A guide to setting up controls without head tracking.

[[1Tac]DisCHQ]

I have been thinking about writing one of these for a while now, but keep putting it off so here I go.

 

I see a lot of new players get the advice to just get some form of headtracking to be able to compete against other people in multiplayer. I hope that this guide can help those that do not have access to headtracking.

 

Welcome to my small guide to setting up some of the more important controls, and view settings for people that do not have access to headtracking.  My method is certainly not the only way to do this and you should always go with what works best for you, I simply hope to create a starting point for new players, and should be useable with maybe some tweaking with any stick setup out there.

 

Starting off, this guide will rely on one handed flying using the mouse as your main view device. This will confront you with a choice right at the start, you will have to pick between using the mouse in the left hand with the stick on the right or the other way around (I myself fly stick left mouse right but I suggest picking what feels most comfortable for you). 

 

Next we need to take a look at the minimum needed controls to fly most of the aircraft in the sim. Since we have limited buttons available we need to make every single one count. 

 

I will list what I believe to be the important controls to set up and the key binding I have them set to, going from top to bottom in the key bindings:

 

Camera controls (External camera control I think):

• Reset camera                                 Middle Mouse Button (clicking the scroll wheel)
• Camera zoom                                 Mouse Wheel (Scroll)
• Rotate camera up/down                Mouse Y 
• Rotate camera left/right                Mouse X

 

Pilot Head control:

• Pilot head: zoom                            Mouse Wheel
• Change veh turret zoom                Mouse Wheel
• Bow Pilot head vertically               Mouse Y
• Turn Pilot head horizontally           Mouse X
• Turn gunner's head horizontally    Mouse X
• Pilot head snap position: center    Middle Mouse Button
• Head independent view left/right  Mouse X
• Head independent view up/down  Mouse Y

  

The following are for If you have a 4 way HAT switch on top of your stick. These might conflict with some of the snap positions in the same tab, if they do you will see an orange box in the bottom right of the command box. When you hover over this you can see where it conflicts.

• Move Pilot head left                       HAT left
• Move Pilot head right                     HAT right
• Move Pilot head up                         HAT up
• Move pilot head down                    HAT down 

This will allow you to move your head a bit more freely in the cockpit and allows you to see your rear a bit better.

 

For plane controls I am going to skip over trim if you do wish to bind these then make sure you select the trim axis settings.

 

Plane controls:

• Plane control: pitch                        Joystick Axis Y
• Plane control: roll                            Joystick Axis X
• Plane control: yaw                          Joystick Axis Z (twist rudder or rudder pedals)
• Wheel brakes                                   You need these to be easily reachable during taxi to steer, find something that works for you (When pressing this button and                                                                      moving the rudder it will apply the brake in the direction you are pushing the rudder).

Some extra controls not important right away but could be useful:

• Flaps up                                           
• Flaps down                                       Useful for landing bind where you would like them.
• Canopy close                                    To close the canopy a button or button combo needs to be pressed, you only really do this once.

 

Plane engine controls:

• Engine Throttle control                    This can either be on the stick or the mouse would suggest using 2 buttons on top of the stick that are easily reachable during combat. 

 

• Engine mixture control                      Leave this as default and just remember the combo, this is mostly set and forget
• Propeller RPM control                       Left/Right mouse button
• Oil radiator shutters axis                  Leave as default
• Water radiator shutter axis               Leave as default
• Engines Inlet cowl control                 Leave as default
• Engine outlet cowl control                Set to the same as your water radiator controls (Planes that have these cowl flaps have no water radiators)

 

Weapons controls:

• Fire all guns                                       The trigger on your joystick
• Fire weapon group 1                          You don't need to bind this but this on most planes fires just the machineguns.

 

Congrats for making it past this massive wall of text, these are by far the most important controls you have. Should you have leftover buttons you can take a look through some of the remaining control options to see if you can find things to set them to.

 

As for the sticks I use and would recommend (Putting this here because I think this question might come up), I myself have an X52 pro but have been looking at getting the Gladiator NXT (since it offers left handed grips). You should be able to use this with almost every stick on the market, I can't really recommend anything I have not used unfortunately.

 

If you have anything you think I should add to this feel free to PM me here on the forums.

 

Below I will post some screenshots of my controls to make things a bit clearer.

 

 

Edited February 24, 2022 by [1Tac]DisCHQ

[RossMarBow]

Hey this is how I run left hand stick (thustmaster 16000m right hand mouse.
My mouse has extra buttons for thumb and on top
But the most important thing is thumb button as RShift <- I use this modifier a lot to double park similar controls
i also have another thumb button as mic and Rcntrl
I also have finger buttons as head up down
Mouse wheel tilt = head side to side can be annoying but needed to look behind you
Left click = zoom out
Right click = zoom in
Middle mouse = quick zoom 
I use the default keys to move head forward and back (generally I have it back for landing, and nearly all the way forward otherwise
and another mouse button to reset head
theirs probably smarter things you can do with head positioning (saving positions etc.) but this is easy and works well 

Bombing controls
Number pad on keyboard
drop = 0
open bomb bay doors = 1
and all the other things

Plane
Trim
Hat switch
stab controls up down (setup like a joystick pull back go up etc.
rudder left right
roll trim rshft left right
Rshift + left right roll trim
Flaps = right and left thumb, right thumb = flaps up

Engine
throttle / pressure = mouse wheel and up down arrows on keyboard
Boost  = RShift + flaps up
Oil and water rads = base buttons right side
Cowls in = base buttons left side
Cowls out = base buttons left side
Cockpit close = far left base button
Eject = far left base button 
RPM / pitch = joystick slider and left right arrows on keyboard and rcntrl + mousewheel (although i rarely use this)
mixture = rshift (on mouse) + mousewheel and rshft + left right arrows on keyboard 

 

Most other things are default 
When I taxi I have my right hand hovering over default wheel break controls and thats why I use arrows to control (manifold) pressure and pitch

 

This setup basically gives me access to all the things I need in tight situations like dog fights without having to loose control of head or stick
During ground attack you don't need hands on mouse and numberpad is super close 

Basically things I use every flight but don't need to use in a pinch are attached to base buttons, although it would probably be smarter to make them easier to use keyboard buttons. 

Also be aware some control types (horizontal stab (up down trim) have multiple entries in the game but no plane has two different stab types so you set both the same. hori stab and cowls comes to mind. Also hori stab has some weird stuff going on so test you have setup the correct buttons for the range of different aircraft.




 

[[F.Circus]MoerasGrizzly]

Two recommendations from me:

 

"Pilot head snap modifier: Custom" control, "Numpad ." by default.

If you press it, your pilot will quickly look at the plane's dashboard. If you then play with the POV controls it'll look at various controls or gauges in more details, or with some planes over the side of the plane past the nose, which is very useful for taxi operations. Finally, holding it and "Head snap UP" will quickly zoom down the sights, which is especially useful if you happen to have sights that are off-centre (like the various WW1 planes). If you use any camera setting other then "Fixed quick view", releasing the button will put you back where you were. If you have to look at your instruments quickly - which you will! - it's basically required.

 

Another option I'd recommend is "Quick zoom: Maximum" (or whatever level you prefer). Hold a button and you get a very quick Arma-style zoom. Works excellently in combination with mouselook.

 

Play around with camera settings and see what is best for you. I personally prefer gradual quick view with the snap camera settings set to the fastest movement, and then fine tune the view with the mouse if necessary. This way I can still find people relatively decently on full realism servers. If you happen to have one of the X52s, the ministick works very well as a POV hat. I use the clutch button for the pilot head snap modifier.