Saitek X36 help....

[sling322]

Ok...I finally broke down and bought one of these HOTAS setups to see if it can improve my flying at all....it probably wont, but then again any improvement would be a start.

I have tried out RangerBob's profile and I tried out Revvin's profile and while they were both good I decided to just create my own.  

The documentation that came with the stick leaves a little to be desired and I have been having some problems getting it to do what I want it to.

What I am trying to do is set up the 8 way hat to look around and up when the pinkie switch is depressed.  I just need some general info on how to get it programmed right.  Any suggestions will be appreciated.  If there are any of you out there that can help or if you have a profile that you seem to like, if you dont mind emailing it to me I would appreciate it.  My email address is mtodd111@ev1.net

[straffo]

I've the programmed the hat to have the keypad view 9 == front right and the switch as the action 0

[Creamo]

Here's how I do it.

Take rangerbobs profile (very well done btw), and make the following changes. I say use his because the Throttle has the trim setup so nice on it.

Click on the Pinky switch and make it a "action" instead of what it currently set, and set it as "LOOK UP" which I believe is the 5 key on the Numpad.

OK, then the closest hat should be set to 8 way, and then I manually make it like this.

Straight up (as in pushing the #1 hat straight up) is LOOK FWD. But your already looking fwd, so why map it? Because...read.

Then set the hats 8 ways around clockwise as Look Fwd right, Look right, look back right, look back, look back left etc... I think this is all selectable in the profile, if not, MAP IT IN AH.

IMPORTANT! - Now, anytime you are using a view, just hit the Pinky switch. Any view conjunction with the pinky switch it gives you a "looking up" view..whatever you want to call it. If you hit the Pinky first, you look straight up and can cycle 360 looking up.

Thats the trick. KEEPING THE HAT PUSHED UP in conjunction with the PINKY switch gives you this "looking up" type of view. Thats also why you map the hat's 12 O'clock position to look straight fwd. Initially it wont do anything, but it will give you the look fwd UP with the Pinky pressed. You need that.

Confusing I know, just try it.

A scan of the sky would be like this.

Rotating through the hat with nothing pushed shows a 360 view in direct views. Push up and the hat, then pull in Pinky switch and now go through the 8 way hat views. The Pinky traps the "halfway up view in all 8 positions and you scan that wan. Then, release hat, and keeping the pinky up. You should be looking straight up, then scan with the hat. See? You can get a full scan from directly out of the plane all the way to full up in 1-2 seconds.

The other thing I do is make the RED button he has set for RW and make it WEP. Works better for me.  

One other thing, is on the Throttle, ranger came up with a good idea I hated at 1st, but now love. The thumb roller on the throttle brings up gear and something else as I remember, but I map it so that rolling it clockwise brings up the map, and counterclock shows damage. It keeps your hands on the Throttle, and after a ping you can see what the hell you have left to fight with in a hurry, not to mention saving the 1000 times pressing ESC to see the map.

The views with the Pinky are the key though... If you cant figure out all this confusing stuff, ill try and get a profile together.

[ 06-07-2001: Message edited by: Creamo ]

[Creamo]

Almost forgot, the tiny red button on the front of the stick past the trigger is my zoom, and the yellow buttons should be set to change icons or have one for MG's only for chutes so you arent wasting cannon. Get used to rangers autopilot setup to, it works well off that switch.

Oh, and I should add, some of the changes I had to set in AH itself. Which ones I forget, but again, Ill look into it if your really interested.

[Nifty]

ooo!  I like that idea, Creamo.  I never thought about making the pinkie switch an action instead of a toggle mechanism like it is now.  Sometimes I get messed up because I forget I engaged the pinkie switch and I wonder why the dial won't lower my gear or something.    

[osage]

Originally posted by Creamo:

Click on the pinky switch and make it a "action" instead of what it currently set, and set it as "LOOK UP" which I believe is the 5 key on the Numpad.]

You lose half the Saitek's functionality if you make the pinkie switch an action instead of a "shift".

