VKB-SIM

Dear VKB Sim,

There is something really essential(and easy to do) for space sim sticks that will make this product so much better for a section of your customer.

People buy these sticks and one of the reasons is to play the game Elite:Dangerous.

If people want to play competitively(against other players) then precision on yaw axis is absolutely critical.

One of the big obstacles to this is having to use the wrist muscles strongly to move the yaw. It seriously limits the fidelity of the thumb to be able to control the lateral and vertical thrusters on the analogue stick.

It is not possible to maintain accuracy while having to exert muscle force to twist the stick. It is mostly ok for pitch and roll, but yaw is the precision axis. This is especially true for players who use rails. And a reason many rail users switch to using a mouse; they just cant get the accuracy with a joystick. I love joysticks so instead of going to mouse I began to research reason why they werent suitable or used by a lot of top players.

Human anatomy is made so the fingertips have much finer control that the wrist. The ship should be able to yaw WITHOUT the use of arm muscles or strong use of wrist muscles.

So my request is simple and EASY for you to do!

PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE, for all the Elite players who value control of yaw on their ship: GIVE US AN OPTION FOR A LOW STRENGTH SPRING TO BE INSTALLED ON THE TWIST AXIS!!!

That is all we need for your stick to be ABSOLUTELY PERFECT for competitive play, a low strength spring on twist. For people who are just interested in 'immersion' it doesnt really matter they can use the heavy spring, but for accurate PvP play low strength yaw spring and the use of the fingers more than the wrist is a must. Just the way the human being is put together.

I have a Virpil Constellation Delta and had to make my own spring to replace the one that came as stock, and it is a ball ache and I dont want to have to do it again, and springs I make by hand are not nearly as good as ones that are properly manufactured.

So please take this request seriously, even if you have to make a low strength spring custom for some players in factory, I would really be willing to put hand to pocket to have this option as it will save me so much hassle if I need to make my own spring.

Thank you and Signing off,

Gavin786

Use X axis for yaw and lock twist, roll on pedals...

Anything competitive, mouse reigns supreme.

Ddrake is spot on, Yaw on X and roll on pedals.

I agree, I would prefer a very light force to be required to use the twist. I guess that can be solved with different spring and maybe in future design with a screw. I would even want a soft center detent. Please note that I haven't tested the Kosmo so.. It might already be as I would like.

Reasons for that are as Gavin explain, hard spring mean harder grip is required to twist and so it become less confortable and harder to reach and/or operate accurately with the same dexterity some of button while using twist. Hard spring also means the center detent become more noticeable which decrease micro correction accuracy around center. I personally never accidentally twisted while using X or Y axis on any of my stick.. So hard spring/detent are not only useless but also detrimental to me.

ddrake1984 wrote:Anything competitive, mouse reigns supreme.

False.
With enough tweaking, a well tuned 32bit stick is just as aim(able) while having enhanced maneuverability characteristics compared to any mouse.

yeah, I disagree - sorry, don't take it personal, but I do play PvP competitive and there is no way that a joystick (even with the 'tuning' and 'fidelity') will beat a mouse in games like Elite Dangerous.
your dexterity in arm is not comparable to dexterity in hand/fingers (i.e. fingertip grip) - sure you can have an immersive experience and a lot of fun, but you will be beaten by the top 10% of kb/m gamers (competitive PvP).

Dirt wrote:With enough tweaking, a well tuned 32bit stick is just as aim(able) while having enhanced maneuverability characteristics compared to any mouse.

Although it is indeed, all my attempts to use joysticks in video editing went into epic fail.
There must be something different still.

this made me laugh so hard

gavin786 wrote:Dear VKB Sim,
GIVE US AN OPTION FOR A LOW STRENGTH SPRING TO BE INSTALLED ON THE TWIST AXIS!!!

+1 and I suggest to rename the topic to make it more clear that the ting is about twist spring force.

ddrake1984 wrote:yeah, I disagree - sorry, don't take it personal, but I do play PvP competitive and there is no way that a joystick (even with the 'tuning' and 'fidelity') will beat a mouse in games like Elite Dangerous.
your dexterity in arm is not comparable to dexterity in hand/fingers (i.e. fingertip grip) - sure you can have an immersive experience and a lot of fun, but you will be beaten by the top 10% of kb/m gamers (competitive PvP).

