Honeycomb Aeronautical Partnership -- Please fix input bugs

That is a well-thought-out, technically clear and correct, insightful and useful post. That probably means about 98% of the forum will ignore it. :wink:

I don’t know if this will mean anything to you, but you’ve just made my list of “knowledgeable experts who I will annoy by following them and sometimes post in the same thread with the intent of supporting their position.”

Man. I really need to come up with a better name for that list.

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Oh, you know. It’s always nice being appreciated. :wink:

Dunno, “Worthwile human beings”? :grin:

Hey thanks! Very much appreciated. I’ll see what happens in a bit here.

Not a problem. Good luck and just power through, it will pay off. :slightly_smiling_face:
And take a look at Windrider975’s excellent video, if you haven’t done so, already. It explains - amongst other things - how to setup the mode selector in conjunction with the rotary knob without the need of 3rd party stuff.

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Alright. I just mapped all the key binds into joystick gremlin and it’s working in the sim, BUT the 10 degree heading bug started instantly without even hitting any switches. My monitor is in bad shape now and my hand hurts.

That means that you have a switch in either your Alpha or Bravo or vJoy MS2020 profile continuously on
This also includes the the Alpha starting rotary knob & the Bravo left rotary knob where you select Alt, VS etc

The throttle indent switches can be left in your Bravo profile because you only move to that position when reverse thrusting; same goes for the Alpha “start” position as you only have it in that posistion whilst starting the plan before it’s moved back to the “both” position so the “both” needs to be Unbound

So the bug only occurs when you have a switch or button continuously pressed down

  1. Your first step to find the problem is to check both the Alpha and Bravo profile you are using in FS2020
  2. Flick all the switches down on both devises
  3. Look through the Alpha & Bravo device profiles and see if any of the button assignments are highlighted; if they are that means they are continuously on and you need to unbind the switch
  4. Flick all you switches to the up position and see see if any of the button assignments are highlighted and unbind any that are
  5. Check that that Rotary Dials Switches are not bound as they are also continuously in the on state for a given position so you need to unbind those
  6. Now in Joystick Gremlin click tools > input viewer > tick the box Buttons + Hats in the vJoy device box
  7. Flick all you switches up on both Alpa and Bravo and see if any of the vJoy Buttons are continuously on
  8. Flick All your switches down and see if any vJoy buttons are continuously on
  9. Rotate your Bravo left side rotary switch and see if any of the buttons are continuously on
  10. Rotate your Alph starter switch and see if any positions are continuously on
  11. If any of the above 3 steps has a vJoy button continuously in the on state in means you need to change the Joystick Gremlin macro or button assignment; remember that if a vJoy button is continuously been pressed down and is bound in the sim than you will still have the acceleration bug problem

Once you’ve done that check the Sim to see if you still have the bug; if so you still have a switch problem somewhere

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Thanks. This is helping. I thought I had all the switches off, but you’re right, something must be still on. I think it’s in gremlin though. I didn’t program the macro to shut off the input. I’ll try that next.

Ok this may help you Alpha Bravo users
This took me 6 hours to figure out and set up but now I have full functionality of my Alpha and Bravo devices.

I fly only GA aircraft so this will probably need to be modified a lot for airliners

You need vJoy setup as a 128 button controller
You also need Joystick Gremlin

First open Joystick Gremlin and load the below linked profile and make sure the green activate icon is on
Joystick Gremlin Profile!

Start MS2020 and create the following profiles
Note that for the sake of trouble shooting ensure that no buttons are assigned from the default profiles.
Your profiles should looks exactly the same as below; make sure it works and then start adding your own personal preferences

Alpha FS2020 Profile
This profile suits all GA aircraft


Notes
Button 1 is used as a “Shift key” so I can use buttons on the yoke for two different functions
So the normal “Toggle Smart Camera” is accessed by holding down Button 1 (Shift) and Button 6

Shift button 5 opens ATC window
Shift is also used to select ATC options 1 to 4 using the hat

I use the alpha buttons 9 & 10 to increase and decrease the altitude
I chose not to use the Bravo dial for this function as it makes it easier not having to rotate the Bravo dial so much when adjusting VS and IAS speeds

Looking at the profile you can see the other personal assignments used

Bravo Profile
Note that this profile is setup for a single complex engine plane like the Cessna 208b
I’ve created different profiles for the Cessna 152 and TBM as their Power Management requirements are different meaning you use different throttle, prop pitch and mixture levers but the below can be used as default setting which can be copied and adjusted by adding or subtracting the relevant Power Management Joystick axis as required


Notes
I have altered the functions of the left rotary switch
When in the below positions the increase/decrease dial changes the following in the sim

  • The labelled ALT position is now IAS (Flight Level Change speed bug)
  • Labelled VS & HDG are still the same
  • Labelled CRS is CRS1 (Works in the 152 steam gauge)
  • Labelled IAS is CRS2 (Works in the 152 steam gauge)

vJoy Profile



I wish MS2020 had a way to export profiles!

