Setting up a HOTAS for WARDOGS

Why the stick feels wrong to begin with

The single thing that explains almost every HOTAS complaint in WARDOGS: the flight model treats your stick axes exactly like keyboard keys. It is a direct port of the WASD scheme, not a separate analogue path.

In most helicopter sims you can hold the stick forward and the aircraft settles into that attitude and stays there. Here it does not. That difference is why sticks feel uncontrollable until they are set up for it, and it is why finding centre reliably matters more than anything else in your configuration.

Dead zone: make centre a place you can find

Because centre means stop adding input, centre has to be somewhere your hand can actually return to. Sim Controls flies a springless VKB stick and treats a dead zone as essential — without spring pressure there is no physical cue telling you when you are neutral.

• Springless stick (VKB and similar): add a deliberate dead zone. It should be wide enough that small hand movements near centre do nothing at all.
• Sprung stick: you may not need one. The spring already centres you, and the return to centre is something you can feel.
• Set it wide enough for confidence at low level, where the corrections are smallest and the consequences of an unintended input are largest.

Sensitivity: do not go below 1.0

Roll, pitch and yaw sensitivity are all set to 1.0. This is the recommendation that most contradicts instinct — the natural reaction to a twitchy stick is to turn sensitivity down, and that is the wrong lever.

The response curve is the real fix

Sensitivity alone forces a bad trade: calm near centre or full authority at the stops, not both. A response curve in your stick's own software gives you both, and it is the change that made the difference.

In VKB's software a linear response is 128 across the whole travel. Each point on the curve is the sensitivity at that stick position.

1. Flatten the centre band to roughly 74–75Hold it flat across the small-input region so the response there is linear and calm. This is the part of the travel you live in during landings and fine corrections.
2. Ramp up toward the outer travelLet the curve climb as the stick moves away from centre, so authority builds as you commit to an input.
3. Reach 128 at the stops128 represents the full capability of the hardware. Hitting it at maximum deflection means you keep the aircraft's entire rate of roll available when you actually need it.

Flight assists

He flies with none enabled, but does not dismiss them for everyone:

• Hover assist — not necessary for HOTAS users in his view.
• Stability assist — genuinely worth trying. It lets you take your hand off the stick occasionally without the aircraft immediately needing corrections.

Landing: the collective timing

Landings are where the whole configuration is proved, and where he spends most of the flying time in the video.

1. Collective all the way down on the approachHold it down as you descend. This is the default position, not an emergency one.
2. Bring it back toward neutral to kill momentumA brief move to neutral collective on the way down slows the descent before you are committed.
3. Add a little just before the skids touchCushion the arrival. With the collective fully down all the way to the deck you arrive hot.

One nuance worth keeping: arriving fast and low off a J-hook, you can sometimes hold the collective fully down all the way in, because you have already traded the speed away. The longer a descent takes, the more vertical speed you accumulate — so a slow, high letdown needs more cushioning than a quick, flat arrival.

Two ways to stop tipping over

Premeditate the landing spot

His view on why J-hooks go wrong is not about the stick at all: people start the maneuver without having chosen where they are putting the aircraft down.

• Pick the spot before you commit to the maneuver. He demonstrates an unplanned landing on camera and puts it down heavily enough to damage the airframe.
• If it is not premeditated, be familiar enough with the area to read your surroundings on the way in — what you can fit into, and what is around you.
• Trees, buildings and towers are what you are avoiding while getting low quickly. That awareness is what makes the maneuver safe, not stick skill.

The reason to bother at all: the alternative is the slow vertical letdown from height that you see so many pilots do, hanging there in the open the whole way. Bleeding speed on the way in and arriving at an angle gets you on the ground far sooner.

What he is honest about

• Gunnery on a stick is hard. He describes the minigun as very difficult to be accurate with on a HOTAS, and says he is not good enough at it yet to make a video about it.
• He considers the game's HOTAS options limited and would like better support — his settings are working around the options available, not an ideal configuration.
• He is still adjusting the curve and may lower the X, Y and yaw axes by a few clicks. These are current settings, not a finished answer.

Where this disagrees with Duskguy — and why both are right

Our other HOTAS guide, by Duskguy, gives the opposite advice on sensitivity: turn it down, to around 0.75–0.8. Sim Controls says never go below 1.0. Both are correct, and the reason is worth understanding before you pick one.