Advice about HOTAS settings for A10C

Hello everyone!

I bought the A10C before DCS world was even a thing, but at that time I was afraid of the time investment needed to enjoy the game, and my fulltime job schedule was not very friendly so I left the game rot in my Steam list.

Now my schedule is more friendly and I have time to invest in learning the plane as it deserves, so I have reinstalled again and plugged in my new HOTAS. Then spent 2 hours trying to configure it and to my amazement, I'm short of hats and switches to bind and I have to make some choices. :joystick:

After this little introduction this is my question:

Which hats would be better to bind to my HOTAS?

I have a X52 Pro, and as it is now I have binded the TMS and the DMS to the two hats in the stick, the collie to the throttle hat, the slew control to the two rotary switches (vertical and horizontal) and the China hat to one of the base switches.

I miss having the countermeasures switch in the HOTAS, so I binded to the good old WASD keys which as second nature, and the rest of the switchs (pinky, boat and mic) are just binded to keyboard.

Is this setup all right? I know that everyone will have its own setup, but I won't like to practice with this setup to find that DMS is seldom used but CMS is very important to have on stick, or that china hat is not needed but boat switch is used most of the time.

Thanks in advance! :thumbup:

I used to use the X52 (NON PRO) same button layout.

it is better if you run the Saitek hardware so you can configure the mini mouse stick as your slew control and a few other switches I then would finish my binding in DCSW.

Also if you use the pinky switch on your stick for a modifier you can map the controls almost exactly like a A-10.

IE: TMS/CMS on the stick hats and then shifted. DMS/Trim.

OR what ever you find you use more. I have been using a warthog for some time so I do not remember the layout I had set up but it did work nice for a few yrs.

I never thought of using the pinky switch as a modifier to have 4 hats instead of 2 in the stick. That is a wonderful advice. Thank you very much!

Unfortunately I haven't been able to use the Pinky button as a modifier. It only allows me to add the usual Ctrl, Alt, Shift etc...

Thanks for the advice anyway. I'm doing the starting tutorials and so far my current setup seems to work all right. The slewing controls with the two rotary sliders are a bit hard to get used to, but once I get it it is very smooth.

you should be able to use the add modifier option on the button setup page in dcs world.

use the drop down and select x52. Press the pinky button and save you should now have the pinky button to use as a modifier.

If that is not detected. Use the Saitek software to make it a random button press your not using and make that the modifier IE a button you mapped to the hotas as you do not need the keyboard press any longer.

Also make sure to turn off you "clutch switch" on the 52 so you can use that as a normal button. it some where in the set up might have to google it.

The best way to use a X52 is to use the Saitek suite. you can use the mouse stick as the Slew control like the Warthawg controller. Makes slewing second nature.

I also used the mouse button right there as the China Hat.

China hat forward non shifted. And china hat aft SHIFTED

You will use the china hat quite abit when slaving SOI to SPI during attacks etc.

BUT I only use the saitek software to enable the mouse and I think there are a few other buttons that are not recognized. I do most of the button programing in DCS.

It can be a pain to set up but once it is your done and having a properly set up hotas makes a world of difference

I finally found where to bind the pinky button in the X52 to the modifier list. Now it is working better than ever.

I finally got the CMS in the stick and the Slew control in the Throttle hat, with the two sliders for precise slewing. I don't like using the mouse stick in the throttle, so I didn't go that route.

Thank you very much for your advice, now it is time to practice a bit until it is second nature.