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Reticuli

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Everything posted by Reticuli

  1. When I was cleaning my pedals, the big center tension knob slid off for the first time -- I think from the suction of the vacuum or something. I slid it back on, and the tension adjustment still works fine. However, the centering is now gone. If I move the pedals, they stay wherever you leave them. Any ideas what's going on and how to fix this?
  2. When compared to every other adversary helo in DCS, regardless of whether they're flown by a human or AI.
  3. That gives me a sense of painting plastic model airplanes or doing new liveries for MS flight simulator series, and that's stuff I never got into. Never built & painted model airplanes as a kid and I've got X-Plane modded acfs that literally have no paint job... hah hah. I fixate on how well the helo will work with mass consumer HOTAS & pedals (I'm pretty forgiving of that to a point considering my use of PPJoy & GlovePIE) and can it be used to play effectively in a game that's entertaining & engaging. I mean, if the 3D model from the outside looked ugly or the real thing was manufactured by ISIS wouldn't matter to me. How does it fly, can I fly it naturally with the gear I've got, and can it fight well without being either too dominating or being dominated too much. That sweet balancing act is when you get situations where you just barely succeed through extreme focus and ingenuity, rather than it becoming just boring, rote procedurals. Some of the switchology I can take or leave, actually, as I don't bother with long start-ups or shut-downs. I might even go so far as to say I'd prefer the single-seat version mostly because I'm usually not interested in buddying up or having to change seats frequently. Might... If given a choice and you could do all the functions in the pilot seat of the 52, had the FLIR, etc, then obviously I'd be loving the 52. In EECH 1.16.2 the only reason I am more likely to fly in the 52 than the 50 when I have a choice is because someone tried to replicate DCS BS's drab EO target system and arguably way overdid it to the point you're more likely to find targets with the EECH Ka-50 HMS than with the EO. The weird thing, though, is they're calling it the N model and handicapping it like that with a really washed out FLIR that won't let you lock targets until you're right on top of them and getting shot down. But I digress...
  4. I don't see how multiplayer vs single player has anything to do with it.
  5. I don't see how there's going to be gameplay balance with the existing helos if the DCS Apache gets the Longbow radar.
  6. The 52 would make sense if the Apache gets its radar, but otherwise I'd probably be content with the ka-50 just having better nightvision camera or, better yet, IR on the EO sensor and more predictable target acquisition, especially for airborne ones. The Iglas would be icing on the cake. I also find that helos in general aren't as stealthy at low altitude or near objects as they could be.
  7. Now I know why I used the word "spring"... because it was previously used in the thread. I really just meant to ask about the centering point. Anyway, controls magnetic lock stuff makes more sense. I'm gathering now that the centering of the pedal tension is therefore moving around on it upon trimmer button release. So you could be 50% to the left, it'd hold that, require more pressure to push past, and tend return to that trimmed spot as you ease up pressure until the trimmer button is held down again when it has no particular favored 'centering' point and just a little resistance to movement. It looks like the only way hardcore players are going to get truly faithful recreation is with a force-feedback cyclic and force-feedback pedals. And I can't even tell for sure if the collective's got something going on, too, as they talk about the system ignoring movement of that within a certain threshold when altitude hold is on. I wouldn't be surprised if its collective gets a centering point during altitude hold and commands level changes like the old Penn State experiments with using a normal joystick for collective with vertical hold in GenHel running on MatLab for FlightGear. Regardless, FFB pedals seems an unlikely market, let alone collectives. Heck, forget faithful recreation, just not being a convoluted mess of a control system is going to be a challenge for the vast majority of people at home. Users are having enough issues with just the Hind, and that's more straightforward. The Blackshark has its quirks, too, just with centering or pressure sticks, and it doesn't even have the complication of a tail rotor and lack of tail-mixing to worry about with centering pedals. I'm definitely thinking ED ought to go with an optional RC/AH & newer-style of yaw modes. That'd certainly be a more useful alternative available control scheme than the 'arcade' mode Blackshark uselessly has. Probably 99% of DCS helo users would go with such new modes. The 1% of users with self-damped pro long-pole cyclics and also pedals without springs can obviously just go into the simulated Apache's MFD menu where you can turn off the force trim system completely, though.
