What do you use the CP2 for - apart from the landing gear handle!

[imacken]

Got my CP2 the other day slaved to my CM3 throttle, and, as I predicted, I am struggling to see what I can do with it!

 

What do you guys bind to it?

[Double Dutch]

I am curious too... the one thing I did not buy from Virpil.

[dburne]

1 minute ago, Double Dutch said:

I am curious too... the one thing I did not buy from Virpil.

 

I was tempted but held back. As I do all my flying in VR I just did not think I could make good use of another controller. 

[imacken]

It's not really a VR thing, Don. No different to fumbling around for the throttle buttons and switches.  It's just that I'm struggling to think of what to bind to all those buttons etc.!

[Double Dutch]

38 minutes ago, imacken said:

It's not really a VR thing, Don. No different to fumbling around for the throttle buttons and switches.  It's just that I'm struggling to think of what to bind to all those buttons etc.!

Maybe to send a whatsapp to your wife/Gf asking for:

mode 1: food: snack, sandwich, burger etc

Mode 2: drinks: coke, 7up, limo etc

Mode 3: dranks Beer, whiskey, rumcoke, schnaps, etc

 

[dburne]

6 hours ago, imacken said:

It's not really a VR thing, Don. No different to fumbling around for the throttle buttons and switches.  It's just that I'm struggling to think of what to bind to all those buttons etc.!

 

In that case you may have purchased a rather expensive landing gear lever...

I am sure you will find some things to assign though.

[imacken]

Yep, I thought that might the case before I bought it, but I just wanted to try it, just like you and the Index!

 

It's interesting that, so far, no one has replied here with ideas on what they use it for!  Think I'll ask over on the Virpil forum as well.

[wowbagger]

It depends on the birds you fly I guess. I'm looking forwards to having the extra buttons and rotaries. The Tomcat Auto pilot is 3 buttons by itself. The Viper autopilot uses 2 or 3 buttons as well. I want the rotaries for adjusting volumes for all the annoying things that go beep in the cockpit and drive me crazy. Also lights use up a ton of buttons/rotaries.

 

I hate using the mouse in cockpit - remove R hand from stick, move L hand from throttle to stick, grasp around for mouse, bend head backwards, sideways and down to find the button, click it with the mouse, realize it should have been a right click, then move hands all back onto HOTAS.

[imacken]

I use a mouse in my left hand, so coming off the throttle is no problem.

Do you use a CM3 throttle?

[wowbagger]

Yes, CM3, but I can't use a mouse with my left - too many years of right hand dominance I guess. Plus there's no mouse pad or room for one beside the throttle.

[imacken]

Yep, I understand that.  

I can see how useful it could be if you want to bind lights and volume controls, but for me, i'm not interested in those.  I mean, they get set once or maybe twice in a flight, and usually when on the ground. Doing the mental exercise of trying to work out which switch worked a volume control that I used once before just doesn't seem worth it to me.

I can see a bunch of cold start button/switch bindings being useful, but there again, if I'm on the ground with nothing else to do, I don't mind using the mouse (or trackball, in my case).

Interesting to hear what you'll use it for though. Thanks.

[wowbagger]

I forgot the Blackshark and the Gazelle - I'm constantly adjusting the brightness and contrast of the various displays for night missions. 

 

Actually, your point about remembering which one is mapped to what is mostly why I got it. With only a few buttons I have to remember what button A does in this particular plane vs in another plane. But with a lot more buttons, I can afford to have more dedicated to doing the exact same function in every plane so there is less to remember.  ... Not sure if I explained that well.

 

[imacken]

I see that.

I am using Thrustmaster MFDs for all the display adjustments - DDIs, MFDs, etc. they make a big difference.

 

[zcaa0g]

Maybe make it the dedicated "cold start" box with a landing gear?  That's all I got.

[imacken]

Interestingly, I don’t think there has been anyone responding here who actually owns a CP2!

