AndyHill

In the same boat am I, I assume patience required is.

Ok that solves it then and now it all kind of makes sense. I can't find that option in the Takeoff Panel axis options, perhaps it just doesn't have one? Not that I'd really need to change anything anyway, it should be enough if bigger axis such as joysticks and throttles have more adjustments. I'd suggest updating the relevant part of the review to let everyone know that a setting for deadzone exists and that it can indeed be taken out completely. There are indeed situations where deadzones can be useful, but it should always be optional. The review itself was quite interesting and it was refreshing to see such attention to details.

Holy sierra you're actually correct. I only have the take off panel to test with so I haven't bothered much with the axis settings, but indeed besides calibration there are no axis shaping settings at all. If the same applies to actual joystick axis, that's a bit wow. Of course curves can be set in-game and usually are, because there's usually no one size fits all -solution anyway, so it's not that big a deal. Unless of course there's a deadzone or something that can't be adjusted away in-game. It doesn't matter if the deadzone is relatively small, hovering a helicopter or trying to set one down in a tight spot you're often more like thinking about moving the stick than physically moving it, for that even a tiny deadzone is huuuge. Most importantly, even if a little deadzone was the best way to go, people should get to choose the sub-optimal way if they want to. Funnily enough, I'm actually looking for a unit to review myself. Unfortunately we operate mostly in print, so we're probably not on Winwing's radar. Because I need to buy the stuffs myself and in this price range whatever I'd make from writing the review wouldn't even cover the cost of the hardware, I'd really like to get something I actually want to use myself. A tiny deadzone wouldn't necessarily be a complete deal breaker, but definitely not something I'd expect to see in this level of hardware and price range. Have you asked other users or tried to contact Winwing directly? Apparently someone had a sensor slightly loose causing problems so maybe it's a fixable issue? In any case the sensors won't have a built-in deadzone so if WW want to, they should be able to remove it pretty easily in software. Now that I look at the description (and if I read it correctly), WW don't actually advertize zero deadzone on Orion - but I think they're probably referring to the mechanical design here: https://wwsimstore.com/p/333.html

Is the deadzone on the Winwing platform 1) a setting or a permanent feature and 2) does it also exist on the Libra base?

It would be nice if you could combine regular in-stock items and preorder items in one order, so that I could for example order a F-16EX stick with Super Libra base and extension and have everything shipped when the stick is available.

This is a bit of a necro, but I was recently working with radio commands with renewed interest due to getting the Oculus Rift HMD for testing with DCS and other games. Please point me to more recent or more relevant threads on the subject if you know of any, but I was left wondering how the voice command system could be improved. People have been putting huge effort into profiles for popular voice command software to make sense of the complicated DCS radio command structure. I can only admire their work, but I really think people shouldn't need to go to such lengths to get voice commands to work. I'm not really a programmer so perhaps you guys can tell me if my idea has any kind of merit whatsoever. Step 1: ED add another Lua file to give modders access to radio commands. Basically anytime the radio menu is opened and DCS waits for a key press it would also activate this Lua file, provide an array of radio commands ["Flight", "Two", "Three", ...] and expect an array index in return (the option chosen by the user). My gut feeling is that this would mean a fairly reasonable amount of effort from the ED programmers - but of course I could be wrong. Step 2: Individual modders or open source communities can now utilize this interface to connect to for example the speech recognition engine that comes with Windows. This would probably involve quite a bit of effort, but since the real heavy lifting is already taken care of by MicroSoft, it should be doable. The modders have already done such amazing things so I don't think this kind of a mod would be too much to ask, especially if a group of people work together. Basically the way I imagine it works (I know nothing about the internal working of the speech recognition libraries) is that at some point you can actually send an array of expected word or sentences and tell it to figure out if any of them can be recognized from the mic input. This could then be used to create a totally dynamic system that would work regardless of what kind of radio options DCS decides to use in the future. It would simply send the options as plain text to the Lua interface and the external software could listen to those exact sentences and then tell DCS which one the user selected (if any). As a fallback option you could have "option one", "option two" and so on - this is actually what I chose to do with my recent VAC profile. Not very immersive, but foolproof and since VAC gets to work with a very limited set of commands it does a pretty good job of recognizing the correct options even though my English is pretty bad. Eventually (given suitable licensing) when the mod gets good enough ED could just pick it up and implement it as a part of the default DCS package. Again, am I missing something really important or do you think this could work? Of course many people seem to want seamless commands (like "Two, engage air defences with missiles" all in one go) instead of going step by step through the menus, which would require a bit more complicated interface with the simulator, but at least I would be very happy if I could just read the one command at a time and then progress to the next menu level and so on. I think voice commands for radio ops is just such a useful feature - especially with HMD devices when your access to the keyboard is quite limited - that it would catch on pretty well if there was a seamlessly working, simple implementation available. I would appreciate it if you let me know what you think of the idea or point me at more recent discussions on the subject if you know of any.

