Berniyh

No, maybe not a servo, at least not one as it's used in the OSW. That would be 300-400€ per servo and you need two of them. One idea I had a couple of days ago was that it might be possible to use actuators.(I think you can get some for That would have the advantage that you don't need to convert the rotation movement into a linear movement and a 2D movement using 2 or 4 of them would be easier to realize. It wouldn't be a small construction, though and mainly useful for a home cockpit rather than a desk-mounted stick. Also, I'm not yet sure how much an appropriate actuator costs, I only know about those that are used in motion rigs and those would be both too strong and too expensive. In addition, I'm not yet sure if they would yield the required precision and feedback. Edit: Sorry if this is not yet a main topic for me, I need to build my OSW first. ;)

The only ones I've seen so far reused other FFB joysticks' controllers.

I'm not sure, but I think the game does that for you. The Simucube won't work, as it can use mulitple axis, but only one servo drive. Thus, only one FFB axis would be supported. With IONICube, you could drive up to 4 motors, but 2 would be sufficient. In the game you would assign the 2 axis, just like you do now for your joystick. Controller-vice, they can be totally separated, it shouldn't really matter. Of course, it might be that some adaptions to the FW of the servo drive would be required, but since the FFB protocol is standardized, I doubt that too much work would have to be done. The only thing that would definitely require adaptions is that you have to be able to set up 2 axis in the Gravity or firmware, but for that I'd wait how the open source FW looks like, maybe they already implemented that. With MMos, it won't work, that's pretty clear.

I've read that Granite Device are working on an open source FFB firmware which should be released within the next few months. If you take the IONICube controller board with two cards, shouldn't that be enough to get the software-side of things?

Hm, I've seen quite a few builds of sticks, but haven't seen a FFB one, will search for that. But I think the open system approach would be the right way. For the wheels, direct drive was only available for the very expensive systems (we're talking >2000€ here) 3 years ago. With the OSW and also the Accuforce, you can now buy a direct drive wheel for 1000€ or a bit above. @Dustoff74: I will at least spend some time researching which forces would be required (both for short sticks as well as long sticks in the range of 50-60cm) and what motors/servos could be used. I think precision is the most important aspect here. Those motors don't have to be super strong, in my opinion. I thought a bit about this topic for the last few days and I think the tricky bit is due to the 2 axis that have to be considered. A single, rotating axis like on a wheel makes things much much easier, but then FFB on a wheel is likely much more complicated. Connecting both axis to motors/servos, at best directly without creating slackness, could be demanding.

Hi, I'm mostly flying helicopters (Mi8 and Huey). Currently I own a Warthog and use it for that, but I'm not completely happy with it. One of the reasons is that it has friction problems and precision suffers, which for the small movements you need in a copter is a killer. There are workarounds, both in SW and HW (longer stick, lubrication etc.), but I'm still not happy, because … what I really would like to have is a FFB joystick, so I can have a proper force trim. Now there aren't really any FFB joysticks on the market, so you either have to get a really old one (like the Sidewinders) or live without (possible, but would prefer to have it). Now my other sim hobby is sim-racing (mostly Assetto Corsa, but many other games in the past). During the last 2.5 years, the guys at virtualracing.org and others achieved something really great: They managed to build a proper direct-drive DIY wheel, which is called the OSW (Open Source Wheel). With the MMos board, there is a FFB implementation. Soon, I will get one myself, and if it lives up to the expectation, it will be awesome. Now I got thinking: Maybe we could achieve the same for flight sims? A DIY FFB Joystick (call it OSJ or whatever you want). It might even be possible to reuse some of the parts of the OSW. e.g. the FFB controller might be useful: https://granitedevices.com/simucube-simulator-force-feedback-controller/ It might be possible to use servos for the effects. Then the servo drive could be used: https://granitedevices.com/miniature-servo-drive-ioni/ It would also be possible to use stepper motors. Of course there would be differences, currently the FFB implementation (the firmware and software) is dedicated to wheels, I don't know if it can be used for a 2-axis joystick, but I heard that an open source FFB solution (the MMos solution is closed source) is being worked on. Modifying that should be possible. Also in contrast to the OSW, you would need to servos and the requirements for the servos would be much different. IMO, it would be lower requirements, though. For a direct drive wheel, you need really precise, but powerful servos, which are hugely expensive (although most use a 250€ Mige servo). For a FFB joystick, much smaller servos would be needed. Let me know what you would think about such a project. Edit: Link to the OSW page (it's a bit outdated, though): http://opensimwheel.wikidot.com/

Win 7 which will be my last Windows operating system. I hope that in some distant future DCS and other games will provide vulkan and linux support, since normally I'm a Linux user. (Only have a Windows computer for games.)

