I see several discussions about this, including a poll and it seems that - so far - little if anything has been done about this.
Is this still active? Is anything being done here?
I can understand that people who, perhaps, only fly one or two aircraft all the time don’t really need this, but if you want to fly more than one - Cessna 172, Rutan LongEZ, Diamond Katana, (etc.), then the ability to customize the controller options for specific aircraft and have them load automatically when that aircraft is selected is almost mandatory - like being able to retract the landing gear if the landing gear is retractable - not having that feature is clunky to the extreme.
I hate to say “do it like X-Plane does” - but that’s the truth.
In X-Plane I can fly a Cessna 172, a fighter jet, a helicopter, a space-rocket, or whatever and have the correct control configuration load for each one. (After I have set it up, of course. )
This is one of those features that I cannot imagine Microsoft somehow missed.
It’s probably worth noting that ‘classic’ MSFS never had this option, you could save and load controller profiles but you couldn’t auto-change them with aircraft selection.
Definitely would like this in the sim, but it is possible to achieve this now with SPAD.neXt if you map all of your controllers from there instead of in the sim, since it can change profiles automatically based on aircraft selection. Running your controllers from SPAD.neXt has other advantages, too - they usually work when MSFS doesn’t have the focus, for example - and things like response curves can be configured in more detail there, and there is the ability to create and program custom behaviour.
It’s a bit more complicated than using the sim controller setup, since you need to know the Simconnect event or data names for some things you might want to configure, but that’s not a huge barrier as they’re mostly documented and easy to look up.
FSUIPC7 is another option for this, though IMHO it’s not as flexible as SPAD.neXt is. I use both, in fact.
I think the ability to change controller profile has become more important now that we have gliders and helicopters. They require very different settings.
Whenever I switch from a plane to a glider or a helicopter, I have to change the profile for my HOTAS and my Mouse. This is really not optimal.
What about potentially undesirable interactions with the simulator?
Absolutely agree, and not just because of helicopters and gliders. Different GA aircraft have different control settings - the Cessna 172 vs Rutan’s LongEZ vs the Diamond Katana, vs a twin-engine turboprop, vs a small business jet, vs (etc., etc., etc.).
Having to muck-around with all the settings when you choose a different aircraft is just clumsy.
IRL, control configuration is “automatic” as it’s defined by the aircraft. This should be true in the sim as well.
Ah, well I need FSUIPC for SPAD.neXt to work, since some of the commands I use are based on FSUIPC offsets, not Simconnect commands. I don’t map controllers via FSUIPC any more. I did have a mixture in P3D because FSUIPC supports virtual joysticks and SPAD can trigger a virtual joystick press, so it was a good way to hook up particular events.
As long as you don’t map the same thing in both programs, you won’t get a clash. If you do, odd things can happen, yes!
What kind of a set-up do you have that requires such a three-armed control configuration? Are you flying a FPV drone for the in-sim visuals while flying the aircraft itself from your easy chair?
I agree this would be a very nice feature to have, and probably quite easy to implement.
Even if by default all aircraft are set to whatever your ‘default’ controller profile is, but then give the option from a drop down box to select a custom profile for that plane. I’m surprised this doesn’t have more interest.
No I used to have a more complex setup with a 180-degree multi-projector display and multi-PC setup with Prepar3d and for some of the aircraft I flew I needed control changes to propagate to both PCs, so a combination of SPAD.neXt, FSUIPC and my own software was used. I used FSUIPC mouse macros, for example, SPAD.neXt axis mapping and switch mapping for my own hardware panels, and so on.
A common scenario would be mapping a button in SPAD.neXt to click a virtual joystick button in FSUIPC which would then trigger a mouse macro to activate a control in the cockpit, for things that couldn’t be addressed directly via Simconnect or offset. It was often the only way to wire things up in P3D. I really wish mouse macros existed for MSFS!
Right now I have FSUIPC7 installed in MSFSW because SPAD.neXt can adjust FSUIPC offsets as well as Simconnect and MSFS-native commands. I literally don’t use it for anything else at the moment because otherwise SPAD.neXt does everything I need.
Eventually I’m building a new simpit and then I will likely have lots more custom hardware to wire up and it’ll all get complicated again.
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features that I cannot imagine Microsoft somehow missed.
I used to have a more complex setup with a 180-degree multi-projector display and multi-PC setup with Prepar3d and for some of the aircraft I flew I needed control changes to propagate to both PCs, so a combination of SPAD.neXt, FSUIPC and my own software was used. I used FSUIPC mouse macros, for example, SPAD.neXt axis mapping and switch mapping for my own hardware panels, and so on.