The Cougar seems to be... | Forums

[XyZspineZyX]

...the stick of choice for those who enjoy the tweaking part even more than the actual flying. Or am I wrong?

Before ordering the Cougar I visited their homepage
( http://cougar.frugalsworld.com ), just in case there would be some major issues I thought. After some time of browsing through its content I was actually a bit detered.

Zillions of tips & tricks on how to make your cougar even better, how to reduce the extreme spring-tension, how to get rid of strange noices in the throttle and so on...

Yeeez!, I said to myself, I just want a damn good HOTAS stick without spending two-days and a night reading through a 185 pages manual + download some strange tweakings and drivers from some obscure hardcore simmer's homepage... (No offense anyone who dedicated an entire site on the cougar!) [img]/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif[/img]

So please Cougar owners, tell me if it's possible to get he best possible use of a Cougar + pedals without spending tens of hours browsing through forums, websites and patches. Or should I stick with my fairly good TM Top Gun Afterburner 2?

regards, GurraZ

[XyZspineZyX]

...the stick of choice for those who enjoy the tweaking part even more than the actual flying. Or am I wrong?

Before ordering the Cougar I visited their homepage
( http://cougar.frugalsworld.com ), just in case there would be some major issues I thought. After some time of browsing through its content I was actually a bit detered.

Zillions of tips & tricks on how to make your cougar even better, how to reduce the extreme spring-tension, how to get rid of strange noices in the throttle and so on...

Yeeez!, I said to myself, I just want a damn good HOTAS stick without spending two-days and a night reading through a 185 pages manual + download some strange tweakings and drivers from some obscure hardcore simmer's homepage... (No offense anyone who dedicated an entire site on the cougar!) [img]/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif[/img]

So please Cougar owners, tell me if it's possible to get he best possible use of a Cougar + pedals without spending tens of hours browsing through forums, websites and patches. Or should I stick with my fairly good TM Top Gun Afterburner 2?

regards, GurraZ

[XyZspineZyX]

- So please Cougar owners, tell me if it's possible
- to get he best possible use of a Cougar + pedals
- without spending tens of hours browsing through
- forums, websites and patches.

Yes.

But if you want to get it set up just right for you - and chances are you will want to do that eventually - you can.

Cheers,
Fred

[XyZspineZyX]

If you want to you can get your Cougar out the box, plug it in and be flying with it in a couple of minutes. As a HOTAS stick its as good as any and better than most.

If you want to get into modifying your stick or just writing the programs to assign the controls to the buttons you want them to be on then you can do that as well.

A Cougars a lot of money to invest in a stick if all you want is a basic flying control with no frills, but if you want something a bit special and thats very flexable then I'd highly recommend the Cougar.


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[Hunter82]

I love my Cougar


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<center><FONT COLOR="red">UBI/IL2 Tech Forum Moderator[/i]</FONT>
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Only the dead know the end of war - Plato

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[XyZspineZyX]

Hmmm... Well, OK. No bad experiences? No buggy software?


So, do SimHQ offer the lowest price ($279) ? Seems like it, or do they not include tax in that price?



regards, GurraZ

[Hunter82]

tax is not included I would imagine. Software is not buggy IMHO. You do need the first patch after that it is OK. As for the spring tension you can leave it as is. What most people are talking about is the springs themselves until worn in (allot of playing [img]/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-very-happy.gif[/img] ) are quite stiff. You can open up the case and stretch them to loosen (as I did) to speed up the process.


<center>
<center><FONT COLOR="red">UBI/IL2 Tech Forum Moderator[/i]</FONT>
<center><FONT color="blue">Email:
Hunter82@msn.com</FONT></CENTER>
Only the dead know the end of war - Plato

http://kickme.to/combatsimsonline

[XyZspineZyX]

If you like a stick with light spring tension then you will want to consider picking up F22 spring kit from thrustmaster's online shop. With a tiny bit of bending to remove any play the resulting tension is much lighter than the quite heavy spring strength that the cougar comes with.

Also, to take it to the extreme there are mods that improve the gimbal system (uber mod) in the cougar (adding bearings ect.) and a mod that replaces the potentiometers with Hall effect sensors that results in incredible accuracy/resolution (far more than any human could actually use).

I already spent an extra 125 bucks US for the uber mod (look for thread "Mods and Tweaks" for info) and it was worth every penny. I plan on getting the hall effect sensor kit for around the same cost.

Getting a cougar in itself is a major investment. If you are serious about having the ultimate setup then it's the right way to go. There's the option to improve it even more. All the upgrades so far have come from fantastic engineers within the cougar owner community.

[XyZspineZyX]

I have not been able to improve on my flying in IL2 with my stock cougar over my MS FF2. Just not the right feel with prop sims for gunnery...so I have sent out some parts to be uberized. I believe this is what TM should have done originally.

From what I have read changing to the F22 springs is not recommended as they are a softer material and lose some "memory" with use.

fox out

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[XyZspineZyX]

Amazon.com ships it for free which saves you around $30 or more. It says you should expect to get it in 2 weeks but its not the case. I got mine in 4 days and have loved it ever since For Il2 you might want to take the rubber thing at its base off (very very simple process) and look around for a good profile you like and modify it a bit to your liking (another very simple process).