ESC Key gets disabled when using Level Flight AI-Autopilot Left Turn or Level Flight AI-Autopilot Right Turn

[--[---MAILMAN----]

I have had this occur any time I use the Level Flight AI-Autopilot Turn Left or Level Flight AI-Autopilot Turn Right commands.

 

If I toggle either of the above commands the ESC key becomes disabled until such time as I toggle the command off, then there seems to be some sort of time delay until the ESC key is enabled.

If you choose to toggle the Autopilot level flight instead of toggling the Autopilot level flight turn the ESC key will remain disabled.  Only if you toggle off Autopilot level flight turn in the same direction used previously will the  ESC key become enabled after some sort of time delay.

 

I noticed this over a year ago and stopped using the Autopilot AI level flight turn commands due to this phenomenon.  At the time I did not know you had to toggle off the exact command and when I landed I could not use the ESC key to end the flight because it was still disabled.  I had to ctrl-alt-delete out of the game to get access to the ESC again.

 

Out of boredom this morning I experimented and found that if you toggle the auto pilot level turn command on then toggle it off before toggling autopilot level flight the ESC key gets enabled after the timer expires.

 

Is this a design feature or a bug?

 

I hope this explanation can help anyone who experiences this.

Edited April 19 by --[---MAILMAN----
grammar

[FlyingH]

When that happens alt+tab out of the game start notepad and see if the command is still active, you should get a string of letters. That means yiuo´ll need to deactivate the command to get to the esc key working. Has been that way ever since tha days of the roman empire!

[-332FG-Gordon200]

I'm not able to bind ESC key to my controls. Must use joy2key for the one simple act.

[--[---MAILMAN----]

On 4/19/2025 at 4:39 PM, FlyingH said:

When that happens alt+tab out of the game start notepad and see if the command is still active, you should get a string of letters. That means yiuo´ll need to deactivate the command to get to the esc key working. Has been that way ever since tha days of the roman empire!

If I already recognize what is happening and what I have to do to correct it: Toggle off the Autopilot level turn and I get the ESC key function back.

 

I just find it silly that it even happened in the first place and that it still occurs today after all of this time that the game has been out.

13 minutes ago, -332FG-Gordon200 said:

I'm not able to bind ESC key to my controls. Must use joy2key for the one simple act.

I didn't bind/try to bind the ESC KEY to anything it has default functions in the game.  I simply needed to search the keymapping settings for something while circling over and defending a friendly target and found out that the ESC KEY was disabled and I could not access that menu.  By trial and error I found out that I had to toggle off Autopilot Level Turn in order to regain the function of the ESC KEY.  This ESC KEY does not get disabled if you toggle on the Autopilot-AI Level Flight.