[wowbagger]

Technically I own one. It just hasn't been delivered yet. Fedex said it was scheduled for yesterday and then let it sit in warehouse not far away all day with the status of "

At local FedEx facility Package not due for delivery ".

[imacken]

What I meant was no one who has actually used the device. 
I hope you get yours soon. 

[wowbagger]

Yes, sorry, I knew what you meant. I was just venting at Fedex.

 

I wonder if they aren't super sellers thus far. Also wonder how popular the CP1 was. Honestly, they are a bit dear for what is just a robust button box with a gear handle. But then this hobby has never made sense financially.

 

Thanks, I'll let you know how it goes after I get it set up.

[imacken]

I think the CPs are pretty popular, otherwise Virpil wouldn't have made the CP2.

 

Just to make you feel worse, I would say it was a big mistake choosing FedEx.  I don't know where you are located, but the Virpil forum is littered with horror stories about FedEx.

 

I have had 4 deliveries from DHL Express from Lithuania to the UK - including this week's CP2 - the next day! My CP2 was picked up from Virpil on Monday at 4pm, and arrived with me in the UK - after customs payments and various customs pass throughs - on Tuesday afternoon!

[wowbagger]

Wow, very nice!

 

I'm in the Netherlands at the moment and the DHL here is just as crappy - damned either way honestly. If Fedex can get it to me on Monday it will be a week from pickup in Lithuania to my door - which is fine actually. I just hate the stupid spamming of emails and text messages telling me to be around to sign for the package and then having the idiotic status message "not due for delivery".

 

Have you tried the rotaries for trim at all? The Spitfire takes a lot of trimming every takeoff and it's a bit slow using the HAT. On the other hand the P-47 seems overly sensitive with the trim buttons.

[imacken]

I'm surprised you say that about DHL Express service.  It would be the same planes, procedures to get it to the Netherlands as the UK.  I know the DHL Express service (and the normal service) is a lot more expensive than FedEx, but personally, I feel it is really worth it.

 

I will go and try out the trim rotaries in the Spit now and report back!

[imacken]

We're getting OT here, but, sorry to say, the rotaries are a lot worse than using the trim hat for the Spit trims.

 

The thing with the hats is that you can hold the button on, whereas you can't do that with the rotaries. You have to be constantly turning.  The CP rotaries are much slower, even with them set to buffered in VPC software.

 

I wanted to try them as virtual axes, but as all my allowed 8 axis slots are taken up with the built-in 6 axes of the CM3 and the 2 rotaries on the CM3, I have no slots left!

[wowbagger]

Well, that's somewhat disappointing.

 

I might try sacrificing my slider to a virtual axis. Currently I don't use it as an axis but as three buttons for three levels of zoom. 

 

Thanks for checking it out.

[imacken]

Why do you do that, when you get the full range of zoom as the axis?

[wowbagger]

Because I find the slider difficult to move precisely, and because for me the extreme ends of the zoom axis are useless - far too zoomed in to keep track of what direction I'm looking, and so wide/fisheyed that it totally breaks immersion for me  and is also pretty useless to see anything. I think it's better to be able to quickly and accurately zoom to:

  1 - a natural seeming fov that gives situational awareness of what my plane is doing and what is around me

  2- a good 95°-90° zoom for dealing with in cockpit dials and instruments - to give a level of clarity and detail your real eyes would when focusing on those things

  3- a zoomed in mode for details on the ground or distant aircraft like when your real eyes focus at distance

 

Using the slider always felt uncontrolled, difficult to get to where I want to be quickly and accurately, and breaks immersion for me.  I also have the /, *, and 5 mapped to a thumb button so I can make finer adjustments when necessary. I know my OCD is kicking in here, but I always have struggled in DCS to get a realistic feeling FOV. I'm not sure why the outside views default to such a narrow field of view (60°).  It feels weird to me trying to judge distances between what is seen in cockpit vs all the other views.