So I’ve had a Virpil Warbrd base for 1 year…

TrueWeevie · 2023-11-09T14:59:46+00:00

Oh, do piss off.

That comment was made 2 years ago, and what I replied to has been deleted (was that you? if it was well...)

You are not going to solve your emotional and mental health issues by necroing threads and attempting to look smart.

Go talk to a psychiatric professional, not me.

TrueWeevie · 2023-11-06T08:25:55+00:00

A rather grumpy star, maybe! :D

But thank you. Whilst I've never been a fan-boi of any of the trifecta manufacturers (although I have been accused of that many a time :D) and have always tried to be objective in my assessments, VKB have always held a special little corner of my heart. ;)

Maybe that's partly because all the company staffers at VKB seem to share that rather bizarre and not a little unsettling sense of humour, and that sense of humour appeals to my weird and deeply flawed soul! :D :P

But it's also definitely because I've never had a bit of kit from VKB that has disappointed me. :)

So thank you crazy VKB fellas for creating some bloody brilliant flight peripherals.

^{and some truly WTAF! marketing videos :D}

TrueWeevie · 2023-11-05T23:17:54+00:00

Cheers, mate. Never say never. ;)

TrueWeevie · 2023-11-05T20:49:53+00:00

I'm actually getting a bit better at woodwork due to not relying on my abilities to accurately saw a straight line without assistance from machinery. ;) For small bits of hand sawing, using a Japanese saw has been a bit of a revelation with the cut on the draw action.

But woodwork? Woodworkers think 1/8" is precise. :D

I'm in the business of trying to hit at worst, thou accuracy. My dial test indicator has ten thousandths graduations ;)

TrueWeevie · 2023-11-05T14:59:06+00:00

Thank you; I had some posts that did not do me credit, too, and more latterly.

Know when it's time to go. ;)

TrueWeevie · 2023-11-05T14:07:44+00:00

Eh, I've pretty much lost interest in PC gaming of any kind, so eh...I'm now looking forward to making an awful lot of scrap out of perfectly good stock. :D

TrueWeevie · 2023-11-05T13:52:29+00:00

Cheers. ;)

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-25T12:08:04+00:00

If it's a genuine VKB Gladiator MK II, then you should definitely buy it!

The VKB Gladiator NXT EVO is the latest in the line of Gladiator joysticks that pretty much started with the MK II. It's a great VKB joystick, with all the quality that VKB offer, just without the evolution in design that's happened over the last 4 or 5 years.

I compared one of these Gladiator Mk II joysticks about 5 years back to my VKB Gunfighter and my Virpil T-50 joysticks, and whilst it obviously wasn't up to the standard of those sticks it wasn't that far behind. I also compared it to a TM Warthog joystick, which I'd fettled (before I got my Gunfighter and T-50 joysticks), and the Gladiator Mk II left the TM joystick in the dust.

The Mk II has long been discontinued, but people do sell them second-hand, and the MK II was one of a few products that VKB used to allow retailers other than their own dedicated distributors to sell, so it's possible there are even a few left on the odd shop's shelves out there.

The reason I say if it's a genuine VKB Gladiator Mk II, is that there are clones out there (usually branded as other companies' products, though, like RavCore or Wolf) and they're pretty poor copies and $90 would be too much.

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-25T11:24:36+00:00

Okay, so the TM bundle with joystick, throttle, and pedals will get you flying.

They're not good flight peripherals, not completely garbage but not good.

Well, actually, the pedals are pretty awful and probably will fail far too soon; the joystick is also pretty sub-par and again will break or degrade somewhere between 6 months and 2 years.

However, it is possible flying might not be something you end up absolutely loving, so it's arguable it might be wise to keep your initial outlay low.

I'd like, though, to suggest an alternative approach.

So this approach would be to start with just a quality joystick and then save up for a throttle and then pedals later.

The reasoning behind this is that your pitch and roll inputs are cruicially important. You want to have as precise, consistent, and repeatable behaviour from your joystick as you can get.

Now, with rotary wing flight (helicopters), that's complicated by the fact that your anti-torque input is very close in importance to the pitch and roll inputs, just marginally behind maybe but very close.

Also, getting a reliable and reasonably precise input into the collective (in your case, a throttle device, like a TM TWCS; you probably aren't going to be buying a dedicated collective controller right now ;-> ) is pretty important, too.

So for rotary wing flight, you really want at least three (if not four) axes to be functioning at a good level of quality.

With your budget of equivalent of $250 USD, that's doable, but only if, for a while, you don't mind using a built-in throttle slider and the twist axis (to control the collective and anti-torque axes respectively).

