19 replies to this topic

[Sideshow031]

i run a Logitec M705 and an archaic Microsoft Sidewinder, looking to upgrade on the JS, as its being borrowed from a friend and not a leftie stick. i see positive reviews for the Thrustmaster T1600M, and was considering it, given its customizability for left or right hand usage.

anybody out there use one or have other leftie JS's they recommend?

[Foust]

You will not be disappointed with the T16000M.

[Midian]

Sideshow031, on 20 January 2015 - 11:22 AM, said:

i run a Logitec M705 and an archaic Microsoft Sidewinder, looking to upgrade on the JS, as its being borrowed from a friend and not a leftie stick. i see positive reviews for the Thrustmaster T1600M, and was considering it, given its customizability for left or right hand usage.

anybody out there use one or have other leftie JS's they recommend?

Is it not awkward using the joystick and mouse. I have an old Microsoft Sidewinder sitting beside me too. Never thought of using it in conjunction with the my mouse for Mechwarrior. Might give it a go :-)

[Sideshow031]

Midian, on 20 January 2015 - 01:40 PM, said:

Is it not awkward using the joystick and mouse. I have an old Microsoft Sidewinder sitting beside me too. Never thought of using it in conjunction with the my mouse for Mechwarrior. Might give it a go :-)

assign fire groups 3-6 to the stick to slots 1-4, and mouse has 4 buttons- 1 and 2 go to left and right click, zoom assigned to middle click, thumb buttons have lock on and free look. base of sidewinder has 7=door open, 8=zoom module, 5 and 6 have module slots 1 and 2 respectively, throttle is unused. legs assigned to y and x axis.

it has by and large the best use for independent leg/torso movement. no coding required, just assign the controls as i have them mapped

[man du]

Foust, on 20 January 2015 - 01:01 PM, said:

You will not be disappointed with the T16000M.

I have a bunch of questions about this. I would love to pilot with a JS and aim with a mouse. I ordered one of these the other day and I'll be getting it on the 22nd, and the more I look into piloting with a joystick, I keep seeing threads about an unalterable dead zone that makes using a joystick unappealing to play with. If there is a dead zone, is that just a hindrance to those who are trying to aim with a JS or is it a drag for those looking to control legs/throttle?

Also, could you give me your impressions on setup of the device, accuracy and speed of turning and feel of control of piloting with the [color=#959595]T16000M so I may have an idea of what I'm getting myself into?[/color]

I saw this blog post from Oct 2013 http://mwocasual.com/?p=885 and I wanted that kind of experience when I'm flying around in my Locusts. The problem is that its now early 2015 and I'm not seeing many updates from players on how their experience is going with JS/M or if they still do it.

Thank you for your time.

[Bill Lumbar]

I have several joysticks set up for left hand and leg movement. I have never had a issue using joysticks for movement in this game. Its a plus imo not a negative. One thing i did find a problem is if you try to use some cheaper joysticks for aiming and torso movement. The dead zones are a big problem.

There have been other threads that explains what joysticks you need if you want to use it for aiming/torso movement. I use a gaming mouse for aiming, and i have successfully modded two of my joysticks by taking them apart, cutting them at the bottom of the flight stick, and then drilling a hole into the shaft and used a bolt and a hot glue gun to secure the stick horizontally instead of vertical. This has helped me out big time, making it almost like a throttle stick and more comfortable to me. I can post some pics when i get home if you are interested in seeing them.

[Domenoth]

I use the T16000M. I'm really happy with it now but it has been a growing process. My main issue was that I didn't like how the stick felt when held at max throttle for extended periods of time. It was uncomfortable and unless I dedicated sufficient brainpower, I occasionally unconsciously let my throttle slip down between 75%-90%. This, of course, would happen primarily in a light-on-light firefight when maintaining full speed is highly desirable. EvilC came to my rescue though. He put together a script that fools MWO into treating the throttle like the keyboard treats it with throttle decay OFF. Most of the time you can leave the stick in the neutral position only moving it forward or back when you want to change your speed.

The other MWO issue I have with joysticks is that viewing the scoreboard and typing in chat brings your throttle to 0 no matter what your joystick is currently set at. This means you can't call for help and run away at the same time. If you want to call out, you have to be an incredibly easy-to-hit target for as long as it takes you to type.

About the joystick itself, one thing I'll say is that the HAT can be slightly hard to get the diagonal positions without accidentally hitting the up/down/left/right/ also. For that reason, I map things like scoreboard/battlegrid to the diagonals and things like "free look" or "Q" (display friendly Mech info) to the up/down/left/right. If I accidentally hit free look or friendly unit info briefly on my way to battle grid, who cares.

[Robert Shadowtiger]

I use a Mad Catz V1 with a Logitech G700 and I love it. Can't play with keyboard anymore. Stick is for both hands out-of-the-box.
Mouse has weapon groups 1-4, joystick 5 (thumb) and 6 (pinki) are WG 5and 6. 6 mainly used for TAG or a single laser in the head. other thumb buttons are jj, and mod slot 1+2. Hat has the view modes night, heat, zoom and zoom mod. All other keys I still use keyboard.
The one big drawback really is that typing and moving does not work. But as I mostly play in my unit with TS I don't mind. Even with keyboard only I wouldn't be able to type in the heat of a fight anyway.

Edited by Robert Shadowtiger, 21 January 2015 - 10:28 AM.

[man du]

Awesome sauce. Thanks for the informative responses. Now I am REALLY excited to get my T16000M. The real fun will be fine tuning the button scheme to get it juuuuuust right.

