Airwolf's Adventures: Hopefully Helpful Tips

[drtbkj]

I love BMS but it seems like a certain Lt. Murphy(the one with the Law) has always been my wingman here! So, I’ve had quite a few glitches (some one on the other site called them my adventures) and have always found the help needed from my fellow BMS’ers.
I believe in paying that kind of thing forward, so have decided to start a post to share from time to time what I learn, as I can’t be the ONLY one with theses issues!
I also wish to say that I in no way want to “spam”, or do I consider myself an expert. Some of this we shall learn together.
So, let us begin…
The throttle on my Saitek x-65 broke. To be more accurate, it just shots off all the ammo in one burst. My workaround was to set it up on Hat 1. it works, so it is a hardware problem with the stick.
I decided to make a tasty drink from that lemon, and am going to take the opportunity to learn (and share) how to give shifted behavior to a non-Cougar stick.
I have made some progress. The first step is how have to go to your Config. file(BMS 4.33>Data.Config) and enter

set g_nHotasPinkyShiftMagnitude n.
where the default n value is 256. I should mention I’m getting this form the Dx Shifting Facility Article, which covers this subject in much more detail.
Then, you go into your keyfile, and enter
SimHotasPinkyShift 2 -1 -2 0 0x0 0
SimHotasPinkyShift 258 -1 -2 0 0x0 0
Both lines have to be entered. I simply copied them from the Article, and pasted them. That part was easy. I like the copy/paste methods as the spacing of the entries is key, I’m told.
Once you do so, if you go to the BMS UI (User Interface) under controllers you will see the Pinky switch description changes to one with “dx shift” (or words to that effect.) in the description. What happens in the Sim is if you TAP the pinky switch, it does the usual FOV change function. If you hold it…that’s the point I’m at.
Let’s use my trigger issue as an example- the command for that is- SimTriggerSecondDetent 5 -1 -2 0 0x0 0. (to fire the cannon).
I want to put it as a shifted function of my pickle button. The pickle command is- SimPickle 1 -1 -2 0 0x0 0
So, I believe ( and would dearly love confirmation) is putting SimTriggerSecondDetent 257 -1 -2 0 0x0 0 (that is, the pickle button dx position 1 plus the 256 offset) will do it.
IF(and I will admit it’s a big if :rolleyes:) I have this right, the Sim should pick this up and function. As buddy Blue said, you can’t do it via the UI.
I’m pretty excited about this. It’s opens up a lot of possibilities for us non-programmed stick) users, and hope it helps.

[drtbkj]

Update: Once I got home and get into the file, I discovered some interesting things. First, as was mentioned here in the Forum, some callbacks are difinately different. So, what I discovered in my actual keyfile was=

SimTriggerSecondDetent -1 0 0X35 4 0 0 1 “STICK: SECOND TRIGGER DETENT”
SimTriggerSecondDetent 256 -1 0 2B 0X2 0 0 “SHIFT: FIRE CANNON”
SimPickle -1 0 0X39 0 0 0 1 “STICK: WEAPON RELEASE (Pickle)”
SimMissileStep -1 0 0X35 1 0 0 1 “STICK: NWS A/R DISC MSL STEP SWITCH”
SimPinkySwitch -1 0 0X2F 0 0 0 1 “STICK: PINKY SWITCH”
SimHotasPinkyShift -1 0 0XFFFFFFFF 0 0 0 1 “STICK: PINKY SWITCH (DX SHIFT)”

[Mower]

Trying to do the same thing with my x65 brother so thanx.

[drtbkj]

Hi, Mower. This is still a work in progress, and I don’t want to post until I know what I’m doing! :rolleyes:
Once I get my mystery cannon problem(see tech support ) fixed I’ll get back into this.
The real question seems to be what the next step is. I was working under the assumption that once you set it up as above, the shifted behavior would start working. It didn’t. There must be another step, but I can’t find anything in any literature.
Here’s a question for the group. Has anyone in our Community achieved shifted behavior with Saitek?