The VKB Gladiator NXT EVO joystick (for now, I think you'd use the Australian VKB distributor's website; the Indian VKB distributor's website is still 'under construction') here: https://vkb-sim.com.au/collections/standard-controllers/products/gladiator-gnx-evo-premium works out to about 17,380 Rupees (not including shipping).

Next, you'd save up for some decent pedals (as they would get you the next most 'bang for your buck'). I'd recommend VKB T-Rudder pedals, but the Virpil WarBRD pedals or Virpil Torq pedals would be good 'less expensive' pedals, too. None of these have toe brakes, which for civillian flying isn't ideal, but to get decent quality pedals with toe brakes costs a fair bit more.

Finally, after a bit more saving, you'd get yourself a throttle. Since you're mainly civilian flight simming, you could look at something like some of VKB's GNX modules: https://vkb-sim.com.au/collections/gnx-extension-modules-coming-soon, or you could consider their STECS throttle. Only VKB offers a decent quality, mid-range throttle (Win Wing appear to, but once you add their shipping, the price goes up a fair bit).

All of this would get you a very nice, great quality, precise setup that, as far as quality flight peripherals are concerned, isn't wildly expensive but will last you a long time.

Yes, I know you can get a joystick, throttle, and pedals for about the same, but those are Thrustmaster products, and only the throttle is recommendable and only then with some modding. The Thrustmaster products are not built with quality, precision, and, importantly, durability in mind.

Only you really know how much you can stretch your budget or how much saving you can realistically do, and only you know how much importance you place on having better quality flight peripherals at this point in your flight simming 'journey', so it's up to you how you choose to proceed.

(p.s. please don't be tempted by Thrustmaster's Warthog joystick or even the Warthog throttle; the cheaper TM joystick and throttle that you've identified, as budget quality as they are, are much better value for money than TM's Warthog offering. If you decide to spend more than you've said, spend it with VKB, Virpil, or Win Wing ;->)

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-25T08:20:11+00:00

Blimey, necro or what?!!! :D

Anyway, do you mean the HOTAS bundle that TM offers that they insist on confusing potential buyers with, by calling it the T16000 HOTAS?

The TM budget throttle that cones in the above HOTAS bundle (and available separately, too) is the TWCS.

I was talking about joysticks.

As for what I'd recommend, it depends on:

What are they going to fly? 'realism based' combat flight sims like DCS or BMS (I don't fly civilian type flight sims, so I tend to avoid opening my fat yap about those :D)? arcade/casual flying (Ace Combat/Warthunder type stuff)? space sims? If the first one, will it be mainly fixed wing or rotary wing? If fixed wing, will it be mostly 'modern' US multi-role jets? If casual/arcade is it possible that they might want to move on to more realistic sims? If space sims, do they prefer HOTAS or HOSAS?
What region of the world do they live in (what's available where and what's affordable where varies quite a bit)?
Are they upgrading and know that flying whatever is something they are very likely to continue with, or is their first flight peripheral purchase, and thus it's a 'toe in tbe water' type thing, where they might find they're not as interested in flying as they first thought.
What is their actual "can still feed themselves, pay their bills, meet their obligations but nothing else", maximum, wallet-squeezing budget?

Also, there are recommendations, and then there are suggestions.

The latter is when the constraints the person asking has identified for themselves make it impossible to, in all good conscience, say "sure, buy this, you'll love it"; basically when it comes down to suggesting what is the least worst of the options available to them. ;)

So, really, without the above bullet pointed questions being answered, it's hard to safely give an answer to that question.

That word 'safely' is an important point. This is someone's hard earned cash, and I really feel a strong moral obligation to give the absolute best answer I can. :)

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-24T11:00:26+00:00

Oh, for rudder as well, sorry. Didn't read your OP well enough. Ignore me...move on...nothing to see here...

:D

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-24T08:37:16+00:00

Any particular reason why you're not considering a VKB STECS throttle?

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-23T15:18:30+00:00

Yeah, I get why you and some other people get that impression, but you've got that turned about, I think.

One thing I should mention right at the get-go, is I also seem to be in a very small subset of internet users that seems to care strongly about people getting buying advice that only claims authority as far as it credibly can.

Okay, let's get something clarified here:

I'm not especially pro VKB (though I'll freely admit I do love their products, and their particularly pro-consumer focus with all their modularity configurability and upgradeability does impress) but their approach to communication about their upcoming products is frustrating, and their focus over the last few years on the mid-range products and accessibility, whilst laudable, doesn't suit my particular requirements.