  8. So it's got a variable spring 'centering' that changes the center position based the force trim state? Hmm. Seems like an odd hybrid solution. Guardians should have moved over to that Enhanced Apache stuff they were working on. Guess the Army is going to have to wait for an X2 derivative or Invictus for the really good stuff.
  9. I'm assuming now that the Apache pedals do not center but that they have at least a little bit of tension in them so they aren't going to flop around on their own. Correct? DCS Blackshark's oddly-named 'Flight Director' mode with all the SAS channels on seems to have rate-damping to slow the rotations, but they're very, very weak... like unbelievably, especially on the yaw. I rarely fart around with the force trim and trim release on the heading when FD is off. I might disable the yaw SAS channel when FD is off or just use turn-to-target. Sometimes I'd just toggle the yaw channel to reset that diamond/caret thing. But, heck, I rarely use the manual trimmer button. If I'm really in a situation where FD off is screwing stuff up and I'm not in a turning-to-target sort of situation, I turn FD on and just deal with it being looser with the autotrim PIE script.
  10. With only these three helo trimmer modes available, even when functioning properly which they may not be yet on Hind, it's always going to be at least a little awkward with centering sticks and centering pedals (or twist on the flight stick). Default and centering helo trimmer modes are what you centering folks will have to put up with, and neither is without its quirks. There's just no way around that without either an outright fourth rate-command / attitude-hold mode or at least a crude auto trimmer feedback-style thing. If you can't get used to one of these existing modes enough, you don't buy FFB (use default first trimmer mode), or remove the springs or buy some expensive pro helo gear (use third mode for either), you'd instead need to use an outside intermediary utility & script to do the auto trimming to make it any more natural. And that's just going to fix the DCS cyclic issues. I don't think I've ever actually tried an auto trimming script for the yaw, rather I just used a yaw trim axis on a thumb rotary on my throttle for the Huey and Gazelle when I tried them. For the yaw without using scripts, if you have this Hind SAS yaw channel on I assume releasing trimmer is going to clear that designation. If you're using the SAS yaw channel this way, I would guess you do not want the Rudder Trimmer on in options, as having them both on with centering pedals would create a particular nightmare. If you have centering pedals or a twist on your stick without any other mitigation method, you're going to have to decide whether you want the SAS doing the yaw stuff or you want the Rudder Trimmer to be just holding the virtual background pedal position with that yaw SAS channel off, and in either case you're stuck awkwardly fiddling with a trimmer release button for something: the heading designation or the virtual background rudder trim. Neither is going to be as fun as it could be and not how helos with centering controls work. Yeah, they also have sophisticated digital FBW like an F-16, but the Hind doesn't have centering controls, either. So pick your poison, Realism Police. At this point, though, I think ED just needs to drop these dang three trimmer modes & the awful Rudder Trimmer check box, and instead give two selection drop downs: one for cyclic, one for pedals. Cyclic choices would be a new RC/AH (basically an auto-trimmer), FFB (current default cyclic trimmer), and Pro (current third no-trimmer) modes to choose from. Pedals would be Centering (basically limited-authority auto-tail-mixing that doesn't require manual SAS heading designation) and Non-Centering (old school) to choose from. No one will need the current second centering cyclic trimmer mode. No one will need Rudder Trimmer. Boom, everyone would have their trimmer needs met, and certainly there'd be less frustration and confusion among DCS helo users than there are now. I would bet not a single person in the world misses using the current default or centering trimmer modes with centering (or pressure) joysticks or having to fight the SAS (or rudder trimmer) with centering pedals (or twist). Anyone wanna claim you'd actually miss the current first two cyclic trimmer modes and you don't have either FFB or pro helo flight controls?
