Thrustmaster T.16000m FCS

[DutchAileron]

Ok, I have the whole shebang: pedals, throttle, and the joystick. Additionally, I bought the optional T.RJ12 USB to MMJ adapter because I noticed that some axes were not appearing in Flightgear. I'm running 2017.01. I'm trying to figure out were Flightgear is getting any hints about these joystick(s) so I can run down what is being misunderstood.

Initially, the pedal appear as additional axes on the throttle assembly. The pedals have three potentiometers, corresponding with proper rudder and left and right aircraft brakes. Thrustmaster provides a utility for checking axes and buttons, and using that I was able to confirm that everything is actually working like it should to the Windows driver. I bought the T.RJ12 adapter to separate out the pedals in an attempt to get left and right brakes, as previously only one pedal was being shown in Flightgear. It works now generally, but not as I expect it to.

How can I help close the loop and provide some useful feedback?

[Johan G]

You should be able to see what devices FlightGear see and what configuration file it use by opening the joystick dialog (Main Menu > File > Joystick Configuration).

FlightGear choses the configuration file by matching the reported device name with the <name> node in the joystick/input device configuration files. Unfortunately the reported device name can change between hardware, firmware and even installed driver revisions, so often there are several <name> nodes, but still not the right one. If you see that the reported device name is not in the expected configuration file you can add another <name> node to your local configuration file (and try get someone to add it to FlightGear).

This is how that can look like (from data/Input/Joysticks/Saitek/Aviator.xml):

Code: Select all

 <name type="string">Saitek AV8R Joystick</name>
 <name type="string">Saitek AV8R Classic Stick</name>
 <name type="string">Saitek Aviator Stick</name>

[Salamander]

I'm also using the T-rudder from Thrusmaster and getting them to work correctly is not completely self-explaining. But relax. Set the switch on the usb-adaptor adapter to the plane-symbol, start Flightgear, navigate through the menu to Joystic-configuration. Oben the tab to select the right device to configure and select "T-rudder". Now wiggle the axis one after the other to see, which axis you can configure in which line (just do it and you'll know what I mean). Now assign "Left Brake", "Right Brake" and "Rudder" to the axes accordingly and close the menue. Do not touch the box "inverted" anywhere.

This way the rudder will work fine but the brakes will be inverted. Inverting them within the menue won't work correctly, though, as the offset will be wrong and the brakes will be disfunctional. Rather open the xml and edit it.

How you do that is nicely described here: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=12363&p=299727&hilit=thrustmaster+pedals#p299727

In contrast to the description above, I recommend to just change the values for offset and factor for the brakes accordingly and leave the rest of the file as it is. Values should look like this:
<offset>-1.0</offset>
<factor>-0.5</factor>

I only had to insert a minus for both factors and everything worked fine.

Best, Stefan

[Cole]

It shouldn't be difficult to program such a good hotas system in flightgear. This is a #1 problem with flightgear. I can use T16000m in a flight simulator with over 400 commands programmed into the hotas, they all work, it takes time and effort, but it works. This is a major deficiency with flightgear if it is impossible to use t16000m to full extent with programmable buttons. It is like the flightgear team shoot themselves in the foot by not making flightgear friendly to competent input systems. It is more important than exotic graphics properties.

[bboett]

Hello
i also have the thrusmaster set, and i managed to get it to work for most of my needs, still there are a some "joysticks" on the thrust control that i would like to activate
but i don't know how?
the main controls, when you push or wiggle them, you see in the joystick menu to which control they are tied....
but e.g. the the twisting motion on the joystick activates too the rudder, is there some way to prevent it?
the linear switch on the joystick controls too the motor, is there a way to reassign this?
i would also like, as on the cessna, the ptt on the fire button of the joystick, but alas, no X appears in the menu when i press that one?
strange thing too, i can lower the flaps with on of the buttons on the joystick, without it showing in the menu, another one i would like to reassign, since i put that stuff as in the real plane on the right hand....

[tdammers]

It shouldn't be difficult to program such a good hotas system in flightgear. This is a #1 problem with flightgear. I can use T16000m in a flight simulator with over 400 commands programmed into the hotas, they all work, it takes time and effort, but it works. This is a major deficiency with flightgear if it is impossible to use t16000m to full extent with programmable buttons. It is like the flightgear team shoot themselves in the foot by not making flightgear friendly to competent input systems. It is more important than exotic graphics properties.

I have the Thrustmaster TCA Airbus Edition set (stick, rudder pedals, and a 2-engine throttle quadrant), which is very similar to the T.16000, and AFAIK uses the same chipset internally.

And now that I have a good configuration for it going, it's pretty epic - I have a different setup for each aircraft I fly, everything works, and I can make it do literally anything I want, because the XML configuration system is so incredibly flexible.

Is it easy? Nope. The learning curve is pretty steep, especially if you have no idea how the property tree works, how to write Nasal scripts, etc.

But here's the thing: FG is not a consumer product; it's very much a "DIY" sim, and you will get the most out of it if you approach it as such. At the same time, making something as powerful as the XML configuration system in a GUI is virtually impossible; the existing joystick configuration dialog is a compromise that covers casual users, but if you want to be more serious about FG than that, bite the bullet and learn how to use the XML stuff.

FWIW, you can take a peek at my config here: https://github.com/tdammers/flightgear- ... onfig-tca/

[bboett]

Hello!

i am still struggling with the joystick giving spourious rudder commands....
i tryed adding a j="0" to the axis of the rudder, but empiric stuff like that doesn't work
the joytick uses 2 times the same configuration for rudder and pedals....
there should be someway to stop the joystick to interfere with the rudder and leave it to the pedals uniquely?

[polly]

Without knowing what 'empiric stuff' encompasses we're left to guesses and getting dismissed.

Change its binding to affect a dummy property
Change its binding to alter sim/current-view/goal-offset-view-direction
Set its sensitivity to vero
Kill it with a dead zone of 1.0

The description of the joysticks is at fgdata/Docs/README.Joystick.html for the deadzone equation

[wkitty42]

in the joystick's XML, remove the bindings for the rudder while leaving them in the pedals' XML... this will be a custom edit, i think, so do not use the in-sim joystick customization tool after you manually edit the XML file in the "Input" directory in the directory tree where the autosave and navdata files are stored... on linux, this is ~/.fgfs... i don't recall where this is on windows but it should be pretty easy to find out via the wiki, i think... maybe it is in $APPDATA?? or is that %APPDATA?

now, with that said, it may be possible to use the in-sim configurator and simply deselect the rudder axis on the joystick so it is not set... this should give the same result as manually editing the file above... i think... still early and still waiting on c0ffee to activate sleeping neurons...