Sickdog

Just a quick note- I tried the gear handle out, and with your invaluable help DeadMeat, it worked on my first attempt! I wired it up EXACTLY the way you told me to, and the part I would never have figured out on my own is the "Advanced" mode of DCS-BIOS and the two pin line of code, so THANK YOU! Even the gear lights are lighting up great without having to do anything other than wire up PIN B and adding the line of code for the gear light. Unreal. I absolutely love this! Now I'm just waiting for my parts to come in from Amazon to wire up and power the Solenoid, hopefully that's as straight forward as the rest so far. I can't wait to mount this baby to my Monstertech and start slapping the gear up and down... Now I want to do the hook lever like you did too. One thing at a time.

DeadMeat, I owe you a beer if you're ever in Los Angeles! THANK YOU! So I've already been experimenting with DCS BIOS, got up and running super fast and have a template (printed out panel taped to cardboard) with Landing Light, Hook Bypass, Launch Bar, and Anti-Skid on/off toggle switches working great with an Elegoo R3 Aurdino (starter kit I bought from Amazon for about $39 USD) and a temporary landing gear lever using an analog joystick (from starter kit). I even went crazy at the hardware store, just playing with ideas to test out, and purchased a $0.99 USD light switch and attached a small metal tube to it to temporarily try out an arrestor hook. I couldn't believe it all worked the first time with DCS-BIOS, unreal how easy this is for someone without much experience like myself. So long story short, I've been getting very familiar with Aurdino/DCS-Bios while awaiting the gear lever, so I feel ready to tackle this. The info you gave in this last post is the missing link on wiring it up and getting the solenoid to work, so I can't thank you enough! I'm on a work trip tomorrow and in a hotel for a couple days, I might bring some of this with me to play with in the hotel room... so stay tuned!

It arrived today! So, the adventure begins... got my Tornado gear lever today and now down to business of figuring out how to wire this baby up and get it working like DeadMeat’s. I’ve attached photos here, but does the wiring diagram look like the one you have DM? Seems pretty minimal in terms of information, and don’t know how to read it anyway. I will be able to get the help of my coworker aircraft technicians in their shop at my work hangar, but rather figure it out without their help if possible. Edit- wow, I just discovered the letters written in micro print by the pins, maybe I can figure this out! More to come....

You sir, are a God!! That’s absolutely amazing, I can’t believe how realistic you’ve got it. Thanks for sharing the code with everyone, DM. This community is amazing.

Thanks for looking and your input, Hans. I shall know a little more when the lever arrives in the coming weeks. I’d like to see if I can have the WOW/solenoid be triggered by radar altimeter (if possible) instead of a function of airspeed. Anyone have any comment on that? Seems like that might work better for something like the harrier, for example.

Oh boy, hope I didn’t waste money on this lever! Well, I’m sure I’ll have more questions once I get my Arduino starter kit tomorrow, so I’ll be back here again soon. Thanks DeadMeat (and anyone else chiming in) for your help!

Hi guys, I think this is just the coolest setup ever, especially since it’s using a real tornado gear lever and able to use the down lock mechanism! I’m a newbie to DCS BIOS and Arduino, but I’m tenacious when I want to learn something and hope to recreate this myself. I’ve ordered an Arduino starter kit off of amazon, some on/off switches (to practice with and maybe make some other usable switches for DCS) and also ordered this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aircraft-ZE158-1986-Panavia-Tornado-F-3-Undercarriage-U-C-Selector-Switch-K0653/323812044017?epid=21009529098&hash=item4b64b3acf1:g:OiUAAOSw7Kta6vYl Can anyone tell if this should function like Dead Meat’s amazing setup if I wire it up properly? Thanks guys, looking forward to a fun project and some conversations on here!

Interesting... yes, it works in that mission you linked to. I'll analyze more, but be good to know if your mission linked in the first post of this thread (and recovery tanker) are having issues or not. Thanks F-Frank

Ok thanks, I'll try it. But if you or anyone else can test if the helo is still able to rescue (when convenient) to confirm or contradict my observation, would be much appreciated!

So I was just trying both your rescue mission that is linked to the first post of this thread, and the same with the recovery tanker mission. But to answer your question, at first I downloaded the latest MOOSE patch 2.4.13... then I tried extracting the lua from your missions and using those... that's when I tested your missions and didn't see the chopper rescue any longer when I eject or crash within 15NM of the carrier (I was testing by both crashing and also ejecting right next to the carrier, and farther out as well). I remember seeing the helo rescue in one of my own missions (using the newer rescue Moose module) as recently as last month, and noticed without making any changes to the mission, the helo won't rescue even in that mission. I did just reinstall DCS, would that make a difference? The strange thing is the rescue helo is doing everything else correctly, so I know MOOSE is working/script is loading. Thanks for the super fast reply by the way! :thumbup:

I've noticed the helo won't rescue ejected or crashed aircraft anymore. Anybody else seeing this?

