Saitek X52 set-up assistance

[C-DOC-Fire-Cmd]

Greetings ev1;

I am wondering if someone that has a Saitek X52 flight controler could possible send me a pm of their set-up, so I can have someone set up my flight controlers. I am a disabled man, and have certain difficulties that prevent me from being able to set up the controlers myself. However I do have someone who will do the set up for me. If someone has a good set-up for the controler, I would be greatly indebted to the person who would be so kind as to share the info with me. If possible, a screen capture of your set up, or a discription of how to set it up would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for all the help,

Cheers!

[C-DOC-Fire-Cmd]

Wow, talk about no help at all. Not 1 of the 145 people who read this post could tell me that there was a way within the game to set up the controllers!

It's not like I was asking for a million dollars or your first born daughter, all I asked was to share a little information. I guess people are too self absorbed with their lives to help out someone looking to overcome a physical disability.

So, to all of those 145 people who so far read the post but couldn't bother to spend 1 minute to let me know there was a way within the game to accomodate my needs; Thanks for nothing:o:mad:

I guess I won't be coming back here to often, it appears that ignorance and arrogance both live well within these forums.

Oh, just in case 145 people who read this so far didn't understand the object of a forums community, it's to share information and experiences to try to help like minded individuals who share the same interests, communicate between themselves to resolve issues and assist others with information we may know, so they can resolve similar issues they are experiencing.

I take it that concept is lost amongst the masses here.

Once again, thanks for nothing.

[Mattressi]

Unfortunately this forum is a little...dead. Probably only a small number of people saw your post within 2 or 3 days and most likely not many of them had a Saitek X52, so felt they couldn't help. Then, a few more would have seen this post after 2 or 3 days and thought you probably had a PM from someone already (it's always best to ask for a reply, rather than a PM, since people will assume the matter has already been addressed via PM with someone else). Then, the majority of the views are probably search engine bots/crawlers - as I said, this place really is dead, so the most activity is probably just from web crawlers.

If you have more questions, you might have a little more luck over on the official ToH forum, but even then, they're not exactly highly active, though I check in there a lot more than here. ToH never got as big of a community as Arma 2.

I completely understand your frustration, since this has happened to me a few times too (you'll probably find threads on here started by me, with the only reply from me a few weeks later). For what it's worth, I would have tried to help if I'd seen your post, but I rarely come here since it's so empty.

[matacks]

oh I play play TOH with a saitek x52. Wish I had visited the forum sooner I may have been able to help with that a while ago before you got all peeved about it.

anyways better late than never. I'll do my best to explain my setup for the x52.

TOH was really the first game I bought that could be considered a "true" flight simulator. I found the huge amount of control configurations a bit confusing at first but with some time and patients not impossible to figure out. Because of the huge amount of options I will give a brief and incomplete description of the setup. Also, I have the regular x52 not the newer pro version.

first you wanna set up you axis..

this is pretty simple
forward cyclic = forward motion of joystick or saitek -y axis
backward cyclic = + y axis and soo on..

the rest is pretty obvious as you just move the joystick and throttle controller to set up the axis. The control for the rudder of heli is called 'foot pedal' in case that's not obvious. It wasn't to me when I first saw it. YOu'll wanna set that up to your Z axis rotation. or twisty control on the joystick.

you'll probably want to set some other basic functions to buttons. Set up these button however you see fit. The saitek controller has plenty of buttons to set a lot of controls. There may be more functions you'll wish to set up that I'm missing here.

Map - to see this look in infantry controls
GPS toggle
engines auto on/off
auto hover on/off
Get out

Plus these are useful functions

Enter on numpad will toggle 3rd person view
alt + mouse movement is a useful key for free look

you can set 'free look' to the little blue mouse controller knob on the x52's throttle controller.

you may have to set up basic infantry movement and gun firing controls etc.. to the x52

hope that helps.

I found the x52 felt a bit loose for my liking. There are sensitivity and other options in the game but if you can get the person helping you to do it you may enjoy these mods. I tried these mods and liked them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfJNiHmEszk

^magnet mod. improves feel of joystick depending on your opinion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TewzmOoysDw

^ spring tension mod- this removes some slop from the joystick..

