Gladiator for Old RedBaron3D

[asunofra]

Message: I use a logitech Extreme Pro in RedBaron3D (1998). Programming of buttons is almost gone. Statistically I am in my final 10 years and deserve a great, simple joystick. I have flown RedBaron3D for 21 years...its all I play...one day a week on a great 4PM eastern server....it is always an exciting 1.5-2 hr. war with bombing all select targets being the winning formula....which takes communication, stealth, excellent flying and gunnery, and teamwork of many types.

I love the look of the Gladiator for price, likely great performance enhancement over my 12 yr old cheap Logitech....and hopefully the buttons can be programmed the way I need them....as follows:

Buttons to accept two inputs...F5 is a forward, locked EXTERNAL REAR view....
F5+ E (COMBINATION) is Enemy view lock (in the direction of the enemy)..and the same for F Friendly, etc. To be clear, without F5 in combination with those and other views, your sight slides around in a very unrealistic and impossible to use in combat. With F5 its snap, snap, snap to selected combo programmed visual target. While the game has TrackIR capability, everyone uses the snap views.

If the Gladiator can accept combination programming in the buttons (this probably sounds really ignorant, but I gotta know before I buy)....I am ready to buy.

Just one more question....the classic WWII buttons and flaps....can those be independently programmed for any function...or are those only for flaps....the way the throttle is for....the throttle? I hope not because I need a handlful of programmable buttons to simulate well.

IF there is a different, similarly priced but more "buttony" for the functions above, I would sure look at that as well.

If this stick works for me....since all of my friends and family use the cheap logitech...I am sure I can get them to trade up...and I will get two for Christmas presents.

[Victorus]

Gladiator as all other VKB joysticks have programmable hardware - controller Njoy32, upgradeable firmware and powerful software - VKBDevCfg.exe configuration tool. Joystick buttons may serve as keystrokes including Shift, Ctrl etc modifiers, functional keys, macros. You can even convert buttons to axes. Similarly joystick axes may initiate virtual button presses. Shift modifiers - NOT keyboard shift, but joystick shifts (not single modifier) will extend button number - so you must remember all assignments)))
Here https://yadi.sk/i/emoZcmpw7Kyo9w you can find Njoy32 controller User Guide.
Questions are welcome!!!

[asunofra]

Hi Victorus

Thanks for the tidal wave of information in the Users Guide.

Are you familiar with the Gladiator functioning when used in 20 year old DOS games? This will be pretty awesome of the JS works for RedBaron3D.

https://www.gog.com/forum/red_baron_pac ... d_baron_3d

Regarding the gog link above, it references RedBaronII/3D which presumably means the "patched" version of RBII with the Superpatch containing RB3D.

Everyone I know solely use the RB3D original CD, not the patched version. That may not change the issues, but it is worth noting.

[fallout9]

Hi Asunofra,

I admired your determination in playing this game and I wanted to help, so I got the game to see if it works with modern joysticks. I looks like it works, but only partially. First of all, there's no way to bind controls in game. I looked for some fan-made utilities and found a program that would allow that (XB146), but I couldn't make it run on my computer even in Compatibility mode with older Windows versions. Not being able to bind controls in game shouldn't be a big problem as you could bind the keyboard inputs to joystick through its configurator, but the main problem is that not all the axes work. I managed to get the pitch and rudder activated, but only on 1 of the 3 VKB devices I have. Throttle won't budge.
I wish I could be able to do more as the Gladiator is a great joystick and fits really well with WWI and WWII birds.

[asunofra]

Salute! Fallout9 - I appreciate your Pro analysis and effort at solving this. I have built an entire large scale active map for this game, but my JS tech is Dummy. Gladiator really emanates quality for not much more than a cheap end Logitech. From altitude, it is unfortunate that VKB would be able to accommodate the lower tech game comms...but again, conceptually and obvious not worth it. But still, it feels like drivers or config files lost in the mist perhaps, doubting they are just sitting there in the install or at least with all the right stuff. Repeating that this would feel like moving up to a much nicer, new car to have a VKB working in RB3D.

Which WWI flightsim do you fly? I am happy to get you the MMP folder with the active meta and individual servers' URLs...but then you wouldn't be able to fly unless, so far, you went salvage shopping. Otherwise, its a game EZ to get going in and there are some good pilots. The server is not set for high realism in aspects, although the game does have that. But the FM distinguishes each plane well and generally with sufficient accuracy to have fun against some good pilots. It runs on an Island server.

Maybe someone watching will happen to have a config file that puts us over the top.

Thanks again