A bit late for this question but is this for stable or Open Beta or both? Hopefully open beta...

Name: Sickdog/(and potential RIO Lazy8 ) Squadron: Three Amigos Country: USA

Awesome, thanks for the acknowledgment and info!

I’m resurrecting this puppy from deep in the bowels of page 7.... Any acknowledgement from HB on fixing this? (Ok don’t throw rocks at me, I haven’t updated yet today but didn’t see any mention of this in the change log so assuming it’s not fixed internally yet... sorry if it is!) But assuming it’s not fixed, isn’t this an easy one to tackle? Gonna try tired of renaming these files update after update to prevent a hang when exiting DCS. Thanks!

Edit- Had weird behavior trying to save the file, finally got it working. Sorry all, Mods please delete. Thanks. anybody else having issues with latest update (for those of you that comment out sanitizeModule('os')? I've got a script that I run that writes to a file using system time and date (for LSO grades) and it no longer works after the latest update. I've triple checked that I've re-commented out this line in MissionScripting.lua, but keep getting the error that os.date is a nil value. This never happened before...

I’ll chime in that I had strange behavior as well when choosing a slot for the first time but then it’s fine after that. But something to check which I was able to track down: make sure you don’t have both a script running that adds radio menu items AND also adding radio menu items via the mission editor. I found when I removed the mission editor created radio menu items and only had my script added items, it behaved properly with the first time I occupied a slot at the beginning of a mission. Perhaps a bug? I dunno.

I certainly hope so! Anybody else having this issue? It’s quite annoying when using VR. We really rely on clicking as opposed to keyboard commands.

Yup- i have the same problem as well. I use the Warthog -> throttle mouse stick pushed-in as my “modifier” on all aircraft to double up my bindables (oculus VR guy here... anti keyboard!) and have had strange behavior with my modifier functionality. Can’t say for sure 100% no worky but I usually use the modifier to bring up my clickable cockpit cursor and that definitely doesn’t work in backseat in both SP and MP for me. Think the modifier does work when emulating a “left mouse press” but think that’s it. I’ll double check and update this when I get home.

Ugh, this was driving me crazy till I figured out what was happening in VR. Consider me another +1 on fixing this please. Thanks!

Nicholas, THANK YOU for the direct reply, and consideration for a future solution to this. I’m sure you’ve got much bigger fish to fry/bugs to squash/features to add, but seems like this solution would be fairly simple to implement and I’m pretty sure a lot of us VR guys will really appreciate this immersion addition! And as a side note if you’re reading this reply, coming from an IRL pilot that has been simming since the mid 80’s and was 10 when top gun came out, THANK YOU and your team for this incredible module. Seriously making my childhood dreams come to life years later. Keep up the great work, I’m blown away by this module.

Yup, just jumped into the 2D pit, RIO seat, and same exact thing. I see the lever, see the placards, but can’t interact with it. The manual says the controls for the canopy should be identical in front and back seat, and does appear that way but just no way to click the lever. And dawgie79, I did the same thing looking for it. I’ve smacked my VR mounted face into my center mounted joystick trying to look under the canopy rail for the lever. Haha.

I also experienced the exact same behavior when I made my own mission on the carrier for practice.

Right, think I mentioned that. The point of my post is asking if anyone knows if there’s a clickable lever like most other modules to open and close the canopy. The manual displays it but can’t get it to show anywhere your mouse can interact with. This is pretty important for VR people where you avoid keyboard presses as much as possible. And binding to a joystick button seems like a bad workaround as there’s plenty of more important bindings that take priority with limited buttons. Besides, it’s fun to click on stuff when starting up or shutting down. Come on VR community, no comments on this?

Sorry if I missed this somewhere can’t find answer when i do a search here... but is the canopy lever modeled to open and close the canopy? I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t implement a way to click on the lever instead of the key command Ctrl-C, most other modules have a way to click it. I’ve tried in VR, and 2-D, I see where placard is and maybe see the lever is (based on instruction manual they released) but my mouse cursor never shows anything i can manipulate. My buddy who isn’t in VR but uses Track-IR couldn’t find it either when we multiplayed, both separate aircraft and when we traded front and back seats. I also didn’t see it listed as an item not modeled yet in the heatblur mention of what they’re working on versus what we get on release day. I’m hoping I’m just doing something stupid but man I’ve tried and tried and tried. By the way, best DCS module hands down, been having a blast learning it today, getting into flat spins by accident, and boltering like crazy! Way to go Heatblur team, truly amazing work!