Reddit reviews Mad Catz V.1 Stick for PC

I have a Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X and I love it. Highly recommended if you're on a budget. It runs for $50 on Amazon. Another good choice, and $20 less, is this stick right here: https://amzn.com/B001MGNWDI. I used that stick before I bought my HOTAS and I really liked it. The buttons and trigger click nicely and the heavy spring adds a really nice amount of resistance. Personally, I like a heavy amount of resistance on a flight stick. I gave that stick to my buddy who plays E:A and he liked it so much he bought a second one and plays with a dual stick setup.

• This was a good enough and cheap joystick for me to start with.

• The stock learning center (Pilot License, Tutorials and Missions) together with the stock planes are entertaining for a start actually. I guess it took me 2 or 3 months till I started looking for Add-Ons, but I guess thats different, person to person. The reason I started looking into Add-Ons was simply because the real weather download in FSX doesnt work anymore since some years. Now I own quite a Add-On collection, but its not neccessary to start off with these. You'll be busy learning anyways.

• The Tutorials are a great way to learn. I suggest you take the time to read the extensive learning materials included. There's really a lot of great information to learn. The flights are basically just the short form of that documents to each lesson.

• Enjoy. I was overwhelmed at the beginning too, but I am massively surprised and proud of myself, because you simply learn sooo much in such a fun way. I never anticipated i'd be capable of learning so many things, without even realizing that I was actually "learning". Just revisit lessons that you didnt quite get yet. And dont make it a "have to". Enjoy it, but when the lessons are too much of a struggle, just pause and do a fun little mission in a small plane. You'll learn with those too.

PS: A lot of what I learned was learning by doing. Turning knobs, looking what happened AND Googling what I didnt understand. There's no question regarding aviation, that isnt answered somewhere on the big fat interwebs :D

PPS: THE INSTRUMENT CHECKRIDE LESSON IS BUGGED. Dont waste your time there like I did with trying at least 100 times before finding out that its bugged ^^

We ran with the Logitech controllers this year to allow the driver to move into the next driver station or switch positions with the co-driver as needed to improve his sight lines. If your students have used the Logitech controllers before, I'd personally recommend sticking to them.

A lot of teams use joysticks. Common ones are:

• Mad Katz V1 - Ambidextrous, but I've heard bad things about the build quality
  
• Logitech Extreme 3D - Includes twist axis, nice button set, but only right handed
  
• Logitech Attack 3 - Ambidextrous, fairly rugged (we've had some since like 2010), but not readily available anymore.
  
  Or you can totally jump the shark and go full-on 114 style DJ board and guitar as controllers!

I haven't decided yet, but these are the ones I've found so far that look like they match my criteria:

Saitek Aviator

Thrustmaster T.16000M

Cyborg V.1

The important things are they can be operated left handed and they have an easily accessible throttle. Problem is, none of them look very high quality. Unfortunately it seems like all the high-end ones are right handed. Right now I'm leaning toward the aviator as the throttle placement looks like it will be easier to use one handed. Then again I might just bind the Y-axis to throttle and leave it at that.

I use a Mad Catz V1 as my off hand stick. It's an ok ambidextrous stick, it does the job and its cheap.

I totally agree with you in that pedals make the most sense for thrust (these other guys don't know what they're missing out on)

Here's two wheels with pedals that should work for you.

Unfortunately, you're not going to find any 3-pedal setups for under $100 unless you get used.

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As an aside, my current setup is a Logitech MOMO set of pedals (I picked the wheel up used for $50), a Mad Catz V1 for the left hand (up/down and left/right translocation) and a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro for the right hand (used as a regular flight stick)

At some point I'm going to figure out how to mount the Mad Catz one sideways, because 'space!'

I'm using just a basic madkatz joystick (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001MGNWDI)

and haven't yet felt a burning need to spend more on input hardware than I spent on the game.

If you're dead set on getting the more impressive setup, by all means wait it out and keyboard and mouse it, the default keybinding and mouse method isn't terrible. I played it with a trackball for a few days while I waited for the joystick to arrive and it was more than functional for learning the basics of the game and putting my toe into the water with everything

Mad Catz V.1 Stick. It works and it looks cool, but it feels pretty cheaply made.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001MGNWDI/ref=pd_aw_sim_147_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=41Jf8ia8-HL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL300_SR300%2C225_&refRID=1BV1HME6FVRDY2TSJKZE

