Inflexibility of the key mapping system in IL2

[ARM505]

Good day,

 

This is a long post. Sorry. This thread refers to one point I make below:

 

The current system used by IL2 is, I'm sorry to say......less than suited to operating multiple aircraft, with multiple devices, across a wide variety of controllers and setups used by players. IMHO of course. I will try to illustrate, with examples. I will happily admit to being wrong, and gladly accept suggestions on how to work around the problems I've found.

 

Given that IL2 is *extremely* dependant on key and axis bindings (given the lack of clickable 'pits), having one key mapping point for all aircraft has at least been acknowledged by the devs as not always suitable, and they've given us the option of having custom setups for each aircraft.

 

Creating a custom profile initially seems to mirror the 'global' profile, and can then be changed independantly, and assigned to aircraft type at will (for example, creating a BF109 profile, then assigning it to all BF109 variants). All well and good.

 

A separate 'pitch response' curve profile can likewise be created, and then also assigned to any aircraft. It should be noted that ONLY a pitch response can be created (not yaw, roll, throttle etc, ONLY pitch, these other axes can only accept sensitivity, edge and center deadzone modifications but not neutral point) and assigned to any aircraft. Ok....

 

Problem 1 (not a problem, just makes the whole system irrelevant?): Creating custom profiles simply mirrors the global profile - no accounting for each aircraft type is made. For example, the 'mixture' control axis for a BF109 is irrelevant, it has specific trim and water cooler shutter controls etc etc, but ALL controls are still shown for every profile, they are not 'simplified' by dropping irrelevant axis/controls. Hence simply assigning everything to 'global' basically achieves exactly the same thing anyway - for example, assigning a control to 'trim nose up', you'd just assign all the different types of trim system (stab, tab, whatever) to the same control, since no aircraft uses two different types at once anyway. The only example I'm able to think of where this system helps, is multi engine aircraft when you want to specifically, say, use your RIGHT throttle as your throttle in single engined aircraft, but left and right throttles independantly for multi engined aircraft (again rendered irrelevant if you're happy using your LEFT throttle for 'engine 1' for singles).

 

Problem 2 (similiar to linked topic above): When attempting to asign any control to an axis, where a button type control also exists on that axis, IL2 will *always* take the button input. I have a Virpil CM3 throttle, with buttons assigned to that portion of the axis around the cutoff positions. When inputting an axis, IL2 wants the *entire* axis moved across before it registers, unlike say DCS, which will recognise a partial movement. This means that it's impossible to assign the throttle axis in IL2 as it stands without temporarily reprogamming my throttle for the setup (not the end of the world, but for some reason I've had to do it more than once, and it's a pain) This leads on to Problem 3 below. This problem also generates issues with spiking axes, which would otherwise be useable, but constantly end up being picked up by IL2 when trying to assign any other axis.

So:

 - No dedicated ability to assign ONLY an axis exists

 - No ability to FORCE an assignment using a dropdown exists

 

Problem 3 (attempting to workaround Problem 2): The '*.actions' files can be directly edited. They are not intended to be ("It is not recommended to change anything here, // but it is still possible on your own risk") However, guessing the axis names assigned to different controllers is not always logical. For example, for the Virpil CM3, the small axis to the right of the throttles is called joy4_axis_t (for me) both by IL2 and by the Virpil software. However, the throttles are called axes rY and rX respectively by the Virpil software, but who knows what IL2 calls them (I'm yet to find out, trial and error isn't working, and they are NOT named the same as the actual Virpil software!) Furthermore, manually editing the *.actions files (in \data\input, and \data\input\custom) becomes confusing as there is also a 'current.actions' file, which is always seems to revert to using if it doesn't recognise a manually edited axis name. Not to mention that shutting down and restarting IL2 just to assign an axis is ridiculous and time consuming to start with...

 

Problem 4 (minor, but would be nice to have): When I come back to flying an aircraft after a long break, it's nice to have the controls highlighted when I press them while in the key mapping menu. For example, randomly pressing my throttle/joystick buttons should highlight what they're currently mapped to (or not mapped at all) in the keymapping menu. Much more flexible and easy to use...

 

The system is not user friendly, is overly complicated, isn't flexible, and frankly doesn't achieve the goal of being able to setup each aircraft in a dedicated fashion.

 

 

Summary (tl;dr)

- Custom profiles only seem specifically useful in one instance (multi engine engine control mapping), otherwise there's no difference just doing everything in global?

- There is zero flexibility when assigning axes, making assigning axes with buttons in their range impossible.

- Manually editing the files is difficult due to unclear logic on which file to edit, and what the naming conventions are.

- Some useability benefit would be gained by highlighting buttons as they're pressed to remind users what's assigned and what isn't.

 

*COUGH* just copy DCS *COUGH* I mean, I'm sure there's an example of how these things can be done, the wheel doesn't need to reinvented surely?

