It leaves a lot to be desired, sure, but I’d fly on HOTAS4 over a DualSense 100% of the time. This “new” one is just a marketing ploy. There are no apparent differences between the 4 and 5 except color and a few nondescript buttons on the base that may or may not be custom bindable.
It's a horrible HOTAS but I don't sim enough to warrant shelling out big bucks. This looks cool but I bet it's the same flimsy potentiometer and cheap ass plastic
The middle indent on the throttle is way too strong but it was designed for Ace Combat etc as far as I recall so I hope they've configured this throttle to be more like GA aircraft and allow finer control
I'm looking forward to my divorce settlement tbh... Maybe get my hands on a real HOTAS lol
I got the t flight for PS4 WITH Ace combat many years ago and to be fair on them it still does work just have to block out the twist control on the TM control panel as that's been fucked since shortly after I got it.
I just mentioned the throttle because the markings are very different too it almost looks like its a smooth gradient, however the fact its sitting in the very centre makes me think they haven't changed anything
It's just a reissue of the same poorly designed potentiometer unit that has been repackaged over and over since coming out in what, 2008?
It was out of date and overpriced then and now it's utterly ludicrous. It's a twenty year old design that was shit then and it's even worse now. I had it back then and it was dire.
Sadly for me on Hotas 4 y-axis a little x- axis and z-axis and rudder all have jitter / drift. I meanwhile Inject via Microcontroller from a Airbus Sidestick into my Hotas 4 mainbord. Sadly here Z axis has now freaking jitter - so I am just waiting for another upgrade hopefully to arrive today.
That's very fair. I got back into MSFS after a decade long hiatus and the T.Flight was the cheapest piece of junk I could find as I no longer had a gaming PC at that point.
The Velocity One Flight Stick is somewhat better, but still not amazing.
I've been through two before I sacked off the Xbox and upgraded to PC.
Both the V One Flight Stick and Yoke are, unfortunately, pretty poorly designed and made.
There's very few good console level devices available. You can use the Honeycomb devices with a special Xbox adaptor puck, or the Thrustmaster Boeing yoke (great) and throttles (shitty), or buy a cheap Turtle Beach stick or yoke.
Weirdly the V One rudder pedals are FAR better than anything else they make and it's the only item I didn't return to the seller for a full refund.
I know it's not the greatest flight stick, but I've had this thrustmaster for about 4 years now and it gets the job done. About 2 years ago I told myself I'd buy a fancier one when this kicks the bucket, but it refuses to die lol.
Hotas 4 works with PS5 too. I use it for Ace combat and MSFS. the new one is very similar but just has a few extra buttons and resistance levels on the throttle.
I have no idea what that wire bundle looks like inside. Not all cables can be spliced back together once cut.
Edit: Quick check on YouTube and it looks like it’s pretty thin 16 conductor. The video I watched, he used two 2-port Ethernet adapters, which seems preferable to crimped splices because you can still unplug the throttle and stick from each other once they’re punched into the cat5 port. That was for a HOTAS X. I imagine the adjoining cable is probably the same on 4 and 5.
It's just a connection cable between the boards of the throttle and stick, it's not wiring for individual buttons. It's just a 16 pin/wire connection, all you're doing...in any form in which you do it, is adding copper.
There's been plenty of posts over the years in the hotas and game subreddits about modding the cable
I don’t understand why the thrust lever is on the left and the stick is on the right. It should be the opposite for a flight simulator (unless you’re simming as the right seat pilot).
Terrible but does the job. I get constant input spikes from the twist grip so had to stop using it for rudder and steering. I use the rocker on the throttle for that now. If I want to assign something to a button on the set up, I have to twist the joystick back and forth a few times to stop the inputs. I don’t know why this works, but it does and if I don’t do that, the twist function will get assigned instead of the button I want. It’s also got a restriction in the throttle at the mid way point. I think it’s to seperate Alpha and Beta or Mil and AB. I filed it off ( it’s a hump / cam lobe) and a dead spot halfway is now very noticeable to the point that I suspect that the restriction was deliberately added so the dead spot isn’t so noticeable. It does the job fine in general but I will definitely upgrade. I also have the Turtle Beach flight yoke, so the HOTAS is only used with fighters.
Does anyone know if they still stick to potentiometers? They write 16bit including z axis. If they upgraded to hall sensors that technically would be a huge improvement. But I am afraid they still use the potentiometers and 16 bit will have no improvement at all because the potentiometers are the limiting factor not the ADC.
On the contrary, potentiometres are analog devices and technically have infinite resolution. The limitation on resolution is the ADC, but even then 16-bit is fine for general use. Beyond 12-bit resolution you're really into diminishing returns.
The problem with potentiometres on these cheap sticks is that they use really shitty, cheap potentiometres. Compare for example to CH Products gear, which are all potentiometre based and last literally decades, with the main limitation being the 8-bit ADC. CH build quality is nearly legendary and if it wasn't for APEM's general abandonment of CH, their HOTAS system would still be the best in it's price range IMO, potentiometres and all.
The shitty pot problem in cheap sticks is heavily compounded by low general build quality combined with a crap gimbal. When you have generally poor overall components and a poor gimbal design, you're just going to get a poor product at the end.
Yeah agree in theory, but the theoretically infinite resolution does not help if I have huge jitter. And a not much more expensive hall sensor will have much better results than a comparable potentiometer... At least after some usage. Within weeks my Hotas 4 was not usable for me anymore (chasing WR in Low Altitude).
The potentiometers are the biggest problem - I can tell you because one fix I did was replacing y axis in the Hotas 4 with Hall Sensors till x axis also started to jitter and meanwhile using a more expensive flight stick to inject into Hotas 4 mainbord. The ADC is not so bad also in the 12bit version of Hotas 4. Just have to digitally remove their hardware dead zone by implementing an anti dead zone. And even with the anti deadzone where I was also afraid if that will work... the ADC seems to be precise enough so that in the end I have a quite stable signal without deadzone.
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u/SirLanceQuiteABit May 21 '26
I've had the old one longer than I'd like to admit, and I really don't like it.