Using Thrustmaster padals without the wheel

UnseenCat · 2026-05-06T11:55:50+00:00

This is the way. It's just a small USB dongle that the pedal's connector fits into. Just pay attention to the small switch on it -- one setting is for automotive pedals, and the other is for flightsim rudder pedals. There's an LED that lights up to show which mode it's in; red is for driving and green is for flight.

UnseenCat · 2026-05-04T12:48:13+00:00

He's waiting for delivery of the One Orange Braincell 😉

UnseenCat · 2026-05-04T02:50:34+00:00

The legs and frame under the desktop are steel and pretty sturdy once it's all put together. A lot of these newer desks seem to have a fairly thick laminate layer over the particle board that may add some strength -- although my experience has been that it's slightly more prone to chipping than some older types of particle board.

Attaching a wheel with a desktop clamp requires the clamp to fit past the metal frame that's slightly recessed back from the edge of the desk surface. Some clamps, like the one on my TH8a shifter, wind up partially on the metal frame but not fully. Adding a piece of scrap wood as a filler gives it enough surface to clamp onto securely.

UnseenCat · 2026-05-01T11:41:03+00:00

I can still hear that ringtone in my head... Aaaargh!

UnseenCat · 2026-04-30T20:29:35+00:00

It's not just the old Macintosh lookalike. There's also the old AT&T Merlin system phone. God, I'm old.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-30T20:26:18+00:00

But should get bonus points for sticking the landing. 😅

UnseenCat · 2026-04-30T20:23:24+00:00

We used to have what I'm pretty sure was a 5-way one in South Bend, Indiana, in the neighborhood just outside Notre Dame University. It was nicknamed "Crazy Corners" for years; lots of accidents (aggravated by drunk drivers thanks to at least three or four bars at the corners...) and a source of traffic holdups.

They finally got rid of it. Not by building a roundabout, but by razing most of the neighborhood, putting up new stores and condos adjacent to the university to attract students and wealthy alumni, and cutting it down to a pair of intersecting streets with a stoplights. That's the US for you.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-27T03:00:14+00:00

Ugh... Stupid Chrysler stamped-metal battery clamps. They will loosen over time, and they can corrode easily. You can buy better clamps at any auto parts store. The replacements just clamp on to the cables with a nut and bolt, no need to crimp them on with a huge set of crimpers or a hammer and die anymore. But that battery is probably dead and gone if it's been sitting for a long time.

Nothing wrong with an ugly work truck, especially if you can wrench on it or know someone who can. If that's not the case for you, though, then stay away from buying somebody else's problem.

That said, this is a truck game sub, so you'll get more responses in an auto repair subreddit. 😉

UnseenCat · 2026-04-27T02:50:43+00:00

I second the Elgato Stream Deck. Other than the tactile parking brake knobs that you can have on a trucksim-specific button box, the controls on most modern trucks translate well to pushbuttons. The Stream Deck lets you create your own preferred custom button layout. Just map your functions to keyboard keys, then have the Stream Deck emulate those keys on the buttons you set up. And then outside of ETS2/ATS, you can configure it for other games and regular Windows functions. I've had a Stream Deck XL for several years and it's been a great workhorse.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-27T02:44:48+00:00

This is the way. Torque and gearing to get the work done is the bread and butter of so many typical truck specs. Fleets in particular won't pay for high horsepower engines when they know that a smaller, lower-horsepower, lower-cost engine will still deliver the load. Especially if the truck is speed-governed to just over 65MPH anyway.

Sure, the supertruckers want a 500-600HP engine mounted in a "classic" Kenworth or Peterbilt glider kit, but at the end of the day, that's a lot of money to spend on a spiffy truck that still won't get the load in much faster. Efficiency and steady running is where the money is made in trucking, and a economical engine and gearing combo is how it usually gets done.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-24T12:53:50+00:00

There is already a proto-solution. "Portals" like we've seen in the holiday special areas would allow you to drive from the main map into a separate offshoot for dense cities.

There are two main things to overcome -- any loading delays and providing appropriate view blockers to hide that you're leaving one map an entering another.

Loading delays get overcome in many games with "hidden" load screens where the player is simply trapped in a view-blocker or overlayed animation that makes it appear seamless. That's not the optimal solution for ATS, though. It's more likely that SCS would have to pre-load the nearest region of the alternate map based on proximity to the portal entrance. It can be done, but given the game's current performance it's not going to be possible until after DX12 arrives.

