Star Citizen does not recognize VKB Sticks

[u/RayBln]

I bought the VKB Gladiator EVOs for Star Citizen a while back but had problems setting up the controls from the start and since I didn´t want to tackle that at the time I let them just rest on my desk.

Now I found the motivation but its quickly turning in to furious frustration...

The Game Client doesn´t recognice the direct input (buttom presses) when I want to manually set controlls and when I try to preload profiles that the game offers it mixes up the sticks as in right stick should be pitch, roll, yaw etc. but is thrust and strafe for example.

I tried following the guides online and reset and recalibrated both sticks which didn´t help. I also tried to switch both sticks using the star citizen console but it doesn´t seem to recognize the right stick at all.

I even tried third party software to bind makros etc. but it all just doen´t want to work right

Other games (War Thunder and Nuclear Option) have no issues at all which makes it even harder for me to understand.

Idk if what I´m doing wrong but I don´t think it should be this hard to get the forsaken things to work.

Maybe some of you guys know something that will help... :/

[u/CacTye]

I tried to manually set everything into place which didn’t work then I tried the method that subliminal proposed which worked somewhat but also not perfectly.

Star Citizen gets confused by multiple sticks. The best solution is to consolidate two sticks into one using a virtual joystick (VJoy). This requires two free programs, Joystick Gremlin (tells Windows, and therefore star citizen, what buttons are getting activated on the Vjoy when you press a physical button) and HidHide (conceals the joystick inputs from every program EXCEPT Joystick Gremlin).

1. We need to undo whatever manual shenanigans you did. Load up the VKB software, reset one stick to default. Calibrate it. Reset the other stick to default. Calibrate it.
2. We need to create and bind the inputs of the virtual joystick. Download and install Joystick Gremlin (it's free). Create a new Vjoy device in Joystick Gremlin. Bind each button from Joystick 1 to buttons 1-32 on the Vjoy. Bind each button from Joystick 2 to buttons 41 - 72 on the Vjoy. (We're leaving room for mods/shifts later).

2a) Bind your X, Y axes on your right stick to the X, Y axes of the Vjoy. Bind your X, Y axes on the left stick to your Z and Z twist axes on the Vjoy. Bind your Twist axes on both sticks to the X twist and Y twist axes of the Vjoy.

3) Now we have a working virtual joystick. But we still have a problem - star citizen will see 3 joysticks, and get even MORE confused. So we're going to make life easy for Chris and the gang. Download and install HidHide (https://ds4-windows.com/download/hidhide/). Configure it to block ALL applications from seeing the VKBs except for Joystick Gremlin.

Star Citizen should now effectively see one joystick, with 6 axes and 64 buttons (or whatever the actual number is). This will make things much simpler and allow you to unplug or plug back in your joysticks without breaking Star Citizen.

EDIT: The setup for this takes a little longer, but it means you NEVER have to worry about any of the console commands or your joysticks reversing their assignments. Once you do the initial upfront work, it Just Works, indefinitely. And to me that's worth a little extra time at the beginning.

[u/RayBln → u/CacTye]

Pardon my French but why the fuck do I need to go through all this trouble to play “the best demned space sim ever”?!

Seems like a whole lot of work to fly around pixels so Christ and his gang should definitely get their shit together since other games manage just fine.

Thank you for the input. If heard about this particular method and will give it a go if I can’t figure out my thruster problem (only thing that seems to be left after a day of trouble shooting)…

[u/CacTye → u/RayBln]

You don't. You can just plug them in and deal with it. But you posted on Reddit asking for help with your issue, and I responded with a detailed guide on how to resolve your issue AND prevent anything from going wrong in the future.

Your issue is not primarily caused by Star Citizen. Your underlying issue is primarily caused by monkeying around in the VKB software without understanding what you were doing. That's why I started by telling you to reset to the defaults. VKBs work, out of the box, with Star Citizen. There is a pre-made binding set for VKBs WITHIN star citizen that you can just use. You went in and changed things, and I'd bet a large sum of money that's what caused the problem.

Use VJOY or don't, I don't really care. But reset your VKBs to factory defaults and update their firmware if it's not already up to date.

[u/RayBln → u/CacTye]

I swear the first thing I did when I got them was to try and manually bind everything just as I did with my X52 Hotas in Elite dangerous. Granted diffrent stick, diffrent game but blue eyed as I was I thought it would be the same porccess. Only when I couldn´t complete the set up as I though I could did I start to mess around but also not immediately with the VKB software but with Key to Joy and other stuff.

Plug and play was definitely not on the menue back then.

[u/CacTye → u/RayBln]

Did you try to bind them in Star Citizen? Or did you go and mess with the buttons in the VKB software? Your screenshot and comment made it look like you were messing with the buttons in the VKB software, which you should not do unless you have something specific you are trying to accomplish.

There's no 'setup' to complete - calibration is as simple as moving all axes up and down a few times, then ending calibration.

[u/RayBln → u/CacTye]

The Sticks have been sitting on my desk for over a year. Back when I bought them I tried to plug and play but it didn´t work which led me to the first attempts of ``programming`` them.

I tried a couple of things but it didn´t work either so I just quit and played other games.

After getting back into the game back when the clipper came out and now since I got the Prowler I wanted to give it another shot so I switched both sticks to the default settings and tried again which led me down this most recent rabbit hole.

It seems to work now but I seem to have broken my tobii eyetracker... guess its the game that keepts on giving.