They are ok, but the spring is a bit strong even if set to the lowest setting. The resolution is good, you don't need a higher resolution on rudder pedals. Thus, for planes it's quite good, but for helos it's not perfect, because you tend to overcorrect movements close to the center. But that's pretty much the thing with all rudder pedals available for a reasonable price (excluding actual anti-torque pedals for helo sims, of course).

I'm always astonished by the fact how few people actually know/realize this. I was in the cinema a few days ago, Star Wars in 3D. And during the intro, a girl behind me was. "What? I can only see 3D with two eyes?" Don't know if she figured that out on her own or someone hinted it to her. But she surely wasn't young and I always thought that this is a fact that most people figure out as youths quite early. Maybe I'm wrong here, though. Yeah. :D The human brain is amazingly good at compensating for disabilities; thankfully for those who are affected. E.g. if you move and turn your head (even tiny proportions), you can get a much better idea about the geometry and layout of the world you see, even with one eye. I also think that's how our brain distinguishes between front and rear sounds, because our head is always moving a bit (from a steady stereo layout of the ears, this would be impossible as well to decide if a sound came from i.e. 60° right front or right rear). I could even imagine that with a bit of training the brain could create an illusion which is close to 3D with only one eye. However, this will never be even close to a proper stereoscopic 3D experience. In the end, though it doesn't really matter. It's not like someone decides to only have one eye in the future. And those who were unlucky to be in that situation could certainly still benefit from the VR experience, because in the end it's still VR, be it 3D or not. And in my opinion that is actually the more important part, the VR experience. 3D is nice to have, but for computer games, I don't really deem it necessary. And I do say that with having played games with shutter glasses 15 years ago, which (for certain games) gave a pretty damn good 3D effect (i.e. Unreal Tournament; would you like falling down 50m? :D). However, for people with only one eye, I would even more advice to try the device before buying, to see if they can use it properly and if it is actually worth for them. I myself will buy a VR device at some point, but I'm not in a hurry and will wait until I can try one (or hopefully both the Rift and the Vive) and I will wait for proper reviews of the stuff. I'm also not worried about the price too much. I didn't expect a proper VR set to be available at less than 1000€, so anything below is good enough for me. And I'm not worried too much about the hardware requirements. I own a Radeon 280X and I can play Assetto Corsa at 5760x1200 with the framerate dropping below 30 or 40 fps only in very few situations. DCS of course is more demanding, but I think it will be possible to power the resolution of the Rift and Vive.

Quite simple: It's impossible. But I do believe, that he had a good experience and could still benefit from the VR.

There are videos where they are using eye tracking, seemed to work quite well. That might be a good solution for the clickable cockpit. Just map some buttons to Left/Right Click and Wheel and then you just have to look at the control and use those buttons.

In the end, it depends on the quality you aim for and the number of device being sold. I'm pretty sure that Thrustmaster could pull this off for $50 per piece, but then it wouldn't be Warthog Quality. I think $150 would be a descent price for such an addon while keeping the quality high. Thrustmaster makes FFB wheels, I'm pretty sure they could use variants of those controllers to fill in the electronic bits. (BTW, Fanatec even includes a FFB system in their pedals for the brake, although it's only a vibration motor.) In contrast to steering wheels, the motors would not need to be super strong, because what I'd want here is "only" a Force Trim system. In the end, the most important aspect is still precision. Edit: Of course, as a one-off build, this will be much more expensive. $300 might be a good range.

I have the Warthog since Christmas and really love the thing as is for planes. For helicopters however it's not perfect. Of course there are people out there modifying it to fit better into that role but that shouldn't be necessary. I think we should ask Thrustmaster to make a force feedback version of the thing. Or even better, I'd vote for a FFB upgrade. Since the stick can be removed or replaced, I would keep both the FFB and the normal variant. I'd be willing to invest up to $150 into such a FFB base (yeah, base only) for the joystick (which in fact would be 3/4 of the current one).