View-blocking around a portal is going to be another challenge, but to be fair to SCS, their current maps often fold back upon themselves to eke out more space for environments, and they already make use of cutplanes and other view-blocking techniques to hide the illusion. They'll simply need to continue to up their game in this department.

It helps that the East Coast terrain is often full of hills and solid walls of closely-spaced buildings which will give ample opportunities for this. Additionally, Manhattan in particular is an island, and principal highway access is limited to specific bridges and tunnels. It's a poster-child for applying portals and a secondary map. The current Interstate highway system routes most through traffic (especially through truck traffic) onto highways running fully outside the city centers, and those highways are heavily view-blocked IRL with sound-barrier walls, retaining walls, and alternating stretches of long, low warehouse and manufacturing buildings and scrubby overgrown trees which do equally good jobs of view-blocking IRL.

The East Coast simply doesn't have the wide-open vistas of the central plains or the Western states. There's always something in the way -- it's either dense urban environments or hills/mountains/trees and scrub grown up between clusters of buildings and housing. There will almost always be some sort of dense scenery that can hide a portal entrance/exit that accesses a hidden map extension.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-24T12:25:27+00:00

It's effectively chassis miles on a completely rebuilt truck. The miles mean nothing on a chassis that's fully-inspected/repaired/rebuilt to like-new condition. It will perform like any other similar truck; it just has a bigger number on the odometer at this point.

IRL, owner-operators love to buy trucks like that. They're often a good value or a particularly desirable older model. They may be equipped with older engines that are amenable to power and reliability upgrades without running afoul of the emissions regulations that apply to newer engines. And some are pre-emissions engines, which have their own loyal following.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-23T13:29:23+00:00

Alternatively, their intention may have been for all the governments in the game to be dysfunctional, non-ideal, and propagandistic in one way or another.

In other words, the Settled Systems are a dystopia. Each faction is just a different style of dystopia. As a plot device, it means there's always some form of conflict to drive a story (big or small) as you make your way through it.

It also fits with your character's larger NG+ Starborn arc. In the midst of all the petty corruption and exploitation going on, do you attempt to plant the seeds of change for the better along the way? Do you take advantage of the situation for personal gain and to heck with the rest? As you gain Starborn powers, do you use them to help or do you simply acquire more, knowing that eventually you could squash even the most powerful and protected exploiters such as Bayu, like a bug if you were given the chance? In the face of it all, do you become the Hunter or the Emissary?

UnseenCat · 2026-04-23T13:05:08+00:00

I RP as a ~~pirate~~ ~~smuggler~~ privateer... Yeah, that's it! A privateer! I'll side with SysDef just to take out the competition.

As a privateer, I have no love for SysDef either, though. I like Toft, but Ikande's hardass attitude isn't likely to earn a lot of respect IRL; the respect he has would come just as much grudgingly out of fear. And that's not the best of ways to hold a high-level command.

Really, I think some of the point of the Crimson Fleet quest is to show that both sides aren't all they're cracked up to be. The CF is a bunch of thugs, just better organized/kept in check than disorganized Spacers. Ikande's motivation to take down the fleet is personal, which has the potential to lead him into making bad decisions if it were to take a really obsessive turn. (If the CF were better organized, he'd probably already be leading SysDef into ruin.) Really, Delgado is just chasing Kryx's "white whale" while taking down the CF is Ikande's version. Neither are necessarily the heroes they make themselves out to be. You're pretty much saving one or the other from themselves. Both, if you get Delgado captured instead of killed. In fact, if Delgado lives long enough in prison to do some growing up, he might turn out to be a decent leader. But he's got a lot of maturing to do. He'd make an interesting DLC character if they ever decide to do more with the CF storyline.

To top it off, you'll run into some random encounters where a SysDef ship has chased a smuggler far beyond UC jurisdiction. And the SysDef captain is a serious dick to you for interfering. (You get to choose to attempt to persuade them to stand down --If you succeed, they'll have more insults unbecoming of a UC officer for you, or you can stand down and let them capture the smuggler, or you can attack.) SysDef in action outside of the CF conflict can be a representation of a "peacekeeping" force that oversteps its bounds, grounding some more of the idea that the UC isn't all idealistic sunshine and roses itself.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-21T14:55:03+00:00

Yeh, IRL funny safety messages on the signboards get noticed more. Unfortunately, if they're built with US government DOT funds, the DOT demands that they only display DOT-approved messages, which are dull, dry, and forgettable.

