Make IL-2 BoS playable with gamepads!

[Sokol1]

And if you assign axis for aileron, elevator, etc?

 

Sokol1

[BigPickle]

ok my bad, tried to get on last night to edit my post but it was too late, Issue was with my 360 pad not syncing properly not with BoS. 360 pad does work, albeit very over sensitive

[JonRedcorn]

I hate to bring up a very long dead thread but I was searching on Google and it came up. Just wanted to add that a controller 360/ps3 does work and it's actually decent. I normally fly with a stick, just a crappy old sitek joystick but it's not awful just hard to be smooth with. And I figured I'd try and see if I could use my controller because the way I have everything setup my neck starts hurting quite a bit after about 45 minutes.

 

Anyways, have my ps3 controller emulated as a 360 controller for Windows to use and it works just fine.

 

The view control with right sticks a bit wonky right now (kinda sensitive) but other than that I was actually much smoother with it lol. It's in no way a handicap or anything you are using the same FM as everyone. I will refine it tomorrow when I have more time. But I just wanted to add that in case people who Google it see this thread again.

[MACADEMIC]

Hi Grimm,

 

Thanks for bringing this up again. I haven't tried for a while in BOS, but recently flew the DCS FW190-D9 with my PS3 controller (without helpers) without problems. Except that there are no options there for camera speed and smoothing, so the image is very shaky. I've sent a request to those devs to implement that.

 

Really no reason why it shouldn't work well, fine input is possible. Keep us updated how it's working in BOS please.

 

By the way, I recommend to use the SCP drivers for emulating the XBox controller on Windows, Motioninjoy gave me many problems: http://twigstechtips.blogspot.com/2014/04/how-to-use-your-ps3-controller-ds3-dual.html

 

MAC

[JonRedcorn]

Hi Grimm,

 

Thanks for bringing this up again. I haven't tried for a while in BOS, but recently flew the DCS FW190-D9 with my PS3 controller (without helpers) without problems. Except that there are no options there for camera speed and smoothing, so the image is very shaky. I've sent a request to those devs to implement that.

 

Really no reason why it shouldn't work well, fine input is possible. Keep us updated how it's working in BOS please.

 

By the way, I recommend to use the SCP drivers for emulating the XBox controller on Windows, Motioninjoy gave me many problems: http://twigstechtips.blogspot.com/2014/04/how-to-use-your-ps3-controller-ds3-dual.html

 

MAC

Yeah I recently made the switch to the scp drivers for my controller after using motionjoy succesfully for a long time. Never gave me issues really, but this driver is basically plug and play and forget about it. No hassling with software. 

 

And yeah I just got home from work and will be tweaking my setup a bit. I think I can't have both my joystick and gamepad programmed at the same time something was causing the rudder control on my stick to not work and I wasn't able to taxi the 109 with just the controller and using the keyboard to hit the wheel breaks. I tried it flying in the air only and it was like I said actaully in a way smoother than my old stick. I felt I could keep up speed much better due to how much smoother I was with the gamepad. 

 

Oh and obviously playing on expert with full engine controls. 

[71st_AH_Hooves]

I think this is great, The more ways players can interact with the game the better sans mouse aim. That is right out.

[39bn_pavig]

My experience: BoS is playable with game pads fine. Game pads though are totally nerfed as precision controllers. There are two main reasons for this:

 

Firstly the stick on a gamepad is about 1/10th of the length of the stick on a proper joystick. That makes a joystick about 10x as sensitive/controllable for fine adjustments when flying. As combat flying requires both very fine control and the ability to make broad gestures during a firefight, it makes a stick the only alternative for the correct range and fidelity of action required for precision flying. To adjust a gamepad to achieve the same means sacrificing the fidelity required for either precision or broad movement, making flying on the edge of the plane's window of control impossible. As other players and AI will be doing this, it means you need to kill realism to make it playable at all vs ai, or unbalance the game by giving unrealistic physics to gamepad users.

 

Secondly gamepads are designed for a different style of gameplay. They are built to be played with a deadzone and represent a circle of maximum articulation rather than a square. Whereas joysticks produce full movement in both the x and y axis, gamepads are by default nerfed to never provide full travel on both axes at once... so though you can go from -1 to +1 on EITHER the x axis or y axis at any one time, if you are pushing the controller at an angle it won't go all the way. This means in both the center and at the extremes of control available via a gamepad the response is non-linear, and does not correctly map to the controls of a plane elevator/ailerons . Joysticks map properly, and can be operated without (or with minimal) deadzones, which corresponds correctly to how the joystick of a plane works. Again, in order to make gamepads competetive requires producing artificial physics and controller assists, unbalancing the game.