My bad, in my first post, I should have said "With enough tweaking, a well tuned 32bit stick is just as aim(able) while having enhanced maneuverability characteristics compared to any mouse. (IN STAR CITIZEN)"

I fully admit you're 100% correct that mouse is best for Elite Dangerous due to its flight model.
However, I play Star Citizen PVP exclusively competitively and the top 90th percentile dogfighters use sticks in that game. While aiming is easier with a mouse... muti-tasking of all axises for complex maneuvers, while managing shields, firing counter measures and sensor pinging are just not possible while also maintaining control with three fingers on WASD keys. Catching aiming vectors while doing all this... is better with a well tuned stick than a mouse. In SC simply being able to track a target easier without gimbals won't net you a win if you can't simultaneously maintain uninterrupted 6DOF control while matching a vector with the nose of your ship. And I haven't even gotten to evasion tasks yet...
With a mouse k/b setup in SC PVP you'll get to about 80-85th percentile of dogfighters if you practice alot. Damn good but not 90+ percentile. We're just talking about two different flight models.

Dirt wrote:the top 90th percentile dogfighters use sticks in that game.

Not sure where you got this data from, but last time I checked the Arena top players more than half of the top 10 were K+M players. And that's why the flight model is so fucked up in SC now - because CIG could make a great space sim for joysticks, but they have to keep it K+M friendly for obvious reasons.

OP - have you tried to take the twist module out, clean it up and re-grease it with some lighter lubricant?

you got me there dirt, I do not play much SC as they hadn't decided on a flight model, or is 3.5 their final release on it?

I am looking to try 3.5 if it's improved.

from memory, the best racers in the time trials were kb/m, is this still not the case?

Guys we heard this about the low force spring; give it some time pls as we need to collect more feedback. As you know Kosmosimas have just entered the market, opinions are still coming. THIS is actually one of the main reasons why there is and always should be a gap between Batch One and Batch Two.

ddrake1984 wrote:yeah, I disagree - sorry, don't take it personal, but I do play PvP competitive and there is no way that a joystick (even with the 'tuning' and 'fidelity') will beat a mouse in games like Elite Dangerous.
your dexterity in arm is not comparable to dexterity in hand/fingers (i.e. fingertip grip) - sure you can have an immersive experience and a lot of fun, but you will be beaten by the top 10% of kb/m gamers (competitive PvP).

Reason why I asked for really low springs is exactly that - joystick can be controlled by fingers not wrist muscles if springs are weak. When wrist muscles need to be strongly engaged the fingertips become a lot less sensitive and high accuracy becomes not possible.

This was really super noticeable on the Virpil Constellation with stock spring, it takes quite a bit of strength to move the twist and when you do there is no control on the analogue stick for thrusters, finger fidelity + wrist muscle strength cant be done naturally by the brain. The placement on VKB Kosmosima premium of the analogue on the top left(for right hand) solves that a lot though as the stick is right under the thumb to start with, even so I would like a weaker twist spring.

I actually just got my SCG + Gunfighter and am incredibly impressed so far. It does beat the Virpil equivalent in most areas. I might make another post where I break down Virpil Constellation Delta vs VKB Kosmosima but TLDR the Kosmosima is the better stick. So very well done VKB sim I am impressed, its a really nice piece of kit.

Spring strength problem : I had to make a custom spring for the twist axis in the Virpil stick, primary axes for warbrd which I found a spring set on Amazon which did the trick.

For the Gunfighter 2 : The XY type 10 spring on gunfighter seem really perfect to me so far, though time will tell. Could be a tad weaker and I would like to try it and see.

I really would like a weaker spring on the twist though. I am going to need to buy as making it myself is probably not going to be an option for this type of spring(it was a ball ache making it for the virpil+was a weird custom spring type not available off the shelf).

It would be grand if VKB would give this lower spring twist options though, I would snap it up in an instant, as well as I would like to try a type-5 or type-0 strength spring on the XY.

Gavin786