Bunny Clark

The Interface only has one job - to translate between Helios and DCS. Functions that don't need to be sent to DCS, like hiding and un-hiding objects within the Helios profile, aren't on the Interface list because there is no DCS function for them to perform. DCS doesn't care if the TEDAC is visible on your touchscreen or not, only if one of the buttons on it is pressed. You'll need to create two pairs of MFDs, one pair for the Pilot and another pair for the CPG. Then assign buttons to them from the Interface per their role. In my photos of my setup it looks like the Pilot and CPG MFDs are the same thing, but they're not, they're two copies of the same thing. In Helios the Pilot setup has two MFDs and the CPG setup has two MFDs, they're 4 separate panels.

Bombs and fuel tanks can do some really weird things when released from aircraft. It's not enough that they physically fit on the station, extensive testing is done to ensure that the released weapon doesn't come back and hit the aircraft. Different racks and pylons have different effects on this, and different adjacent stores can have an aerodynamic effect as well. Here are some classic examples of how badly things can go wrong during separation testing, the carriage and separation test and certification process is designed to prevent exactly these sorts of things happening in combat:

Because the way DCS is doing screen exports right now there's no way to turn it off in the Pilot seat and it would blow up the EUFD. Since I'm spending most of my time in the Pilot's seat, I've prioritized screen exports for that. All the buttons on the TEDAC work, just not the screen export from DCS. None of them are using the DCS Interface. The Kneeboard buttons just send the default keyboard commands for toggling the kneeboard and changing pages. The Pilot / CPG button is a Helios-only button that toggles panel hiding, it doesn't talk to DCS at all.

Big changes to the AH-64 interface. It now includes the Pilot and CPG MFDs, Pilot and CPG EUFDs, Pilot and CPG KUs, Pilot and CPG Lighting Panels, and the TEDAC. Everything is working DCS to Helios, though I haven't been able to crack getting Helios to read DCS switch and axis states. Unfortunately, this will also break any profiles you've built with previous versions of the Interface, as I renamed everything to make more sense with different Pilot and CPG controls in the same Interface. You'll just need to reassign all the buttons in Helios. I'm having luck with a single Profile that has a button to toggle between the Pilot and CPG seats. This works by toggling the "Hidden" state for every panel - at start all the Pilot panels are visible and the CPG panels are hidden, hitting the button swaps all of those. Display exports are still a mess until ED fixes them, so right now I can only see Pilot screens, but at least all the buttons work. DCS.AH-64D.hif.json

Some of it seems more convoluted than necessary, but I agree, it's fantastic. The Hornet should also have the ability to pan around and create waypoints with the cursor, and change between the different map styles, if we ever get those features.

I don't know, I haven't looked into it. The ActionIDs are shared between all the MPDs so those are easy, the DeviceID will for sure need to change but is the same for the entire MFD, the button ID is what I am not sure of, those may or may not be different for every button. The device name should absolutely change, or you won't be able to tell them apart in Helios. That will probably blow up all the existing Pilot MPD binds since I don't think I named them with adding CPG displays in mind. I have been considering making two different Interfaces for the Pilot and CPG, but I think keeping it all in one makes the most sense.

I've been brainstorming that a bit myself too. My Helios profile right now includes both CPG and Pilot seats with a toggle button that switches on and off the different MFDs, KU, EUFD, and so forth. How well that actually works is going to be dependent on how ED implements display exports and if it'll switch which displays are being exported by seat.

Most everything you need is in DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\aircraft\AH-64D\Cockpit\Scripts "id" is in clickabledata.lua, "deviceid" is in devices.lua, "actionid" / pushid" is in command_def.lua. You can also find some argument values in default.lua in DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\aircraft\AH-64D\Input\AH-64D_PLT\joystick I found this tutorial from Zeen to be super helpful:

Navy and Air Force pilots can choose whether to carry a sidearm on missions, I wonder how much choice Apache pilots get. Do they check out the rifle from the armory and carry it to the helicopter for every mission? Naw. But the dust cover being open does bother me a little.

Purely within the context of DCS: Rockets are fun, and a weapon the pilot can shoot on their own. In SP they are weapons you can use without leaving the pilot seat, in Multi-Crew it lets the pilot blow things up while the gunner shoots things with the gun.

It is something the Apache can do, it's a sub-function of the attitude hold function on the Force Trim Switch. But it is not implemented yet.