 

P.S. The possibility always exists that I'm being dumb. I'm SURE somebody will let me know if that's the case Failing that, some workarounds would be nice.

[dburne]

9 minutes ago, ARM505 said:

 

 

 

Problem 4 (minor, but would be nice to have): When I come back to flying an aircraft after a long break, it's nice to have the controls highlighted when I press them while in the key mapping menu. For example, randomly pressing my throttle/joystick buttons should highlight what they're currently mapped to (or not mapped at all) in the keymapping menu. Much more flexible and easy to use...

 

 

 

Some good points for sure. This one would be very nice to have. 

And only showing the assignments available for the aircraft one is mapping would help as well.

 

They have already made some big changes by getting it to where we can set up individual aircraft, maybe down the road it can be tweaked further to make it even more user friendly.

[Dagwoodyt]

Don't know if it's the new custom input profile I made for the I-16 that's the root cause but now controls that I had previously set for the Spitfire Vb are now in a jumble on my throttle box. For the first time ever Windows gives a warning tone when I press a momentary toggle switch assigned to elevator down trim. Might have to give up and nuke my input files altogether and start from scratch. ☹️

Edited August 9, 2022 by Dagwoodyt

[Dagwoodyt]

Gradually working thru key bind conflicts without major "surgery" ?

[Hoss]

The Keymapping Profiles update was great, and a bit unexpected, but to expand on it will have to wait until BoN is done I would think. Everyone is waiting for it to be delivered as promised. The Fuel Systems/Combat tanks, Keymapping profiles, wasn't part of BoN release to my recollection. Enough people really wanted to see it in the game, and it's here, it needs some fine tuning for some. One thing I would like to see is the command line light up like they do in the other sim when I press a button or flip a switch or move an axis.

 

I have to use a dilapidated old TMWH, (using TARGET) a GVL R/P/Y trim box, and a BlackHog Explorer (using joy2key). They provide

the settings Axis for roll, pitch and yaw in analog (trim box), and then also use the digital trim Hat on my TM stick, for Pitch and roll, and yaw. The S3 button (In/Out Mode button) allows me to use the yaw L/R for Roll L/R. All of this was discussed at great length amongst the beta team before it's release.  It works as intended for me, and I can't recall anyone else having problems with it. One of the test guys with a set up like yours would have to make comparisons with and discuss their solutions. It's also been a suggestion to delete your Input folder and start over.  Both beta and release versions work for me, I did delete mine once the released version came out.  There are some planes in the new profiles where I don't use the trim box but only the stick digital trim, example, 262 uses analog trim and the 234 uses digital trim in my profiles. Always make sure you have every program running you need to control your set up before you start the game, not doing that consistently will mess up your assignments in the Input folders, devices.txt. Hope it works out and you get it running the way you want.

 

Mark Twain said: “A person with a new idea is a crank, until the idea succeeds.”

 

Spoiler

Hoss

Edited August 9, 2022 by Hoss

[dburne]

I would also like to see, keymapping for an individual aircraft only show what applies to that individual aircraft for mapping.

Maybe they can work towards that at some point in the future to further refine the system.

Edited August 10, 2022 by dburne

[Charon]

On 8/8/2022 at 3:27 AM, ARM505 said:

Problem 2 (similiar to linked topic above): When attempting to asign any control to an axis, where a button type control also exists on that axis, IL2 will *always* take the button input. I have a Virpil CM3 throttle, with buttons assigned to that portion of the axis around the cutoff positions. When inputting an axis, IL2 wants the *entire* axis moved across before it registers, unlike say DCS, which will recognise a partial movement. This means that it's impossible to assign the throttle axis in IL2 as it stands without temporarily reprogamming my throttle for the setup (not the end of the world, but for some reason I've had to do it more than once, and it's a pain) This leads on to Problem 3 below. This problem also generates issues with spiking axes, which would otherwise be useable, but constantly end up being picked up by IL2 when trying to assign any other axis.

So:

 - No dedicated ability to assign ONLY an axis exists

 - No ability to FORCE an assignment using a dropdown exists

 

Yeah, I've always just edited the actions file directly in this case.

 

On 8/8/2022 at 3:27 AM, ARM505 said:

 

Problem 3 (attempting to workaround Problem 2): The '*.actions' files can be directly edited. They are not intended to be ("It is not recommended to change anything here, // but it is still possible on your own risk") However, guessing the axis names assigned to different controllers is not always logical. For example, for the Virpil CM3, the small axis to the right of the throttles is called joy4_axis_t (for me) both by IL2 and by the Virpil software. However, the throttles are called axes rY and rX respectively by the Virpil software, but who knows what IL2 calls them (I'm yet to find out, trial and error isn't working, and they are NOT named the same as the actual Virpil software!) Furthermore, manually editing the *.actions files (in \data\input, and \data\input\custom) becomes confusing as there is also a 'current.actions' file, which is always seems to revert to using if it doesn't recognise a manually edited axis name. Not to mention that shutting down and restarting IL2 just to assign an axis is ridiculous and time consuming to start with...

