Question for the hardware geeks on here. Although I generally qualify as a hardware geek, I’m not experienced with flight sim gear.
I currently have a Saitek AV8 joystick, but I’m looking to buy a HOTAS. It seems to me that X52-Pro is the general consensus in the value for performance. Is this correct? My other question would be whether people feel that it is worthwhile to spend money on rudder pedals? While they may be useful for BMS, I’m not sure whether they are a good investment for DFM yet.
Hey scisco, I’d recommend not getting rudder pedals just yet if you’re not also going to be flying flight sims in addition to Star Citizen. Many joysticks (including, I think, the x52 Pro) have a twist function on the grip which gives you integrated rudder control, and since none of us have experience using the rudder function in Star Citizen yet, might be best to wait until the DFM is released and you can properly gauge whether or not the twist rudder is sufficient or if you need to shell out another $100-175 for dedicated rudder pedals.
Regarding the X52 Pro, I personally don’t own one but I’ve heard okay things about them. They’re Chinese-made (like all Saitek products) so the quality isn’t amazing, but they offer a lot of functionality and buttons at a good price point. I currently use a hybrid setup with the X55 throttle and a CH Fighterstick (with rudder pedals), but my setup is more geared towards flight sims and I’m waiting to see how well it will translate to Star Citizen once it’s released.
X52 Pro is probably the best buy for an entry level HOTAS… you can get by without rudder pedals probably… We’ll have to wait and see how the final flight model turns out…
Truth is I’ll be using my pedals for yaw and then reverse thrust probably… some people will use them for yaw and strafing up/down… It does give you more control axis to play with.
I’ve been working on my BMS flying a bit–but I’m still in the learning to land smoothly phase. I’m used to using the rotation of the joystick I currently have for rudder–so rudder pedals at this point wouldn’t seem to add much. But sometimes you never know what you are missing unless you try it.
So I’ve been beating my head against the wall with a driver issue with my x52 Pro for the last couple days. I have windows 8.1.
In device manager–it lists the device status as:
[i]Windows has stopped this device because it has reported problems. (Code 43)
A request for the USB device descriptor failed.[/i]
I’ve set the computer to a clean reboot. I’ve tried manually installing the drivers–and it just tells me that these aren’t the correct drivers. I’m starting to wonder if this joystick is just bad. Any ideas?
Anyways, let me know if anyone has any ideas. I’m leaving for a short vacation so I’ll be gone until Memorial Day. So if I don’t respond immediately, that is why.