HOTAS setup.

[chris_v_25]

I find the controller setup to be less than intuitive. Is there a guide on how it is supposed to be done?

Thank you.

[Jimmy Arcade]

This is how I would set up my HOTAS.

1. Make sure all the primary flight controls are bound as required. For most joysticks this should already be setup. All the flight controls can be found in the Flight Controls section of the Control Bindings menu.

2. Setup "Cycle Left MFD Page" & "Cycle Right MFD Page" in the MFD Controls section. This will allow you to not only change the displayed page on the relevant MFD but also switch which MFD is the Screen of Interest. The SOI is denoted by the MFD having the extra buttons displayed around the edge.

3. Setup your weapons & targeting controls as these are what you'll be using the most. All of these controls are in the Weapons & Targeting section

- Make sure you have a button (or trigger) bound to "Fire Weapon" & "Cycle Weapon" - those are very important

-

- Bind controls for Previous Target & Next Target. This will allow you to cycle through targets very quickly.

- Bind controls for "Move TPod or TSD Left/Right" & "Move TPod or TSD Up/Down" this will allow you to control both the Targeting Pod and the TSD cursor depending on which one is current the Screen of Interest (as mentioned above)

- Bind controls for "Toggle TPod or TSD Lock" this will allow you to have a single button to lock either the TSD or Targeting Pod depending on which one is the current Screen of Interest.

- Bind controls for "Cycle TPod Zoom" & "Cycle TPod Vision Mode" these will allow you to zoom in & out as well as switch between DTV and IR modes.

That's really the core buttons covered. Now try a mission flying any of the Apache helicopters and take some "LASER" guided Hellfires Fly around and practice locking on to things with the Targeting Pod and then launching Hellfires. You'll soon get used to how it works.

Once you're comfortable with that you can start to take a look at using the RADAR equipped helicopters like the Apache Longbow and Viper CRS.

- Bind controls for "Toggle Radar" & "Cycle Radar Layers"

Toggle Radar turns your Radar on/off. When it is on you will see it sweeping round on the TSD screen. The Radar will find and categorise most targets for you but it is not infalable - terrain and other objects will block it.

Use the "Cycle Radar Layers" control to filter what is shown on the TSD display. You can cycle between...
ALL - Shows everything
HIGH - Shows only AAA/SAM threats
MED - Shows APC/IFVs
LOW - Shows Tanks, trucks etc
BLDG - Shows only buildings
AIR - Shows only air targets.

This allows you to use the TSD cursor to lock onto targets more easily as is declutters the display.

To use Radar Guided Hellfires you mustlock the target via the TSD display - not the Targeting Pod.

That should get you going with the core controls. After that you'll want to look at binding Countermeasures, Navigation Controls & other Aircraft Controls as you see fit.

[rmooney01]

I found it easier to clear all axis bindings and add them back where they belong. Can't remember if I had to do it with the buttons as well.

[Twelvefield]

Hey Jimmy Arcade: maybe you should pin/update this really helpful guide. I keep coming back to it. Each time you make a big update, I make changes to my HOTAS setup and right now it's just a mess. My fault, not yours. But your guide helps a lot for me to straighten out all the commands.

Currently, I'm trying to decide if and how I should mount the radio commands on the HOTAS. I lose a lot of flight awareness if I have to use the keyboard to operate the radio.

Also, now that I think of it, is there a way to just set to default or clear out a section of the button bindings rather than the entire suite? There have been times I would have liked to go back to defaults (especially for the radio) without touching all the other sections.

[Jimmy Arcade]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

Hey Jimmy Arcade: maybe you should pin/update this really helpful guide. I keep coming back to it. Each time you make a big update, I make changes to my HOTAS setup and right now it's just a mess. My fault, not yours. But your guide helps a lot for me to straighten out all the commands.

Currently, I'm trying to decide if and how I should mount the radio commands on the HOTAS. I lose a lot of flight awareness if I have to use the keyboard to operate the radio.

Also, now that I think of it, is there a way to just set to default or clear out a section of the button bindings rather than the entire suite? There have been times I would have liked to go back to defaults (especially for the radio) without touching all the other sections.

