Slighty OT: Flightsticks

[Howard_Casto]

So I'm building a star wars yoke, but I still want a simple flight stick for a few games.  I'm not a huge sim guy, I just play a few arcade classics.

 Anyway.... I was looking for a stick with force-feedback, but they don't seem to make those anymore???  Have they fallen out of fashion or something?  If so I'll just pickup the cheapest usb stick I can find. 

[Boomslang]

The Microsoft Force Feedback 2 joystick is still the best going around basically, i just did a bunch of reading online and ordered one off ebay myself which turned up a few days ago.

Now there is some decent sticks without ffb but if you want ffb then go for a microsoft ffb 2, plenty on ebay

[Howard_Casto]

Well my worry was that it won't work on a modern OS.  Is it usb and does it have drivers that work on 7/8/10?

Also perhaps a more important question..... are there any games worth mentioning that would support it?  I know in the realm of arcade games the answer is no.  Afterburner, g-lock and all those games had simple rumble on the joystick... something I could replicate via a rumble motor. 

I've actually got an old Logitech, which, at the time was frikkin expensive without ff.... but it's gameport only. 

[Boomslang]

yep its usb (well make sure you get the usb version as I think the real old one was a gameport or something) and yes it works fine on Windows 10. I didnt have to look for drivers or anything it just installed it automatically

and yes some modern games are supporting force feedback still from what I read, maybe not all but I read games such as Elite Dangerous will have ffb eventually too

[thomas_surles]

I just got a stick in a bundle with my new wheel.
it's a logitech attack 3. no force feedback I don't think. (I never used it) but you can have it if you want it.

[Howard_Casto]

Nah it's cool man.  Sticks aren't particularly expensive.... I'm just trying to figure out which direction to go. 

[Fursphere]

I used a Microsoft sidewinder FFB stick years ago and didn't care for it at all.  The games I was playing at the time required real precision movements, and the FFB was just a random mess of movement that made the games (more) frustrating.

I have a Saitek x55 'Rhino' HOTAS setup on my driving cabinet (removable mounts - I can get pictures if you want to see it). 

I kind of went overboard when I bought it - wanting the Thrustmaster Warthog setup but not willing to pay for it - I settled on the x55.  In hindsight I would have been perfectly happy with the x52 / x52 Pro stick I'm sure.  I'm happy with the x55, but its overkill. 

I used a Logitech Xtreme 3D for a very long time.  They're awesome and can be had for like $25 or less on eBay?

[Howard_Casto]

Well my thought was to go a more "arcadey" route now that I've seen the lack of pc flight games.  I want a simple two button stick without any hat switches or anything.  I've played with those complex sticks before and since I'm primarily playing afterburner and stuff like that... all the extra stuff just gets in the way.  Also there are several modern arcade games that use a simple two button analog stick.... later sega pos gun games and star wars trilogy come to mind. 

I could mount an offset motor inside the base and control it via mamhooker and that's probably all the rumble I really need. 

I'm in the process of building my analog shifter (which will double as a throttle for flight games) and I have to assemble my sw yoke. 

[BadMouth]

bah, forum just ate my reply...

I have a pair of old "PC Mission" 2-button joysticks that interface via gameport.
The grip and buttons sound like the style that you're looking for.
They feel a bit spongy, but I think all of them did back then.

Hardly any of these old gameport joysticks had any electronics inside them.
It's just a pair of 100k slide resistors, so they could be connected to a teensy or other device.

I'm using a pair of "Super Joybox 7" usb to gameport adapters.
They show up as generic joysticks.

After hooking this stuff up I realized that I didn't like any of the arcade flightstick games at all, except for maybe star wars trilogy.
My main purpose was to use them with Virtual On, but the controls for that game were screwy and troubleshooter 2 didn't exist yet.
I haven't got back around to trying it with TS2.

[Howard_Casto]

Well I've got some pc raiders, which are basically the same thing.  I'm using one for my shifter (heavily modified) and I'm using the handles off of two for my star wars yoke.  I need to hunt up the parts and re-assemble some.  My crap is all over the place atm. 

Right now I'm researching stuff for the speedo/tacho to determine how many pins it'll eat up.  A prime contender are these dot-matrix led displays..... for whatever reason they have dropped dramatically in price.... $1.50 for a daisy chainable 8x8 with it's own controller chip.  What I would really like to do is a ring of leds with a 7 segment readout in the center, and that is doable via a max chip, but that would me a metric ton of soldering. 

Anyway USB for the joystick is probably the way to go as I'm running out of pins, but I haven't ruled out just taking one of these old school joysticks and wiring them through another avr like I did the shifter.