I have found and attached a “standard gamepad” (PC version) to my system with the idea in mind of having a separate controller specifically dedicated to controlling an exterior view and/or “drone” - as I have heard that a standard gamepad controller is ideal for this use.
Can anyone advise me on what would be a good set of baseline controller settings for a standard gamepad to be used exclusively for drone/external camera use?
I am presuming that there would be a button(s) dedicated to changing the camera view from “cockpit” to “external”, etc.
I am particularly interested in this because I have noticed that there are two different “exterior” view categories on my PC installation and I am not sure which one does what.
Note:
I did investigate the “Your topic is similar to. . .” links and nothing seems helpful.
“DEL” key invokes drone mode. Make sure your plane is on AP or at least stable because controller focus is now solely on the drone.
The default mapping of the drone controls is good enough to get the job done - those mappings are in play if you check the Controls Menu and the gamepad is recognized. You’ll still need the keyboard for things like Translation Axis speeds because they’re either too fast or too slow.
Yes. I have a yoke, joystick, throttle quadrant and rudder pedals for flying. When I plug in my Xbox controller and accept the default bindings it will start to work when I press Delete on my keyboard.
Only if it’s recognized. Mine actually “goes to sleep” often while flying. All I have to do is use SET PAUSE ON which pauses the sim as completely as it can, unplug the controller from my powered USB hub, plug it back in. It wakes up, is recognized by the sim, I agree to “default settings,” hit SET PAUSE OFF and continue flying.
You can see in this screenshot it got auto-recognized upon installation and populated the commands automatically:
If you’re on PC, do you have “USB Selective Suspend” turned off within the power settings?
Have you tried it w/o a hub, powered or otherwise?
On a PC, with selective suspend disabled and PCI power management set to “maximum performance”, you shouldn’t have any problems if it is directly connected. IMHO any kind of USB hub is a potential problem, depending on how well it’s manufactured and what the firmware/controller is programmed to do.
My PC MoBo has LOTS of directly connected USB ports so I haven’t needed a hub.
I lied. I have a powered hub on my desktop, (that isn’t connected to the computer), and is solely used to power the two tablets I use for glass cockpit aircraft - so it doesn’t count.
I can open a thread or DM you if you’re interested in knowing more.
I haven’t changed power settings since I bought the box, which would have been shortly after MSFS first launched. That would include port specific settings.
It’s a known issue with this brand of XBox controller - it’s an off-brand, not MS - called PowerA. No big deal - it’s usually on when I pick it up, but sometimes not.
If your gamepad has a “direct input” (D) and a “X-input” (X) mode switch, it must be in the X-input position for it to be recognized properly and for automagic assignments to be made.
As you can see by the number of menus mapped below:
