Couldn't get my usual jostick configured for il-2 (it works, but just mapped incorrectly), so I bought the T.Flight Hotas X which came yesterday.
After playing around with it for a few hours yesterday and trying both config setups there are a few issues which I think need to resolved in order to enjoy this game properly with this stick. I was only testing in Realistic mode though, not Sim.
In Thrustmaster Setup 1, there doesn't seem to be any way to issue flight commands. As far as I could tell the left thumb buttons which map to Circle and Triangle are not mapped to anything.
In Thrustmaster Setup 2, all flight commands are mapped, but now there doesn't appear to be any way to activate the Zoom function.
There is a noticeable deadzone with the stick, which makes the precise aim you need in Realistic and Sim modes quite difficult, awkward and a little annoying. From all accounts, there is no real deadzone with the stick itself if you plug it into a pc and test this, or previous il-2 games on pc.
I'm not too keen on the throttle setup. There is a massive 'deadzone' for the centre position of 55% and a large one for 0% and WEP, which makes 1-54% and 56%-100% fiddly to even get the rough power setting. The 55% range needs to be massively reduced, and I would like to see the 100% range increased (so that it doesnt take 10 seconds to try and select it) and WEP reduced to just very near the maximum of the throttles range. Same goes for 0%, as 0% and WEP are very easy to select quickly by moving the throttle stick to its extremities.
Related to the throttle control, 0% should activate the brakes with the gear down, as it does with the standard controller. Currently there seems to be no brake function when using a joystick.
The last thing seems to be specific to the Thrustmaster joysticks, the 8 way hatswitch only working for 4 positions, making it fairly useless for people playing in sim mode.
edit: Ok, I have now found out that with the TM1 setup, there is an orders button you can hold to assign orders with the hatswitch, so thats one less thing to worry about
