Recently received my Alpha joystick with a WarBRD base from Virpil.
Is there a way to share layout/setups for the joystick?
Anyone feel like sharing control mappings?
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I am still trying to figure out how to use all the buttons … and I am currently drawing a diagram with all my mappings which I will be happy to share here in a few days (as soon as I have something really meaningful to share.)
I already provided some ideas in this thread:
… it contained an image of my personal “button naming/numbering” for the CM2 throttle and the Alpha stick. Here is the stick image for further reference:
For the Alpha stick my main guiding principles are:
- Assignments need to be “ergonomic” during landing …
- = “high pilot workload”
- thumb needs to be able to stay in area of button (2)
- Control primary flight surfaces
- Control trim … via button (5)
- Control “head” position (yaw, pitch) and (cockpit) view selection … mainly via joystick (3) and switches (2, 7, 13)
- Thumb is the “main active finger” … it can reach most buttons (2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8) easily
- … but switching away from (2) is not easy if one needs to press the stick hard to the right
- Button (6) … turned out to be the ergonomically hardest to reach … and I am still not sure which function to assign there.
- Some buttons (e.g. 9, 6) are hard to reach … so they should have “exotic” functions only
- Some buttons (e.g. 2, 12) are very easy to reach … they should not have critical functions (prevent accidental triggering)
- Button (13) is natural for the “index finger” … and can be used while gripping the stick
- … so I use it to toggle between the main “views” (extrenal, cockpit, custom cockpit view)
- Trigger (12) is my “SHIFT” and “BIG-SHIFT” switch … easy to reach in flight with index or middle finger
- so it can be used together with thumb and Button (13) action
- Trigger (11) is my “CTRL” and “CTRL + ALT” switch … hard to reach in flight (so can not be triggered by accident)
- so I use it e.g. to configure (save, reset) custom view positions and targets
- Scroll (8) is the Zoom … Press is Zoom reset … where possible
- Red button (4) is for disconnecting the autopilot, Yaw damper and reset trim as much as possible
- this seems to match regular aircraft … and it helps to recover a plane when the autopilot gets “confused”
- break lever (10) … activates the “Spoiler (air break) axis”
There are sooo many possible commands and buttons and so in order to not get lost I try to map buttons (for view positions) somehow in relation to the view position. So “back” or “down” are more for tail and wheel positions … “up” and “front” is more for cockpit and landing views.
As I said … I am drawing a pic with all the real logical Virpil Button IDs and the FS2020 command assignments. But to get them “right” I first need to understand the “state machine” of the view/camera toggle system … which has more hidden “magic” than I expected.
Understanding the view switching seems key to me in order to make the proper button assignments because I found that getting lost in some undesired view toggle switching without being able to really reach the desired state did results in a bunch of “rough landings” for me.
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Thanks so much. I have a Virpil Alpha grip coming my way soon. I’m using the WarBRD now. I appreciate your posting of your approach to setting up the grip. It would also be interesting to learn how you set up your Virpil throttle.
My ideas related to the throttle are in this thread …
… and I will add some more info over there in the next days.
Here is my present set of assignments of “Camera and View Commands” for the Virpil Alpha stick:
I will try to make a similar sheet for the flight commands (but there are a lot less choices in that area …).
I will also try to finish my “state flow” diagram of the camera system(s) … so that it is a little easier to understand why some commands are doing what they are doing.
But I am still learning … and a number of commands are either buggy or I have not yet been able to understand what they are actually doing.
And I also want to point out that I am a “sightseeing pilot” (enjoying the amazing Spaceship Earth)… and I clearly have no idea which buttons people would use who really understand how to fly an aircraft.
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uups … just spotted a copy-paste-typo … Scroll down (23) must read “Unzoom” and “Decrease”.
And one more note … the commands with a “?” are among those where either the function is unclear or buggy … or their “usefulness” is still not clear to me.
Any updates?
I almost finished my diagram for the camera state flow … but did not (find time to polish and) post it yet.
But I recently finished my first snapshot of the command layout for the buttons of the throttle and posted them here:
Just a short note … I did post my diagram of the view switching commands (and “state machine”) over here a few days ago:
That is how I tried to figure out which commands to assign to which Alpha stick button.
(58) HavocCompanyClan - YouTube
This Channel on YouTube has a lot of information on the Virpil grips/software/setup etc. Also search for snake eater he has more stuff. Several others also. Hardware part of Virpil is bulletproof. Awaiting my order to be built and shipped. Maybe late this month. Still have not GOT how to arrange setup of devices on/in desk area, or layout. Just need to see how large it is, etc. I guess.
I recently updated my Alpha stick button assignment documentation, which I initially posted here a long time ago.
The new version now includes a page for the flight control related commands and it also contains my Airbus H145 specific mappings.
For other H145 pilots I would mainly like to point out the use of the “break lever” (spoiler) in order to activate the “cyclic trim release” feature. I found this to be the most practical “button” as it only requires very little finger-force for activation and so it is very comfortable, even if I have to hold it for a long time.
I also updated my Virpil CM2 throttle documentation … which you can find here:
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