Sephyrius

Still crashing. Blue flag server, Persian Gulf, repeatable. Flew a SA342M, nothing happening for 20-odd minutes, crashed out of nowhere while en route. Tried again with a SA342L, same thing. Not gonna waste even more time on it than I already have. This makes the gazelle unplayable in multiplayer. dcs.log-20180630-204156.zip

Do you get somewhat normal flight without the curves set? I tried the curves after I found the "normal" FFB flying to be very jagged, with the chopper roughly snapping into certain angles rather than incrementally changing pitch/roll. Changing the curves only achieved to - as you say - introduce a massive deadzone, so instead of a small amount of nothing followed by a rough snap to an angle, it turned into a *very* long throw with nothing happening and then a *huge* snap to a sharp angle, making it even worse. I turned off FFB and used SimFFB instead, much better.

For whatever reason, the Gazelle trims based on heli attitude (look at the artificial horizon when you trim) rather than stick position, and will thus jerk the stick hard to the position it seems appropriate, which can often be completely different from what you'd expect. Very highly doubt it works like that IRL, with proper hydraulics you'd whiplash your stick hand that way. Since enabling FFB on my MSFB2 completely messes up the input, making flying horrendous, I've simply disabled FFB and instead run SimFFB with max damper, max friction, 25% centering spring (doesn't actually center the stick, just enough to hold it in place), and it works miles better while also enabling you to adjust the saturation (not just godawful curves). In short, a tiny community-made program made years and years ago for the KA50 is better than the Gazelle FFB.

Flying to a distant AO - 30 minutes. Scouting the area where cover is too far off, a bunch of AA vehicles are present and even a surprise destroyer docked - 5 minutes. Making a desperate run for the village to get in range - 5 minutes. Sitting behind a see-through building for 15 minutes just waiting for the AI to run out of ammo firing at you - Timeless. I knew the AI was bad with its instant spotting reactions, being able to partially see through trees (which makes way more sense than this) and whatnot, but now it's at the point of wondering "why even bother?". (On an unrelated positive note, I died shortly afterwards because I didnt know that power cables are collidable now, which is awesome!)

Having the same issue as others have mentioned. No deadzone added, no deadzone issues is any other airframe. But in the gazelle - "nothing, nothing, nothing, sudden change, holds that attitude as though suspended in the air". Any corrections results in the same response, so it's just holding certain angles, jerks to another one, holds it, on and on and on. Makes precision flying impossible and is the sole reason why, as much as I love the Gazelle for its wide-view cockpit, its daring playstyle, and the spectacle of low altitude flying in VR, I simply cannot stand flying it anymore.

...When/where was it stated that FFB was not intended to be added? Back when it was going to be freeware too? :mad: If I had known I would never have bought the module in the first place. Very disappointing. Given the complexity (or lack thereof) of the module you'd expect that for $50 it would be for the whole experience. Except for FBW planes (for obvious reasons), none of my modules lack FFB support, even the planes where it hardly even matters, so it's terrible that it would be omitted for an airframe where it's very useful to have. The Gazelle was the bloody reason I sought and bought a FFB2 in the first place...

I seem to have fixed it by deleting all of the SA342's controller input files and the DCS options.lua, which made it fly far better. Then of course, in my infinite wisdom (and because I use a Sidewinder FFB2) I enabled FFB to see if FFB is still broken, and the problem came back, remained even after unticking FFB, and only seemed alleviated by restarting the game. So as usual screwed over by either having FFB on for every other module I use, or off for the Gazelle (and having to use SimFFB to get anything other than a limp stick *giggity*), which really sucks since I fly almost exclusively in multi and tend to hop between different airframes all the time. By the way, the power-to-weight ratio of the thing is through the roof. With full fuel and 4x HOT3's it used to be "Oh god, at 90% torque I hope I can still hover once I leave ground effect" to being able to take off and hover with only 50% torque. It feels nice and all, I just hope it's accurate.

I hope it's just me being bugged, but I'm getting some rather strange flight behaviour. Whenever using the joystick to change the attitude it reacts with -nothing--nothing--sharp move to a fixed angle and stabilizes there-. Same thing happens again when trying to turn even further, essentially forcing you to pick between 5' angle increments and nothing inbetween, which makes precision flying virtually impossible. Really hope it's just me, but happens in both pitch and roll, with and without FFB checked, with AP/Gyro on and off, and with or without stick saturation changes.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, and haven't really been dogfighting with the Viggen much until 2.5 (low level flying love <3 ), so take it with a grain of salt. I've been frequenting the ACG Cold War server and had a metric crapton of instances where I fire off the RBs at Mig-21's and have them detonate prematurely with no discernible damage whatsoever. At a fairly close range, on level targets flying straight, both ones with afterburner on and some with it off. Especially frustrating when the same thing happens to the second RB as well, at which point you're usually sitting there going "Now what?!"... It's gotten to the point that the hit ratio is far better *if* they're trying to evade, which just seems counter-intuitive. Is it expected behaviour, a known issue or just me?

So...It's been 3 weeks since EDs last update. *Sigh*

Had the same issue, I "fixed" it by turning FFB off (sidewinder ffb2), it seems to be broken. With it off it handles as expected, made mag trim more annoying to use but worth it.

