[Dragon]

I've recently got a set of CH Products controllers, namely CH Fighterstick, CH Pro Throttle and CH Pro Pedals.
These make an excellent  HOTAS set, but when I tried using them with FSO, I encouncered a few problems which prevent them from achieving their best efficency.

The first one is the fact that only one controller can be used by FSO at one time. Every element of the set should be capable of handling steering by itself (even the pedals, which have 3 axes), but I'd like to be able to use all of them. Fortunately, CH Products anticipated that and make a profiler which allowed me to combine all 3 controllers into one device, but it disabled POV HAT on a throttle (thus rendering 4 buttons useless) and one of the axes (not a big problem though, FSO doesn't need 9 axes).

Also, the throttle has 2 axes on a dinky joystick attached to it's side, so I wanted to assign it to lateral and vertical thrusters. Unfortunately, FSO is incapable of assigning an axis to side thrusters. Possiblity of assigning them to an axis instead of buttons would be a major improvement over what we have now.

I've also noticed that only one side thruster can be active at once, making it impossible to use, for example, up and right thrust at the same time. This issue was always here, but I've recently noticed it when trying out the new controllers.

[chief1983]

Yeah I would have steered you away from the CH HOTAS setup solely because of that issue if you really wanted it for FSO.  Saitek and Thrustmaster HOTAS setups have the stick/throttle already in one device I believe, although that doesn't include pedals (I've never had the desire for a HOTAS plus pedals though, but knock yourself out).  I would love to get multiple device support into FSO some day.  Getting rid of the DirectInput code in favor of SDL would probably be the first step in that direction.

[Dragon]

I wasn't getting it for FSO, but rather for flight simulators.
Also, I managed to get the whole set for about 140$, while in most places they want as much for one element (including CH Products main website, I've found my set on an auction).
The new pilot code is in developement, I wonder how difficult would be adding a new axis bind for lateral and vertical thrusters?

[chief1983]

I got a CH Pro Pedals and a Flight Sim Yoke for $25 on Craigslist

[Sushi]

I've also noticed that only one side thruster can be active at once, making it impossible to use, for example, up and right thrust at the same time. This issue was always here, but I've recently noticed it when trying out the new controllers.

You sure about this? I have sidethrust/vertical thrust bound to WASD, and I have no problems using them together.

[Dragon]

When I assigned them to a HAT switch (both 8 way and 4 way), only one direction worked.
I'll check if it happens when using keyboard.

I got a CH Pro Pedals and a Flight Sim Yoke for $25 on Craigslist

Note that I'm from Poland, so this greatly limits my possiblities.
Just finding any set of rudder pedals in Poland was a challenge (shipping from some remote location could cost more than the set itself).
Pretty much everything that was available was a set of Saitek Pro Pedals, most of the time luduciriously expensive (and other times, simply very expensive ).

[Nuke]

I've recently got a set of CH Products controllers, namely CH Fighterstick, CH Pro Throttle and CH Pro Pedals.
These make an excellent  HOTAS set, but when I tried using them with FSO, I encouncered a few problems which prevent them from achieving their best efficency.

did you install CH Control Manager. it lets you do things like combine your joysticks.

needless to say the request is still valid, not everyone has the luxury of ch hardware. people have mismatched joysticks, you can use ppjoy but that can be somewhat complicated (and if you have more than 16 buttons, your also sol). you may have a bunch of extra axes, but with nothing to bind them to its kind of a waste. so support for more joysticks: yes, support for more axes: yes.

[Nuke]

I've also noticed that only one side thruster can be active at once, making it impossible to use, for example, up and right thrust at the same time. This issue was always here, but I've recently noticed it when trying out the new controllers.

You sure about this? I have sidethrust/vertical thrust bound to WASD, and I have no problems using them together.

the problem comes when binding them to an 8 way hat switch, and there are ways around it, at least in ch's profiler (though it requires some cms scripting). i actually have a lua script somewhere that lets you use the mouse for lateral and vertical thrusters, so on joysticks that have trackpoint mice (and that little thumbstick on the ch throttle) can use it. il post it if i can find it.

[Dragon]

CH controll manages was the only thing that allowed me to use the whole set in FS2 at all.

I actually have a lua script somewhere that lets you use the mouse for lateral and vertical thrusters, so on joysticks that have trackpoint mice (and that little thumbstick on the ch throttle) can use it. il post it if i can find it.

That would be great, I'm sure that this script will come in handy.
As for HAT switches, it seems that the problem is really on my end, it turns out that it's impossible to turn a 4-way HAT on two directions at once and 8-way ones function differently than I expected.

[Zacam]

I have the Saitek X52-Pro (and soon to have the X65F I hope) so the ability to recognize and bind with a minimal overhead in terms of additional software would be great.

But so far with the exception of the "mouse" stick, one slider, one button and one "scroll wheel" on the throttle, I have all the bindings in FSO. I don't have or see much of a need ofr the two "twist"s on buttons "i" and "e" but those might be handy for something.

[Nuke]

those knobs are mostly for trim in flight simulators, as much as id like to have them, my ch throttle has none (it does have a pretty awesome thumbstick), the joystick has a throttle wheel that can be used for trim, but the fighter stick has hardware trim built in, so its hardly necessary.

ideally you would be able to bind the mouse to your lateral/vertical thrusters, perhaps use your slider as reverse thrust. id like for mouse axes and joystick axes to be independently assignable, and axes for lateral and vertical thrust and maybe reverse thrust. reverse might be better implemented perhaps as the bottom 10% of the throttle. big thing though is support any and all joysticks attached to the system through sdl (ditching direct input in the process).

[Dragon]

Any progress on this?
I'd really appreciate this script that'd allow thumbstick on my throttle to work as slide control, thus freeing another HAT Switch for other functions.

[torc]

download ppjoy and ppjoyjoy, make your profile and enjoy!!! 

[Dragon]

It still won't allow axis to be assigned to a button (and it would most likely conflict with CH Manager).
If anything, it'd allow a hack-ish solution of making a thumbstick work like another HAT switch, which I don't want, because it won't allow controlling amount of thrust on side thrusters.
TMP already allows assigning axis to side thrusters, so I'd like to either see that ported or done with scripts.

[Nuke]

oh, my bad, i kinda got side tracked. since i really had to cut parts out of a rather complicated script i ended up fixing completely unrelated bugs in that script instead of posting this. you can find the script here.

it works ok with the regular mouse, but i was having trouble getting it to work with my thumb joystick. apparently the virtual mouse that comes with ch control manager doesn't update very quickly, so its not working very well for me. i kinda want some feedback from people with x52s or trackpoint/touchpad mice.

mind you this is no substitute for features suggested in this thread.