New toy: VKB Gladiator HOTAS/HOSAS
Waaay back in the day, a kickstarter was announced for Elite Dangerous, a spiritual/actual successor to the “Elite” series of computer games, the first of which was a substantial rabbit hole I fell down as a kid (I distinctly remember dying a lot, and I think I was saved frequently by cheese-saves via our Action Replay cartridge). We were much too poor at the time for me to back it, and I promptly forgot about it.
I bought it on sale some time ago, and never played it, and I eventually rolled around into trying it a couple months back. Playing it is probably not the right term, it became my personality for a couple of months. It’s not entirely unlikely that I am thinking about the game while you’re reading this.
I’ve progressed reasonably quickly in terms of content (though definitely not skill), and I decided that using an Xbox One controller was probably holding me back. Yeah, I’m sure that’s it. I remembered seeing people advertising HOTASes (“hands-on throttle and stick”) around, and I originally wanted a flight yoke for MS Flight Sim. I could unfortunately find neither on Facebook or Gumtree local to me for a reasonable price, so I started researching what a new one would look like.
After a lot of research, coinciding with a swelling of my fun-budget, I decided upon the “Gladiator” from VKBsim. They’re pretty nice, eminently hackable (they literally provide YouTube videos showing various customizations you can do, they come with several parts to change things out, and people 3D print or otherwise fabricate addons for them all the time), though they are a bit steep. To the point where I did the numbers and I couldn’t afford a set of rudder pedals at the time, though now I wish I could as I really dislike Z-axis on joysticks still. Seriously, it’s been 25 years or thereabouts since I tried the original Microsoft Sidewinder and I still fucking hate the idea! Oh well, Christmas is coming, and I’ve been pretty good.
Anyway, they arrived last week I think, or maybe the week before, it’s been a bit of a blur between this and work. I’m still experimenting with a control scheme, and the ali-express-tier mounts I bought to go with them need some more fabrication work to improve things, but they’re pretty dang great. I bought the “enhanced” stick for the right one, and an “omni throttle” for the left one, which is really just the enhanced stick with an angled grip as far as I can tell.
I love ’em, for zooming around an asteroid field blowing up pirates, the feeling is excellent.
Complaints?
- The knob on the upper POV hat sucks arse, it’s really rough on the thumb, and I use it for navigating the menus. People 3D print replacements, including ones that are supposed to look like those on an F-15/F-18, so I’ll probably buy some of those.
- The throttle knob (I don’t use it as a throttle, I tried to use it for sensor distance but threw that away for the encoder wheel instead) seems really bad. This might just need calibration, but 50% of the knob is not 50%. I have to hook it up to my Windows laptop and run their software (it won’t run through WINE/Proton, or it’ll run but will never find the device) and see if calibration fixes it.
- The 8-way POV analog stick’s sensitivity is also kinda bad, but again calibration may fix that.
- There’s a couple small sharp bits, and my autistic fingers instinctively go looking for them. A nail file to round them off fixes it. This is probably more an issue with me than the sticks.
That’s it, definitely way more good than bad, if you can afford a set, I would 100% recommend them at this stage.
Update: 2024-10-13: I mentioned earlier that I wished I could afford the rudder pedals at the same time. In retrospect, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise! Yakking with some folks on the Anti-Xeno Initiative discord, they mentioned how rudder pedals are basically the last thing you want for E:D, because basically for a regular flight sim the yaw is not super important, you make small adjustments to it at certain times but that’s it… but for E:D in combat, you use yaw a lot, and using rudder pedals is tantamount to playing Xbox with your feet.
I wasn’t necessarily convinced, but then I realized that I basically tried “twist for Z axis” on the original Microsoft Sidewinder in like 1999, or 2000, or somewhere thereabouts, decided I hated it, and have hated it ever since. So I resolved to give it another go - I took the screws locking the Z-axis out, calibrated it, and set it up. This let me put the lateral thrust on the X axis of the throttle instead, and now that I’m used it it it’s actually substantially better, and hasn’t caused my any RSI.
So I might still look at getting rudder pedals in case I want to play something else, but for E:D it doesn’t seem like they’re required. Now what to do with the Z axis on the throttle? 🤔
fwagglePublished:
Modified:
Filed under:
Location:
Horsham, VIC, AustraliaNavigation: Older Entry Newer Entry