Thrustmaster Sol-R2 HOSAS, Hall Effect Technology for Ultra-Precise Gaming, 44 buttons Ideal for Space Flight Simulation (compatible with PC)

Okay so I love this stick. First of all, just LOOK at this stick compared to other sticks on the market. There's nothing like it. This is what you want if you're flying a spacecraft.Yes, there is assembly out of the box, and at first you freak out because you have a bunch of plastick bags with little pieces you don't know what they are and the pieces of paper included in the flight stick are things to scan with your phone. Like all men. I don't really like to read instructions and ignored this. So the first impressions are a little rough because immediately your mind is going to "what am I going to have to do to assemble this". thankfully when you open there are little diagrams that show you - it's trivial. The little pieces are optional stablizers that are not gonna be needed in 99 percent of setups and you just need to make sure you orient the stick forward - the way that it makes sense to, before you carefully insert the stick into the base (it has a connector looking something like a small proprietary ps2 keyboard connector from back in the day and small pins, so be careful). Then you just rotate the metal screw until it's just tight and you're good to go. Nothing to it.I took a risk on this stick because I'm using it with FreeSpace Open via Knossos.NET on an iMac. Needless to say, this is not supported. So I wasn't sure if anything would work or if some buttons and features wouldn't work.What doesn't work is some colors on the keypads, whatever their windows software does and the 02 light doesn't light, I don't know if this is software or not because I don't care; out of the box this is HID recognized and I can use Freespace Open's settings to mapp all but 3 of the controls (over 30) which is incredible. The 2 red buttons and spin wheel weren't recognized, so I used third party free app. Enjoyable to map those to keyboard actions and solved it. So I can use ALL controls for Freespace open !!! on a Mac !!! Unsupported, but I'm posting this to let folks know.This really stepped my game up. I was using a well regarded Logitech 3D Extreme, but the twist axis was used so much it was making the handle of the joystick start to split, and it wasn't a modern hall effect but potentionmeter so I wanted to upgrade. IMMEDIATELY I'm using all the features, the lovely feeling toggles to cycle through ships, the two different types of switches at the bottom for missile backs and weapons systems and the blue light up buttons for calling wingmates and for shield and system management. This is MUCH faster that looking for the damn "What was that, alt-M ?" where's alt ?" that I was doing before. It's much nicer and makes you feel more like you are in a spaceship.So... I have to give 5 stars. Yeah I lose some colors and lights, but who cares, al the buttons work and it looks incredible lit up in the default mode on the desk. Incredible.Kinda pricey at 200 bucks but for me I'm keeping it. It's also very smooth and precise no issues. I didn't feel the joystick was made that much worse than the base, Feels solid. There are way more expensive joysticks out there, you have to keep in mind the price point.The only thing I didn't like is the little button on the bottom, I didn't map it as I felt it was too easy to hit (was using it for countermeasures until I mapped the second red top button).All in all, Super cool looking stick - it's Futuristic, Spacey and for Space games like Star Citizen ( I don't play anymore ) or Freespace Open it's gonna be perfect.

Rapid fire trigger began sticking on depress within 20 minutes of usage. Absolutely ridiculous. The stick itself has really poor build quality and the sacrifices that were made to be ambidextrous make it incredibly uncomfortable and cumbersomeThe base however seems very well put together and has a great quality feel behind all the buttons, it actually feels like they were made by different companies.I’ll go with a dedicated left stick option instead.

After much research and searching for a good pair of Hosas joysticks, I finally decided on these. These are my first pair of joysticks and I love them. While I don't have experience with other brands like VKB or Virpil, I think these are great quality. I had a hard time choosing which brand to go with. I could not get VKB Gladiators due to availibility and shipping issues. Virpil is coming out with new sticks in a similar price range soon but I wanted something sooner.So I settled with these, an I have not been disappointed.These joysticks are great, I was very impressed when I got them. If you are worried about them being flimsy or cheap, they are not. The buttons are not cheap and feel perfectly fine. They seemed kinda toyish from the pictures but they look muchbetter in person. The RGB lighting looks really good and is customizable. It is really nice to assign colors to the buttons on the base so I can remember which buttons do what.The gimbal is fine, it feels strong and sturdy. I don't have experience with other gimbals but I don't have any complaits really. They do have more resistance than other sticks from what I hear. I personally don't mind.I use these for Star Citizen and they work awesome. I LOVE HOSAS. The experience is so much better. Yhese stick have more buttons than I know what to do with. If you are looking for a good pair of sticks, these are a very good option.

The controllers are really nice, all the buttons feel great but the switches on the controller basses are super flimsy and feel like cheap plastic that could easily break over time. Their star citizen mapping is an absolute nightmare with their T.A.R.G.E.T. program. Thrustmaster support wasn't helpful at all with trying to work with me to figure it out. They basically just said figure it out on your own. Have been debating returning them for that reason alone.

After 3 weeks, maybe 30 hours of use, the z-axis on the left stick started showing constant +20, way too much to just use a dead zone, and it was to one side anyway. Tried firmware update to latest, etc. Seems to have been a sensor issue. I was using that axis heavily for StarCitizen. Failure happened pretty sudden. Fortunately was within the Amazon return window. Might have been a one off issue but a little research shows that this issue is being reported more as these start to get used. I liked the sticks and they worked well while they worked. Decent features for the price point, but a joystick has one primary job but if it can't do that, well, all the buttons don't matter.