[Badger]

If you’re going to use DX shifting you need to assign the SimHotasPinkyShift in both the unshifted and shifted portions of your key file
Example from the BMS Full

Pinky/S3 (Win DX3 = BMS DX2)

SimHotasPinkyShift 2 -1 -2 0 0x0 -1

Pinky/S3 (Win DX3 = BMS DX2+256 = BMS DX258)

SimHotasPinkyShift 258 -1 -2 0 0x0 -1

in your example above "SimHotasPinkyShift -1 0 0XFFFFFFFF 0 0 0 1 “STICK: PINKY SWITCH (DX SHIFT)” this is the portion for a key press with no key press assigned.

[drtbkj]

Good Morning, All,
I’m happy to report I solved my mystery trigger issue, so I worked on our shifting project last night.
Thanks to my buddy Badger for the tip . He was right on the money, and it taught me a useful lesson. What’s working better for me is to have the keyfile your working on and what I call my “control file” open in separate windows next to each other.
You see, when 4.33 came out, I (and many others) used the BMS Full keyfile . That is my “control file”. NOTHING has been changed in it. Some of us had issues with cursors running and such , and discovered that combination key commands (ex: shift>home) were the issue. Changing that command to home fixed it. In BMS UI,when you change that command, be sure to save it. When you are saving it, UI let’s you give it a name. So, my "Airwolf "keyfile is the one I’m experimenting with.
Anyway, “back at the ranch”, into my AK (Airwolf keyfile) went:
SimHotasPinkyShift 2 -1 -2 0 0x0 0
SimHotasPinkyShift 258 -1 -2 0 0x0 0
Yes, I know the final part is 0, not Badger’s -1. That term has to do with UI visibility/changability. At least as a first step, I wanted to try the 0, as I have been trying to follow the DxF. I knew Badger’s would be right, so I wanted to save that as a fallback.
Anyway, I then went into the UI Controllers. At first holding the pinky down just did the normal pinky(FOV) behavior. Then when I clicked on the Pinky DX command and via the DX method assigned the pinky to it, shift functionality started working.
I tested it via two methods, in the Sim. First, tapping the pinky changed to FOV. Holding the pinky did not. Second, with no pinky my (now repaired) trigger fired the cannon normally. With pinky held, the cannon did not fire . That seems to me to be proper shift functionality. Whew.
I decided to make first trigger detent my test case. First, I confirmed that with the AVTI switch to auto, pressing the first detent command on the keyboard did in fact activate the AVTI. Good to go.
Tonight I will do the Grand Experiment-take the first detent command
SimTriggerFirstDetent -1 0 0x35 2 0 0 1 “STICK: FIRST TRIGGER DETENT”
from BMS Full and put it into my keyfile as
SimTriggerFirstDetent 256 -1 0 0x35 2 0 0 1 “STICK: FIRST TRIGGER DETENT”
And as the saying goes, throw the spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.

[drtbkj]

Still a work in progress, compadres. The Grand Experiment mentioned in my last post didn’t work

[drtbkj]

Hello, All. I have to apologize for not getting on the Great Experiment. Frankly, this time of year is my racing season, and my BMS time has been for flying. Enough excuses. I’d like to share my experiences in the Hornet. By use of this link(and with many thanks) - https://www.benchmarksims.org/forum/showthread.php?17647-Using-F-16-pit-with-other-external-view&highlight=external+view+f-16
I was able to put the Viper cockpit in the Hornet. It’s purely a personal preference thing, but i like the fully functional 'pit.
I found that with the Super Bug the SMS inventory page was slewed a bit, due to the E’s added hardpoints. So, I tried the C model and love it!
I heartily recommend the f-18,and once again thanks again to our devs!!!

[drtbkj]

If anyone is looking for a good map to put in an IPad or whatever as a “kneeboard”, do a Google search for “onc g-10 map”. I downloaded it to the Ipad, works great.