Setting up a joystick with VR

[Stratman59]

I'm new to flight sims and to VR so I'm feeling completely out of my depth here. So many settings available I don't see how I can possibly fly with my Rift on without constantly lifting it to press keyboard buttons? No way can I map everything to my Thrustmaster T-Flight Hotas X.

There doesn't seem to be any setting to simplify or automate some of the controls. Spent 2 hours so far and all Iv'e achieved is to open the throttle on the runway and immediately vear to the right until I crash, don't even get close to taking off. I'm trying to set my controls without VR first obviously but can anyone who is using VR just give me a general pointer as to what setting are really necessary to be mapped to the joystick so as not to break the immersion by looking at the keyboard.     

[TG-55Panthercules]

I've been struggling with this a bit as well.  Right now I think I've managed to pare down a minimal set of controls I really need and get them all onto my joystick, throttle quadrant and rudder pedals (except for eject/bail out, which I've got mapped to my space bar on my keyboad - I figure I can find that by touch if I really need to).  However, I've only flown a couple of missions in my IL-2 with those settings so I'm not completely sure I've covered all the bases necessary.

 

I'm still working on some sort of picture/drawing of my command setup for my own studying purposes - when I get it done I'll post it here so you can get an idea of the direction I'm heading with this.  There's at least one command I have mapped (reload all guns) that I have a feeling I probably don't need (I use it a lot in RoF, but I'm not sure it's used or useful in any of the planes I'll be flying in BoS), so I may have room for one more if I find one I've neglected so far.  What worries me most is that I'd like to fly some of the twin-engined planes but I don't see any way to handle that with my current set-up - I have a feeling I'll have to get another throttle quadrant to make those flyable for me. 

[Chomp]

Don't have VR head set yet, but am considering it. I was thinking about this problem and wondering if maybe Voice Attack could be a way around it.

[-SF-Disarray]

I don't fly with VR stuff, but it is very possible to map all of the essential controls to your HOTAS set up. Basically all you NEED to have mapped to get basic flight going is the following:

 

• radiators - oil and water. I like to have every type of water radiator bound to the same button, same for oil. This cuts down on the number of inputs I have to remember.
• throttle
• pitch, roll, yaw
• RPM - mostly for Soviet planes but the German bombers as well. If you have a split throttle setting one half to the RPM and the other to the throttle works well in my experience.
• weapon controls - guns, cannon, bombs and rockets as needed though the first two are going to probably be a must
• breaks

With that you should be able to get most planes in the air. Binding things like the map and navigation lights to your HOTAS is also useful. With VR I can see wanting to have things like engine start cockpit lighting and ejecting bound to the HOTAS as well if you have buttons left over after all of the must haves are bound up.

 

Judging from your description of your initial attempts to get into the air and your claim of being new to flight sims your problem may go deeper than controls. Keep in mind that on these old style planes you have to account for engine torque, especially while taxiing and taking off. Apply a little opposite rudder as your increase the throttle and make sure your engine RPMs are maxed out if your in a plane that isn't auto governed, which is anything that isn't a German fighter.

 

If you are still having trouble hit me up with a PM and I'll give you a hand.

[Stratman59]

Thanks guys, another 4 hours and i'm making headway. First off my Hotas didn't seem to be installing as plug & play with Windows 10 as I thought it would, downloaded a driver and can now map controls albeit that for some reason the numbers on my hardware are one digit behind what the software picks up, i.e if I want to map 'gear' to button 6 on my stick it shows as button 5 on the software? Secondly I found the realism settings so I can let the sim take over complicated engine management etc. so no need to try and map all those keys to joystick buttons. One thing I really like is that I've mapped all my trim controls to my hat switch as with the Rift I don't need it for views, works a treat. Its all there, I just need to spend the time figuring it all out. It really is worth it with the VR, looks glorious and the sense or realism is unbelievable. I used Voice attack with Elite Dangerous, it worked well, might be worth looking into although not very realistic for an historical sim?      

Edited August 12, 2017 by Stratman59

[HippyDruid]

I've been thinking about this a bit too while I wait for my shiny new Rift to get here.

 

Prehaps we're all better off learning braille.

Edited August 12, 2017 by HippyDruid

[TG-55Panthercules]

OK - here is my setup for VR (single engine, e.g., IL-2) so far:

 

 

As I noted above, it's still WIP, so any suggestions for improvements would be welcome.  My second throttle quadrant has been ordered and is supposed to arrive tomorrow (Amazon's amazing), so hopefully I'll be able to tackle some of the twin-engine planes soon.

[HippyDruid]

Similar to my setup, but I use the toggle modifier keys (CTRL) so each button has two uses.

[TG-55Panthercules]

OK - my second throttle quadrant arrived today, so I've taken a stab at re-working my command/control setup to try to get something that will work in VR with the twin-engined planes (and still work with the single-engined types like Stuka and IL-2).  However, I have little if any real flight time in any of these birds yet, so I'm not really sure if I've got all the necessary commands mapped (especially not sure if I need two separate prop RPM controls or if one for both engines would suffice, and also if these plane types really need/use boosts and superchargers like some of the fighters do).

 

My new/current/initial set-up is as shown below:

 

 

Any suggestions for improvements, or for additional commands that I should consider mapping to the 3 or 4 spare/unused buttons noted in the diagram, would be greatly appreciated.

Edited August 13, 2017 by TG-55Panthercules

[TG-55Panthercules]

OK - got my second throttle quadrant installed onto my new "cockpit" tray, and as I went into BoS to actually assign all the controls/key commands I realized some of the names or labels in my previous diagram didn't match the actual in-game terminology, and that there were some (what I think may be) overlapping or duplicate settings in the radiator/cowls/shutters area that may or may not be right, so I've updated my twin-engine diagram to the one below:

 

 

I'm pretty sure that somewhere around here there's a good explanation of what particular commands can safely be duplicated in the assignments because the functions are essentially the same and no particular plane uses both of the overlapping/duplicate types of controls, but I haven't been able to find it yet.    I'm especially confused about some of the commands (like feathering prop) that seem like they should be configurable separately for each engine but for which there only seems to be one assignment - with two throttle quadrants I really don't want to have to try toggling back and forth between controlling one engine and then the other if there's any way to avoid it.  But in the meantime, I have re-arranged things a bit to contemplate having to set some things using the Engine 1/Engine 2 toggles.

 

I've also moved a few things around to try to get the engine stuff and weapons stuff grouped together better.  Any tips or guidance anyone can provide about the above setup, and particularly this issue of overlapping/duplicate controls, would be greatly appreciated.

Edited August 14, 2017 by TG-55Panthercules