Hardware & Technical Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS Black friday deal?
- Thread starter ChrisR
- Start date
Any of my UK commanders know of anywhere selling this setup cheap?
Cheers
Word of advice: Wherever you get it, make absolutely sure they have a good returns policy and that Thrustmaster will support the warranty from that retailer...very high failure rate with these puppies.
Just really, really research it. Mine fell to bits 8 hours after purchase. Thankfully Amazon took it back instantly. The thing to bear in minds is that the stick does suffer from 'stiction', and in the likely event that yours suffers from this, then you'll have to dismantle it and re-grease. You'll be tempted to see if it gets better, but it won't; it only ever gets worse, and by the time you've worked that out, you'll be beyond your easy return window. I've yet to ascertain just how long the re-grease fix lasts. The throttle switches are pretty fragile too (one of mine snapped off and fell inside the throttle!), but to an extent so are military ones. The difference is that the military has teams of technicians to repair things when they go wrong. Another thing to bear in mind then is that if/ when the Warthog does go wrong, postage to Thrustmaster is going to be very expensive, because the unit is so heavy.
I got probably the last x65f from Amazon UK last week, and based on how good it is with Elite and other flight sims, I'd go with an x55 if I needed to replace it. Hopefully they've got their early quality control sorted now ;-)
Got to say that for the few hours that it lasted, I loved the Warthog, stiction and all. I definitely wouldn't buy again though.
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There's no question that you would lose that sort of 'agile situation awareness' (!!) with a move to a full HOTAS. I'd put money on you adding a TrackIR to your set-up very quickly. A problem with Elite Dangerous is the lack of a target padlock function for dogfights. Flight sims have had this for at least the last 14 years and they make things much more immersive and manageable. Elite omits it for balance reasons I suspect. TrackIR is well implemented with Elite though, and really adds to the experience, so if you budget for an x52 pro Flight along with a TrackIR, then you'll be fine. TrackIR is supported by every other flight sim too, so it's a good investment.
Keyboard and mouse is good though, and I'd say that a great way to add immersion to the experience would be to add a good quality RGB mechanical keyboard like the Corsair K70 RGB. You can then set it up in the Elite colour scheme and pick out the key system functions in specific colours. Avoid the Razer Chroma though: the keys have MAJOR issues (I've tried three!).