Sounds fantastic! This is what DCS needs so badly right now. Just one note; you mentioned that the moving ground war is like making a strategy game, but in reality it isn't. At least the all-important first step isn't. Let's take for example the Il-2 DCG. It simply has a list of units it spawns at the ends of a simple node-route track that is usually a simple line with maybe a few intersections. A bit like this: o-o-o-o=8=o-o-o. When a unit is destroyed it's placed back into the pool and beore each mission there's a random chance it will respawn at one end of the node-route network. During each mission the units move towards the opponent's end (unless there's still some abstract infantry strength left in the current node). And that's pretty much it. Sounds deceptively simple, right? Something you'd program in a few moments? Well yes, because it's probably true. Most importantly, though, it works very well, providing thousands of hours of fun for our group since years ago. Of course there's a lot of room for improvement, but the DCG system is a very good starting point. And despite being so damned simple, it really really does work even though you probably wouldn't believe it just reading the description. I'm not saying you need to do the ground war thing right now or even that you need to do it like the Il-2 DCG does. My point is that when you do start thinking about the ground war it's vital to not try to reach too high to begin with, it's the best way to burn yourself out and make sure the project dies. A very very simple system can work and provide lots of room to grow - and that growing is much more fun and painless when you have already kind of reached the goal and the campaign engine does what it's supposed to. After that it should be much easier on your sanity to set yourself ambitious long term goals, because you can just build on the already working system bit by bit. I've seen too many of these projects and especially the wonderful people behind them burn out because of too ambitious initial goals. Ideally you'll one day notice that you've done a couple of games' worth work, but it all just kind of happened and you had fun all along by continuously reaching some rewarding mini-goals. Anyway best of luck with your effort, a good dynamic campaign (engine) is the best thing that could possibly happen to DCS.

Dynamic campaigns, BOTH single AND multiplayer.

Basically yes. That's a pretty neat picture by the way, how did you approximate the effect? Additionally stereoscopic rendering (which is becoming a thing with Oculus & co.) will make vertical cockpit supports look much thinner. Everyone can try sitting in a (stationary!) car, cover one eye and observe the apparent width of the vertical supports change depending on the number of eyes used. That's of course an entirely different issue than the refraction stuff in this thread, but I think it's important to realize that simply creating a model that is accurate to the drawings may result in a view that's not even very close to what you would get in reality.

That Zaelu's image shows a far more massive difference than I imagined. Whether or not something is done about this issue is another matter altogether, but anyone with contacts to ED please ask them to do that refraction rendering in 3D max and then do another shot from the exact same position with regular rendering. That would be a fantastic and unique opportunity to demonstrate to the community just what they've been talking about for years. I mean something like 35% of the Internet is now filled with FW bars. Just PLEASE do it. It's totally worth it. The video is wonderful, but it's not an exact replica of a 190 cockpit - but luckily ED now have one. And then try the same thing with the P-51, it should also be affected to a degree as are most other WW2 planes, especially the La series. And then we can move on to discussing the effect of stereo view on vertical beams...

I really really hope that it is - and it could well be, but it's by no means certain.