  11. As far as I've ever read, only the bob-up mode shows that and it's based on when you enter that mode with the symbology switch, rather than when you released the trimmer. I've never seen information there's release trim symbology for the heading that's being held on the Apaches, rather the heading hold otherwise seemed intuitively based on when you stop the yaw rotation at lower speeds and it 'captures' the new heading. I thought at low speeds the pilot flying pushes past a threshold with the pedals to override that captured heading and induce a yaw. Stop the yaw, and again it's back to capturing this new heading. Maybe I'm getting the Apache manuals mixed up with the ADOCS, LHX, and Comanche whitepapers' flight laws. You're telling me at low speeds if you apply the pedals on the Apache to induce a yaw past that threshold from the current heading it's holding, rotate the aircraft 90 degrees, halt the yaw rate with the pedals, and don't apply additional anti-torque it's going to try and rotate back to the original heading 90 degrees to the other direction because you didn't manually-designate a new SAS heading? I'm not exactly sure what you mean by holding a coordinated profile in the context you're saying. If it's holding a heading, the aircraft is not coordinating with yaw based on any other input axis. Above a certain airspeed the auto turn coordination ought to mix-in yaw to center the ball when you apply roll instead of holding a heading anymore. Maybe you mean this in some other context, like just attitude & heading hold authority %? But come on, man, the DCS Blackshark FD mode heading hold authority is WEAK. The Apache manuals do talk about the pedals in relation to the force trim state, though, so I'm wondering if indeed it's either ignoring what the pedals are doing within a certain distance from when you last released the trimmer or if it's doing something with the pedal's tension to prevent movement... and then doing its own SAS rate damping or attitude/heading hold with this lack of new recognized pedal input.
  12. Not sure what you mean by "actual' but I'm increasingly understanding that future modules will be using 2.7 and above.
  13. Ok, that is very interesting. So the cyclical main rotor action would completely freeze in orientation at zero pressure. Thank you. On the pressure vs percentages, that should only matter at the pressure gauges vs the full pressure. Going by just a freeze of the pilot controls, it's for reducing the pressure and either how you drop some other set of values or convert it when it's shown on the gauge. You're just trying to crudely reduce the shown pressure until control become degraded (including completely frozen) based on amount of pilot controls handling and/or other factors. On the cliff being higher up and not directly related to controls usage (an 'other factor'), I don't see why that would be an issue, rather it means to me it's a bit faster and changes what's shown on those gauges when. You have rough controls increasing pressure drop until that cliff point, and at the cliff point it drops off rapidly. Still seems easily doable. As for the two separate hydraulics systems... you then need these pressure loss behaviors on each one separately, right, and then if both fail, that's when controls degrade, as you said if the mains is lost the common takes over automatically and if the common 'backup' is lost you're already on the mains? So that would mean you have two hydraulics systems that potentially incur damage to them separately. Each look they have their own separate gauges below the hydraulic valve lamps.
  14. If I'm on only one engine I take advantage of ground effect and translational lift by going low to the ground and above ETL speed but not so fast I'm above optimum ground effect. Not a bad idea, as others have said, to jettison stores. Thankfully DCS BS has jettison, though I've rarely ever done that, to be honest. Go easy on the collective. It's hard to know in the sim if there is damage to common systems that might affect both engines or if you just over-stress the other engine, but on one engine I usually try to be gentle on the collective and RTB. Sometimes I make it back, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I don't bother trying to RTB and just keep on fighting. The constantly weird rotor RPM after engine loss indicating damaged governor is very interesting info.
  15. Ok. If you want it that way there's no reason you still can't just have pressure drop from controls usage using the same math but instead do nothing with the controls authority part until pressure actually reaches zero and that's when controls authority disappears (not freezing your physical sim controls, obviously, but the red controls indicator box). Or you could even start a short & rapid but still gradual controls authority degradation phase when the pressure finally reaches 10% remaining for just a brief period before it goes out completely... even less time to zero if you give into the temptation to really push them hard to compensate for the sudden loss of authority. Nonetheless, I strongly suspect when you lose all authority the cyclic effect on the blades as they go around is not going to remain as it was but is going to go to an untrimmed & centered state as if nothing cyclical is happening anymore on the main rotor. The long-pole cyclic in real life might freeze, but even if it froze in a skewed position, it seems like the loss of control on the main rotor should simply keep the current collective pitch state minus the cyclic portion... correct me if I'm wrong. Doesn't the cyclical action require hydraulics pressure to occur at all or is this current cyclical pitch changing independent of the hydraulics as long as the pilot's input isn't changing the swash-plate angle?