The basic function for selecting a point to fly to is to select the RTE (Route) button, then DIR (Direct To). From there, you can select where you want to go direct to in a few ways. If it's a waypoint already in the route, you can just select it from the route list on the right side of the screen that appeared when you selected RTE. You can also Cursor Acquire any point, not just a waypoint, on the TSD by placing the Cursor over it, when the X in the middle of the cursor goes away it is over a point that can be selected with Cursor Enter. You can also select Point and type the identifier for any point in the system using the KU. This would be W## for any waypoint, T## for a target point, and so forth.

Curious. I'm not even sure what you mean by most of that, so it's entirely possible I've messed up something I don't understand.

Ugra was probably distracted adding all the new areas to Syria for the last patch. Hopefully we'll get some chart updates soon.

Assuming you have a typical install, it needs to go to C:\Program Files\Helios Virtual Cockpit\Helios\Interfaces. It'll then appear as "DCS AH-64D" when you go to Profile > Add Interface.

Here's what I've gotten done so far. It includes the Pilot Left and Right MFDs, KU, and EUFD. Rotary positions from DCS aren't correctly syncing with Helios and I'm not sure why, but otherwise everything is working for me. If you'd like to use it drop it in your Helios/Interfaces folder and install it into your profile. DCS.AH-64D.hif.json

Negative, building a Helios native direct Interface.

I'm working on making a Helios interface for the Apache that can be pulled into a profile to directly bind button commands. I've got the MFDs done so far, and expect I'll have the KU done tonight.

I've submitted a bug report for this here: Unfortunately I'm afraid there are two different things going on here. There appears to be a bug making it impossible to assign unique viewports for the pilot and copilot's displays. That will, hopefully, get fixed. But, DCS determining which seat you're in and exporting the correct displays only for that seat is not something I'm sure DCS is set up to do right now. That may be a new feature that needs to be written. We haven't had a multicrew aircraft with MFDs like this in DCS yet - my guess is if you exported the Tomcat Pilot's VDI and RIO's TID to the same viewport you would have the same problem, though I've not tested that. It should be possible to create 4 unique viewports for the two pilot displays and two copilot displays and place them in separate areas without blowing up LEFT_MPCD and RIGHT_MPCD. But creating two viewports that dynamically show whichever displays for the seat you are currently occupying may be a more difficult task.

Changing the try_find_assigned_viewport target to a custom viewport in both the init.lua files and the LCD .lua files does not stop the CPG monitors from continuing to export to the LEFT_MFCD and RIGHT_MFCD viewports. This causes them to override the pilot's viewports on any setup which includes the default two viewports in their monitor config.

At this point, I think we need to wait for ED to fix it. The bigger question is, how does this work long term? Is it possible to know which seat you're in and only feed monitors to your screens from that seat? How does that work with things like the TEDAC, the KU screen, and EUFD? It'd be nice not to have to swap out monitor configs to switch seats...

Good call, but renaming the viewport in MPD_LCD_Cpg_Left.lua and MPD_LCD_Cpg_Right.lua didn't allow me to export the pilot MFDs to LEFT_MFCD and RIGHT_MFCD. I can't find any more files with viewport references, did I miss something?

Yes. It's a problem. Right now the AH-64 seems to be exporting the CPG displays to LEFT_MFCD and RIGHT_MFCD regardless of what other viewports are defined in their init.lua files - in fact it exports to both if you enter new view port names. I assume deleting / commenting out the default view ports is a temporary fix until this can get sorted out and patched by ED, hopefully soon.

Navigate to Mods/aircraft/AH-64D/Cockpit/Scripts/Displays/MFD/indicator and find the following files: MFD_plt_left_init.lua MFD_plt_right_init.lua MFD_cpg_left_init.lua MFD_cpg_right_init.lua Each one will have something like the following code at the bottom: --ViewportHandling update_screenspace_diplacement(1, false, 0) try_find_assigned_viewport("RIGHT_MFCD") Change the viewport name (in this example, "RIGHT_MFCD") to something unique in each file. Then add entries for each of those unique names in your monitor config file. You will also need to comment out or delete the RIGHT_MFCD and LEFT_MFCD entries in your monitor config at the moment, as they are causing problems.

Commenting out the function in the init.lua does not seem to have an effect on it drawing to LEFT_MFCD and RIGHT_MFCD. You need to assign the Pilot monitors to unique viewports and not have LEFT_MFCD and RIGHT_MFCD active in your monitor profile.