The real question is why do simulators have a single player mode at all anymore? Basically multiplayer mode simply means sharing data and replicating events across a network between all the participants there is really no need for a single player mode at all. It's just a case where the number of participants is precisely one, meaning that you don't have to send data to anyone. Thus if you make all your stuff on top of this mode all the content is automatically available to every pilot out there regardless of if they like to fly single or multi. Of course this isn't up to Leatherneck, it's more of an Eagle Dynamics thing. However, I believe Leatherneck want to create exciting experiences in addition to wonderful planes (and this is probably something they've already thought about) maybe it's time to bug ED a bit about the issue. No more separation! ALL the content to ALL the pilots! To the barricades! Or to the nearest sofa with a fridge full of beer next to it, whichever is less trouble!

It's good to have this as a sticky, but how about adding these options to the default controller file so that we don't have to replace it after each patch?

Nevermind I screwed up.

Otherwise great work.

With a suitably gradual onset of braking when you are not using an axis it should be possible to steer by using a non-analogue brake. Also it's quite possible to have the brakes on an axis if you bind it to one of your toe brakes on the pedals many of us have. Actually in this kind of cases I would like the both toe brakes to work so that the amount of braking would be determined by whichever brake is pushed down harder. Thus it would in practice still be a lot like regular toe brakes. Not completely realistic, but we're not in a real plane anyway, there are few sticks around with analog brake levers in them and probably fewer people willing to change the hardware every time they jump into a different plane so smart compromises can be very useful.

I think it's just over-effectiveness of the rudder at low speeds or too little friction in the front wheel mechanism (if friction is 0, any small force, even one over a rudder at 10km/h is easily enough to turn the wheel). As mentioned earlier the suspension stuff is being looked at anyway, so maybe this behavior will change as well.

One more reason for my parents to be proud of me, I was the only one to submit a drawing to a drawing contest and lost.

What? Did I misunderstand something?

Note that the only true fix is adding both skins as options!

I think it would be nice to have a sound option for "realistic in-cockpit" stuff (as one of the volume sliders) that would sound a bit like the video below except of course somewhat muffled by the helmet and hearing protection and perhaps augmented by the tactile stuff like rolling on tarmac, gear movement etc. Then you could separately set stuff like button clicks, external sounds (and external needs to be separate settings for actual external views and in-cockpit) to suit your needs. Currently I can't seem to get a good balance that would allow for some muffled engine sound (I really don't like it how the external engine sound cuts when you go above Mach 1.0), airflow over the canopy etc. Or is that just because engine sound in general might be a bit bugged now? I don't know if the MiG team can do anything about this, but anyways, just came to my mind when I was flying the MiG the other night.

Wow if 60k removed polygons constitutes about 20% of the total, that means the total is somewhere around 300k, which to me sounds like a frightening number of triangles for any computer to calculate. How does this compare to other DCS planes, what kind of numbers are we talking about with for example A-10C or Huey?

Fuel pumps maybe? For some reason they tend to be making a lot of noise, I don't know if that's intentional but I think under most conditions the airflow on the canopy should be more pronounced than it is now. Possibly. Maybe.

Is the Finnish cockpit very different from the one we have in game right now? I think there might be for example different navigation instruments etc. Long time ago when I missed the funding campaign I thought it would've been great to have the Finnish cockpit included in the project, I wonder if there's any chance of that happening ever? There are plenty of resources available to model it (I think), I wonder how much work (& money) would be required to create one? Maybe that would be enough incentive to include Finland as a playable country as well.

Maybe this might be the correct place for manual related stuff, tried to look, but didn't find a better place (which is not an indication that one does not exist). I will start with a huge massive deal breaker: Page 58: Barometric altimeter The text says "The small needle point to an altitude in km (scale 3) while the big needle points tens of m (1)." 1) shouldn't it be "small needle pointS" 2) Am I missing something or is the scale for big needle more like hundreds of meters, not tens? No problem guys, you're welcome everyone, thank you thank you, seriously it's no big deal even though I just single handedly rescued the entire project from the brink of a disaster.