Author Topic: Will there ever be an "Expert Mode" for Hotas controllers?  (Read 3340 times)

LeoGuado

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Will there ever be an "Expert Mode" for Hotas controllers?
« on: November 03, 2021, 09:52:23 AM »
Hi everyone, this one will be a bit technical.

As far as I understood, the only way to get a stick that's not compatible with the platform you are playing on to work is to map it into controller inputs. Everything works fine, except for the throttle: some games like Flight Simulator have no option to set the ingame throttle to trigger/analog stick position, but rather they read these inputs only when positive/negative and apply a constant increase/decrease to the throttle as long as the input is a non-zero value.

For example, if I keep the trigger at 50%, the ingame throttle will increase at 50% of its acceleration until it reaches 100% of its value. This makes totally sense on a controller, but gets quite counter-intuitive and frustrating if I map a hotas throttle to the controller trigger, as the throttle doesn't have a spring to recenter its position.

If the input read by the console would be a hotas one, the throttle would act just like it should, as you could unlock those settings in the game.

So I was wondering wether it could be possible to get an "expert mode" like there's one for the steering wheel, so that an Xbox could read a Hotas One input and a PS4 a Hotas 4 input while using any kind of hotas, at least for the stick and throttle controls (as buttons may vary from hotas to hotas).

Austin

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Re: Will there ever be an "Expert Mode" for Hotas controllers?
« Reply #1 on: November 03, 2021, 10:23:12 AM »
seems a really pretty idea.
But,are these two flight sticks(Hotas One and Hotas 4) the best choice for these two consles? Are there any better ones?
Which game shall we test with these two flight sticks, when we start the assessment?

LeoGuado

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Re: Will there ever be an "Expert Mode" for Hotas controllers?
« Reply #2 on: November 04, 2021, 11:42:19 AM »
Hi Austin,

I'm really glad to see our ideas taken into consideration!

As far as I know, those two Hotas are the only ones compatible with each platform (PS3 had the Hotas X, which is identical to One and 4 in terms of layout and functionalities).

For the games, I would suggest Elite: Dangerous, Ace Combat 7/War Thunder, all available on both platforms, and Flight Simulator 2020, which is an Xbox exclusive. There aren't many games that utilize Hotas inputs on the console market, another I can think of is Star Wars: Squadrons, which is multi-platform.

There are plenty of other Hotas controllers that are not from Thrustmaster, but they are pretty high-end and targeted to PC simulation, where you can find every game (since console games are essentially only portings).

richard

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Re: Will there ever be an "Expert Mode" for Hotas controllers?
« Reply #3 on: November 04, 2021, 06:26:30 PM »
@LeoGuado
thanks for all the details!
will assess it carefully when our time can be spared:)