Serial 43401 Location: On this planet (still)

That's what I thought, so I just let it create a fast mission at 07:10:00. That was kind of dark as well (although too dark imo), but not as dark as in said mission. I'll have a look, but I don't like the idea of keeping such bugs in the modules. They should maintain the already released modules at least to some degree and the campaign is a part of it. So I hope that they will release some small adjustment fixes to it. K thx, a bit misleading in my opinion.

Hi, I restarted the Huey campaign (the last time I didn't proceed after mission 6 or 7 because the game would always crash when exiting the mission). However, at mission 2 I ran into a problem, which I've also seen in mission 6. In those missions, the time setting seems to be broken. The briefing before starting the mission for mission 2 says that Takeoff is at 07:10:00. When I start the mission, everything is dead dark and I have a hard time even to find the light since I cannot see a thing. When turning up the lighting on the pilot console I can see, that the clock in the Huey indeed says 07:10:00 (or actually a bit later). However, it is dark as if it is midnight. Going to the briefing again (ESC -> briefing) it shows me that Takeoff is 00:00:00, which I guess is the actual ingame time judging by the environment. I also noticed, that I now have two campaigns, on a fresh install (moved to a different Steam Library). One in Mods/Uh-1H/Missions/Campaigns and on in Mods/Uh-1H/Missions/EN/Campaigns. So that's not a leftover from an older version, it really installs the campaign twice. :doh: From what I can tell they are identical, but to be sure I tried both versions of mission 2. And it happens with both. It's also reproducible. Edit: Since I didn't play the campaign for about half a year, I'm not sure if it behaved like that prior to 1.5.

Love this mission. Run it a few times (sometimes successfully, sometimes not ;)). However, with the newest incarnation with DCS 1.5, I've run into problems. All the flying is going fine. I can take off at the top with manual GOV (just about so). The only issue I'm starting to have is at the very end when I'm taking the second round of soldiers down the mountain. It became very very dark and because the weather was still awful, I really couldn't see a thing. I was going for the night vision and that helped me through the saddle close to the airport, but there I got into some light clouds (which wouldn't have been a problem at day) and really couldn't see a thing, no matter if with night vision or not. It was just a blind flight. I tried to get into a hover (which is quite hard if you're flying blind) and get closer to the ground, but in the end I blindly crashed into a mountain. Now I wanted to know if this is just on my system due to some graphics setup or if there is a general problem with this mission in DCS 1.5? I'm using a Radeon R9 280X with settings on the High Preset. I sort of doubt that this extremely low visibility is wanted. It was much lower than I would expect from these kind of clouds.

I think it would be a good idea if it would be possible to temporarily lock the mouse to a specific control. I.e. on the Huey, when you want to set the ADF you might need to do a lot of tuning to get to the desired frequency. Thus you either have to use a hotkey and constantly press that or you have to look down to the control and use the mousewheel to tune while keeping the camera still. So how this would possibly work: 1. Point the mouse at the control you want to modify 2. Push the "Lock mouse to control" button (i.e. on the joystick or a mousebutton) 3. You can reset your view to normal so you can see where the aircraft is going and what it is doing 4. Mouse input (left/right click to increase/decrease or mousewheel) will go to the selected control even when looking somewhere else. No other control can be modified and selected. 5. Push the "Lock mouse to control" button again to unlock. Now you are able to move the mouse around as normal It might be possible to go one step further and prohibit the use of the "hand" that would operate the control while in the locked state. Like when you're turning a knob using your left hand, you can't operate the throttle (in a fixed wing) or collective at the same time. But I guess that would be a bit much of realism. ;) In the end, I would really like to see such a feature implemented, because that's how you would do it in reality (if you don't happen to have a co-pilot how sets the stuff up). You don't face a control 2mins when modifying it, you might have a short glance just to make sure you pick the right one and then do whatever you want to do while looking straight forward. Also want to add, that I'd like to have a general increase/decrease command that I can bind using the joystick.

Also in for this. I think it could be similar to how it is done in ARMA2. There you can use the mousewheel to scroll through the options once you brought up the menu. Of course a joystick instead is ok as well.

Yes, very much for it. Modifying the lua files is a usable workaround, but it a proper UI integration would be very much appreciated.