[Bill Lumbar]

Here are pics of my Sticks. The Saitek ST 290 pro is the first one I learned on, I love it, and its a good Joystick, but as I said before I wanted something more out of a Joystick. So, I decided to mod several other sticks to fit my needs. I picked all of these up at goodwill over the last year, and only gave a couple dollars for them each.

I also modded two PC racing wheel pedal combos, using the foot peddles for left and right turn when I was trying to use a joystick for torso/aiming. I had to take a old dell key board, take it apart, and find the combo's of connects that made each button pushed work. I then bought buttons at Radio shack, and used a solder Iron to connect them to the main board from the dell keyboard. It worked and I have peddles that act as right or left turn, or any other functions I want to program the "W,D,S,A" keys to in the game or any game. I have not used them in awhile, but it is fun and a hell of a work out.

Here are my pics of the two flight chairs I have built for this game to help ease the pain, and the Joysticks. I am using the Rumble force Cyborg 3D as my main one right now, I like the Logitech 3D pro but it was just to stiff and started to hurt my wrist in long grind out weekends of play.


This is the modded one, and the second stick I learned to play on, the Logitech 3D Pro, it was a great stick but is very stiff to move. Long hours of grinding out like in the event we had for the price of the crows to be reduced and mech bays kill my wrist. But I played over 100+ games that weekend.







This is my second flight chair and my stick I am using now. It doesn't look pretty, but the button lay out and size of the buttons are bigger, so its more comfortable for me.





and the first flight chair, Logitech 3D pro



BTW... The Logitech 3D pro is a right hand Joystick, which is one of the reasons I decided to crack it open and mod it in the first place. I had to even sand the top part of the stick down as it was rather uncomfortable even after modding it to a horizontal position.

Edited by Bill Lumbar, 21 January 2015 - 12:58 PM.

[Bill Lumbar]

manduclese, on 21 January 2015 - 11:06 AM, said:

Awesome sauce. Thanks for the informative responses. Now I am REALLY excited to get my T16000M. The real fun will be fine tuning the button scheme to get it juuuuuust right.

You will most likely love the T1600M, I have heard good things about them. I am always looking for the next Joystick to pick up for a good deal so I can mod it. I hope I will be able to pick up one that I can mod to make work for aiming/torso and then use a real throttle stick, but they run almost $500 brand new. Good luck and let us know how your experience turns out for you. I will never go back to a Keyboard after using my Joysticks for this game.

[Sideshow031]

thank you all for the feedback. this is exactly what i was looking for.

[Midian]

Sideshow031, on 20 January 2015 - 04:32 PM, said:

assign fire groups 3-6 to the stick to slots 1-4, and mouse has 4 buttons- 1 and 2 go to left and right click, zoom assigned to middle click, thumb buttons have lock on and free look. base of sidewinder has 7=door open, 8=zoom module, 5 and 6 have module slots 1 and 2 respectively, throttle is unused. legs assigned to y and x axis.

it has by and large the best use for independent leg/torso movement. no coding required, just assign the controls as i have them mapped

Great thanks for the info. Looking forward to giving it a go :-)

[man du]

Bill Lumbar, on 21 January 2015 - 11:56 AM, said:

You will most likely love the T1600M, I have heard good things about them. I am always looking for the next Joystick to pick up for a good deal so I can mod it. I hope I will be able to pick up one that I can mod to make work for aiming/torso and then use a real throttle stick, but they run almost $500 brand new. Good luck and let us know how your experience turns out for you. I will never go back to a Keyboard after using my Joysticks for this game.

Thank you and I will report back how it goes. I know it will take some time to get used to it, but from what I've seen and heard, it will be worth it indeed.

[Sideshow031]

Midian, on 21 January 2015 - 01:34 PM, said:

Great thanks for the info. Looking forward to giving it a go :-)

i often have the buttons 3 and 4 assigned to the arms, 3 for left arm, 4 for right, so that when im rounding a corner, i dont launch a salvo from both arms and have one of them hit the cover im hiding behind, wasting ammo.

[man du]

Well then! Just got my T16000m today and man oh man! I will never keyboard pilot my 'Mechs ever again. Of course, I have a good deal of practice to get the movements down pat, but over all, analog turning and throttle are just amazing! It took almost no time to set up my button scheme (was planning it on paper all day yesterday) and then I had to reverse the throttle in the settings and I was set.

[Bill Lumbar]

manduclese, on 22 January 2015 - 01:15 PM, said:

Well then! Just got my T16000m today and man oh man! I will never keyboard pilot my 'Mechs ever again. Of course, I have a good deal of practice to get the movements down pat, but over all, analog turning and throttle are just amazing! It took almost no time to set up my button scheme (was planning it on paper all day yesterday) and then I had to reverse the throttle in the settings and I was set.

Welcome to the club man! Good times, Good times

[Dances With MASC]

Sorry to resurrect this dead thread but I'm not entirely sure where to post this; is anyone having an issue where their joystick trigger isn't registering properly? I've been running mouse + logitech extreme 3d pro and the trigger (mapped to weapon group 3) seems to respond intermittently. I launched joy.cpl and it looks like it registers correctly and promptly every time I depress the firing stud, so I'm not entirely sure what's going on.

tl;dr: my trigger ain't working right. Anyone have any fixes in mind?

[Kissamies]

My info on Logitech joysticks is several years out of date, but I seem to remember that the thumb buttons eventually failed. Not the trigget, tho.