Starting to make little progress
 

Ok so this morning I go in and take a look at the controls mapping.
Originally my intent was to create a new joystick file for my Cougar, thereby giving me access to all the combination of buttons/axis on this great HOTAS.

But no, once I got in there I thought wth, I will just assign some buttons/axis directly from within the game. Thought maybe I could do it the easy way to at least get me in the air.

LOL, by the time I got to a training flight - the solo flight - I pretty much forgot most of what I assigned. Took me forever to figure out how to start the dang engine.
Trying to taxi that plane it gives you for that flight - Spit maybe? - man it veered to the left so bad, even holding in full right rudder. So ok I wil see if I can just take off from the grass - huge mistake, never made it off the ground lol.

But holy cow, the sound on my Klipsch 5.1 sound system - cranked up high - wow, love it!

At this point think it may be best, I just sit down for a couple of hours, write out a plan for control mapping using a Cougar profile - and get it done - assign the keys and write macros in the Cougar profile for them, then assign to proper buttons/axis. Then I will be done with it, and I can print out a diagram of my stick and throttle for quick reference by my side until I get all the controls on my HOTAS as related to CLoD basically memorized...

I thought maybe I could use my older 1946 profile as a baseline, appears many default key commands have changed though along with some nomenclature and obviusly more commands available to map...

Going to start from scratch and get as good and extensive a joystick profile created for this game as I can... might be a late night tonight.

Btw, any way to reload the default key assignments? Not sure I saw that option whilst I was in there.

But wow, that sound of those engines - I think I am hooked!
Btw, did I mention the sound??

Here you go, maybe someone has a short cut
https://support.steampowered.com/kb_...8296-VSOM-8056

Many thanks for the link, but I would presume this would reset everything and not just the controllers - like all my realism/graphics settings..
I was hoping there might be a way to reset the controller assignments to default. No biggie I guess since I will be writing a whole new joystick file anyways and likely doing all my own key assignments. Would have been nice to get the key assignments I did change to joystick buttons back to what they were...

Well probably not that big a deal to just go back in and reset all my realism/graphics though on second thought...

Thanks,

Yea, I made a copy of config and saved in a safe spot, also after setting the controls press save as/then you can load that/ or a similar file say bomber control etc.

Well, I think you're best off mapping your own keys as you have planned, but I don't think you should take time off of flying to map them.

Obviously you want it to make sense, so some thought is required to make sure the buttons that are needed in combat situations are easy to press without moving your hands or eyes.

You can change the controls during a mission also by hitting escape. I have a Saitek x52 that has multiple modes so I can assign the same button to multiple uses depending on which mode I'm in, so I have a 'start-up mode' and flight mode.

You may not have this ability, but can still do something similar. Map all of your preflight keys in a sequence somewhere, like having 1 as fuel cock, 2 and 3 as magnetos, 4 as toggle sight illumination, and 5 as ignition.

This way you can't forget what to do, just hit the fly button and slam 1 2 3 4 5 in succession, and as long as your engine is in the proper start-up condition you'll be ready to go.

Also, as far as take-off is concerned, you want to trim your plane for take off before hitting the run way. In a Spit this means full right rudder and very nose-up elevator trim.

During take off, before wheels up, you'll notice that you need to begin dialing back the right rudder more towards centered as you build speed, and this increases as you get to cruise speed. After wheels up you want to obviously retract your gear and immediately go back to trimming elevator and rudder.

This trim process during take-off makes the ac much easier to control.

Thanks for the tip.
So let's say I reset everthing back to default - I go in and change some keymapping, and introduce a lot of new keymapping - you are saying if I click on " save as", it retains the default file as well, in addition to my newly created custom file?

Thanks for all the great tips mxmadman,
I will certainly keep them in mind as I plan and map out my new Cougar profile for this sim. By doing it this way, I will be able to map so much more to the stick by utilizing the 3 way switche, so each button can have multiple functions assigned to it.
I can easily program preflight functions onto buttons on my stick with a toggle switch in one location, and regular flight functions with the toggle switch in another, so doing as you describe regarding having all the preflight stuff close together is certainly doable . Just takes a little planning and preperation on my part.

Will take some time to get it going, but I think will pay off in dividends as I really get into flying this thing.

Thanks again,

Excellent! Its great that your stick also has the ability to switch between different modes. Its easily one of my favorite features.

As far as tips I picked up when I was first assigning keys (wasn't long ago).

Assigned fov 30 and fov 70 (these are under Camera keys) to something very easy to reach. I use my hat switches (because I have Track IR). Fov 30 is basically zoom in, which is very helpful in aiming. Fov 70 is defaul and needed to get back to normal view.

Same goes for 'lean to gunsight' which is under View I believe. This is similar to the above as it zooms you in a little bit, but it also centers your view on the gunsight. Very helpful in the bf 109 where the gunsight is not centered on your screen by default.

Also, this may not be useful to you, but you can assign a button to the shift key in your joystick configuration. This is done in your joystick software outside of the game.

Using a shift key on your joystick or throttle is helpful to double up on the most accessible keys while you're in combat. For instance, my shift key is right under my thumb on my throttle, so its very easy to use. Trigger for me is just fire MG, and I have another button for cannons, but holding shift and hitting trigger fires both Mg and cannons, this way I don't have to move my trigger hand and mess up my aiming when I want to use both.

Most excellent tips, and all are very doable with my setup. Yes my toggle is a 3 way, so I can setup 3 modes on my stick/throttle, and have lots of buttons available to me.
I have both printed them out and saved to my computer to have for reference.

Great tips and I appreciate them very much, will be very helpful once I start writing my joystick file!

Thanks again,

Hmm don't know if that information is dated or what, I have no such condition zero folder, or file, in the paths it is telling me in the Steam folder.

I have a key file I got for CLoD somewhere around here I guess, and have printed it out - I did not change too much at this point , so should be easy to go back in and manually change the ones I did.

Thanks,