3 Commando Brigade

Flying helos in ArmA - help!

Way back when I played OFP and Armed Assault I was a decent chopper pilot with both keyboard and mouse and a game pad. Since then most of my gaming has been flight sims (fixed wing) and so I now own a Warthog Hotas and pedals. I tried flying the other day in ARMA and man - I'm terrible with it.

1) I set the throttle to analogue and mapped to my throttle axis. Even at full distance I get barely any lift once I'm off the ground.  Holding Q I get far more. What have I cocked up?

2) how do stop the lateral drift? Just by banking opposite? I seem to be able to set up a hover with about 20km sideways drift...

3) What do your main pilots use? Hotas or keyboard?

I can't answer one and two. But for three, it's keyboard. Personally, with all the issues ArmA has, your making it more complicated for yourself by using a joystick. The only good thing about joystick and pedal is that you can have more control over general movements, especially the rudder. 

I personally use keyboard+mouse, though most of people here that enjoy flying use a hotas/joystick of some sorts.

The throttle and drifting thing might be linked to THIS. Unsure if that is the problem though still might be good to check.

Hmm. Might look to change throttle to a button set up (warthog has plenty of hat switches) then. But I will check out the points arf raises in that link, thanks.

Tbh, flying in arma is a secondary for me to infanteer but I'd like to be able to hop in from time to time and do some shuttling.

I use a HOTAS - Saitek X45 #oldSchool

Do you have both 'raise' and 'lower' mapped to your throttle?




Full settings

2) Yep. In Arma, drift in any direction is a crude manifestation of pitch/bank angle.
3) Pretty even mix I think. I use M+K (no space where I am currently for my flight stick etc), but should realistically be able to use whatever you fancy. The only thing I really regret not having available is analogue control over my tail rotor - if you have pedals, use them! 

I use an XBox controller. It's a good middle ground between keyboard and HOTAS. Gives you plenty of choice about how to bind things, it's comfy, and it is small so doesn't get in the way like a HOTAS when not in use. On top of this, it's <£30, but doesn't have the huge deadzones associated with a cheap stick.

For instance I have roll and pitch on left stick, yaw on right, and throttle up/down on the triggers. Weapons, zoom, countermeasures, action menu, landing gear, etc go on the rest. Unfortunately when I last looked I couldn't map radio controls to it, so if I'm in a particularly difficult manoeuvre I can't answer the radio easily, as it requires some hand acrobatics to use the keyboard at the same time!