New Toy, Getting Used to It

Hello everyone,

I've been buying a couple of things ...

There's one. Hoping it'll be good, haven't put it together yet. Been a rough feeling few days, although I think some of that is due to pressure around my head from my poorly ear. Yesterday was headache time, not quite sure why I don't have the headache now !

It was the Le Mans race this weekend, although it was a little different from usual. The race was being run to the same rules, although there were less practice and qualifying sessions. We were also missing some of the competitors in the GTE classes as Ford have pulled out and Corvette couldn't come over due to pandemic. I did get some sleep this morning though and then watched the rest of the race on time delay. It was a good race too, with incidents happening typically when things had settled down.

There was a bit of an end of an era feel about it too ... This was the last Le Mans with the LMP Le Mans Prototype cars before LMDh (Le Mans Daytona hypercar) takes over. It should lead to better racing, with more manufacturers coming in. LMP got a bit too expensive in the last few years, with the hybrid systems coming in and manufacturers pulling out. LMDh should be a good reset.

Nurburgring next weekend should be interesting and there will be many more cars on the much longer circuit.

Oh, I did a start of a Stellaris game overnight as well, I haven't been impressed with what they've been doing in the game lately. The changes brought in intentionally don't seem great and the bugs being introduced just don't get fixed. That's the disappointing thing. But it was good to be in there again with the Nomnivorian Swarm having a good start eating one of the nearby races. Hey ! They declared war on me ... We just bit back. Literally.

What's the new toy ?

There we go, it's an X52 Pro flightstick and throttle unit.

Dwagon included for scale. They're a chunky pair ... So chunky, I think I'll be acquiring a board to put them on like an extender to the keyboard tray they get put on. When the throttle is full forwards, the 4 way switch clashes with the main deck of my desk. The mounting board will let me pull it backwards a bit to give access.

It's got lots of buttons ... and lights too. I'll be looking into how to get useful information out of a little multi function display that's on the throttle. Thoughts so far ... and this may read like a mini review so :

Disclosure note - bought from Logitech, not a free product.

Main flight stick has a really smooth nice action and that wrist rest you see there is moveable upwards for different sized hands. I've had to lift it up so I can access the switches and buttons on top. There's a lovely two stage firing trigger but I wasn't getting on with the lower pinkie trigger that's at the bottom of the stick. Felt like it was getting in the way. The disc at the bottom of the stick also interferes a little with moving the stick off the centre, although that might be a New Thing thing. The obstruction relieves if you rotate the disc, so it's an interaction with the spring.

Throttle is similarly sensitive with moving off the centre, although that could be New Thing thing. It's useful to set up a little dead zone.

There's a nice little thumb mouse on the throttle too, with button and scroll wheel too. I thought this would be great for the discovery scanner system in Elite, where I think stretching to use my main mouse there is damaging me. Having a mouse on the throttle is an amazing concept but I wasn't getting the wiring in my brain to match up with using it effectively. Perhaps it would have worked with more training but I just went "Nah, can't be bothered, ditch it for old method".

On the whole, positive. It feels solid and well made, although oddly it isn't holding to the desk like the Thrustmaster Hotas X did. Perhaps that's because the bases are a little shorter and the controls are bigger, so there's more leverage compared to the base. This should improve when I acquire the board to put them on.

Oh and it's giving me some more options I didn't have before to get better screenshots. Before, I'd have to pose the ship and then move the camera, I wouldn't be able to go back to moving the ship. I can do that now :-D.

Talking of screenshots ...

I left things last week at the Dryau Awesomes and a short hop happened on Thursday taking me to the Keelback Rings. That's a pair of ringed planets that orbit each other quite closely, with distinctive colouration on the rings. Pretty.

Same place, at log in when I returned today. One thing that's simulated is the orbital period of the planets and moons. So when I land, I'll look for a good landing spot that's got interesting surface features ... plus a backlighting sun to bring out the colours of the ship.

Sometimes there isn't a sun around to provide the backlight, you can just see the ship there on the left, with a nebula being lensed around the black hole.

It was a good little session actually, whereas I've been tiring quickly on other runs, I did a few hops tonight via one of the XTE black holes above, finding this ringed waterworld :

I am definitely liking the blue and orange colouration of Zoomnarr. The pop much better than I thought they would.

And my destination tonight was Neon Beacon, one of a few very rare gas giants that has neon green colouration.

I found a very rugged moon to perch upon too. (Although for some reason didn't F10 to save the screenshot of me looking at the gas giant from there ! Oops, next time).

Promising start, took a while to figure out what the new buttons did ... and remap where I wasn't going to get on with them !

More screenshots later and I'll put the Marble Parkour and Lego things together as well at some point. That's going to be waiting for hands ...

I'm feeling my right wrist a bit, although that might be an impact of getting my hand in around that pinkie switch. I've also had the pain again on my left hand, where the knuckles were damaged by over aggressive practice in cricket. That's something that comes and goes, when they bad, the insides of my knuckles feels like there's a broken bone in there ... that was yesterday, they're ok today.

We'll see how those go.

In the meantime though, those virus numbers are going up again here in the UK ... Stay safe everyone, avoid the idiots, wear the masks, hope you and yours stay well.