Force Feedback - Impact on Trim

A recommendation from another thread, in response to my poor flying / trimming ability, was to consider a FFB joystick.

 

Can anyone outline what benefits a FFB stick would have over Saitek AV8R (non-ffb) in Blackshark? (Specifically with regard to trimming)

 

[EDIT]

If I thought it would improve my flying (trimming ability), I'd go out and buy one today !

Edited September 20, 2009 by kraszus

With an FFB stick, when you trim, it will physically lock into the trimmed position. So, trim with the stick forward and it will hold forward in both the sim and on your stick. With a non-FFB stick, the stick has to be returned to centre and you have to 'virtualise' where it is physically trimmed in the chopper. So, trim with the stick forward, let it return to centre, and it is trimmed forward in the simulator but not physically on your stick. So, although I have never flown BS with a FFB stick, I imagine it could be easier to understand your trim positioning simply because your stick physically reflects the trim you have set.

 

BTW, tell us what you are finding so hard about trimming? Perhaps someone can help?

Edited September 20, 2009 by Triangle99
Bad spelling :-(

FFB is a tremendous help, because you always have a sense of what control input you are giving (the stick represents that). No more non-FFB sticks for me.

BTW, tell us what you are finding so hard about trimming? Perhaps someone can help?

 

Using new trim feature in v1.01.

 

Well, I am flying with FD on and all the other AP modes except Alt Hold. (Basically the only AP setting I change when I get in to the cockpit is to switch FD on).

 

I take off - before making any movements on the stick or throttle, I hold down Trim. I make the movement, release trim, re-centrerstick.

 

I should be flying on my chosen path now, you would think. But the nose of the chopper does not rest on the trim setting I have set (With FD on I can see on the HUD where my trim is set to)...it either slowly bobs back up or down. Same goes when i bank left or right.

 

It doesn't sound like much maybe, but I concentrate so hard on trimming, then trying to correct after I have trimmed as the aircraft doesn't trim to where I can see it set on the HUD, that it is all I can do to fly in a straight line.

 

On a side note, when I bank the aircraft, it turns only very slowly unless I pull back on the stick to increase turn rate. However, pulling on the stick when banking drops me like a stone.

 

I'm obviously doing something wrong :cry:

 

[EDIT]

If you have to trim for every movement, throttle change, rudder change, why not just keep the trim button held all the time????

Edited September 20, 2009 by kraszus

Here is a track of the problems I'm having. You can see that I trim the aircraft, can see the trim setting on the HUD, and the aircraft does not settle on that trim but veers off.

 

I have the trim diagram (Ctrl-Enter) showing on lower right of screen.

save3.trk

There are waaay more experienced pilots than me who would be better commenting. However, I can suggest that you fly with the FD off. I think that will help.

And if you have a non-FFB stick, then definitely search for the post on turning FFB off in the producer.cfg file (I think). I had similar problems until I did this.

 

Here (as posted earlier):

 

You can turn it of in producer.cfg

Change true after "ForceFeedbackEnabled" into false.

Aye..I'd already done that Triangle :)

With the FD on, the aircraft will make no attempt to actually hold your last trimmed attitude, so any sort of "perturbation" will cause the aircraft to drift away from the trimmed attitude, such as wind or turbulence, the aircraft's inertia, or any sort of unnoticed instability.

With the FD on, the aircraft will make no attempt to actually hold your last trimmed attitude, so any sort of "perturbation" will cause the aircraft to drift away from the trimmed attitude, such as wind or turbulence, the aircraft's inertia, or any sort of unnoticed instability.

 

So would I be right in saying that trimming is not required if FD is on?

So would I be right in saying that trimming is not required if FD is on?

 

No, because IRL you would still use the trimmer to hold the stick where you want it to be, which in the gme can only be simulated with FFB.

Trim the the real aircraft (and with a FFB stick) performs two functions: First, it holds the position of the stick in the trimmed position, and second, it updates the autopilot with a new desired heading and attitude which the autopilot will attempt to hold.

 

If you don't have FFB, the game will still "memorize" the position of the cyclic (and pedals) when the trim button is release, but since your joystick won't stay there on its own, the game is set up to require you to return the stick (and pedals) to center after you release the trimmer. So the first purpose of the trim is to set a new center position of the cyclic and pedals. If you have force feedback, it actually sets the center and holds the stick there, if not, then it sets a "virtual" center, and you must return the stick and pedals to center and then any new movements will be relative to the trimmed "virtual" center position. This works the same with FD on or off.

 

The second purpose, setting a new attitude and heading for the autopilot, is effectively disabled with the FD on. You may get the cue as to what your trimmed position is, but the autopilot won't try to hold it there.

 

Trimming is not necessary with the FD on unless you want a limited hands-off capability, because the springs in your joystick are very easy to overcome and won't cause much fatigue during flight, while in the actual aircraft, you'd get really tired really fast holding the stick and pedals against the spring force of the force trim. So in the real thing, even with FD on, the aircraft is typically trimmed every time the controls are moved, just to reset the center positions and remove that spring tension.