 

BoX's suffixes are X, Y, Z, W, S, T, P, and Q, respectively. Most other software will call them X, Y, Z, rX, rY, rZ, and either Slider, Dial (Joystick Gremlin) or U, V (older Il-2 titles).

 

On 8/8/2022 at 3:27 AM, ARM505 said:

 

Problem 4 (minor, but would be nice to have): When I come back to flying an aircraft after a long break, it's nice to have the controls highlighted when I press them while in the key mapping menu. For example, randomly pressing my throttle/joystick buttons should highlight what they're currently mapped to (or not mapped at all) in the keymapping menu. Much more flexible and easy to use...

 

Yeah, this would be cool.

 

[ARM505]

8 hours ago, Charon said:

 

BoX's suffixes are X, Y, Z, W, S, T, P, and Q, respectively. Most other software will call them X, Y, Z, rX, rY, rZ, and either Slider, Dial (Joystick Gremlin) or U, V (older Il-2 titles).

 

Thanks very much, I'd never have guessed that. I'll have another go using those.

 

The next problem I see coming is getting the sim to ignore the bottom 17% of my throttle travels thats below the idle cut off stops.....? Problem 5...

[Charon]

1 hour ago, ARM505 said:

The next problem I see coming is getting the sim to ignore the bottom 17% of my throttle travels thats below the idle cut off stops.....? Problem 5...

I don't know if this is doable in-game, but if you're willing to run vjoy and Joystick Gremlin this is easy enough. Just use a remap-axis command to map your throttle to an axis of a virtual device and then set an appropriate curve.

 

You will probably want to assign this axis to current.actions manually, since the game will detect both the original and the mapped axis moving and may not select the one you want.

[ARM505]

I got it all to work, thanks to your help above Charon. My right throttle was Joystick 4, axis 's'. The in game dead zone tools actually worked perfectly for disregarding the idle detent.

 

There are still many shortcomings with the in game tools, but at least I have the basics working with this hardware now.

[Grimnir]

I absolutely agree with the OP: the keymapping system is not very user friendly to say it the least, it is workable but nothing more. DCS has solved this excellently, and the IL-2 team really should look into borrowing some ideas from them.

 

As a bare minimum you should only see the mappings relevant for each aircraft, not all of them… this would help for new players. I am saying this not for myself, I have found a setup I like now. But for new players it is way more complicated than it needs to be. I realise this might mean they will have to rebuild the whole keymapping system, but it is so important for a good user experience IMHO.

Edited April 20, 2024 by Grimnir

[Stout]

I agree too. It's a pain configuring multiple joystick, hotas, button boxes. Not only the hardware can randomly change place, the button numbers are all over the place and not structural. I suppose this is a "windows thing" and vendors/programmers don't give a sh*t about actual physical key numbers.

 

Example 1. I have a KBSim Gladiator. I press key 3 and VKB button tester shows 3 and so does windows Game controllers. I press the same key in IL-2 and it become b2. it makes it unnecessary dificult to have an overview when everything is "set up".

 

Example 2. I have a global profile and put in everything that I have as a default. Example: I have HUD on key 43 on my button box.

If I already have a custom profile but not an input for HUD it doesn't matter that I have it in the global profile. I get no response from the custom profile that my key 43 is HUD! So I have to re-insert it in every custom profile. (It mayby works if I delete all custom profiles, make a new global profile with all edits and THEN make new custom profile.... i don't know but I have to many custom profiles and don't feel I want to start all over again).

 

I thought that all inputs in the global profile are defaults and if I have no key assigned in a custom profile then it's the global profile that counts and the assigned global key should be used. Obviously it's not so, or I am missing something?

 

Example 3. I have a slider which is split up in 4 segements, every segment is a button. So if I slide from 0-100% I have 4 buttons in Freejoy/Mjoy (or any other configurator) have numbers 55-58. IL-2 then convert them to b54-b57. But that's not all. I assign the buttons by sliding the potentiometer I get random numbers between b54-57b. It could be that the first movement is b55 and the second b54.

 

When I'm on it with complains. Why is the "delete x" in the upper right corner so damn small and hard to strike? That's something that I've been wondering since day one and no one seems to care about it. 50% chance or more that I get that bleedin' "press a key window" instead of managed to delete the assigned key. For gods sake, make it bigger or at least the whole right side clickable.

 

I hope I didn't offend anyone. The last time I wrote somehting like this I got punished by LukeFF

Edited June 21, 2024 by Stout

[jollyjack]

I admire the way they set it up now.

 

Most frustrating is for me the amount of work involved to get things 'right'. Why i still tend to use a global profile.

Recently i got a Streamdeck XL to add to my Warthog set and Crosswind pedals.

 

What i miss most for now setting up a Streamdeck system is an overview of all the keymapping options,

so many i never used before because lack of standard buttons on my Warthog system.

Edited July 22, 2024 by jollyjack