons you can set up.
the build quality might not be as good as the warthog but hey its half the price so there has to be some trade off and the quality is still very good imo.
Depends on your budget but I was very happy with what I got - happy i spent a bit more to get the extra buttons / functionality over some other set ups - Happy I didnt spend as much as I would have had to on a watrhog or X65 or full Ch set up as what I have works just fine for me.
(if i used a lot of light sims I might have gone for the CH set up as friends who are pilots swear by them for their home set up)

 

[Jamie Wolf]

I use a Logitech Extreme 3D.

Has a lot of buttons, and unlike the Thrustmaster, all on the base are on the left side so easy to reach.
I need the keyboard only for the thruster movment to align to a spacestaion or landing, everything else is on the stick.
The throttle is a bit small and needs getting used to, but it works fine in space during docking I use the keyboard.

 

[Remo]

if you can afford it the Saitek X52 pro is an amazing bit of kit.

So many buttons and i've just about filled the lot, highly recommend it

 

[Unknown Terror]

Been using the Cyborg F.L.Y. 5 (cost me £20 second hand on eBay) which has been good enough. It has enough key binds for combat and primary functions. But trading up to the X52 pro. It is the weapon of choice for commanders across the galaxy. Some peeps seem to prefer the mouse, but takes some getting use to, though when you do it is supposed to be very accurate for tracking hostile ships.

I'm using the FLY 5 one but due to the bad design it stopped working and I had to re-solder some wires on the inside that came loose. All in all it's a nice stick, apart from the obvious defect and it does take getting use to. Replaced my old Cyborg Evo with this stick and I'm not disappointed. I might have been hugely disappointed if I didn't know how to fix and improve it.

 

[pfsinn]

Any HOTAS should be great.

I found a saitec X52 (non pro) on ebay slightly used and extremely cheap, I am very happy with it.

 

[Serkor]

While we are on the joystick matter, a question to beta/gamma players :

I have a flight sim setup with :

- T16000M joystick with 16 buttons ( I don't think I will be using my Saitek yoke... )
- Saitek rudder pedals
- Saitek quadrant with 3 axes and 6 rockers
- Saitek Trimwheel
- Track IR 5

How is Elite Dangerous reacting to multi controller setups ? No difficulty in mapping the controls ?

Thks in advance for advices.

 

[trekman]

I also recommend the Saitek x52 Pro.

I use it in conjunction with the keyboard for a few functions that I can't fit on the stick (lights and precise percentage power to engines 25%, 50% etc.) Once you get used to the set-up it's pretty nifty especially when you get used to the thruster control on the throttles Hat stick. Fanbloodytastic!!

Happy piloting commander whatever your choice.

In addition to the X52pro which is a great stick I'd strongly suggest people invest in voice attack for all those little things that the X52pro doesn't have a button for. Its a very cheap addition $8 (about £5) and will add lots to your Elite Dangerous experience. www.voiceattack.com There are also some good tutorial videos on youtube for getting the best out of this program. I'd recommend you have a look at this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydFe1GguQ_c Happy flying commanders and we'll hopefully see you in the void soon

 

[avow555]

Have used the following sticks over the years and can recommend any of them;

Saitek X52 Pro
Saitek X52
Thrustmaster t16000m
Logitech Extreme 3Dpro
Saitek 3D Gold (no longer made so check driver version)

 

[bigtaff]

I'm using the FLY 5 one but due to the bad design it stopped working and I had to re-solder some wires on the inside that came loose. All in all it's a nice stick, apart from the obvious defect and it does take getting use to. Replaced my old Cyborg Evo with this stick and I'm not disappointed. I might have been hugely disappointed if I didn't know how to fix and improve it.

I'm using a Fly 5, although this is the third one I've had, I have found that they last only about a year, however they will change them as they come with a two year warranty. I use it mainly for FS2004 and after a year I tend to get rudder spikes.

 

[Unknown Terror]

I'm using a Fly 5, although this is the third one I've had, I have found that they last only about a year, however they will change them as they come with a two year warranty. I use it mainly for FS2004 and after a year I tend to get rudder spikes.

I've probably voided my warranty by opening it up and making the wiring stronger. But it's all good, I'm happy with it now. Worse thing is it actually died on the day Gamma was released, literally undocked and 5 secs later I was in an out of control spin. Just hope I have better luck on the 16th

 

[bigtaff]

I've probably voided my warranty by opening it up and making the wiring stronger. But it's all good, I'm happy with it now. Worse thing is it actually died on the day Gamma was released, literally undocked and 5 secs later I was in an out of control spin. Just hope I have better luck on the 16th

Saitek (MadCatz) are pretty good, they have changed two now for me under warranty, the downside is that you have to send it off to them, it takes about 3 weeks in total, so you have to do cold turkey, unless you have a spare lying around somewhere. The only thing with them I am disappointed about, is that there is obviously a problem with these sticks that manifests itself after about a year, and it would have been good if they could fixed it in the factory by now, but for £35 they are a bargain for what you get.

