Hot for HOTAS: What to buy and how to configure?

Watching the Quick Look of Elite: Dangerous got me really excited to play some flight/space simulators for the first time in a long time. I used to spend a lot of time with IL2 Sturmovik back in the day, using a pretty standard flight-stick with a built in throttle. After a couple of moves that stick is long lost, and I think I'm ready to step up my game and finally invest in a modest HOTAS + Track IR setup.

What kind of setups do all you duders have, and what would you recommend for a relatively novice user? How difficult is all of the configuring of buttons nowadays? My preliminary price range would probably be in the <200 euro region, but feel free to recommend more expensive units if they're really special.

I recommend you have a little look through this thread, the general consensus being that a good starting point is probably the Saitek X-52, which is the HOTAS that GB have. If that's not quite what you're after, there are good options that are cheaper and so on. Even a much cheaper option like the Thrustmaster HOTAS-X still has quite a lot of buttons, a POVhat etc

There is also this all-encompassing review of the feel of the various knobs on the X-52 by Drew:

As far as configuring buttons goes, I can't speak to Elite: Dangerous, but I've had a decent number of games recognise my stick and load a preset profile, but if that's not the case or I want to make some tweaks, it's usually just a case of clicking on the control option and pressing whatever button, wiggling whatever axis. Basically how I remember it going in IL2 (although I've got a vague feeling maybe some of your control setup in that game was done editing text in a config file, because although the gameplay was amazing, the UI and everything like that was a hot mess without modding)

As for the TrackIR, I think you've got two options. One is to just buy the trackIR, the other is to cobble together one yourself and use FreeTrack. The Freetrack website has info about what that entails, but basically you'd need to make an IR LED array for it to track and mod a webcam to block non-infrared light. Dunno how that compares to a legit TrackIR system.

I'm using the Thrustmaster HOTAS-X and it works perfectly. Just found someones button-config, had the pdf open for a while to remember what everything does, works perfectly. I am sure you can get a lot better, but for the price it's wonderful.

Was contemplating a TrackIR myself, but it's way too expensive. But someone linked to this in another thread about Elite, so I bought a kit to build. Not as advanced as TrackIR of course, lacking some movement, but seems to work perfectly with Elite. And it's quite cheap! You need to do some soldering yourself though, which I guess most people won't be able to do. Anyway, I can report back once I get the kit and assemble it.

I didn't realize the Track IR was that expensive. I'd definitely consider an Oculus instead. Sure it's more than double the price, but you're gonna want it in the future anyway. I bet it get's more dev support than the Track IR does going forward too.

@jaqen_hghar: @damodar: Thanks for the recommendations. I've been looking at the Saitek X52 for a while now due to all the exposure it's been getting on Giant Bomb, but I've wanted to look around a bit before settling to buy it. The Thrustmaster HOTAS-X was recommended to me by a friend, but I'd like to try it out somewhere first because it looks kind of sort of flimsy compared to the Saitek model. Of course it's more than half the price of the Saitek as well.

And yeah @mosespippy I hadn't realized how expensive the Track IR is. Like you said I might just wait for the Oculus and maybe buy the HOTAS in advance to familiarize myself with the hardware before having to use it blind.

Drew mentioned in a video that although he uses the SaitekX52 on UPF, he uses CH products at home.

I noticed a lot of the flight sticks I'd been considering were back-ordered on Amazon after that Elite quick look went up. Coincidence?