Best Joystick Sensitivity Settings For IL-2

   If you're looking for the ultimate best sentitivity settings, I have 3 words for you: forget about it.
There's no such thing as the best joystick configuration. You'll have to figure out what works best *for you*, depending among other things on your controllers and your box.
There are a number of factors to take into consideration, but let me set this straight one and for all: aircraft model is *not* one of them.
There are few things that are as fundamentally wrong as having different settings for different planes. The differences are modeled in the flight models.
   One very common example: some people find that planes like the P51 stall too easily when you pull a tight turn using the elevator, so what they do? They lower the elevator's sensitivity.
   Wrong!
That's the "wrongest" thing ever!
You don't lower the elevator's sensitivity, you learn how to fly! That's the way to go. Learn to pull that elevator just to the limit without stalling.
   Why not lower the sensitivity if that makes the plane easier to fly?
   Let me answer with another question: do you really think that North American Aviation, Focke Wulf, etc couldnt build more forgiving planes?
Of course they could. But they had to build fighters, not trainers.    Fighter planes trade stability for maneuverability: with lowered sensitivity you won't stall in a tight turn but you won't be able to pull a snap roll either.

   I'm using IL-2 JoyControl to make things easier but I'm not linking to the M4T download because they have mandatory registration now, you must log in to download and even to see the downloads page, but anyway, you will find Joycontrol at Mission4today.com, search the downloads section.

   Setting Up Joycontrol

   Did I mention that Joycontrol is included into the Fusion Pack? Yeah, I just did. In the Extra folder. A folder called Extra, in your IL2 directory.
   When you run Joycontrol for the first time, it will ask you where conf.ini is. Point it to your IL-2 folder. If you don't know where your IL-2 folder is, then it's probably in C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\IL-2 Sturmovik 1946
   You'll know that you did it right when you move your joystick, pedals, and sliders, and see the small red squares moving in the Joycontrol interface.

Using JoyControl

   Aileron, Elevator, Rudder

   Here more than anywhere else your hardware and your setup make the difference. You may need different settings if you use pedals or twist handle, and also very important is the kind of joystick that you have: Flying with a MS Sidewinder FF2 I found that I needed a small dead zone around the center because the stick is very loose there, and gets increasingly stiff towards the edges
I think it's kind of realistic because it feels like it's actually pulling a cable, it moves freely around the center then the cable goes in tension (MS Force Feedback rocks), but with all the sensitivities to 100 the "virtual stick" in the cockpit would start moving before my physical stick hits the point where it feels like it's pulling the cable, so I needed to match them.

   Setting a "dead zone" using the dead zone slider didnt really work but after some experiments I came up with a solution: the dead zone would be so small it's almost non-existent, and the "dead zone effect" is attained lowering the sensitivity around the center, and then increasingly raising it towards the edges... pretty much like the default settings, only much steeper.

   The second-hand bought Sidewinder began to show signs that it needed to be worked on, and possibly even replaced... I considered buying another one but then I reasoned that it's not manufactured any more, all you can find is some deal on eBay, and you never know how long it's going to last, so I recovered the old trusty CH fighterstick that I stored in a box when I got the Sidewinder.

   The difference was immediately obvious: the spring-loaded fighterstick didnt need the dead zone around the center. As I got increasingly used to the Fighterstick I found that an increasing sensitivity worked very well with it, but this time the lowest was 100, and went increasing by 5% for each slider: 100, 105, 110, and so forth.    However, after some time using the settings described above, it became apparent that both my shooting and my precision flight (formations, etc) were suffering from the excessively aggressive settings around the center, so I lowered the settings on the first two sliders of aileron and elevator controls, leaving the other ones in the 'aggressive' configuration.

 

(above) For a MS Sidewinder FF2 joystick, I used a steep increasing, starting from 15% sensitivity




(above) The original 'aggressive' setting for the CH fighterstick




(above) Currently using: aggressive settings but with lowered sensitivity around the center (on CH Fighterstick).
Same configuration for Aileron and Elevator.

   I use the same setting for aileron and elevator, but getting the pedals out of the "sticky" center requires just enough force to overshoot the first tiny fraction of the run, making precise control with "micro movements" around the center almost impossible (well, for me at least).

   CH Pro Pedals were the first and only pedals I ever bought. I have had them for years and literally kicked them hard all the time, never had a problem with them. This on the other hand means that I have no experience with any other kind of pedals, so I don't know if all i'm saying actually apply to Saitek and other brands, but when it comes to CH Pro Pedals I can only say that I love the ruggedness and the precision, but I also hate them for two reasons:

    -1: They're too narrow! I (kinda) fixed this problem with my usual 'redneck approach': you know the "screw thingy" that you find on most work benches, the thing that holds stuff in place while you work on it? What's that called? Ok, now what I did is to take a smaller version of that 'bench screw thing' and fixed to one of my pedals (the right one). This addition made the pedals (barely) wide enough... and I know that I didn't explain it very well, my English isnt perfect and im not going to apologize for that (but I may add more pictures... I guess I'll do that sooner or later). But anyhow, here's the second reason why I dont like CH Pro Pedals
   -2: The Center 'Bump'. For some reason, CH designers decided that a spring to pull the pedals back in neutral position wasnt enough, and added a 'bump' in the middle so the user can feel when the pedals are centered. I don't think this is necessary but it wouldnt be a problem either... except that it is. Not the 'bump' itself, but the fact that to bring the pedals out of the center position you need to apply enough force to make you overshoot the first couple of centimeters, which in turn affect precision flying, shooting, and anything that requires precise control of the rudder.

   Some day I'll open up my CH Pro Pedals and physically remove the 'bump' (if possible) but for now I'm lilving with it, using a lower sensitivity around the center to balance the effect of the middle bump.

 

(above) Rudder setting for CH Pro Pedals with a small low sensitivity zone as explained in the previous paragraph.

      Trim Controls Sensitivities

   For throttle, prop pitch and trim controls I use a CH Throttle Quadrant (the "6-slider throttle"), and when it comes to trim the "loose around the center" policy that I use for stick and pedals is even more exagerated, but this time for a different reason: fine tuning.
A slider is usually too quick from one extremity to the other. In many RL planes you canadjust the trim with a precision down to the single degree but in game a very small slider movement changes the trim by several degrees.
   The solution is to lower sensitivity around the center so to a greater slider movement will correspond a smaller cursor motion. Sure, you pay for that with the reverse effect towards the edges... but that's not important because around the zero (neutral trim) is where you need precision.

 

For trim controls, less steep increases and lowest sensitivity to zero

   There's no need to set dead zones or lowered sensitivities for flaps, prop pitch and brakes controls as long as your controllers work well and are well calibrated. Just crank all the settings to 100 for flaps and prop pitch.

 

No dead zone for flaps, prop pitch and brakes

Over the top

   As a slider loses calibration, it loses the ability to push the cursor all the way up or down, which in some cases may be important: you think you're running 110 throttle but you're only at 105, you think that you have 100 prop pitch but you only have 95... and no, if you use the on-screen messages the solution is... maybe not really worse than the problem but surely uglier (seriously, try the "immersion hud log" option that you have in FP)
   The real solution of course is to keep your controllers well calibrated, but sometimes that's not enough. Sometimes you can never get that cursor all the way up no matter how many times you try to calibrate it. As long as the problem isnt too bad, you can fix that raising the sensitivity of the last slider (sometimes the last 2) over 100

 

Set the last slider higher than 100 to make sure that the cursor goes all the way up

 

   And that's it. Save, close, and fly. happy landings!