Can anyone give me advice on how to use the control mapping interface in a good way? It’s such a nightmare. It shows all possible generic binds for all aircraft, making it very difficult to find the function I want. There doesn’t seem to be a way to filter for a specific a/c. The label of a button in the cockpit also doesn’t match what it’s called in the menu.
For example, I’m trying to bind the starter Cessna parking brake to a toggle switch, but parking brake on and off have no function for this plane. Only parking brake toggle works. There are like 5-10 binds there that are all called similar things.
I was also trying to bind the helicopter trim button for 10-15 minutes unsuccessfully (setting current position of the cyclic as neutral). There are like 20 entries for trim that are all similar, how can I know which is applicable to my current aircraft? What is the trim button, the one on the stick, called in the menu? I genuinely couldn’t find it.
Hi. I’m new to this too but what I have found is the ‘specific aircraft’ is the one you have picked at top left box (it takes you to the aircraft page) but they don’t all have to be different… read on.
I find the best way is to select a controller then go through all of the settings by category, finding what I want to set a button or axis to. For assigning buttons click in the relevant control function field (and leave the cursor there!) then operate the button on the controller you have chosen to work with. It will only assign to the selected controller. When you first set a function to a button for that controller it will ask you to give this profile a new name, e.g. the name of the aircraft you are working on, OR and perhaps best (see ‘Unique’ below later), give it a generic name like All Aircraft if you want it to apply to that control for all aircraft in which case also click the gear cog alonside the name and click Apply to All Aircraft. Assign those functions you want in that category (Lights etc). Then select the next category of controls for that aircraft, perhaps Aircraft Controls, and assign your requirements as above. Then select the next CONTROLLER and repeat as for the previous controller. For each controller at the first setting, you will be asked to give this new controller profile a name and if you want it to be universal like the previous controller give it the same name. Again apply to All Aircraft if you wish and if so you shouldn’t have to set the controls separately for all of the other aircraft. One thing I noticed is that if you select a Glider at top left you will get a Glider controls profile listing at bottom left instead of Aircraft controls. I haven’t worked out yet how to copy Aircraft controls across to Glider controls where I want them to be the same so it may mean a repeat excercise for Gliders and in my case I would be using Apply to All Gliders.
General controls are for managing the sim itself. Aircraft and Glider controls are for setting aeroplane controls to specific controller buttons/axes. The last one (Unique?) is for setting the controls specifically for the aircraft you have selected at top left where you may want something different to the ones you set for All Aircraft. It will then ignore the relevant All Aircraft setting and use the unique one, the other settings remaining as set for All Aircraft. I am not in the sim atm so I hope I have got the various names right but you will soon see if not.
Fo your Cessna parking brake you may want to select the Cessna and use a Unique setting.
Multople binds will be context-selective, e.g. it will do one thing in one situation and another in a different situation.
Thanks, that is somewhat helpful.
But what would be the best is the ability to filter inputs for one aircraft. Remove these that don’t apply. There already is a filter option, but it only filters “essential”, which doesn’t seem to be that useful.
A full answer to that question would require volumes. From my own experience with the non-intuitive controls settings interface in 2024, let me offer some quick observations (sorry if you already figured these out…):
- The aircraft specific control interface has not been implemented yet; hopefully it won’t be long.
- You can create aircraft specific controls profiles for both airplane and general settings.
- Be careful when doing so. I have found that when you change a control binding that generates a pop-up that asks you to rename the profile, you may lose all the bindings you’ve created so far for that profile. It’s maddening!
- I think a best practice is to save the profile after each control assignment. It’s annoying since saving sends you back to the opening screen and you have to select the settings gear again, but I do it as a matter of course. I don’t know if it makes a difference is stabilizing the profile as you build it, but it makes me feel better (!).
- Do some research online to mine the wisdom of the crowd who have faced the same issues. YouTube videos are very helpful since visualizing the process is much richer than reading a list of instructions.
Good luck!
more specifically, can anyone tell me what helicopter cyclic trim button is called in the menu precisely?
I really wanted to love this latest edition of MSFS, but the entire experience has been little more than frustrating. In my 40 years as a software engineer, I’ve seen some pretty bad user interfaces. Heck, I’ve surely created my share of bad ones. But the control mapping subsystem is right up there with the worst.
- Without much external documentation, each function that can be mapped needs a more thorough description.
- Some labels are wrong (X-axis when you’re really mapping the Y-axis).
- Bad font selection. Bad sizing. Simply adjusting this would be a big improvement.
- Confused and confusing layout sans instructions.
I pity the newcomer who never used MSFS 2020. They’d be totally lost.
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I actually think that trim in H125 just doesn’t work at all. I was able to use trim in the training helicopter , although it was still confusing to find the binds. Their names are very misleading and do not match the in-aircraft label.
There is definitely a good game underneath all the issues, but I feel like I’m playing an alpha build. I literally encounter some bug or issue every flight, at least an UI bug.