  16. That's true on aircraft where there's direct connections between the inputs & control surfaces and the hydraulics are then supplementing alongside. If I recall correctly, the A-10 doesn't need its hydraulics. Even in aircraft that can't continue flying much without the hydraulics, they're not usually out immediately and it's still often a gradual reduction of pressure up until that tipping point occurs when it drops rapidly. This is the case in both hydraulic fluid leaks and pump failures. I have no idea what happens with fluid contamination, but I don't think sims need to model every scenario and subsystem in order do a fairly-convincing and interesting recreation of such failures. The sim currently certainly registers 'hydraulics damage', right? So just have the hydraulics pressure drop faster as a result of rough handling. 90% of normal pressure could even equal 90% cyclic control authority. The cyclic at any deflection away from center would have a slight reduction rate % of pressure over time... because it's cyclical and requires some hydraulics work to keep doing its thing. You then get a certain reduction % of pressure for each swing of any control axis from one extreme to another (-1 to 1 or vice versa) and it's a linear fraction of that when less. I think they could start in testing with every full opposing swing being just a direct 2% reduction (1 - -1) and then let the fractions be just linear proportional. Let's ignore the Y aspect trig for a moment and just look at one axis: you move from X as -0.2 to 0.1 and you've just instantaneously dropped 0.3% further pressure over that other default rate that's occurring in the background from just having the cyclic off center. That default rate could be as simple as like 1% of the trig distance the cyclic is from its center per second or something, so a max of 1% of 1%-ish per second or max of 0.01%/sec or 6% loss in 10 minutes if the cyclic was full forward. So you have this slow cyclic positional loss and the aforementioned loss from being dynamic on any of the controls. I have no idea if these values are too high or low, but I'm sure ED would quickly figure out if they need double or half or something to make it reasonably-playable for a while if you're gentle. If their current damage tracking is based on values, that could figure into it. You have a high damage value hit on this system, the losses could be greater and faster than a lower damage hit. Now, the 'control authority' in this sense I would think would be absolute cyclic position, such that degraded authority in the cyclic is defined as inputs resulting in less translated actual cyclic influence on the main rotor for a given input as if you didn't deflect as far as you think, and in the case of collective or pedals degraded authority would be less dynamism such that it's correspondingly slower to respond to the changes you make. If the real shark can't do much when it's out of pressure, then when it runs out I hope you're on a good glide into a safe landing and the gear is already down. The cyclic I'd assume would behave like it was centered (not necessarily a good thing) and I presume you'd just have the collective and pedals' influence frozen in their current position.
  17. How hard is it to reduce control authority based on hydraulic pressure and have pressure fall faster when hydraulics are damaged based on how hard and frequently you move the controls? Obviously at a certain point it's going to feed back and go to zero pretty fast, and certainly helos and unstable digital FBW fix-wing planes are going to use it up faster than a stable fixed-wing aircraft, but seems pretty easy to do beyond just having the wheel brakes use it up.
  18. I believe in FD mode the yaw SAS channel was just a weak rotation rate damper regardless of anything else... at least when the rudder trimmer was off in options. In non-FD mode, I recall it used to be that with that heading type switch next to the SAS channel buttons in its middle position essentially to 'neither' then you end up in a situation where when the rudder trimmer in options is off you had to toggle the yaw channel to set a new heading diamond. At least that's what I did, but I was also often not using the in-sim trimmer and instead doing autotrimming with PPJoy and GlovePIE. Maybe I was toggling the heading SAS channel simply because I didn't want to use the in-sim trimmer but still wanted to use non-FD mode sometimes. It looks like at least later Blackshark has releasing the trim button now always reset the heading diamond when in non-FD mode and that switch position is in the middle even if the rudder trimmer option is off. Not sure, then, why they're still giving rudder trimmer as an option in DCS World, though, unless that's now an override that allows the heading caret designation all the time... possibly even in FD mode? Yeah, that makes sense some of this is influenced by whether there is actually even a waypoint selected in the PVI, since if there's no waypoints it has no heading or track to turn to in non-FD mode. My recommendation, though, is not to clear the waypoints on the PVI just so you can fly manually. If you want to fly manually and also manually set a heading for the SAS to yaw to when releasing the trimmer