Peripherals The Joystick Thread

A SimLight? I'll probably finish throwing mine together today if the weather clears up.

 

Had some use with the Cyborg Pro, mouse and Nostromo combo.. Love using the Nostromo and mouse.. Feels just, right! With how it fits in my hand etc.

With the Cyborg though, it wont want to work on SC.. Has a constant tilt, so the ship just lists to one side. Also, it only moves in one direction when you twist and leaning the stick. The throttle doesn't work on SC either.. Not sure if that's just the game settings though? As i've installed the latest drivers for it (although the bundled software is XP and refuses to run on Win7, even in compatibility mode!) Any experience hints for setting it up?

 

Update on my previous post.. It turns out it was recognising my Nostromo as Joystick/HOTAS1 and the Joystick as J/H2, so wasn't recognising the inputs from the 'stick! (Auto-set to J/H1)

 

Can anyone recommend a good joystick for IL2 sturmovik flight sim?

 

I currently use a Thrustmaster T.16000 M for sturmovik. Really accurate but buttons are a bit clunky.

Any of you guys tried the Defender Cobra M5?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsrt_Sc4Seo

 

Anyone seen these? I'm tempted to order one for the warthog, what with the pound so strong against the euro right now.

 

IMHO, I wouldn't go for those, Parge. They look like they'll mark your desk and won't be secure enough.

 

Easy to fix that, just apply some padding. I looked at the old Joylocks that were very similar but they went off-sale. So basically, go for it.

 

I really like the look of those mounts, some one has put some care into the design, build and propose, looking at that claim handle looks impressive.

I vote get also.

 

This is bit-tech!* Build your own? This is the profile used which at about £20/m + 50p per cut done for you is cheep as chips, from the same place you can get all the connectors and end pieces all that's left to figure out is the clamp.




*not patric?

 

I’ve chatted to a few people that have bought them and apparently they are absolutely solid. They do have a pad below the top clamp – so maybe those marks are from prototypes that didn’t or something?

Yes, I looked at them – they looked good, but like you say, went off sale and didn’t have any real adjustability. I’m not lucky enough to have space for an obutto etc, and the wheelstand pro didn’t suit me, so I’ve been on the lookout for a better solution.

The guys making them is German, so I expect good design and engineering. One thing I would like to see is a rounded, semi circle edge for the warthog plate. Don’t want to accidently impale myself on the corner while sliding it my desk.

Sadly living in London makes building anything pretty hard, I don’t have tools, a garage or any real space around my apartment for work like this.

 

Sounds like an interesting idea, not sure why creating a set of simple clamp-on bases didn't occur to me when I started building my custom flight rig.

I might have to play around with some some similar desk mounts when the parts for my new desk arrive on Friday.
Small clamps are relatively cheap so it shouldn't cost much to play around with some different layouts... though I do still want to continue attempting to build my flight stand.

As an alternative to pre-cut rounded edges, you could use adhesive backed rubber strips along the edges or little foam pads on the corners.

 

You have as many hacker spaces in greater London as there are in the whole of Scotland - "new" one in Aberdeen since I checked last, may have to swing by one of these years...

And the point of these profiles is that there isn't much work needed, they go together with T-nuts and bolts. Give them the lengths you need and they'll cut the profiles for you - similar companies offers similar services for sheet. The most complex part of the whole thing would be the drilling of two holes in each plate and rounding the edges to reduce the skraggyness.

What I'm getting at, is that you could build something as good yourself for about £15-20.

 

Thought I'd resurrect this thread due to my experiences with finding the ultimate stick to use for Star Citizen!

1) X55: At first I was impressed by this as it was the first HOTAS I've owned. However, I found the joystick way too big and light after a little while. The throttle is excellent, but HOTAS and Star Citizen do not go well together at the time of writing. Still, bought for £143 new, sold for £167 on eBay. Profit!

2) Cyborg Fly 5: After reverting to my Sidewinder Force feedback II, it unfortunately started to start missing button presses. I looked at two options, one of which was the Fly 5. Well, don't go anywhere near it! Due to its design, it's a bit loose and moves around.

3) Extreme 3D Pro: A good starter stick with just the right amount of buttons and button placement. I used this for a little while but found that the sensor accuracy was not too good. Absolutely fine for single player but against a hardened Star Citizen player, the lack of resolution for the dead zone was telling.

4) Warthog: I manned up and went for the Warthog. This is THE best stick I have used. Fantastic accuracy, a good size for my hand and a good amount of well placed buttons and hat switches. The movement is smooth as and has excellent accuracy. Build quality is amazing and the weight of the stick means it doesn't slide around. Although expensive, anyone who buys this will not be disappointed.

5) T16000: I bought this as a secondary joystick to try dual joystick flying, which I eventually decided I didn't like and went back to my G13/Warthog combo. The stick has good points and bad points. The good is that it is exceptionally accurate (possibly more so than the Warthog), has a smooth action and is of decent build quality; it can also be physically reconfigured for left hand use. The bad is that it's relatively light and I found that when twisting it, I'd end up moving the base slightly; also, the head is too wide and makes moving your thumb to get at buttons awkward. I'm going to keep it as a backup/travelling joystick.

 

Finally got round to ordering a table mount for the Warthog. It wasn't cheap (£80) but I've found nothing else that comes close. The new version comes with a rounded mount to fit the base of the stick. I'll do a mini review when it arrives in case anyone else is interested.

 

By the way - been using this for a while now - I can safely say they are absolutely EXCELLENT.

Takes about 5 minutes to assemble, two seconds to lock into place and remove so you don't look like an ubernerd if you bring a girl back (though the huge Mechwarrior Online print I have might give the game away too). Build quality is great - good old German engineering.

One thing that didn't quite work for me is that I personally found the stock version too long horizontally - the plate where the Warthog is mounted pushed me away from my desk which I needed to reach because my setup is Warthog + Orbweaver (and mouse for the FPS parts of the game). So, after some careful planning and measuring I put in an order for a shorter version - just 158mm long. My stick is mounted around halfway up the vertical mount, but diagonallly so that my wrist isn't at a funny angle in game (see bottom pics). This, combined with the raised base of the Warthog and the height at which I use it made me realise I didn't need that much clearance at all, so I did some tests and from what I could tell I could get away with cutting 80mm off the stock mount and still have clearance.

Upon first unwrapping the new custom mount my initial reaction was "holy crap that is short - did I measure it correctly?"


Comparison shot, stock mount on top


In order to fit the stick to the baseplate, I also required this part to be shorter - the stock one would have blocked the Warthog mounting holes.


As you can see, this one doesn't.


Now fitted - though this shot was taken before I adjusted the mounting height.


And setup! You can see in the below what I mean when I say my stick is mounted diagonally.



This setup is perfect now. It allows me to get super close to my desk, with my stick securely in between my legs. For those wondering, using this setup, moving the stick as far forward as it goes, I still have about 10mm of clearance between my hand and the vertical part of the mount.

 

Sweet where did you order that from?

 

Linky.

 

Link bookmarked for future use.

 

That's beautiful. Really good space-saving method as well.