 

So yes, you can use gamepads for BoS - you always could. But they are inherently broken controllers for flying any kind of serious flight sim. I do it myself when I am away from home using my laptop, but it is uncomfortable and not very fun. Given that a cheap and cheerful joystick (logitech 3d pro anyone?) is actually cheaper than a name brand console gamepad, it is really no competition. 

 

You can of course turn on all the flight assists in your difficulty settings and play with a gamepad, but then why would you be playing this game as opposed to something better tuned to the console experience? Playing one of the most realistic flight sims available then turning off all the realism settings seems like a strange thing to me. Doing so robs you of much of the potential joy of the title.

[MACADEMIC]

Yeah I recently made the switch to the scp drivers for my controller after using motionjoy succesfully for a long time. Never gave me issues really, but this driver is basically plug and play and forget about it. No hassling with software. 

 

And yeah I just got home from work and will be tweaking my setup a bit. I think I can't have both my joystick and gamepad programmed at the same time something was causing the rudder control on my stick to not work and I wasn't able to taxi the 109 with just the controller and using the keyboard to hit the wheel breaks. I tried it flying in the air only and it was like I said actaully in a way smoother than my old stick. I felt I could keep up speed much better due to how much smoother I was with the gamepad. 

 

Oh and obviously playing on expert with full engine controls. 

 

Were you able to achieve smoothness with your cockpit camera bound to the right stick? About stick and pad working at the same time, same in DCS, doesn't work, the input commands from two sources at the same time will contradict each other.

 

My experience: BoS is playable with game pads fine. Game pads though are totally nerfed as precision controllers. There are two main reasons for this:

 

Firstly the stick on a gamepad is about 1/10th of the length of the stick on a proper joystick. That makes a joystick about 10x as sensitive/controllable for fine adjustments when flying. As combat flying requires both very fine control and the ability to make broad gestures during a firefight, it makes a stick the only alternative for the correct range and fidelity of action required for precision flying. To adjust a gamepad to achieve the same means sacrificing the fidelity required for either precision or broad movement, making flying on the edge of the plane's window of control impossible. As other players and AI will be doing this, it means you need to kill realism to make it playable at all vs ai, or unbalance the game by giving unrealistic physics to gamepad users.

 

Secondly gamepads are designed for a different style of gameplay. They are built to be played with a deadzone and represent a circle of maximum articulation rather than a square. Whereas joysticks produce full movement in both the x and y axis, gamepads are by default nerfed to never provide full travel on both axes at once... so though you can go from -1 to +1 on EITHER the x axis or y axis at any one time, if you are pushing the controller at an angle it won't go all the way. This means in both the center and at the extremes of control available via a gamepad the response is non-linear, and does not correctly map to the controls of a plane elevator/ailerons . Joysticks map properly, and can be operated without (or with minimal) deadzones, which corresponds correctly to how the joystick of a plane works. Again, in order to make gamepads competetive requires producing artificial physics and controller assists, unbalancing the game.

 

So yes, you can use gamepads for BoS - you always could. But they are inherently broken controllers for flying any kind of serious flight sim. I do it myself when I am away from home using my laptop, but it is uncomfortable and not very fun. Given that a cheap and cheerful joystick (logitech 3d pro anyone?) is actually cheaper than a name brand console gamepad, it is really no competition. 

 

You can of course turn on all the flight assists in your difficulty settings and play with a gamepad, but then why would you be playing this game as opposed to something better tuned to the console experience? Playing one of the most realistic flight sims available then turning off all the realism settings seems like a strange thing to me. Doing so robs you of much of the potential joy of the title.

 

Almost stopped reading after you said 'nerfed'

 

To each their own, for me very fine control is possible, without the application of any specific 'tricks' designed for gamepads only. The thumb is a very fine sensor.

 

MAC

Edited September 11, 2014 by MACADEMIC

[39bn_pavig]

 

To each their own, for me very fine control is possible, without the application of any specific 'tricks' designed for gamepads only. The thumb is a very fine sensor.

 

MAC

 

 

Fair enough. I wasn't pointing out the limitations of the thumb, but the limitations of gamepad design. Some folk have managed to get reasonable performance out of gamepads, but when I went looking for infomation on it it meant running custom drivers to change the circular mapping described above. Also with the extremely small movement available within gamepad joysticks (and the inherent mechanical limitations in that) they have very imprecise centering, so deadzones can never be removed completely. From my testing the middle 15% of the axis will not return reliably, so a 15% deadzone is required. (XBox360 controller, though I tested a third party controller and it was worse.)