button, I also think they need to be in non-FD mode, either because FD mode is still just rate damping (which personally I prefer) or because its authority to turn to that designated heading is too weak. It sure looks like FD mode is just an unfortunately-weak rate damping, though, and the caret is just informational as to the non-FD mode heading designation you're not using while actually in FD mode, but I could be wrong. Edit: Yikes. The rudder trimmer option is holding a pedal position and indeed effectively overrides every other behavior including FD mode's yaw, but not within the shark's own SAS. Rather it's holding virtual pedals in the background as seen with the red controls indicator box (ctrl+return). I don't recommend it, for one because it's coded similar to Dodosim's 206 crude cyclic trimmer, meaning if it's trimmed to an extreme, you first have to trim back to the middle before you can go further. Now that I'm looking at this again, I can see the entire helo trim system in DCS is coded like this. There are better ways to do it, though with the Dodosim I admittedly use a manual GlovePIE trimmer button for just the Y pitch and have a rotary for the X roll trim. Maybe the rudder trimmer option for DCS helos is still mildly useful on the tail rotor helos that lack any mechanical auto tail-mixing or SAS/AFCS, or on the shark if you've got pedals with horrendously-strong spring centering and you like flying with the SAS heading channel off. Still, even if you're a masochist, I think you're probably better off just using GlovePIE (or something else) to create a yaw trim rotary on your a throttle/collective to supplement your pedals. In non-SAS/AFCS helos, a GlovePIE script could still do this manual controls magnetic lock style trimming better than DCS currently is. I'm not entirely sure anymore if DCS BS is doing manual attitude hold designation in non-FD mode when the cyclic is trimmed within certain limits (i.e. you're not inducing a rotational moment when the trimmer button is released that overwhelms the attitude hold authority) or is just a much stronger rate damping authority than FD mode with no real SAS attitude hold at all. For sure in non-FD mode with that aforementioned switch in the middle position, the sim certainly designates a specific heading with a given amount of yaw authority to turn towards it. Assuming, just to be safe, you were in FD mode and had that newest third cyclic trim option (joystick without springs and ffb = basically no trimmer) selected under options, then the following might be useful for those who don't want to bang up against pre-trimmed cyclic limits, and pedal stuff could be added, too. //X and Y manual helo trimmer (I'm using X65F and pedals now) if HeldDown(joystick2.button4, 0.25) then { //this is my pinky button C var.x = 0 var.y = 0 var.lag = 0 } if var.lag = 0 and released(joystick2.button4) then { var.x = EnsureRange(var.x + Joystick2.x + Joystick2.x, -1, 1) var.y = EnsureRange(var.y + Joystick2.y + Joystick2.y, -1, 1) var.lag = 1 } if (var.lag = 1) and ((abs(Joystick2.y) > .01) or (abs(Joystick2.x) > .01)) then { PPJoy1.Analog0 = var.x PPJoy1.Analog1 = var.y } else var.lag = 0 if var.lag = 0 then { PPJoy1.Analog0 = EnsureRange(var.x + Joystick2.x + Joystick2.x, -1, 1) PPJoy1.Analog1 = EnsureRange(var.y + Joystick2.y + Joystick2.y, -1, 1) } PPJoy1.Analog2 = Joystick2.z //collective using HOTAS throttle PPJoy1.Analog3 = Joystick2.xrot //currently ministick X PPJoy1.Analog4 = Joystick2.yrot //currently ministick Y var.nlzrots = sign(Joystick1.zrot) //pedal nonlinear curve var.nlzrotm = abs(Joystick1.zrot)^(1.5) var.nlzrot = var.nlzrotm * var.nlzrots if var.nlzrot = 0 then { var.nlzrot = -1 else PPJoy1.Analog5= var.nlzrot - (Joystick2.xrot * .5) } PPJoy1.Analog6 = Joystick2.slider //currently thumb rotary
  19. There's an option in DCS for the trimmer to more often affect the heading. It's near the trimmer option (with three choices) in the settings, if I recall correctly. I believe you also need FD off and may need to have those two switches near the SAS channels in the appropriate positions, otherwise you might end up just with your heading channel trying to follow the waypoints. Without the aforementioned option active under settings, I believe you need to toggle the heading SAS channel off and on to get it to set a new heading caret position. Again if I'm recalling this correctly, I believe that option setting lets the trimmer release/set button reset the caret all the time in non-FD mode with the appropriate switch positions. I personally don't like trimming the heading channel, and think this should only be a strong rotation rate damper channel except when you have the route or heading following explicitly activated that would normally be called 'flight director' in ordinary, correctly-translated aircraft with full autopilots. Right now the FD mode is essentially acting on the shark like a kind of Control Wheel Steering mode that can be used to bypass the route/WP-following full autopilot, and substitutes the full attitude guidance with some unfortunately-weak rotation rate damper channels. In contrast, the clunky manual caret designation of the heading, the route/WP-following, and the turn-to-target stuff is all much higher authority than FD mode.