I've added the setup guide to the main control guide here. Glad it helps

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2910713794

I find best way to do the radio commands is setup a button and 4 way hat and assign them to the "Command Menu..." set of controls in the "Radio Commands" area. Use the button to toggle the menu and then Command Menu Up to Hat Up, Command MenuDown to Hat Down, Command Menu Select to Hat Right and Command Menu Back to Hat Left (This also closes the command menu when used at the root of the tree).

Eventually you're going to be commanding more than 1 wingman and there simply won't be enough buttons to assign one to every command/wingman separately.

I will also be looking at adding voice command control to the game too. I did this in Powerboat VR and it worked really well. You could setup Voice Attack (or similar) but if I build it in to the game then 1. Everyone has it & 2. I can make much more complex and clever commands than Voice Attck can do.

[Rockwelder]

Voice attack is really versatile. You can do a lot with it. You can play custom sounds when it understands which means you can add radio clicks and custom response voices for immersion..

I want another wing man, can we have one next update?

[Jimmy Arcade]

Originally posted by Rockwelder:

Voice attack is really versatile. You can do a lot with it. You can play custom sounds when it understands which means you can add radio clicks and custom response voices for immersion..

I want another wing man, can we have one next update?

Extra wingmen won't be too far away, but I need to build a better interface to handle them especially as flyable fixed wings need to be handled in their own flight groups.

I envisage there being 3 flight groups in total

1. Main group / Attack (4 helicopters)
2. Auxiliary group / Transport & Heavy (4 helicopters)
3. Fixed wing / Support (2 aircraft)

[Rockwelder]

So let me get this straight: potentially 10 units under the players control in any given mission, only points limited?

[Jimmy Arcade]

Originally posted by Rockwelder:

So let me get this straight: potentially 10 units under the players control in any given mission, only points limited?

That's the current plan

Obviously some mission won't require that many or you may not have enough points to fill all the slots but this is basically getting the game up to Dynamic Campaign size.

[Twelvefield]

If you use the hat to do radio commands, then you can't use it to slew the pod. You can slew the pod with IHADSS and TrackIR (which is awesome, everybody should have a headtrackable IHADSS all the time), but it's a little difficult to get fine control. So for fine adjustments, you use the hat.

I ended up using an external knob controller (a TourBox Elite, but you could use anything that emulates a keyboard like a LoupDeck) and that works well. A Knobster would probably do the trick as well. But there are a lot of controls, you are doing the cockpit work of two people.

[Jimmy Arcade]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

If you use the hat to do radio commands, then you can't use it to slew the pod. You can slew the pod with IHADSS and TrackIR (which is awesome, everybody should have a headtrackable IHADSS all the time), but it's a little difficult to get fine control. So for fine adjustments, you use the hat.

I ended up using an external knob controller (a TourBox Elite, but you could use anything that emulates a keyboard like a LoupDeck) and that works well. A Knobster would probably do the trick as well. But there are a lot of controls, you are doing the cockpit work of two people.

My joystick has multiple hats on both the stick and throttle control - you can never have too many hats

You are indeed doing the work of two people which is why you can always "cheat" and use the next target/previous target controls to simply cycle through the available targets that are in front of you.

These controls also work in tandem with the TSD threat layer so if you only want to cycle through air defences then you can set the TSD to "HIGH" etc etc

[Stinger]

Main Controller X-56 Hotas. I started with radio commands on my right Thrustmaster Cougar MFD. Wingman down the left abd right sides, support calls along the bottom. I also created commands along the top to access the command tree in game but rarely use it as we only have the one wingman and all commands have a dedicated button. With the anticipation of more units and more commands I moved that to my Razar Tautarus keypad.

Top row = HoldPos-MovTo-FormUp-MovMe-RTB

Second Row = WpnFree-AtkDesgn-AtkMy-CAS-SNEAD

I also created macros so I could go directly to a particular wingman and issue a direct order.

Third Row = Wing1-Wing2- Wing3-Wing4

Bottom Row is Mission Support calls 1-4

Once we get to Flights I still have the 4 way hat or could use sequence commands

Hey Jimmy just thinking but an indicator on the HUD telling you which radio "band" you are on might come in handy Main-Aux-Fix or just three carats. In the heat of battle might avoid sending a wrong command to the wrong group!