When I started looking at this HOTAS as a backup to a CH rig, I thought two things:
What am I going to do with all those rotaries?
Why am I willing to give up hats?
Frooglesim's video changed all that.
I've been programming in the dreaded SST all day. After I learned the basics, I spent about four hours getting a somewhat complete key map program for Aces High done. I've been flying it offline.
I tried to emulate the CH finger positions so I wouldn't have too much muscle memory to 'un-learn'. Then I spent about an hour tuning things in the AH offline sandbox.
Jeepers. It's a pretty good unit, despite my vow 8 years ago to never own another Saitek. Call me fickle, if you want to.
I decided to build my own Aces High stick profile rather than use the normal mapping routine in the game. I don't normally do this, but I'm glad I did. Once done, I just loaded it up in the HUD/SST software, went to AH, and calibrated the snot out of everything. Have the mapping blow out in the middle of a fight used to be risk...so the jury is still out on this one. But I like it so far.
Two potential frustration points.
Make sure you follow the driver load instructions to the letter. If you botch it, like me, you must COMPLETELY delete the drivers and their directory before attempting to reload. My 'symptom' was an out-of-control throttle stick. It looked just like a bad pot... but after the driver reload it was right as rain.
Once you have the programming software up, go to the support page (last menu choice). Look at the bottom of the page and you should see driver and software version numbers. If you see "driver not loaded", then you might have 'botched it'.
Last, I remember Skuzzy talking about quantize in Aces High. You can't set multiple key presses to 0 seconds, usually. I had to go back and change a few of them to .25 or .50 to insure good communication between the stick button and the correct AH result.
Overall, I'm pleased.
