Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: texasfighter on May 09, 2013, 12:04:12 PM
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I have a CH setup: Fighterstick, Pro Pedals, Pro Throttle. I have had since day one a problem with SA because I could never get either this setup or my previous joystick to do fast, reliable & steady views up and back (left or right). The Fighterstick uses a pinky button at the bottom, front for the up view and combined with the eight way hat switch, you get the up and back (left or right). My issue is that I have relatively small hands and this makes for a long reach to accomplish one-handed and not move the joystick in some direction that I don't want to. In other words, its not stable as I am having to reach too far. In fact I often use two hands to accomplish this so that it will be completely stable. Obviously using two hands in dogfighting is not good .... cant make the instant throttle change that I might need as my left hand is no longer on the throttle. Obviously using one hand and then going unstable when trying to escape a con on my tail or while trying to shoot that maneuvering con is not good either.
One solution I have read about is to have the Fighterstick cut to make it shorter. Thought about that I long time and don't want to do that. Don't want to spend the extra money on a mod that I don't trust. Don't want to do it myself and ruin the Fighterstick (would be very POd)!
I have lots of buttons I am not using on the Pro Throttle. Therefore I am wondering if it is possible to program one or two of them to do the up and back views? Right now this is a two button function so I don't know if it is possible to program two button activations into one. If it can be done, I believe this is my temporary fix. The long range fix is probably to get Trackir.
Thanks for any help!
Tex78
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Tex yes you can. Any button that is recognized by AH can be programed for any button function.
Keep in mind too that when looking back as an example you can use your "arrow keys" to get a better view then hit F10 before you release the back view button to save it.
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I am currently using a TM TopGun Afterburner II for throttle and a TM T-16000m for stick. Before that I only used the former. There has been no problems to make one of the buttons on the throttle to look up, the hat switch taking care of directions. The only problem with that so far has been that I use modified head positions, looking normally back over my right shoulder, so to say. Combined with the "up" button the head positions seem to work as default, making me look straight back up, the upper part of the back rest dominating my view. It's quite difficult to move the viewing point and press F10 with hands on the stick and throttle ;) Fortunately the same views add to the keyboard's numpad to modify also the up+direction head positions. The only place where this combined view doesn't work as saved is the tower. Modifying and saving works just fine, but the next day the views don't work as saved. Maybe the towers are of different sizes or forms on different maps?
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I use a couple of buttons on my throttle as the Up and Down modifier keys with my left thumb, that way I can keep HOTAS and only my right thumb on the stick hatswitch is potentially destabilising the joystick and therefore aircraft.
Arms/wrists for controlling the power and attitude, thumbs for all 27 views. simples :aok
edit: I reckon you generally want as few functions that you use in combat on the stick as possible.
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Why not put the up modifier on your throttle then? Or if you want to keep using the pinky button, map the view keys to a throttle hat?
Or get TrackIR, which is way, way better, in my opinion, and I used view keys for literally years.
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I dont use my pinky switch at all - the pinky finger is the weakest, and hard to control precisely.
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I have the back keys mapped to the throttle hat, with look up on the castle. The 8 way on stick combined with look up covers most of where I want the bad guy to be and the look back stuff on the throttle is where you don't want him to be.
I'm sure people have far easier ways of doing it but it works for me. The only time I struggle a bit is in a really tight rolling scissor when the baddie is directly under your belly and your trying to line up a shot on him. Only the very top tier sticks will live long enough to be in that position. :D
I grew up with Padlock in FA with no cockpits so would fly looking at the nearest enemy plane and not worry about any of this looking about stuff. This is the main reason so many of them found it very hard to transition to AH IMO.
I also have trackIR which is fine for 1vs1's but detrimental to shooting and furballing. Need to spend more time with it.