 

This is right in the area that is needed for subtle adjustments for stable level flight - which can also be tweaked using aircraft trim, though not on all axes with all planes. So the choice is either to have a deadzone and retrim your aircraft constantly, or not have a deadzone and flop about with difficulty maintaining altitude or heading. 

 

As stated above, correcting these deficiencies means creating artificial physics or flight assists (which are available via custom difficulty options) but neither really substitutes for a controller which is designed for the task. In a real plane or helicopter the flightstick is much longer still, as can be seen from the interior models of the BoS aircraft. Trying to get the same performance out of a stick less than an inch long really isn't possible no matter how you tweak the software. Like I said above - you can use an xbox controller already, but it is not fit for purpose nor comfortable. 

[MACADEMIC]

I think this is great, The more ways players can interact with the game the better sans mouse aim. That is right out.

 

 

MAC

[JonRedcorn]

Fair enough. I wasn't pointing out the limitations of the thumb, but the limitations of gamepad design. Some folk have managed to get reasonable performance out of gamepads, but when I went looking for infomation on it it meant running custom drivers to change the circular mapping described above. Also with the extremely small movement available within gamepad joysticks (and the inherent mechanical limitations in that) they have very imprecise centering, so deadzones can never be removed completely. From my testing the middle 15% of the axis will not return reliably, so a 15% deadzone is required. (XBox360 controller, though I tested a third party controller and it was worse.)

 

This is right in the area that is needed for subtle adjustments for stable level flight - which can also be tweaked using aircraft trim, though not on all axes with all planes. So the choice is either to have a deadzone and retrim your aircraft constantly, or not have a deadzone and flop about with difficulty maintaining altitude or heading. 

 

As stated above, correcting these deficiencies means creating artificial physics or flight assists (which are available via custom difficulty options) but neither really substitutes for a controller which is designed for the task. In a real plane or helicopter the flightstick is much longer still, as can be seen from the interior models of the BoS aircraft. Trying to get the same performance out of a stick less than an inch long really isn't possible no matter how you tweak the software. Like I said above - you can use an xbox controller already, but it is not fit for purpose nor comfortable. 

Not sure what kind of controller you are playing with but my ps3 controller is plenty precise. It's only worse due to like you said the limited range of movement do to the smaller stick. Otherwise it's the same thing as my saitek 290 (which is crap). I have to set deadzones for my joystick anyways as it's old and imprecise. I actually was much smoother with the pad and the only reason for right now I have switched back to the joystick is due to the head movement is more difficult with the controller compared to using my mouse to look around. 

 

I was able to get away a couple times on syndicate earlier today with my ps3 controller. I didn't get a chance to chase anyone down. I also practiced in single player and found the two triggers where much better for controlling my rudder compared to my crappy joystick. There is no reason as has already been stated to dumb the game down for gamepad users. I had no problems flying stable and found it quite enjoyable. I will be making my own TrackirIR setup tomorrow for about 40 dollars with a ps3 eye cam and some infrared led's. Once I do that I will be able to look around with my head and will be able to use the gamepad again. It is much easier on my neck and back. 

Were you able to achieve smoothness with your cockpit camera bound to the right stick? About stick and pad working at the same time, same in DCS, doesn't work, the input commands from two sources at the same time will contradict each other.

 

 

Almost stopped reading after you said 'nerfed'

 

To each their own, for me very fine control is possible, without the application of any specific 'tricks' designed for gamepads only. The thumb is a very fine sensor.

 

MAC

I was able to get it smooth but not good enough to my liking, I don't like how it returned to center when you let go of the right stick. Just need to set deadzones and turn the sensitivity down. I'd suggest attempting to make your own trackir setup as I will be tomorrow. If you get a cheaper webcam you can do it for around 20-30 bucks, but I am going to grab a PS3 webcam (ps3eye) for 30 bucks it runs at over 120fps so it's just as good if not better than the trackir 5 setup. 

 

All you need is a webcam, 3 ir led's and some other little things to wire it up. If you are interested I will post a link on how to set it up a hell of a lot cheaper than the 150 they want for literally the same thing over at the trackir5 setup. 

[[JG2]Surf]

Gawd help us all.

 

Just say no to gamepads.