VKB-SIM

It's been three days of fighting the joystick, i've been through the manual several times now and still can't get the ministick to act like the rest of HAT switches on the joystick.

What do I do to make it trigger keyboard key presses like a 4-way HAT switch? The idea is to configure it to act as TMS in DCS A10C, simply four different key strokes.

I have followed the manual, then experimented with different POV settings (4-way, discrete, output to POV, Button L and V), global settings uses Classic keyboard mode), configured the 4 Reg#3 buttons as simple buttons with keyboard presses - nothing seems to work.

Its standard function on the default profile works, when testing I get output, so it's not physically damaged.
I'm losing my mind over this...

First set up the ministick, when in POV mode, as LoRes4w in Profile/POVs. Set up the output as ButtonsV and choose the first of the 4 buttons which will represent the 4 ways of the POV (the other 3 are in ascending order). (photo 1)
Then, in Profile/Buttons/Physical layer hover your mouse on top of the cells until you'll find the first button that you assigned previously (in my example is button 65). In the new window direct that button to keyboard and set up the key you want. Close this window and do the same for the rest of 3 buttons. (photo 2)
Press Set to save. Test in Test, by checking the Keyboard box.

Finally!
It was the "choose the first of the 4 buttons" step that I was missing. For some reason mine was showing 128 as default.
There is still some discrepancy as the number of the button on the physical grid, and on the tooltip shows #18, but inside the configuration menu it shows as #17 (and has to be set as #17 in the POV menu). But it works!
Many thanks fallout9, much appreciated the quick response!

I would suggest to go down farther on the chart when assigning the buttons, somewhere after 40; most probably those 17 and 18 positions are occupied by other buttons and you might create some conflicts.
There are 2 layers in the config - physical layer, which is raw, the input and the logical layer, which is the output, what's being recognized by tester/games. The number of a button could be the same in both layers or different. Depending on user's needs the logical number could get changed; the physical can't.