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutreachHPG/comments/3w4ynv/would_you_ever_do_dual_joystick/
a few days after that I had purchased 2 joysticks.
one of them was this one
http://www.amazon.com/Mad-Catz-V-1-Stick-PC/dp/B001MGNWDI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1451414892&sr=8-2&keywords=mad+catz+flight+stick
I use that for my throttle and body turn.
you don't want a pure throttle. a joystick on the left is better.
Using a joystick on the left hand, which controls turning, and throttle up and down is great.
hat up: UAV
hat left: night vision
hat down: heat vision
hat right: battlefield
middle bottom button: targeting
left upper: the thing that pops up names
left lower: advanced zoom
right upper: arm lock toggle
right lower: Toggle chain fire
trigger: jump jets
pinky: push to talk
.
using the joystick on the right hand side for pitch up down and torso twist left and right was an exercise in masochism.
the reason being was that the dead zone set in the game makes you move the joystick so many degrees until your torso starts moving. so if you need to target something quickly, you have to jerk the joystick, and once it crosses the deadzone threshold, your torso turns way too fast. so its very hard to do fine target aiming, and when it comes to quick gross aiming like brawling, you tend to overshoot, since you have to reset your joystick back to center to stop your torso from twisting.

i tried to keep working at it, but it doesnt work. if the threshhold was zero, it might. but currently it doesnt.
.
if you are set on joystick and throttle, you also need footpedals. throttle controls forward and back, foot pedals control turn left and right, and then joystick controls pitch and torso twist.
.
as for joystick support, i bought 2 different joysticks, and they are both recognized by the game. I dont know what would happen if i bought 2 identical joysticks though.

As the other two point out, there are options. I just bought 2 Mad Catz Cyborg V1 Flightsticks for my set up.

Total cost (shipped) for the pair was about CAD$70.

A trigger, six buttons and an 8 way hat switch on each stick. Using the buttons as shift keys for the hats on the other stick, and only using 4 directions on the hat gives about 50 separate key events. Plus each stick has X and Y, a twist rudder axis and a useless throttle knob. Setting a control for everything isn't bad. Remembering what combination is bound to what function isn't fun, though.

I would personally go for at least some sort of joystick. Expert servers won't allow mouse aim and it really helps to have something to control the plane that is more natural than a mouse-joystick.

After spending a fair chunk of money on different cheap joysticks I settled on this one http://www.amazon.com/Mad-Catz-V-1-Stick-PC/dp/B001MGNWDI It lasted me 2 years and still going strong. You won't get too many buttons with it, but the XY/twist axis are fairly accurate and not too noisy.

Opentrack allows you to set up your smartphone with gyro as a trackIR replacement. It won't give you translation, but there are a few tutorials on how to set it up so that you are still "looking over your shoulder" if you want to check your 6. Personally I prefer mouse look even in fighters.

http://www.amazon.com/Mad-Catz-V-1-Stick-PC/dp/B001MGNWDI

The Cyborg V.1 is pretty good for dual sticks, it has yaw so you can use one for throttle control and one for yaw. I'd rather use this than a T1600M which I do not think has yaw control on the stick itself.

I got a pair of these for use with this dual joystick setup and they work perfectly.

I'd say the extreme 3D pro is of higher quality, so they should work even better. Can't go wrong... at least Elite is EXTREMELY customizable as far as controls go. Probably the game with the best keybinding options I've ever seen.

watched this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TbKe30KtCc

(summary: joystick replaces keyboard, not mouse)

and inspired me to picked up this bad boy because it's cheap AND ambidextrous.

http://www.amazon.com/Mad-Catz-V-1-Stick-PC/dp/B001MGNWDI/ref=sr_1_9?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1372774635&sr=1-9&keywords=joystick

and then i proceeded to HATE it for the first day. It takes times for the left hand to readjust (if you know what i mean) but once it does it becomes intuitive and fun.

Currently looking at this.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mad-Catz-Cyborg-V1-Stick/dp/B001MGNWDI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1458938804&sr=8-2&keywords=cyborg+joystick

This will accomplish all that you need.

http://www.amazon.com/Mad-Catz-Inc-CCB442370002-04/dp/tech-data/B001MGNWDI

Of course, so would an xbox controller... so, I guess its just whatever you prefer :)

I got a Saitek V1 Cyborg for $45. Works fairly well for what I need (as a noob).

This might be far from the best, in fact it is because they're cheap joysticks, but I use duel Cyborgs http://www.amazon.com/Mad-Catz-V-1-Stick-PC/dp/B001MGNWDI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1405976407&sr=8-2&keywords=cyborg+joystick

And I find it incredible for this game. I feel like I have perfect control over my ship.

I use the left stick to control vertical and horizontal thrust, right stick controls pitch, roll, and yaw. Right stick handles weapons, left stick handles systems.

I love it.