Warthog hotas

Hey everyone.

i was wondering on the Warthog hotas set from TM theres a mic swich.

Is it only suppose to be able to selekt FM/AM/UHF and nothing else ? seems anoying that i have to reach forward to my keyboad everytime... why even bother making it a pressable one then ?... okay i can see that it might be good fro playing with frinds and TS and so on...

All i wandt is to be able to controll radio on the hotas :( without having to break immesion by going to keyboard

- Holmer

There is a mic switch that can be activated in 5 directions... the configuration for forward, down and back is accurately modelled while it also has a depressable (z axis I think they call it) action as well as an upward that many use for their TS3 activation.

As Eno said, it acts as five buttons. It is the black hat switch located on the topmost part of the right side of the throttle.

I use TARS with my friends, and have it set up for Teamspeak on up, radios to speak on TARS mapped to the appropriate radios, then using my paddle switch as a shifter, the same three radio switches to bring up the in-game communication menus. This works great for my situation, as I communicate with my friends much more often than I use the game menus. I use the press function as a pause switch for TrackIR.

IIRC, it should already be mapped to the in-game menus by default, AM forward, UHF down, FM back. The up and press functions are unmapped, as to my knowledge, in the A10C (of this suite at least) up has no function in R/L, and there is no press function in the actual aircraft. (If I am wrong on that, I would love to get the skinny on it.)

Edit to add: Yes for the in-game communication menu once you've selected a radio with the hat switch, you will have to go to the keyboard to select items from the sub menus. There is a voice command program available that some use to no longer have to do that, which can greatly help with immersion. I'm looking into it myself, as having to reach for the keyboard while keeping position for AAR is a real pain for me :P

I think he's complaining that he then has to press the F keys to select the actuall message to be transmited. But there's no real way around that that would be a realistic one. The pilot in the real AC presses the currecpondent mic switch of the radio he wishes to use, then he talks. You can't really talk with your Hotas, having a scrollabe menu (actually there is a mouse usable mod from PeterP for radios) from your HOTAS would not be realistic eighter and it would be a lot slower than going to your keyboard to press an F key.

But if you are willing to go with another bit of software and configure it, you can actually use VAC to talk your into your mic and have that translated into the sim as keypresses. What could be more imersive than to press the right mic switch and then talk the radio instruction as intended? I'm more lazy than that and just say F1 to F12 into VAC and have VAC send that KEY press, plus it's much easier for the software not to recognize wrong commands when used like that.

I use VAC and Fish's profile, it's amazingly immersive! I highly recommend it.

I use VAC and Fish's profile, it's amazingly immersive! I highly recommend it.

I looked into VAC a year ago and thought it looked great, It just cycles through the menus via voice activation does it not?

Is it reliable?

Pending... :P

I have used VAC for a number of years mainly in DCS.

It is reliable if you have a headset mic.

The only problem with using VAC in DCS is the menus are sort of context sensitive (like the Airfields always show the closest one on F1 then descend in distance)

This means you can either have every airport name mapped to F1 (because you usually want to speak to the closest ATC) or you will have to say F1,F2 etc instead of the airport name.

Also a real pain in the ass is that different planes have slightly different radio menus.

It can be really good for commands you don't use very often and don't what to map to your HOTAS but need to use quickly like jettison weapons.

I have been thinking about writing some software that looks at the current DCS radio structure and builds a VAC profile on the fly, this would be the ultimate solution but I don't know if it is feasible or not.

I looked into VAC a year ago and thought it looked great, It just cycles through the menus via voice activation does it not?

 

Is it reliable?

Jib summed up some of the negatives. I use VAC with the A-10C most of the time, so I'm used to the phrases that work and can say them without the computer getting it wrong. If I have an issue, I just say "Opt#" where the # is the F key that the menu shows in the upper right corner. I wouldn't be confident enough to shut off the captioning for the radio, though. It tends to mistake JTAC ("jay-tack") with AWACS ("eh-wacks") but it could be my enunciation. Whenever I fly the other aircraft, I use "Opt#" for nearly every radio command. Sure, I lose some immersion but I'm still not reaching for the keyboard.

I also made "Goggles On" and "Goggles Off" commands to put my NVGs on and off so I didn't have to reach for those, either.

IIRC VAC has a trial offer for 14 days, give it a shot along with Fish's profile. Take a look at his VAC Video thread for more insight.

Thanks for all the answers guys :) guess il look into VAC to get the perfekt immersion

At the risk of looking like the biggest Noob ever, i will ask this question :

What is VAC ? ?

EDIT : nevermind. I should stop drinking beer while building my cockpit. :P

What is VAC ? ?

http://www.dwvac.com/

I use VAC and Fish's profile, it's amazingly immersive! I highly recommend it.

Where can I find Fish's profile?

Thanks

Try this thread, you can find a link for the profile, and some good info on VAC in general: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=79868

Try this thread, you can find a link for the profile, and some good info on VAC in general: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=79868

Thank you all,

Currently just setting this up.

On the link above, I find that the

DCS A-10 fish profiles 20111002, Profiles for VAC, TM Cougar, TIR5 with clip pro. Link appear to be either unavailable or faulty or I've had too much beer...

Perhaps there is another location for profile which one could use to aid in setting up? *As noted in Gerry's "settin up VAC" video @2:45

I have no profile to choose from :(

Oh wait, creating a new on anyways...

Where can I find Fish's profile?

 

Thanks

I had linked it in post #9 but I guess it's no longer there... :doh:

I had linked it in post #9 but I guess it's no longer there... :doh:

Ya I saw that and that's the one I followed.

Perhaps someone could post a barebones link or text doc for import. I'm simply trying to just get the radio commands working

The more you train your PC with voice commands the more it will become responsive. MCE for Airbus X Extended

Also, check out AJ.eightFive's VAC Friendly Radio Mod:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=82529

It includes a profile that you can use as-is or as a template to build your own.

The link to Fish's profile works fine:

Also, check out AJ.eightFive's VAC Friendly Radio Mod:

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=82529

 

It includes a profile that you can use as-is or as a template to build your own.

 

The link to Fish's profile works fine:

You're correct sir, something funny with my Firefox setup. The link appears fine in Chrome. Thanks for verifying

The link to Fish's profile works fine:

Thanks Harzach, I guess I had a similar issue as he did.