The joystick thread

Games
#204

I’ve gone through a few iterations on hotas setups.

Original saiteks were okay. I mean okay saiteks = kinda shit, but they functioned. Post logitech they are horrible.

Like upsettingly bad. Flimsy, and awful, and you are better off having nothing. I’ve bough and returned 2 diff sets. X52 as a stopgap that was so flimsy i didn’t even unpack it, and an x56 for my son that was so bad it made him cry from frustration.

Curently I have 2 different setups. One for me, one for my son. Both use the VKB Gladiator which is great. Priced well, customizable and good support. I thought it was mushy, but in actual use it’s just stable.

2 diff throttles. First is a virpil CM3 which I use. It’s a great piece of hardware. Solid, well built. Software is decent. It’s vague, so no 1:1 buttons to hardware.

My son has a Winwing orion throttle with the f18 handle. I LOVE this one. It’s goofy and overly specific and just fun to flip buttons on. Software isn’t bad per-se, but it’s not documented. Has some good binding stuff for dcs.

I also have a set of the vkb rudder pedals which are nice, but I haven’t used them much.

For future purchases, I’m going to probably go with winwing throttles and VKB sticks. I’m really impressed with VKB (and their customer service after i busted a cable). Winwing is just a hoot. Very much ticks the “lets’ pretend” buttons with the hardware.

#205

For any Canadians looking for the cheapest one, the Logitech one goes on sale for $39.99 on Amazon Canada every few months, down from $49.99.

#206

Any issues with the Winwing throttle? It looks like the perfect replacement for my old Saitek throttle.

#207

Excepting it being about 20 times the price of your Saitek, I’d be curious to know what issues it’d have then ;D

#208

Yeah, when I said replacement I meant upgrade, so I expect to pay more. It’s $235 in their store not including shipping, so that’s still cheaper than a TM Warthog throttle and much cheaper than a Virpil throttle.

I’ve heard of Winwing before, but the last time I checked their product lineup the only throttle was a beast of a device:

#209

Anyone have a towel? I seem to be drooling uncontrollably.

#210

Hot damn, the price here is scandalous: it’s 600 euros here (about 650$).

For 235$, I’d instabuy it! Do it already :O

#211

Just to be clear, I’m not looking at the one in the picture above, it’s $650 here. The one I’m looking at is this:

It’s also out of stock (of course), but is available for backorder I think.

#212

I can visually feel the proper resistance of that throttle.

drools

#213

I’d lend you my towel but… you know.

#214

Aah, okie. I was about to throw a revolution.
(I like the one you posted before a lot though, cold war kids and their glowing mechanical titties…)

I was looking for an article I had read with some extra extravaganza (probably an oxymoron, but I get easily excited with sexy gaming hardware):

image

This is supposed to represent the actual physical resistance of the various errm… triggers of an original throttle.

#215

I’d take either one and not even plug it in. Just play with it.

#216

I confess to having doing that once upon a time - and relatively more recently with the silly Steel Battalion stick.
I think a driver was in the work for the Steel Battalion controller actually, many many years ago, but I guess that project flubbed, or we’d have pictures of virtual cockpits featuring that hardware everywhere.

#217

Nope. It’s super solid. Arma3 hates it, but it hates everything

#218

Thanks, I went ahead and ordered one already.

In fact the handle arrived today. The base unit, I have no idea where that is. Fedex tracking shows it leaving the facility in Chengdu, then stops. I really wish Winwing would have shipped them together as a single package. Probably would have saved on shipping costs too.

Disappointing to hear Arma 3 has problems. That’s one of the games where I wanted to use it. Not a deal-breaker though.

#219

Turns out it was caught up in the backlog of goods coming from China. Finally arrived yesterday, just finished assembling the throttle this morning.

Between the time I ordered and the time it shipped Winwing released version 2 of their Orion throttle, so that’s what I received. One of the big changes is an adjustable idle/afterburner detent, which seems like a neat feature, but the moving parts there are plastic on plastic so I’ve ordered some synthetic lubricant to preserve them and make them operate more smoothly.

It’s a little bigger than I expected, but that’s not a problem. Fits nicely on my desk.

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#220

You’re killing me man. :)

#221

So what do you fly with those godly things? DCS F-18?

#222

Ace Combat 7.

#223

Seriously, I do chew on the edges of DCS from time to time. I need to make more of an effort to get into it in earnest.

Mostly MSFS, IL-2 BoX, Elite Dangerous. I don’t play ARMA 3 much anymore, but I tried it over the weekend and the throttle seems to work ok. I’ll happily use it in other games where I can justify a HOTAS setup, even if it’s overkill. (Haven’t actually tried Ace Combat 7 though)