Turtle Beach VelocityOne Flight Universal Control System

Sorry, for the inconvenience.
I did not see this section when I was looking for a proper place to hold this discussion.

No worries! :slightly_smiling_face:

Must keep in mind that this is targeted at the XBox. XBox users have grown up using triggers, not twist sticks. If they add a rudder pedal option at a later date, great, but there are an awful lot of users that are going to feel perfectly comfortable using trigger rudders.

That’s basically unusable for something requiring finesse like the rudder.

And yet…
There are an awful whack of folks using XBox controllers on their PC MSFS right now. Don’t judge. Even commercial ROV companies are using game pad layouts. If that is what you have had in your hands for the past twenty years of gaming, those triggers have plenty of finesse. No way I could do it, but my kids? Oh yeah. Should see the control and finesse they have using gas/break!

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I wonder if anyone has released a video of a perfect landing at Saba with a set of these?

image

For context:

Yes. There are a lot of folks using Xbox controllers because they don’t have dedicated hardware.

This is dedicated hardware selling for $350 and it’s inexcusable that they adopt the limitations one has to deal with when they don’t have anything better.

No one with the slightest idea of what they’re doing would put something that requires fine and precise control like the rudder on triggers on a $350 yoke.

Don’t mean to continuously contradict you, but there is a whole generation out there that has never put their feet on rudder pedals. The do, however, have many thousands of hours with a gamepad in their hands.

YOU may find it inconceivable that they put triggers on a yoke, but if I was marketing to that console generation, I would put triggers on a $1000 yoke.

There is nothing to stop them from releasing a pedal set at a later date. The triggers are analog, just like the pedals its just a case of rebinding the axis when you get your pedals. In the meantime, the gamepad crowd will feel right at home with index fingers controlling the back end.

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You forget that that generation has never played a realistic flight simulator.

Analog triggers don’t nearly have enough travel to allow the finesse required by a rudder.

I’m a gamer as much as anyone else, and I’m VERY familiar with triggers, and using them may work for something that doesn’t need a rudder almost at all like Ace Combat, but a realistic flight simulator? nah.

People may be used to a controller, but the moment they land into the windsock because they couldn’t properly execute a crosswind landing, they’ll be as frustrated as anyone else with their $350 controller.

This is especially true in the presence of completely useless stuff like the annunciator panel, which is literally redundant and wasted components driving up the price, when the same budget could have been used for something actually useful.

I find this interesting.
I have used both. I cannot fly with the ■■■■ little thumbstick, but I actually preferred the triggers for rudder over the twist grip. I really didn’t notice any difference in resolution, but it is much easier to maintain a steady input with the triggers while moving the other controls. I find with my stick that it is difficult to maintain that constant pressure while moving the stick on its other axis.

I would take from this exchange that you are not a fan of the new controller. Personal preferences I guess. If I was entering the hobby on XBox I guess after trying it out with my $250 Elite 2 controller I might upgrade if I wanted to get serious. $350 is a drop in the bucket compared to the PC alternatives. Especially when I look in the closet at the $450 Guitar Hero guitar and drum kit and the $1500 Fanatec wheel.

We will obviously never agree on this but I will leave you with this.
It is never a good idea to make broad sweeping declarations that something is stupid or makes no sense, simply based on a personal preference. Probably safer to say, “Don’t care for triggers. Wish they had pedals instead. Not likely that I would spend $350 on it.”

With that, I will wait to see. Probably order one for my XBox son’s birthday. He just sunk $3000+ into a racing controller setup, so his wife likely won’t approve a yoke purchase for a while. :wink:

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I see your point of view, but do keep in mind that this is not an Elite 2 controller.

The Elite 2 controller has extremely enhanced triggers compared to the standard controller, which likely makes it up a bit for the lack of travel and finesse.

You can bet that this one doesn’t have nearly the same level of quality and fine control provided by the Elite 2’s triggers. As a matter of fact, pretty much everything of it looks pretty cheaply made. From what I can see, I expect actually degraded control compared to the standard Xbox series X controller, which is something common to third-party controllers.

Yes. I’m not a fan.

If someone is approaching flight simulation for the first time and they’re passionate enough to drop $350 on a controller, logic would dictate that the budget for said controller should go into helping them acquire the proper muscle memory to actually do the thing called flight simulation instead of further solidifying bad habits like controlling one of the aircraft’s most crucial systems with the index fingers.

And yes, I find the annunciator panel pretty much offensive. Not only it doesn’t look like the annunciator panel in any aircraft (so it doesn’t even qualify as decorative), but it’s redundant and distracting. That’s what tells me that whoever designed this had zero expertise in flight simulation controllers but just tried to create something fancy to prey on the forming market.