[Mattressi]

Awesome, that's actually helpful to me, too. I'm thinking of buying a Saitek X52 soon, but I have some concerns. Any chance you'd want to answer some more questions? :D

I've heard there's a small deadzone on the stick. Is that true? If so, that's pretty much a deal breaker for me - even if it's the slightest deadzone which can't be removed, it's a deal-breaker - I want to have really high sensitivity for flying helos, like IRL, so a small deadzone in the centre would really suck.

Also, can the spring be completely removed? Again, I want it to be like a real helicopter's cyclic, with no centering/spring-tension. It's probably not a big deal; I could always zip-tie the spring if I get desperate.

Finally, what is the advantage of the Pro over the regular X52 Flight? I can't find anything other than people saying it just "feels better" (but, most people like high spring tension and think that feels good - while I don't care about the spring).

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I've asked this everywhere and no one seems to respond, so I thought I might try asking here since there's a confirmed X52 owner (even two of them!).

Edit: Also, what are you using for the pedal (rudder) controls? Do you own pedals or is there some way to control the pedals with part of the X52?

[matacks]

Well, Ive cant really recall if I ever had a deadzone with my Saitek x52 older version. If there was one I think it was fixed after doing the magnet mod which I linked in my last post. Currently my joystick seems to have no deadzone at all.

As far as removing the spring it can be done but not without destroying the spring. I can't imagine removing the spring could make the joystick very usable. It would be way too hard to keep steady if it were completely loose. There may be some kind of joystick that will hold its position until moved. Something like that may work for what your going for.

As far as the x52 pro I cant comment on it because I've never owned one. I can only assume they're improved the design because its a newer model. The older x52 is now a little cheaper than the pro though.

I'm sure there's tons of other really good joysticks out there as well. You might find a good one by reading some reviews. I've seen a youtube video of a person using a very inexpensive plain looking joystick and it was working great for them. but they were also using it fly aircraft in BF3 which have more of an arcade flying style.

Goodluck with whatever you end up getting :D

[Mattressi]

Awesome, thanks for that :) My main concern was the deadzone, but I only ever saw one person mention it (and in a post from many years ago, so it's probably been fixed now).

It's a shame the spring can be removed without damaging it - I guess I'll just use zip ties or wire to tie the coils together. I know that it will make the joystick go all over the place, but that's how real helicopter cyclics are (I've been told that if you let go of the cyclic, it will fall to one side and the helicopter will quickly turn over). And, since I don't want to spend the $500+ that it costs to get a realistic helicopter cyclic for simulator use, I figure getting a regular joystick, stopping the spring from working and, maybe later, extending the stick length (I've seen it done before...but it looked hard to do, lol), it should be good enough. But, I'd like to keep the spring unbroken so that I can still fly fixed wing aircraft, too.

Thanks again for your help :)

[C-DOC-Fire-Cmd]

Mattressi and Matacks, ty for the information and replies, it is greatly appreciated.

From what I have played so far, the X52 has no dead spots that I am aware of. I have an original X52, not the pro, and it's very fickle as well as very sensitive to any slight movement.

There are controls in the controller properties that you can set to allow for dead spots to lessen the primary response, and I found that it will not greatly interfear with the inputs much. I have left the controllers in default mode, and the inflight inputs are very realistic. Slight movement of either the x52 throttle or stick and you can see the actual effect on the aircraft.

In real life, I have over 4500 hours of heli flight time, and on a few occasions I got to take in flight control during long flights, so I can appreciate the desire to replicate factual control values within this game, and realistically speaking, TOH has done well when using the X52, IMO, and I'm happy with it now that I can finally play it.

As for the centering spring, I can't see the point of taking it out. It would lead to a floppy controller that requires hands-on every second. Realistically, in real life, hands off control is easily accomplished by the pilot by using his knees to pin the controller in place and allow for level forward flight, at cruising speed, without any major elevation or heading changes. I've know a pilot who flys 204, 205, 212 and 214's for a living, and watched him read a complete news paper during a long flight, most of the time using his knees.

So if your looking for realism, keep the spring in, or use the magnet fix, either way, you should be happy with the x52.

Cheers