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flight yoke
Has any tried vo using a flight yoke?
I have. It usually only recognizes one side of the yoke itself, but the throttle, mixture, nose angle axes work! You just have to assign everything but the throttle and buttons!
I recently needed a replacement for my joystick and decided to ry out a flight yoke instead. A few people have asked me how
well it works so I will post a few comments on it here.
I selected the Saitek Pro Flight Yoke after considering its reviews and various prices of other brands. Noted in the reviews
was a problem of the hatswitch not working correctly when the yoke was turned. Saitek claims this was fixed and so far it has
not been a problem for me.
The first consideration when using a yoke is that you must give up one axis from turn/pitch and roll. I gave up on roll
however I never found it to be overly usefull so it was only a small sacrifice. Rolling is not entirely needed for docking
and combat does not really require it either. The yoke does support foot pedals as an accessory and they could easily support
the roll function if desired.
Both linux and VO had no difficulty recognising the flight yoke and throttle control. Configuration was easily handled execpt
for the switches on the throttle control. These switches are for joybuttons 15 thru 22 which did show up in the ini file but
the VO keyboard configuration screen refuses to recognise and instead sets to the last position of the mode switch which is
Joybutton 8 thru 10. The switches do work fine when manually set by editting the ini file so this is not a big problem.
The Saitek yoke comes with a set of three separate throttle levers and nine extra buttons. After some experimenting I decided
they really were not entirely usefull and left them disconnected. VO combat is far too fast to take your hands off the main
controls and the throttles are more suited to controlling a multi engine aircraft.
There is a definate learning curve to using the yoke as it require more physical movement then a joystick. There is also a
built in deadzone to the yoke so one of the first adjustments is to get rid of the vO deadzone. I had a lot of problems with
over and under steering while adapting to the controls not to mention a period of time where I was rearranging the layout of
the buttons to find a workable arrangement. In many ways I had to learn how to fly all over again.
Overall the yoke preformance beats a gamepad hands down but only comes in a close second to good joystick. The yoke gives me
about the same control as a joystick except when I must reverse direction. This requires a much larger movement which takes a
split second longer then when useing a joystick. The hatswitch works equally well for strafing as the joystick one did.
Arguably it does however beat the rest in the area of game immersion. If you play a lot of flight sims It is well worth
getting but for most VO-only players I would actually suggest getting a good Joystick like the x-52 instead. The yoke is
better suited for large multi-engine bombers then combat spacecraft.
well it works so I will post a few comments on it here.
I selected the Saitek Pro Flight Yoke after considering its reviews and various prices of other brands. Noted in the reviews
was a problem of the hatswitch not working correctly when the yoke was turned. Saitek claims this was fixed and so far it has
not been a problem for me.
The first consideration when using a yoke is that you must give up one axis from turn/pitch and roll. I gave up on roll
however I never found it to be overly usefull so it was only a small sacrifice. Rolling is not entirely needed for docking
and combat does not really require it either. The yoke does support foot pedals as an accessory and they could easily support
the roll function if desired.
Both linux and VO had no difficulty recognising the flight yoke and throttle control. Configuration was easily handled execpt
for the switches on the throttle control. These switches are for joybuttons 15 thru 22 which did show up in the ini file but
the VO keyboard configuration screen refuses to recognise and instead sets to the last position of the mode switch which is
Joybutton 8 thru 10. The switches do work fine when manually set by editting the ini file so this is not a big problem.
The Saitek yoke comes with a set of three separate throttle levers and nine extra buttons. After some experimenting I decided
they really were not entirely usefull and left them disconnected. VO combat is far too fast to take your hands off the main
controls and the throttles are more suited to controlling a multi engine aircraft.
There is a definate learning curve to using the yoke as it require more physical movement then a joystick. There is also a
built in deadzone to the yoke so one of the first adjustments is to get rid of the vO deadzone. I had a lot of problems with
over and under steering while adapting to the controls not to mention a period of time where I was rearranging the layout of
the buttons to find a workable arrangement. In many ways I had to learn how to fly all over again.
Overall the yoke preformance beats a gamepad hands down but only comes in a close second to good joystick. The yoke gives me
about the same control as a joystick except when I must reverse direction. This requires a much larger movement which takes a
split second longer then when useing a joystick. The hatswitch works equally well for strafing as the joystick one did.
Arguably it does however beat the rest in the area of game immersion. If you play a lot of flight sims It is well worth
getting but for most VO-only players I would actually suggest getting a good Joystick like the x-52 instead. The yoke is
better suited for large multi-engine bombers then combat spacecraft.