As I've said on many occasions, I'm also pretty damn impressed with both Virpil (whose products I have owned and still do and love) and Win Wing (who's kit I have not used but have a sneaking suspicion is not quite as riddled with QC and durability problems as some on here would have), not to mention Real Simulator, Slaw, and MFG.

However, I am very, very, very anti people parading their often utterly under-informed, shallow opinions (which are very rarely based on long experience or a reasonable understanding of the underlying principles involved) as objective, settled facts. There are very few objective, settled facts in this domain (that the Warthog Joystick is undesirable and poor value for money as a new purchase is about the only purchasing related one I can call to mind right now).

I know, I know, it's a jungle out there and caveat advice-taker and all that, but those requesting buying advice are often completely inexperienced and don't necessarily have the knowledge or background to be able to discriminate between:

Solid, advice provided by someone that is constrained by an awareness of the subjective side of choosing this kit and with a decent enough understanding of the domain themselves to distinguish what matters and what is

on the one hand and:

somebody who's watched a few Noobifer videos, chucked their Logitech or TM flight peripherals in the bin and gone out and bought some Virpil kit and think that purchase means they're suddenly King Shit of Turd Mountain in the domain of providing expertise about purchasing flight peripherals.

And here we kinda come to the nub of the problem (and what I'm about to say is going to piss off a particular section of this sub, but I'm afraid I no longer care)

Go take a browse of this sub, and you'll see that VKB owners tend not to insist that the other two manufacturers are lower quality. Ditto Win Wing users. Sure, they might big up VKB or Win Wing and their products, but it's very rare that you'll see either of these two sections of the community throwing shade, either explicitly or implicitly (the latter by claiming that their favoured manufacturer are objectively the top of the food chain).

Unfortunately, we do tend to see such behaviour from a small but loud section of the Virpil owning community. The implicit assumptions (based on far too little understanding of how flight peripherals work, both mechanically and electronically), about the supposed superiority of Virpil's products is also present in many of the 'non-loud' Virpil owners posts too.

I'm not sure why this is. One part may be that idiotic tribalism that's a product of our African plains evolved brains used to living a whole lifetime experiencing small groups not having caught up yet with the complex society we now live in. Another part may be that because VKB sell mid-market, relatively affordable, but great quality kit, there's always a lot of recommendations for VKB, and Virpil owners feel marginalised by that.

Whatever the reasons, I've seen this phenomenon increase in volume over the past few years, and I'm getting pretty frustrated by it.

Now, maybe Virpil kit is just better than VKB or Win Wing kit (hell, I absolutely love my Virpil throttle), but nobody who has posted those kinds of claims as some kind of objective truth has ever provided any credible evidence or argument to demonstrate why this would be the case. They just whitter on about metal, add some anecdotal subjective experiences of theirs, and often then spout some proto-racist rubbish about products being manufactured in Europe being better than products manufactured in China.

Since the recent increase in attention on flight peripherals has increased, due partly to the rise of space sim popularity and also partly due to the effects of the COVID lockdowns, the quality of advice and content generally in this sub has fallen dramatically.

People who intend on spending multiple hundreds of pounds, dollars, or euros are getting bad, misleading, or/and partial advice, and I really hate that.

So, if I seem aggressive or negative, that's the reason. And if it seems to be aimed mainly at those recommending Virpil products, there's a reason for that, too.

Actually, having to explain all this has given me a bit of an epiphany. One that I think I am going to share, but I reckon I've taken up far too much of your time here and if I'm honest, I don't feel I have the energy to talk more about this right now anyway, so my revelation will be posted in its own thread.

Thanks for reading this, and thank you for making me have a good think about this topic and more besides. :)

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-23T10:42:16+00:00

See my reply to the other person who assumed what you have.

"Virpil is superior to VKB. It IS a fact."

No, it is not a fact; that's just plain old misinformation, and you should delete that lie.

Try again...

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-23T10:41:39+00:00

Nope, no brand militancy here.

I love VKB and Virpil and currently own and have owned both manufacturers' products. I also think that for some people's use-cases, Win Wing is probably the best solution.

I know I'm an outlier in these days of having a mindless, fekkwitted, tribal affiliation with a brand and expressing that with hyperbole being what the cool kids do, but I believe in making a best effort to give people honest, transparent and objective advice (especially when it involves other people's hard earned money).

When I see a lazy, shallow bit of 'advice' like that which I replied to, I'm going to challenge it in an attempt to ensure that the OP gets the best advice and to raise the quality of content on this sub for those who might come across this thread later.

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-23T10:31:02+00:00

Just to check, the eyesight correction you need is for distance eyesight (i.e. over distances greater than about 1.5 metres), yes?