This. At the moment the AV8B is a *huge* hassle to use on a FARP. Start up -> Dump fuel for 5 mins for VTOL weight -> Hover taxi to the FARP -> Rearm + Refuel there -> Forced to take off from tiny grass strip on the FARP with trees right behind it (not the road where you spawn) severely limiting your weight restrictions. It's not exactly fun spending 10-15 minutes just to be able to take off at all with a high likelihood of getting shot down during it/just after takeoff.

Did you already look at the pocket guide info regarding this? Might want to fill in the blanks from there before fleshing it out further. As for carrier and short takeoff, for one the nozzle rotation on a carrier is just before you reach the lip of the "runway", whereas for STOL it's probably after reaching a desired speed state.

I don't quite understand what you're getting at. The 'auto-collective' binding toggles between being able to go up and down at all, or remaining level with zero input required. If it's set to remain level it will ignore any of your collective input. (In reality the pilot would maintain altitude while the gunner does the target acquisition, but in-game it's a death sentence because while you're busy selecting a missile and slewing the viviane around the heli slowly crept up just 2 meters and is now getting shot out of the sky.) In auto-hover pedal (anti-torque) input is also automated, even when slewing to heli to the camera.

I wish we'd have a keybinding/game mechanic option to simulate that. For example, the throttle stops at 'hover stop' and a simultaneous button press is required for it to move past hover stop towards reversing.

- There's an "auto-collective" keybinding - which I believe doesn't exist in reality - that allows you to lock or unlock the collective input during auto-hover for easy climbing/dipping while hovering. It's just there to make up for doing 2 jobs at once. - The missiles will launch at an upward angle initially, which allows you to fire at targets in cases where the Viviane camera is able to see the target but the rest of the heli is hidden from view. This allows you to take out pretty much anything - I've taken out a combined convoy of Tunguskas, Tors, Shilkas and T90s that way - but the drawback is that the missile also drops pretty low to compensate for being shot at that upward angle, so at shallow hills it will bound into the ground. - Some tanks can fire ATGM missiles through the barrel which have considerable distance, and standard weaponry from tanks, IFVs and so on are often dangerous, so if not facing anti-air missile threats it can definitely be better to fire on the move rather than stationary and do run-ins rather than pop-ups. - When not being slewed the camera has sort of a 'locking' function that keeps it pointing in the same direction, useful for when on the move and when the camera jitters around alot. - Trees, at least from my limited 2.5 experience thus far (with broken FFB and no centering on the FFB stick when that functionality is turned off in DCS I can't fly the Gazelle at all) the trees are good for cover when moving, but bad to attack from, because the AI still spots you instantly through tiny gaps in the foliage with their magical powers.

Perhaps try backing up and then deleting the controller config files for the gazelle? I've had issues in the past resolved by doing that.

Weird thing is, I turned off FFB - I knew it broke the cooliehat trim but used mostly the magnetic brake anyways - and now it seems to be working great. There's no centering force at all though and haven't gotten SimFFB to implement that either. The SAS tries to compensate after a few seconds as you'd expect , and after disabling it and the gyros it's really hands-on and handles wonderfully. Now I just gotta figure out how to get that centering force back. Maybe double-check that it's off? I'm gonna keep having to switch it on and off since I use it for other modules, seems to affect behaviour even if not using FFB sticks too (which is why the same thing happened when I used a separate lever for cyclic pitch testing making me think it wasnt a FFB issue).

Think it's more of an issue with DCS' damage model than the Gazelle. Noticed how when you land on top of buildings they tend to spontaneously combust?

What's the thing that determines having NVG as an option or not in the different models? The cockpit lighting is the same, and even the unarmed versions seem to be capable of using it, so is it because of the flip-down sights being incompatible? Maybe that means that the co-pilot (weapons officer) could use them though? Would be a great way to get some currently lacking multicrew value out of those models.

Well, he did say that he centered the stick after a while - it was either that or crash into the ground since even with this minimal amount of input the downward pitch just keeps going and going. So if that is normal flight behaviour, does that mean that the pilot basically just uses the cyclic to set the desired attitude for the magnetic break/cooliehat trim for each maneuver and then lets it hold it for him instead of "hands-on" flying? I'd turn off the SAS system, but the 'going and going' effect of stick input makes it difficult to see how to fly in a stable manner.

Same.

Worked fine for me today, but pre-2.5 I often had your problem. Few things are as frustrating as flying all the way to an objective only to be unable to make that final AG radar correction to hit the target squarely.

It's not about trimming. The trim system works fine and makes it easy to achieve stable flight at any desired attitude. It's about achieving a similar degree of stable forward flight and turning without having to rely almost entirely on the trim system to do it all for you. Try flying without trimming at all and see if you can maintain a forward pitch or turn without having to constantly move the stick around. First moving it to start the maneuver, and then back to prevent it from pitching/rolling over, and then out again to keep it going, on and on just to be somewhat stable.

If FFB is disabled (or any deadzone or saturation changes cause a disparity between the stick and FFB motor effects) it simply reverts to acting like any other stick, only it's using motors instead of springs for centering. It doesn't become slack or lose functionality. Pretty sure I had the same experience using a T16000 (which afaik uses the same sensor as the warthog), but I could plug it in to find out if anything's changed.