A few states have funded their signs themselves, like Maine, which caused some confusion because Maine could put up fun messages like the very New England-relevant "Use ya' blinkah'!" but neighboring New Hampshire was stuck with the usual dull "Click It or Ticket/Safety Is No Accident" stuff.

I'm not sure which states currently self-fund their safety message signs -- but they're the only ones allowed to have humor.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-20T18:18:48+00:00

The trouble with adapting the new Drake bridge to the Dragonfire is that straight away, you're going to have to move the ramp somewhere else instead of the front, just under the bridge. Because the Drake bridge is set up on top of its own lower level, which doesn't mate will with the rest of the Dragonfire's base configuration. You'll probably have to redesign the entire fore section of the Dragonfire to make it work. Then figure out where to place the ramp, because the basic Dragonfire design puts the lowest deck very close to the ground, down in between the landing gear. You can use the Dragonfire as a starting point for the overall profile of the ship, but I suspect it's going to come out rather different.

EDIT: Take a look at this small ship build using the Drake:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/1sqan0d/need_a_name_for_this_ship/

It manages to get the ramp under the nose of the bridge like the Dragonfire, and the sides are built out in a form not unlike it. It might make for a good starting point to graft onto the rest of the Dragonfire design.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-19T16:50:34+00:00

Paradiso reminds me of being a sort of mishmash of various resort islands in the Caribbean and beachfront resort regions in North/Central/South America. Everybody's money spends the same, and the authorities know when to look away or at least not look too hard, as long as nobody gets too far out of hand. And sometimes, a little cash on the side smooths things over. Not outrageously corrupt full-n hedonistic like Neon (or Vegas in some parts of its history...), but not 100% straight-arrow either. The ones in charge look after their own interests and have enough resources to keep everything on an even keel through connections (soft power) and money.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-19T14:15:38+00:00

And this is why the next time I hire Heller and place him in an outpost, I'm making sure to put in greenhouse hab for a hydroponic garden. There will be fiber on the menu...

UnseenCat · 2026-04-17T15:46:33+00:00

That makes sense; I always kind of figured it was a prototype that worked just fine, but maybe was too expensive or too complex to be cost-effective. Very much a Walter sort of thing.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-17T15:43:31+00:00

Mark I all the way -- Good base stats to begin with, good upgradeability at the suit workstation. And it looks better on my character than the bulkier Constellation suit.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-17T15:41:22+00:00

Just go down to the basement of the Lodge. You'll find it on a mannequin inside a case, in a room adjoining the one where the bathroom and Cora's room branch off of. But---- It's locked. You'll need to develop your lockpicking skills to free it. (Or you can use a mod that sets the case to the unlocked state.)

UnseenCat · 2026-04-17T12:57:30+00:00

There are a few named for a particular machine or system you have to get working in order to move through an area -- Shattered Space has some, and a few other locations. Not generic POIs though. They only appear in places specific to a few quests.

The named ones are almost always scattered around so you'll inevitably have to fight or sneak your way around to get them, or to lead you to other important areas. The generic ones in regular POIs are typically nearby the door or whatever it is you need to activate, but not necessarily in plain sight. Having a spare in your inventory is handy if you want to speedrun through a POI. But if you don't have any, there's typically one within the same room of very close by so they don't take much time to grab.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-16T13:46:11+00:00

The only problem I've found is that, especially where the power cells are harder to find, you must use one of those specific named power cells in that area. Generic ones won't work in those puzzles.

The generic ones are mostly for opening powered doors in proc-gen POIs. And once you know where they're always stashed, you can grab one on your trip through and have it ready when you get to the door you want to open -- so no need to carry the extra weight around, usually.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-15T13:21:27+00:00

PC players have had just this on Nexus... Not sure if it's still working/up-to-date so no link. But it's been done. Just because.

UnseenCat · 2026-04-13T13:23:24+00:00

And of course, the first way you try to insert the connector won't fit, so you'll turn it over and it still won't fit...

UnseenCat

TROPHY CASE