Thats a good idea, I got 9 buttons 3 axis and two coolie hats on my joystick and I ran out of buttons to assign ages ago. I use trakIr so my top coolie is mix/prop which is handy. Im seriously considering canabalising an old controler to make a "dashboard" esp for when I start using the multi engine aircraft.

I got 2 usb hubs full of that. 2 throttles (saitek and a CH quadrant) MSFFB2, rudder pedals, joypad, track ir.
Lots of sliders and buttons, and still I'm having problems assigning (and remembering *sigh*)

Great sim ain't it :cool:

Im a sucker for buggy PC games, remember Rowan BoB ? buggy as hell , I loved it. Falcon4 ? Bugfest. I spent hours on it, Hidden and dangerous ? blue screen hell , I was obsessed with it. Oh and dont mention ANY of the silent hunter series.

Well, to be fair, even if you start with a pre-set gyro it will drift over time and you will have to reset it anyway, so take a minute and learn to do it.

You don't even have to be directly looking at it, just click on it to align the course setter bars with the compass "line". You can also click with the stick in the way, it will still work and you still get the on-screen text telling you at what heading it's set. If it still bothers you trying to click on it, assign a couple of keys to do it and just watch until the yellow course selector lines are parallel to the white compass line.

I was confused because i didn't know how to read it until another forum user explained it in another thread, now i have no problems with it. The linked thread in SimHQ shows how it's done and it's very simple.

In short:
1) Align the yellow line of the course selector so that it's parallel with the main compass line (the big one), taking care to place the marking for North on the course selector ring on the edge of the compass line that has the small "T" on it.
2) Read the resulting heading from the on-screen text.
3) Turn the directional gyro to match it.
4) Repeat every 10-15 minutes or after violent maneuvers.

haha i feel your pain

So you get the directional gyro going... How do you tell where you are? Great you can tell where you are going, but if you don't have the terrain memorized, you still can't tell where you are correct?

You could use the in game map with icons. But if your are going to go full real with your settings then you should, as you say, take the time to learn about the environment that your flying in.

Another alternative would be to stop at every pub you fly past and ask for directions.

Cheers!

Yea I got lost more than one time on a server last night. Another problem I seem to have is finding the runway when I start in the hangers. How do you find it? I noticed from the air you have a white triangle but from the ground everything looks the same... I think I taxied into a field, and managed somehow to keep my wing off of the ground.

Unlike CEM where I think the devs got the balance between complexity and gameplay just right, this compass fiasco simply goes too far.

It's a needless set of things to do in a pseudo 3D world. I have the complete CH setup including a throttle quadrant, and I am all out of buttons already, and I have not even thought about bomber aircraft yet.

I say ditch the whole complex compass nonsense and just have the thing read where you are going, or at most just have a simple "reset" button that would need to be used every so often.

I'm all for immersion, but tedious button pushing does not make for more immersion. Leave that for a single plane study sim, not for a combat simulator.

I have to admit it did seem a bit extreme, but now its just a part of my preflight routine. At least it was explained to me on this forum, I dont remember anything being mentioned in the useless PDF manual. At least since the patches it is auto sets for you when you spawn in flight.