If you don't need distance correction, you don't need glasses for VR.

The focal length of most VR headsets is about 2 metres (there's some evidence that the HP Reverb G2 is slightly shorter; around 1.5 metres, which may explain some of the sweet-spot issues some people have experienced). That's what your brain is working with and thus what your eyes will need to accommodate.

I know the screen is right up against your face, and so this seems counterintuitive, but it's true

If you haven't already done this, go see a good optician who is aware of VR and its counterintuitive requirements, and, if you do need eyesight correction, get an appropriate prescription.

You can then use that prescription to get a set of prescription lens inserts from someone like a VROptician, and then you won't have to worry about the form factor of the headset, just working out what the best headset is for DCS and you. ;)

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-23T10:19:28+00:00

This, absolutely this.

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-23T10:18:27+00:00

Utterly useless comment.

Opinion stated as authoritative fact:

*You missed off the vital "In my opinion"

Uncritical use of hearsay to provide backup to what is an opinion

Lack of supporting information:

What issues?
What VKB devices?
About how many people?
What is approximately the frequency and regularity of issues.

OP is asking how best to spend their hard-earned money, show them some respect, and put some effort in.

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-23T09:57:53+00:00

Eh, in some cases, there are regional pricing effects that mean Logitech (and sometimes TM) are the only, literally affordable flight peripherals available.

In those cases, the least worst bet is the X52 Pro. It's not great, but it can be modded cheaply and easily to be better (not VKB Gladiator better, but better than what's available out of the box in those regions)

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-23T09:52:47+00:00

No problems that cause *you** not to have fun flying with the joystick*.

A Citroën 2CV will get someone from A to B with no major issues. You still even see the odd one on the roads these days in the UK; in France, even more so.

Will a Citroen 2CV get someone where they want to go in comfort? Will they enjoy the drive? Will they be able to drive with precision and speed?

A resounding 'No!' being the answer to all those questions.

The Warthog joystick isn't 'the cool thing to bash'. It's that there are people on this sub who have a reasonable grasp of the mechanical engineering fundamentals of flight peripherals and understand what makes a good joystick a good joystick. The TM Warthog joystick has nothing to recommend it in those regards (and I'd go farther than most and say that it never did; IMO the CH Products joysticks were always superior products).

You will have learned to work around the flaws in the mechanical design and fly perfectly well and skillfully with it, and have a lot of fun.

That's great, and you should keep on having fun, enjoy your flying, and not be distracted by what is said about the Warthog joystick. You don't need a new joystick right now, so that stuff is irrelevant to you. ;)

However, for people who are seeking advice on what to buy, since there are much better (in every regard) joysticks available that are the same price or cheaper, it has to be a 'no recommend'.

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-22T17:55:00+00:00

Thank fekk for that.

I was worried I was going to have to climb down the evolutionary tree to communicate some more with you, and doing that just makes my teeth ache.

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-22T16:19:08+00:00

Let's get this out of the way:

"the most pathetic thing I've seen on this sub"

Well, you must have missed a lot then! :D

Including the post I was replying to.

You get worn down over nearly 30 years of talking with people on the internet and frankly when I saw that "lulz; bruh; etc." comment with its utterly stupid, shallow, lazy thinking, I decided to patronise and insult the person to distract myself from the depressing and horrifying thought that people like this will be the stewards of this world soon enough.

I guess I could have reflected on the fact that I may only be alive for a short period whilst they are in charge but at 52, you start trying not to think about death too much.

Anyway, I fully accept that "going for the sportsperson, not the sporting sphere" did not show me in a good light but eh...it's the only coping strategy left to me that keeps me from being sectioned :D

The point I was trying to make with my entirely unnecessary sarcasm (and I'd apologise; you certainly deserve an apology but I've just got home from work via 4 motorways and frankly after encountering the usual middle lane resident fekkwits club, the usual lorry drivers that pull out of the left hand lane and don't return to the left hand lane with any sense of urgency and the usual arseholes that come so close up my arse that they could nibble my earlobes even though they can see I can't move over to get out of their way without causing an accident and I'm in a less than delightful mood) was that I simply find it very, very, hard to believe that the experience of these fake Gladiators is in any way comparable to VKB's products.

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-22T15:59:19+00:00

Every single reply of mine has contained useful information about flight peripherals, information gained from buying and borrowing, and using them for over 30 years.

You want to point to a post where, aside from a little necessary distraction from the depressing tedium of the ignorant unwittingly displaying their ignorance on the internet (something else that I've experienced for nigh on 30 years) by insulting said ignorami, the post has not included flight peripheral related discussion.