 

[calculon68]

Hi, Im considering getting a warthog Hotas. I was just curious, why would you prefer the CH throttle over the warthog throttle for the left hand ?

pretty much everything that Neutral mentioned- especially the Pro Throttle's analog mini-stick mapped to lateral/vertical thrusters. Can't stress how useful that is to me, versus L/V thrusters on keyboard or joystick hat switches. It basically means the amount of thrust is proportional to how far you move the stick. It's the reason some pilots map lateral thrusters to rudder pedals instead of yaw. But I watch a lot of ED Twitch pilots that never use L/V thrusters- so the mini-stick's ultimate value/utility is relative.

Me, I only use em' in combat and approach/docking.

 

[ArkAngel]

In addition to the X52pro which is a great stick I'd strongly suggest people invest in voice attack for all those little things that the X52pro doesn't have a button for. Its a very cheap addition $8 (about £5) and will add lots to your Elite Dangerous experience. www.voiceattack.com There are also some good tutorial videos on youtube for getting the best out of this program. I'd recommend you have a look at this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydFe1GguQ_c Happy flying commanders and we'll hopefully see you in the void soon

Thank you so much for this post, totally awesome!

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Thank you everyone for your insight! I am going to go with the X52 Pro, and Voice attack.

 

[scriptacus]

I've recently moved from an X-55 to a full CH setup (CombatStick, Pro Throttle, Pro Pedals) due to build quality issues with 2 separate X-55's, but I did use the X-55 for quite some time.

X-55 Pros:
- Looks awesome
- Adjustable tension on the stick and throttle
- Solid build quality for case, shell and throttle action
- Lots of switches on the base of the throttle (technically a Con if you're using an Oculus Rift... they all feel identical and it's easy to flip the wrong one if you're not extra careful)
- Lots of buttons and HAT's on the stick, especially liked the dual pink button/switches.
X-55 Cons:
- Poor build quality for internals (more below)
- Very poor support (average 3-4 days between emails... with emails like "Did you try reinstalling the drivers?"... reply "Yes" and wait 3 days for "Is it on a USB 2.0 port?"...)
- Throttle buttons hard to press; they require quite a bit of force which means they're not particularly good for use as modifier buttons.
- Throttle nub doesn't work in ED... but even if it did it doesn't center properly leading to a large dead zone. SLD also doesn't work.
- Mediocre software; tried to program nub and SLD with this... results were not great.

CH Pros:
- Solid build for internals
- Awesome mini-stick on the throttle
- Enough buttons and HAT's on the throttle that you can map all controls without the need for switched on the base (great for Oculus Rift)
- Really good software for programming custom stuff, but not particularly intuitive.
CH Cons:
- Looks really meh.
- The places where the sliding parts meet the case on the pedals and throttle don't feel tight. They tend to rattle if you've got a lot of bass or are using a bass shaker.
- No way to adjust tension on stick or throttle (stick feels fine, throttle is a bit loose and doesn't feel as good as the X-55)
- Stick could use more buttons (the Fighterstick has more than the Combatstick, but I really like having a thumb button for secondary fire... the Fighterstick has a HAT in that position)

The mini-stick on the CH Pro Throttle feels sooo much better than that nub on the X-55, and it works in ED out of the box. I was never able to get the X-55 nub to work in an analog way. As for the build quality issues: the throttle was always fine but I had to 2 sticks that would not register maximum deflection (in software) in certain dimensions even when the stick was held to the max. Calibration, nor any of the suggestions from their support, would fix it. The first stick also had issues where the twist rudder wouldn't recenter properly 50% of the time, meaning I had to set a huge deadzone.

 

[tanman]

why do people fly 3dof fight sticks in a space game? and xbox controller or 6dof joystick like 3dconnection spacenagivator is better than any overly expensive joystick ever. and if your on the cheap side you can get a spaceball 5000 usb on ebay like me for like $20-$30 and works good. you might have to do some hacking to get it to work since its not ment to be a joystick but i find this method to work https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=35024

 

[Godsbrother]

I'm using a Thrustmaster T-Stick Hotas which is a lot cheaper than the X52 Hotas and is working a treat

Check out this thread for printable config sheet and bind files - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=16140&highlight=thrustmaster+hotas+bind+file