Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar: The Luxury Joystick!

Windows Or Programmed Mode

It would be a pity not to make best use of the plethora of axes, buttons, and hat switches that the Cougar has to offer. There are two ways of taking advantage of them. The first and easiest to use is the Windows mode. In fact, since all of the Cougar axes and buttons are recognized by DirectX, you can easily assign the functions of the most recent simulators to each button, using the button configuration menu. This is an important detail because, whether in Windows or programmed mode, the buttons and their associated controls can be operated simultaneously. This is a major improvement on the TQS/FLCS, which only transmits impulses from buttons in a strictly sequential order. Pressing several buttons simultaneously would result in the loss of all of the actions requested except one, and this would be chosen in an arbitrary fashion.

The Cougar offers so much more as soon as you dive into the arcane secrets of its programming language. The interface used to program the Cougar is Foxy Cougar Edition software. This software makes it possible to create files that assign the controls of your choice to a particular simulator, and you can then load these instructions into the Cougar. You can also simply upload to Cougar any of the numerous files of ready-made programming, a very exhaustive list that covers all the simulators currently on the market. Then all you have to do is consult a chart in JPEG format to find out which function has been assigned to which button or axis. While on the subject, the only bug we found in the Foxy program involved the print command, which does not work with graphics charts. So until Thrustmaster corrects the problem, you will need to use a program other than Foxy in order to print them.