I have a pretty good setup, and i've done some tooling around to get it working great, but i have to wonder if i can do better with another stick or configuration.

How do you have your control sensitivities set, and do you find it helps to set them based on the plane your flying or do you leave it the same for all planes?

I have mine set the same, and i use a very shallow curve until about half way where it begins to catch up with the actual curve of the stick.
It removes a lot of the over sensitivity that logitechs are known for, with out removing a lot of throw for response at high speeds.

I only have three axis on my joystick, and i find the third works best as a trim. However, because of my setup, i rarely ever use the third axis and do my rudder, throttle, trim, prop pitch and mixture control with the mouse wheel. Actually, the priority of those functions is in that order, except that throttle and prop pitch carry the same priority. Meaning if i wanted to, i could adjust both at the same time. For me this is probably equally efficient and ergonomic because i pan with the mouse. Therefore, i always have one hand on the mouse and the other on the stick. There are quite a bit of button combinations going on as well, being that i have four thumb buttons on the stick, and 5 mouse buttons. This doesn't mean i'm using every possible combo, just what i need during a fast moving dogfight is right at my fingertips. Actually there is very little hands off play. The only thing i mapped away from the stick and mouse are remedial things done on the ground, and some landing procedures. The map view is mapped to the space bar due to a bug in my mouse program that caused the map view to come on when ever it felt like it. Not sure why, but any other command is fine, it just bugged out over the map. So for that reason its on the space bar.

Thats what i'm running on, and if others care to share what they use and how, that would be great.

Bill

I'm using a Logitech Extreme 3D pro (4 axes) in the right hand and a CH throttle quad and mouse in the left. I have guns, flaps, WEP, rockets, and gunsight zoom mapped to the top buttons on the joystick and engine axes (including mixture after a bit of playing around with the program), supercharger, and trim assigned to the levers on the TQ (and aileron trim assigned to the lever at the base of the joystick). Bombs, radiator, and a bunch of minor functions are mapped to buttons on the TQ and emergency/takeoff/landing buttons are mapped to the joystick base. The mouse buttons are for switching between internal and external views and firing tail guns on bombers (and I use it for view, as the hat switch is pretty imprecise). It takes a split second to switch between the mouse and the TQ but it covers pretty much everything.

I have CH hotas and pedals . . .

Went with Bearcat's nuggets thread, there's a guy that says got senstive as much as possible, so Il-2 joy control sensitivity is 100% as are the CH control manager for the axis of the CH controllers are set to 100% (default for CH).

Don't try this on a logitech (specifically the 3D extreme) you'll be like a monkey on crack while flying.



Pro throttle has all engine related stuff. CEM commands (increase / decrease, 50% and auto toggle ), engine selection (although I rarely fly the P-38 or twin engines planes) etc.

I set the axis for the mini stick (its analog mouse like stick thingy) to move the mouse. Rest are buttons

The fighter stick set the axis slider for throttle to elevator. I have flaps, airbrake, other air flow control surfaces( trim) set here.

Other trims are set to buttons. I also set the neutral trims to buttons. (it has two other sliders but for some reason these two mirror the X Y the stick uses in IL-2 game detection, I know I could program it but the PC detects the usb faster in direct / non CH mapped / programmed mode.).

I tend to fly 109s and 190's so elevator got the only slider. Also there is a button to switch from pilot to gunner positions.

I also use FOV / gunsight views on the fighter stick buttons as well as all my weapons buttons and track IR (3 buttons, pause, center, and precision).

pedals get rudder and toe presses get taxiing brakes.


To look around I use mouse or keyboard keys.

Recently I just got trackIR and to me it is as good for SA and looking around as joystick is for flying (as opposed to using the keyboard for flying). Mouse and KB have been retired from SA service.


Gunner I rarely play so I just go to mouse for that at IL-2's defaults.

Mouse senstivity is set to 10 also. Quick flick and guns are on point.

I actually use 100% sensitivity in the IL2 setup and have no problem (except for the twist rudder, I had to give it a big dead zone because it has a ton of play in it). You just need to be smooth if you want to go perfectly straight.

I use a cheapo thrustmaster with twisty joystick. I have to swap hands to use my right on the mouse to look around with. It means i can't really look around just before firing at an enemy because my left hand just isn't accurate enough with the mouse or joystick!