Glad you got the water figured out.  For the record, I use GEX, all UTX's, all ST's (Scenery Tech landclass), and REX2.0 (heh heh).

By the way, the CS EPR on takeoff is a bit tricky.  Your original post asked about 1.55 etc.  You have to realize that there is typically derating involved by using an assumed temperature (see the manual about  this) and when this is used the EPR will not be 1.55 but less.  If yo do't derate, the airplane will takeoff like a rocket.

I usually map the Shift R and TOGA to keys on my joystick.  Shift R usually toggles on/off the autothrottle but does nothing in the CS >:( and the TOGA which I assign to Cntrl F1 then to button on my Saitek.  Usually this activates takeof thrust with most airraft but with the CS seems to do something strange.  When I activated his yesterday, the autothrottle wouldn't respond properly.  Basically the engines spooled up but wouldn't maintain speed at all during the climb even even on VNAV and I almost crashed during the climb so be aware of this.  The best way is to just click on EPR during takeoff, then click VNAV when at 400' or so.  There does not appear to be a way to assign EPR to a key command with the CS.  Not having these key commands is a real hassle, especially with the autothrottle.  With the aircraft rolling gently back and forth across the course line during approach, and then having to use the mouse to shut off the autothrottle makes this action somewhat difficult and distracting as you have to move the mouse to the right location and then click it all the while trying to keep the aircraft under control.  I hope this gets fixed in the future.