General keymapping tips needed for tanks ....

[jollyjack]

Has anyone some tips how to address the turret movements in Great Battles, maybe with an fcf file adapted for a Warthog set? I can start the engine, and 'ride' around, but that way i'll only flatten a few frogs. Can't find the cannon functions like aiming and shooting .....

Edited July 27, 2019 by jollyjack

[SCG_judgedeath3]

Check the settings and you find the controls and change them to your liking but the standard is:
press left ctrl + c to change position in the tank.
Left shift + t in the gunner position will put you into various sights, I recommend the gunner sight. PRess T in this mode and you control the gun with the mouse.

To open hatches: AltGr + c open or close hatches

[jollyjack]

Tanks, eh thanks .....

[Thad]

This may help. 

 

Tank Controls

[jollyjack]

Thanks again .... BTW a tank seems nicer for a ride against all those dreadful boogiemen; you don't stall, crash in to the ground or water. Been practicing P40, and Sturmovik 

bombing or shooting ground objects. Never hit any thing using rockets BTW. All in BoX not so easy, but the Sturmovik 1943 plane is still a nice ugly duck. And to find that AAA that keeps pestering you ... you'll need a tank LoL.

 

In IL2 1946 it seemed a lot easier to hit trains and bridges f.i. and not being wasted by flak that much. 

I bought the lot for thatIL2 quite a while back, but cannot get versions beyond 4.12.2 to work in Windows 7 or 10 ..... sequentially updating from the 4 4.13 versions, and 4.14.1; no in between nor latest version works, won't even start.

[69th_chuter]

In TC airplanes crash into you.

[Torrens]

You can set the keybindings to whatever you feel comfortable in the settings. There is all kinds of things you can micromanage manually. To give you an example my configuration goes like this:

V - open hatches

C - swap seats in the tank

Z - gear limit down

X - gear limit up

T - take control of guns

LShift + T - lean in to gunsights

LControl + A/D - rotate periscope left/right

LControl + W/S - rotate periscope up/down

LControl + V - set periscope to default orientation

LShift + A/D - lean left/right

LShift + W/S - lean forward/backward

Page up - lean up

Page down - lean down

L - internal lights on/off

LWindows + C - close visors/open visors

Edited July 28, 2019 by Torrens

[jollyjack]

Just been trying these; but for some reason MOST 'Tank Crew Default Key Mapping version 3.012 PDF' settings don't seem to work, except for E (start engine) and the joystick addressed to moving around.

 

Must be something to do maybe with TARGET GUI settings way of addressing the warthog buttons ... probably some settings regarding I, O, U, M, or D selected.

Never bothered with them in plane - warthog related button links, but now i am not so sure. The manual's instructions on TARGET GUI is not very clear.

 

All i found on that is mentioned in Chapter 10 in the TARGET users manual. But the Quest Goes On. I like IL2 1946, relatively simple to get that rolling smoothly ...

Edited July 28, 2019 by jollyjack

[pa4tim]

You found a manual ?

 

I have been struggling a lot with TC controls. It all kinda works but some things are a bit complicated. Tank controls are not only in the tank tap. They f.i.  also use settings in the pilot and camera section.

The biggest problem is the turret rotation while aiming. Hover it is also a matter of learning to cope with it.  After taking control and nestle to the gunsight you can not aim with the joystick (unless you start playing with external joy2key things. I tried but that messed up my plane controls so I think others start up choosing for BOX or for TC before starting the game.)

 

Switch next free battle position: jumps from driver to  hull machine gun,  to gunner, to commander  (or whatever your tank has)

Taking control: the gunner grabs the gun controls to set the horizontal and vertical and starts to rotate the turret and elevate the gun. 

Nestle : the gunner looks through the gun sight and starts aiming.

The problem here is that the gunner is a bit retarded because he does not understand that he needs to turn his head at the same speed as the gun. The result is that if you turn your head faster as the gun you see nothing. The problem is that the mouse controls the head and gun at the same time. There is no sync (or so well hidden that I can not find it) Some tanks react the other way round. They start to oscillate going left and right complete out of control. What helps in both cases is to use the zoom. The aiming versus mouse speed is zoom depended. Just experiment to learn what it does. 

 

The other problem is all the camera / pilot settings. That drove me nuts so I went back to default with joystick/throttle connected. I then remapped all non-camera/pilothead keys.  (My keyboard has labels) I then changed some cam/pilot/head-move settings but keep the relation IL-2 does. So if they use POV 1  for function, A, B and C and I want to use POV 2,  I use that for A, B and C too. I used to split that but that sometimes gave weird effects. And I do key/axis after key/axis and check them every step. Now it is playable-able but I still think they must introduce a sync mechanism between sight/visor and pilot head/cam

 

The most powerful function is a bit hidden. The snap controls. This let you program presets to the numpad and joystick POV. You can toggle (F9)between some modes. pan lets you move the head or cam as long as you hold the POV in one position. If you press it to the right the head starts to turn CW. But there also is a fixed mode. If you here use the POV you jump to a programmed direction. If you press to the right the head looks to a fixed right position. If you look to a tank at 3 o'clock in pan mode and want to look a tank at 6 o'clock you press the POV to the right until you see at 6 o'clock. In fixed pos you pull  the POV towards you ( the 6 position ) and immediate you look in the 6 direction. 

The nice thing is that you can program those positions per crew member , per tank/plane. Back them up if there is a update so you do not loose them. I have done this for all my tanks and planes and it is a lot off work. 

 

Press and hold numpad 5 to set the center position, use the mouse to set view and zoom. If you are done you press F10 to save this position. Then use the mouse  to look away. When you then press 5 you should get the programmed view again. Now press and hold f.i 6. Again choose the view and zoom and save. Press 5 again (It seems to work better if you go to 5 after each step) Now press f.i. 7 and use the mouse again and then save. Do this for all directions. Custom/upper/lower lets you choose  a random position. (forget the labels every numlock key can be programmed how you like it. You want to look right if you press 7 ? No problem just do it. I use custom for my dashboards and upper and lower to look in a plane to the controls left and right of the pilot. In a tank I use this for rotating visors. I rotate the visor in the direction I want to look and then manouvre the crewmember so he looks through it and then save the snap location. If I want to use it I press the key so the crew member looks where I programmed and then I rotate the visor to that spot. 

I hope they come up whit a way to sync things so the visor follows the crew member after nestle by itself and for most they do that for the gun to. (and in tanks let me use the joystick to aim) 

 

The nice thing is that you can do that for the gun aim to. So If I take control of the gun and nestle and then want to rotate to 6 o'clock I pull the POV to 6 and wait until I am there. If I want to aim at 6.5 oclock I use the mouse to go from 6 on to 6.5 The advantage is that you do not need to search with a black screen.  Just wait until you see again while knowing where you are.

 

I hope this helps. The most difficult part of this sim is to learn to use the controls because there is no real manual. Look also at orange squares, they tell you there are double used keys. Double is OK but only if there are no possible conflicts. (if you bind a key to have 2 functions he tries to do them both) There are some bugs but that does not seem to mess things up (I hope) F.i, I do not use the E for starting but the software thinks I still do (the orange block tell me that)  

 

 

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Edited July 28, 2019 by pa4tim