Is it possible to use a HOTAS and remap the keys in-game? + other ???

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
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Hello, everyone. I’ve recently picked up a Saitek X45 for real cheap and wanted to experiment with the control settings. However, there seems to be NO simple games or anything of such that would be good for testing out HOTAS settings without having to spend a couple dollar. I’m a bit of a penny pincher and didn’t like the lack of free option. So I’m considering making one myself using Blender3D (will share for free if I manage to complete it).

HOTAS is a flightstick and throttle controller for PC. There are quite a variety of configuration of these controllers. Unfortunately, the only good way to test the controller out currently is to play it in a full on game. This can be a hassle for a variety of reason. Having to download and install a large game (Elite Dangerous is like 15GB), having to struggle past the tutorial and the like while still getting used to the controller itself, no real way to have preset settings as contributed by the HOTAS community, and more.

Before I can start working on this project, I need a few questions answered up front.

  • How easy would it be to recognize a HOTAS in a blender3d based game?
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  • Would it be easy to calibrate the HOTAS in game and remap the keys?

  • Since it will be a very rudimentary game, I don’t want to waste too much time on modelling everything on the ground, is there a way to randomly generate a terrain to fly above?

  • Some HOTAS game are based in space, could I randomly generate some spherical terrains around a star like a solar system?

  • Once I have the basic setup, I want to include enemy combatants to test out response timing of the controllers and the combat setup. Is it difficult to program the behavior of the enemy combatants? These combatants would be planes (exact same model as the player, just different color), helicopters, and ground based artillery.
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Anyway, I’m sure that I’m sorta diving into a potentially difficult project but I want to try something new with Blender3D and see if that can help draw me back into Blender3D some more.

Thank you very much for any responses

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  1. The joystick itself would be simple, automatic almost. But most probably (it depends on your luck) half of the controls won’t work out of the box, to adapt those it will be hard, you’ll either have to try to communicate with the driver directly or through and adapter.
  2. It’s possible, but again not out of the box. You’ll have to make all the code for that yourself, so I would say this is also hard + a lot of work.
  3. If you are capable of doing 1 and 2, this will be a piece of cake.