Final Note
When starting a new flight you are best to do a cold start and move ALL switch on and then off
This ensures the Sims functions align with your buttons

If you do a hot start you may find that you have to double activate a switch to realign the controller switch with the sim eg if your with a hot start the parking brake is on by default so if your switch was in the off position you will have to flick it on and off to make it align with the sim

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This post is gold! I’m slowly but surely getting there. I’m on the step of figuring out what is continously on. A lot, apparently. Also, sometimes there is a conflict when setting buttons using the on/off option inside MSFS. It seems to work better if you choose the “set” options ex. “set nav lights”. Need more confirmation on that though. Thanks again for your post.

You might want to also vote for this other topic*:

Heading Increment Bug (10 degree instead of 1) Explained

*NB: this is a link to my comments in the discussion explaining why this is both a FS2020 and Honeycomb problem in my opinion

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Yeah in Gremlin when setting up a switch press and then release macro, it’s really easy to forget to change the default press to release on the second command; leaving a press press macro which continuously leaves the vJoy button pressed down

First have HC-TQ, have not configured/tried any of the buttons yet. It arrived last Tuesday, 1-5-2021.
Fixed Throttle 2 bug, and setup different profiles for the planes I fly except C172 and TBM-930. Lights work.
However, I am not going to do ASOBO’s work for them, since that is not my job. They will fix it, or they will ignore it. If they ignore it, all aftermarket products will not work as advertised. It’s like the SDK, work in progress. I suspect, they will take this issue and fix it, just have no clue when. Not life or death for me. I can always do it on keyboard/mouse.

Thanks for the work around ! but we wouldn’t have to resort to these for a fully supported gear by Microsoft .

I was excited to move on from P3D to have multiple programs open at the same time to run a sim, apparently MSFS isnt’t any different… between this, live weather and the FD which doesn’t move without auto pilot. Its abysmal.

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Agree!
Which is why the focus should be to get it fixed at source, by MasoboS

Agree!
Nice visuals are only one part of what it means to actually be a next generation sim.

I find it quite strange that MSFS has built in profiles (E.g., for the ‘partner’ Alpha) but using that peripheral dorks basic input.

MasoboS really need to sort this and they need to sort it before the plethora of peripherals in development are released just to disappoint.

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Exactly… its really disapointing how poorly these devices are configured considering they are “proud” to call Honeycomb a partner. Honeycomb isn’t to happy about it either from my email conversation with their product manager.

The focus is on visuals, and console players. It seems optimized for x-box controllers from a peripheral stand point.

And the number of bugs ported over from FSX, 10 year old bugs… I don’t know where to begin.

They need a hard reset and focus on basics. Fixing the flight models (more bugs found every day) streamline inputs and peripherals, improve the SDK and documentation, Then go back to work on the pretty stuff. 3rd parties are taking a risk developing for this right now IMO, its in such a poor state and locked down, be taking a risk putting anything on the market place. Not suprised Carenado jumped right in, they kinda are the fast-food of flight sim-addon’s.

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You guys want to hear something that will upset you? Pop on over to X-Plane with you Alpha yoke and Bravo throttle. Guess what? EVERYTHING WORKS PERFECTLY! I’m sorry Asobo you guys are dropping the ball big time with these two pieces of hardware. Further: In, the 172 for example, the Amps meter is NOT broken, you CAN actually lean the mixture properly, no heading bug. I hate to kick a man while he’s down but you guys have to get on this right now. It’s inexcusable.

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Hello Mr Slaarti (Bart Fast, I assume?),

There is another update ?

AGREE!

My Alpha is a pleasure to use in XP but more to the point it ‘just works’ and adds heaps to the sim experience- I can not say that for MSFS. When Amazon give me my Bravo I strongly suspect it will work with XP11 with minimal fuss and probably no frustration.

At the moment, MSFS is making XP shine even brighter.

I still hold the hope MasoboS will get all these teething problems sorted but as time goes on …

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You want to hear something misleading? Read posts like this one.

But if you want to hear the truth, then go to the official Honeycomb site and read how you have to download a Honeycomb application to change the constant-on button / switch behavior, and do other things to make it work with X-Plane. The link is at the end of this post.

Now, it’s true that the constant-on switch behavior caused a problem, but as of this date (mid-January), the Honeycomb driver allows you do the same configuration change for this sim. They even have template setup files that make the change easy.

This is a Honeycomb issue, not an Asobo issue.

[https://support.flyhoneycomb.com/portal/en/kb/articles/configuring-the-alpha-flight-controls]

I also think that Honeycomb needs to change this. Even if it would be caused by Asobo the workaround is easy to put in place by Aerosoft or Honeycomb. I do not understand why I small and agile company disregard the demand of their customers and fix this.

And with regard to X-Plane:
I am a real live GA pilot. I tried X-Plane and MSFS. If you have tried MSFS you do not want to go back to X-Plane. It simply does not lookalike the real world from above. Only missing peace is a solution like RealityXP for GNS530/430.

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