  20. No helo in the world uses a spring-loaded centering joystick or a pressure stick and does manual trimmer & trim release by button. Those are either long-pole cyclics or force-feedback sticks that use manual trimmer & trim release buttons. All helos that had/have a joystick or pressure stick use one core method: rate-command / attitude-hold, and sometimes a few other flight law modes to choose from for wing-level hovering, IAS-command cruising, etc. ED currently does not give the logical option of this RC/AH AFCS mode on its helos for users with centering joysticks or pressure sticks. What they instead provide is the default mode that does the bounce after you manually release and set the trim until the stick is moved back to center where it's not attempting to add to the trim state any longer, a second newer mode that ignores the input after the trimmer button is released until the stick goes back to its center, and the newest trimmer mode which is no trimmer release/set by button at all and is intended for people with the springs completely removed from the previously-centering joystick, a professional long-pole cyclic with its own damping or trimmer-hold mechanism, or if you're using something like PPJoy & GlovePIE to control a dynamically-auto-trimming virtual joystick intermediary between your HOTAS & pedals and the sim... which is admittedly sort of complicated. None of these three available helo trimmer options in DCS is currently both optimal and simple for joystick & pressure stick users, though.
  21. Apaches have hover hold, altitude hold, and separate heading hold modes that can all be enabled. The heading hold mode is usually left on, and you push past a threshold with the pedals to induce a yaw when it's engaged. You do not designate a heading with some trimmer or by toggling the SAS channel, and the channel yaw authority is more than sufficient for the task to hold a heading when your foot is off the pedal, unlike the goofy and anemic one in the DCS implementation of the Ka-50. Auto turn coordination (yaw when you bank) also begins to feed-in above a certain forward IAS.
  22. The vast majority of users (I'd say very close to 100%) will have standard spring-loaded centering or pressure sticks, and only a teeny tiny number will have either 1) professional helo-sim long-pole cyclics with built-in damping or a physical mechanical trimmer or 2) a FFB stick of which very few models are even manufactured anymore and many that previously were lacked reliability. The primary control law used in helos with a normal joystick or pressure stick is simple: rate-command / attitude-hold (a.k.a. RC/AH), and maybe with some optional IAS or velocity command or wings-leveling modes for various other situations. Any other weird hybrid method such as bouncing from additive manual force trim designation summing with the current stick input until you recenter or ignoring the stick input after manual force trimmer until you recenter is clunky and ill-advised. How the real Apache does it is largely moot other than possibly as rarified settings options for those with pro long-pole (damped or mechanically-trimmed) cyclics or a FFB stick, because, again, most users will not have the required hardware to properly utilize such a flight control scheme, anyway, and the combined result they will experience will be even further from reality or even reasonable practicality. This is why Janes Longbow Anthology scored a slam dunk with their joystick scheme after they threw out the other method in early testing... not that I'm advocating ED only do RC/AH. They should have three modes: 1) default RC/AH for joy & pressure sticks, 2) a manual force trimmer mode for either FFB stick users or masochists who enjoy awkwardly manual force trimming helos with a centering joystick, and 3) a non-RC/AH and non-force-trimming mode for users of expensive pro long pole cyclics that have their own built-in deflection hold or just people who chose to remove their spring from their joystick and like to keep their hand on it all the time (good luck with that). Before you disregard this you need to ask yourself, what's more realistic, forcing (no pun intended) an antiquated manual trim system on users with completely the wrong control hardware, or utilizing a methodology that literally every helicopter (experimental or otherwise) that has used a joystick or pressure stick actually used?
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