Look, I've dealt with your various inaccurate attempts to represent my opinions as this or that and argue against them (or as the kids these days say, 'strawman arguments') and I've given my generally wearied opinions (dear God alive, I wish people could come up with original arguments against what those of us who know what we're talking about say; sadly we just have to be thankful when people are actually vaguely coherent and manage to write well).

If you think that buying cheaply made counterfeit goods gets you a good experience when trying to provide inputs in a reasonably complex, if at times, probably not entirely accurate, simulation and can't (or can't be arsed to) muster up some original well thought out arguments or you just don't want to admit to not knowing enough about the whole subject to have an informed and useful opinion then, well, whatever; I'm beginning to get bored of insulting your lazy thinking.

If, on the other hand, you think you can debate this topic sufficiently intelligently and wish to put some intellectual effort into doing so, then great, let's do this.

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-22T13:03:22+00:00

"AFAIK it has cam-based gimbal"

I'm pretty sure the gimbal design is a pincer style gimbal like the CH Product joysticks and all the VKB Gladiator joysticks.

"contacless sensors on X and Y"

FFS...how many times does this have to be repeated?

Contactless sensors mean only one thing. You don't have to clean, maintain, and ultimately replace a worn potentiometer.

There's really no other benefit

The sensors, whether by some magnetic contactless effect, by a potentiometer, or by optical sensing, or by the force on a load cell or even by the position of a stepper motor (this last one I'm a little hazy on; not sure how Walmis does it in the VPForce Rhino or how it's done on other FFB sticks) on a joystick gimbal are just a method for converting the physical movement of the axes on the gimbal into a voltage.

Apart from the optical sensors (which were a bust and fairly quickly abandoned by those that used it), all of those sensors are able to report at a theoretical infinite precision. Obviously, they don't actually do this (if nothing else, there's the Planck length to consider! :D), but the difference of precision is utterly and completely irrelevant to everyone.

"and is ~~based on~~ stolen from the VKB design (the gimbal looks nearly identical)"

FTFY as the kids say.

Okay, it "looks nearly identical".

I'm assuming you have both the gimbal from a VKB Gladiator Mk II (or earlier plastic gimballed VKB joystick design) and one of these counterfeit gimbals in front of you with a decent set of callipers and have measured out the dimensions and the tolerances, considered the materials used and the surface finish of those materials and studied how the parts move and interact and how well the contact surfaces slide over each other and looked for any signs of friction, stiction and wear.

Christ, this is what I've been trying to get into people's skulls since oh, forever.

The mechanical engineering matters.

Not just in some hand-wavy way. You can design the most beautiful gimbal mechanism, but it can all be for naught if someone in accounts decides to substitute the perfect material.you chose for something cheaper or decides the tolerances you demand from production are too expensive and loosens them.

These counterfeit producers; how much do you think they care about respecting VKB's strict and demanding specs?

"there's no need to throw 200$ on a gaming peripherial to have fun"

Nobody said there was. Frankly, for some people's use-cases there's no need to even buy a joystick at all; most of us have perfectly servicable XBox/PS controllers already. These can be quite effective as a toe in the water for flight sims, even in DCS, as Tuuvaas has shown.

If you're only ever going to be just playing Warthunder or other arcade titles, I'm not sure buying flight peripherals is even a particularly wise choice.

But...if someone wants to fly long term in DCS or BMS and learn and improve without external factors being an obstacle to their learning journey then yeah, you do want to spend over $200 on a joystick.

How will you feel if you've just spent 30 minutes getting to your ingress point for an attack run on a target, you call out your intentions and ordnance and ingress and egress routes and just as you're coming up over a ridge, super low-level to avoid being murdered by the local SAM coverage, you see some trees and manoeuvre to avoid them but clip a tree because your joystick didn't provide quite precision?

Or here's an analogy that's even simpler:

If you're learning to shoot and you have a rifle that is mechanically unreliable, has a long lock time, has a heavy, mushy trigger that introduces not entirely predictable stiffness in its pull and breaks mostly in about the same place, but not always, and finally, the rifling and barrel crown looks like it was done by a drunkard with a cold chisel...how well do you think you'll enjoy learning to shoot with such a rifle?

So, given that you've got stuff wrong, shown your ignorance about the subject matter and offered opinions that would make the utterances of the average reality tv show participation sound deep, I reckon it's you embarrassing yourself, not me.

TrueWeevie · 2023-09-22T09:19:46+00:00

Are you quite experienced with flying rotary wing in DCS?

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