By making the pinkie switch a shift, you effectively double the functionality of each button press or switch (it will have both a shifted and an unshifted setting this way.)

My preference is to program the unshifted 8 way pov hat to the to the 8+5,9,6,3,2,1,4 and 7 keys to give you a mostly level view all around when unshifted (the forward position gives you a look up forward view).

It's very important not to program the center setting (where the hat returns to) otherwise you will have all kinds of probs.  AH automatically defaults to forward view anyway.

Then go to the "shifted mode" POV hat programming tab, deselect "use unshifted attributes" and create new shifted commands to add the up view to the commands above (i.e., 95,65,35,25,15,45,75, etc.).  I make the shifted front view straight up "5".

So to get a panoramic level view you roll the unshifted hat around, and the shifted hat will give you a panoramic up view.

Use the 4-way left forefinger hat to move your head up, down, right and left.

Use the other joystick POV hat to toggle zoom and zoom in and out and reset your head position).  This way just using your pinkie, right thumb and index finger you can get all the views except the down views (down and back to the side is the only useful one anyway).

Another cool thing you can do is to program dot commands like .salvo 3, .salvo 1 to a bombing/gunner mode to let you change your salvos on the fly when hitting FH, dar, ack, VH, etc., sequentially.  Add a cycle icon feature and a text bufffer toggle.  You never have to hit the keyboard! Lotsa fun.

Like creamo I use the big red throttle button for WEP. the little "C" button on the back of the J/S is great for radio mike.

--Osage

[ 06-07-2001: Message edited by: osage ]

[Nifty]

If you're using the Saitek for extra things such as set salvo, like Osage said, then losing the pinkie switch makes a difference.  For me, however, I found that every single one of my other buttons had "use unshifted atributes" set.  So for my AH profile, losing the pinkie shift didn't hurt me.  Flew a sortie with the pinkie set to num 5, and seemed to like it better than the shift (probably because I had been doing it that way before I bought the Saitek.)

Oh, I don't mind the WEP on the little mouse button at all.  That's just me tho.

[Creamo]

You lose half the Saitek's functionality if you make the pinkie switch an action instead of a "shift".

By making the pinkie switch a shift, you effectively double the functionality of each button press or switch (it will have both a shifted and an unshifted setting this way.)

Very true. However, even unshifted there is plenty of commands, and it can confuse the toejam out of you too. I am using the KISS principle.

Anything terrible important I DON'T want to hit, I manually type on the keyboard.
 
I cant recal how many times in a tight DF I accidentally lowered the gear tearing them up or something, because I had it mapped, and hit the key inadvertently.

Things like that are best just using the keyboard.

[RangerBob]

"I cant recal how many times in a tight DF I accidentally lowered the gear tearing them up or something, because I had it mapped, and hit the key inadvertently."

Your right Creamo, that's why I set up all the essential flight stuff on the stick like weapons, fire buttons, views etc., and put the general pilot stuff on the throttle like  map, gear, trim etc. It's also why I put the gear on the same wheel as the brakes, the map on the same wheel as the damage info. If by chance, in the heat of battle, you roll the wheel the wrong way when looking for damage info, you don't drop the wheels, bail out, fire the weapons, etc, you just get the map instead.

Like you I don't map the bail out key. That's one I don't need to hit by accident, and always get practice knowing which key it is.

Unfortunately, I dislike Saitek's software so much I'm starting to look at the new CH stuff.

Ranger Bob

[ 06-11-2001: Message edited by: RangerBob ]

[Pollock]

for views try this.
Map your level primary view 8 positon to a hat of your choice.  Then map look up and look down to the 4 way hat on the throttle, that way yo hav a total of 24 views. to utlilize all views simply lift up on throttle hat and navigate around usin the hat in conjunction thus giving you a full 360 upward view. Same goes for looking down just push throttle hat down.

level= 8 views
up+hat = 8 up views
dn+hat = 8 down views.