... Trimming is not necessary with the FD on unless you want a limited hands-off capability...

 

Darn - I just tried that AlphaOne. Did a quick flight with FD on and didn't try to trim and possibly had the smoothest flight yet !!

I also have a evo force FF joystick, however I cant get the dang thing to work correctly in the gain settings from control panel..so now i just not use ff....if anyone has the correct settings to use for this game would be MUCH appreciated

I also have a evo force FF joystick, however I cant get the dang thing to work correctly in the gain settings from control panel..so now i just not use ff....if anyone has the correct settings to use for this game would be MUCH appreciated

I tried EvoForce as well. I was not happy with it. Here's a video I made to describe my problem. This was done with BS 1.0 I never tried EvoForce with 1.01

 

HI hajduk

Your evo is working much better than mine,what settings have you set for it in the control panel?

Ok, i just upgraded the drivers of the evo force to current. For some reason even though i just bought it 2 weeks ago it shipped with 2004 drivers. The current drivers seem to work better. I have the settings in control panel to all 100%,default spring gain unticked and 5%. In Black shark i have set the deadzones on joystick to 4%. The trim seems to work much better with the stick holding position. there is just a 'slight' movement when you let go of the stick.iwill keep fiddling and keep posting hopefully it might help someone else out there.

Of possible help:

 

These threads:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=35052&page=4

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=38463&highlight=Saitek+Evo+Force

In particular, these posts:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=640986&postcount=4

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=641323&postcount=9

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=641939&postcount=11

 

- Default spring = 0%

- Spring gain = 38%

- Other options at 100%

 

with the spring manually disabled

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=642209&postcount=14

 

Besides the settings, take note of the part about "disabling the spring". I will agree that it shouldn't be necessary, but I will also observe that it helps with the situation that we have been given. It's annoying, but I'd rank it as a pretty minor annoyance (the spring disabling, not the stick performance). You don't have to do anything radical / permanent... 2 or 3 garbage bag twist ties is good for a temporary test of the concept. If it works better, then you can either keep them on, or replace them with some cable (zip) ties, or rig up some small velcro straps (like what are used to tidy up cable clutter on a computer desk).

 

I wish the stick held the trimmed position with more force. The hardware is clearly capable of generating it.

 

Hopefully, Saitek will get things right with their upcoming X-65F offering. ( Hey, it doesn't appear to have the spring! ;) )

 

Edit: We have subsequently learned that the Saitek X-65F is Force Sensing, *NOT* FFB.

Edited December 28, 2009 by CyBerkut
X-65 is not FFB.

HI hajduk

Your evo is working much better than mine,what settings have you set for it in the control panel?

After initial disappointment, I turned to my X52-pro and never used the EvoForce again. So I don't remember the settings when I was trying to make it work.

I tried EvoForce as well. I was not happy with it. Here's a video I made to describe my problem. This was done with BS 1.0 I never tried EvoForce with 1.01

 

 

When you made that video, did you have curves on the X and Y Axis?

 

That sort of thing happens for me too (and others) when having curves on a force feedback axis, works fine without a curve though.

Just out of curiousity: To the people who say that it works correctly without curves; does it work correctly when you have dead zones, either in the center or at the ends of the axis?

No, it doesn't. When you trim the dead zone is left behind at the (0,0) position.

 

I don't don't know about dead zones at the ends. That's possible?, or are you refering to saturation?

I think there are some odd effects when using dead zone or even curves with the FFB setup because the force curve and the control curve have to agree to be natural.

 

What if you had a very curvy set up or a deadzone where you had to apply 70% input to get 50% output. Works in theory except that the FFB forces are applied assuming a 50% stick input when in reality there is a 70% input. Thus the forces are not aligned with the input. It can get messy.

I think there are some odd effects when using dead zone or even curves with the FFB setup because the force curve and the control curve have to agree to be natural.

To my understanding this must be done updating the "origin" of the curves and the deadzone to the new center of forces everytime the joystick is trimmed. That would be sooooo useful that I really wish to see that implemented in a patch in the future.

 

EDIT: I've tried to implement this with glovepie, and now I can understand why it isn't done. Everytime the deadzone changes its position also changes the correspondence between input (physical joystick) and output (virtual stick) that generates a little jump of the virtual stick. Also, as Frederf describes in his post, everything get messy. I've tried to simulate some kind of mechanical gap to overcome this, but still the correspondence between input and output would vary and confuse trim.

Edited July 1, 2010 by average_pilot

Ok, I surrend. There is no way of implementing such a thing as dynamic deadzone. It's out of the reach of the mathematical logic of this universe.

 

It's impossible to keep a fixed relationship between the joystick range of movement and the virtual stick range if the deadzone center changes.

 

EDIT: I forgot to mention that despite of this, in a sim with progressive trimming (in oposition to the instanteneous trimming of the BlackShark) like in FSX with FSForce, that can work with a non optimal solution, the dynamic deadzone changes inmensely the contrability with my MSFFB2 in a very positive way. The experience is now a lot similar to flying with my x-52 plus the added benefits of FFB.

Edited July 2, 2010 by average_pilot