Heli with Throttle, Pedals, and Mouse-as-Joy -- is it possible? ALMOST...

[Reel Liddy]

The setup I use for other heli games is 1 mouse which is configured to behave like a joystick, 1 CH Products Throttle, and rudder pedal. That is 3 controllers, and it seems PR:BF2 only recognizes 2 controllers max. Any workaround?

Let me give a bit more detail. When you push a joystick in a given direction and hold it there, the action stays where you're holding it; when you release pressure on the joystick, the action, whatever it is, goes back to 'center.' That is how real joysticks in real airplanes and helis work.

But when you fly heli in PR:BF2 with default Mouse (chosen in PR config) for Pitch and Roll, the behavior is different. Suppose you push your mouse in a certain direction to make the heli Pitch Down. If you stop moving the mouse, the pitch will automatically recenter. So you have to keep moving the mouse in order to maintain the desired pitch. That is not how any helicopter in history works.

I realize this was done by PR devs because a mouse which behaves like a real joystick is EXTREMELY difficult to fly with, at least for beginners. But I have mastered this technique (the big secret is to have a key or button configured to snap to center. That way you don't have to worry about finding your way back to exactly where you began with the mouse; you just create a new 'center' position whenever you need to.)

So, using various things like PPMouse or vJoy or FreePIE, I turn my mouse into a virtual joystick. This is seen (after enormous effort) by PR as a new device instead of a mouse. But PR seems to allow only TWO controllers besides mouse -- GameController_0 and GameController_1. And I have THREE controllers: Virtual Joystick, Throttle, and Pedals. One device is always left out!

I have spent many, many hours trying to find a workaround for this, using PPMouse, FreePIE, vJoy, AHK, UJR, UCR, and God knows what else. Using a joystick is out of the question for me. Any ideas?