SAITEK X52 Flight Controller Joystick vs pro?

Hi. I am going into town this afternoon to get my self a new Flight stick. I have narrowed it down to SAITEK X52 Flight Controller Joystick but is it worth paying £50 more for the pro vs normal blue one?.

£99.99 SAITEK X52 Flight Controller Joystick

£149,99 SAITEK X52 Flight Controller Joystick pro.

I play different kinds of flight sim from FSX to Elite Dangerous and when star citizen comes out I will be getting that also.

What are the compatibility like in games from windows to windows. At the moment I have windows 7 home 64bit and what about if I upgrade to windows 8.1 or even 10 later down the line

.

Thanks for any info.

Thanks for reply but didn't go for either of those I went with. Mad Catz Fly 5 and looks pretty good with lots of buttons and marcos by the look of it. Was £100 cheaper then thr x52 pro also so saved some money as well.

You didn't wait very long for a reply, lol. I have the pro and I'm pretty happy with it for the price. There are better sticks out there, but generally they cost a lot more money. The X52 Pro is very well suited to ED and as of one of the older updates they even added a native control profile for it. It also looks exactly like the stick in the cockpit of the various ships. This made playing with the Oculus really cool because I'd look down and see a gloved hand holding the same stick that I had and in the same location that mirrored my own hand movements down to the button presses.

-Byshop

What are the advantages of a throttle being a completely separate? More buttons?

Also, this is an odd question, but if you take your hand off of it, does it stay in position or spring back?

A throttle on any stick will stay where you leave it. They do not center or spring back to one side or the other. The advantage to having a throttle is that it allows you to precisely control the speed of your ship without having to take your hands off the stick. This is highly advantageous when dog fighting, as it makes it easier to match speed with your target or speed up/slow down as necessary.

-Byshop

I meant more along the lines of having it in a separate container, so to speak. A lot of flight sticks have throttle wheel on it that can do the same thing you described, no?

That depends on the game. For more complex flight simulators, a throttle might have two halves that can be moved independantly (one for each engine in a dual engine airplane). Also, seperate throttle contols are larger and give you greater and more minute control over the speed of your ship/plane than a tiny throttle attached to a joystick, although whether or not you need that degree of control varies from game to game. More "arcadey" games, for example, don't really require it.

Beyond that, you're right that the additional buttons on the throttle are the other advantage. Also, of course, there's the verisimilitude of having a stick on one hand and a throttle on the other. This is my home setup:

Stick on the right and throttle on the left, plus rudder pedals. How I map these varies from game to game. This is the layout of the X52 Pro:

In Elite, I use the "hat" to control strafing up, down, left and right. It's very useful because it means that while I'm strafing I can control all the targeting and weapon functions on the stick at the same time. The three main buttons on the throttle I use for the Afterburner, toggling Flight Assist, and the "look" toggle button to toggle between the various panels in the cockpit. The right hats I use for power redistribution, weapons control and targeting functions. Not having to take your hand off the stick while performing these fucntions as well as not having to take your hand off the throttle gives you an advantage in your response time and accuracy.

For any additional functions that the joystick doesn't have enough buttons for, I have a Logitech G13 in front of the throttle that I use for things like deploying the landing gear, ship lights or cargo scoop. These are all functions I can access through the ship's menus, but being able to hit a button for each one is also very advantageous. For example, if I'm scooping up cargo and it turns out to be a trap, I don't want to have to look away from the view screen at a ship console menu to retract the cargo scoop while I'm fleeing for my life.

In more arcadey space flight sims like Strike Suit Zero/Infinity, I use the hat on the throttle to control my targeting because you need to be able to take down targets -very- quickly. There are also missle lock systems that can lock onto multiple targets so being able to switch targets with your left hand while holding down the missle lock button with your right hand is also very effective.

-Byshop

Suddenly, my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro doesn't look as extreme as it sounds.

I have one of those, too. I debated using it as a "left hand" stick for vertical and horizontal strafing for more precise lateral movement when doing things like landing in Elite. The only thing I don't like about my current config is up/down/left/right strafing is digital, so it's either 0 or 100% with nothing in between. Elite supports the ability to configure two different control schemes between normal flight and landing so I could set it to only be active while the gear is deployed and use the toe pedal portion of the rudder pedals to handle forward and backwards movement (which is how I run Star Citizen when decoupled, like having a gas and brake in addition to pushing the pedals forward and back with my feet for rotation).

Anyway, there are lots of options.

-Byshop