Interesting discussion. It’s not like any other yoke comes with rudder pedals included, though? So why criticise this for having enough buttons and axes to include the possibility of rudder control?
As a person who flies interchangeably with a full stick + TQ + pedal setup or an xbox controller depending on where I am, the only thing I really feel like I’m missing when flying with a controller is an analog throttle. It’s not super great for precision flying, but both peripheral setups lets me have equal amounts of fun when kicking the extra 300 around or hand flying an ILS approach.
I think it’s great that someone is finally making a yoke with enough buttons. It would be great if one of those things that look like thumbsticks is an actual analog thumbstick for view panning. It would also be nice if they added vibration support like the xbox controller has. Feeling the stall warning is helpful.

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1: Whether they’re included or sold separately, making a yoke like this without pedals, only relying on triggers is a terrible idea.

2: That’s compounded by the fact that this thing has frills that aren’t just redundant and absolutely useless, but also potentially distracting, driving up cost, which means price. That budget should have been used for pedals, or for a better solution than triggers for the rudder.

3: Being something for consoles, aimed at people who likely don’t have many clues about what they need for simming comfortably, including pedals would have been much, much better than including stuff like the annunciator panel and clocks, which are beyond silly.

For example when Fanatec made the CSR wheel for Forza Motorsport 4 (and unlike Turtle Beach, they know what they’re doing in terms of controllers. TB never made controllers before and boy it shows), they made a full set with wheel, pedals, and shifter.

They didn’t say, “hey, it’s for console dudes, they’re used to accelerate and brake with the triggers, so let’s put triggers on the wheel and be done with it.”

That’s how you do this, instead of rushing something out of the door that just kind of looks like the good ones while being fancied up like a Christmas tree to look professional to the untrained eye, but doesn’t offer anything better than a standard controller (actually likely worse, because third-parties never match the quality of first-party triggers for Xbox Series X) for one of the three most relevant axis of control of the aircraft. That’s just sloppy.

Incidentally, let’s take a look at their marketing, because that’s what the console gamer approaching simulation for the first time is going to read:

This is just an excerpt, because there’s lots more bull**** in there.

“The VelocityOne™ Flight Universal Control System delivers the most comprehensive, flight control solution to setup your own cockpit at home. Whether you’re an experienced PC player or among the first to play Flight Simulator on Xbox Series X|S, VelocityOne™ Flight equips you with all the controls needed to navigate the skies.”

“delivers the most comprehensive, flight control solution to setup your own cockpit at home?” No it doesn’t. This is just plainly false.

It’s directly aimed at deceiving people who don’t know better into believing this is all they need for top-level flight simulation, and it factually is not.

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I guess it just isn’t marketed towards you. But there will be plenty that buy this, I guarantee it.

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The problem is exactly that it isn’t marketed toward me, because I can read through their bull.

The problem is exactly that it’s marketed toward people who will believe that this is “the most comprehensive, flight control solution to setup your own cockpit at home.” getting a very misleading idea of what kind of hardware is best for flight simulation, and solidifying bad habits that they’ll regret if they stay in the market and finally learn that hey, perhaps pilots move that tail thing with their feet and not with their fingers.

I’m sure it’ll sell. A lot of bad things sell.

I’ll be honest. I took a bit of time to familiarize myself with their new offering. Can’t determine quality from pictures but a couple things stood out.

  1. I am a big fan of hall effect. As long as they are at least 12 bit, resolution and stability should be pretty good.
  2. The more I look at the triggers the more I like them. I really like that they kept the bumper buttons. They even moved them to a position that will complement the rudder with differential braking. Well thought out.
  3. Any one that spends any time actually flying IFR will appreciate a handy quick chronometer. Timing rate 1 turns and holds as well as timing non precision approaches requires that handy start stop timer. I find I am always struggling in sim to start the clock as I step down an NDB approach. I have a chrono on the yoke of my RL Baron. I use it constantly.

While the tightness and feel can only be tested, hands on, I am seeing what looks like a pretty well thought out control system. I will agree with @Abriael that the ability to add pedals as an option would be a plus but that can always be added later.

For a first foray into aviation controls, I have to guess that someone at TB plays MSFS. Fingers crossed, at least until I need to hit the toe brakes. :slight_smile:

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Have you considered for even a second that the people that might buy this, for a console for example, might not actually care that it isn’t the best?

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Whether they care about it or not isn’t the problem. The problem is that they claim it is while it is not.

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That’s true, but marketing folks always exaggerate.

And I agree, but I’d say there is a difference between exaggeration and plain falsehood. In this case, I’d say it leans toward the latter more than the former, especially with how much the marketing talks up the triggers like they were the be all end all of rudder control.

They claim this was designed “collaborating with world-class aeronautical engineers & Pilots” (I’m not sure what makes someone a world-class pilot?), and I’m pretty confident, if any of that is true, that someone must have told them “Hey, you know, aircraft have pedals.” :thinking:

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