Autopilot Engage threshold

[==Wiggy==]

Currently there must be zero load on the flight controls for the AP to engage and capture the mode. This requires many of us to have to add stick deadzone. Some more than others. While this night seem ok, it actually reduced response time to stick inputs. Would it be possible to increase the threshold of the AP? Allow a +.5g tolerance? This would allow us to not have to choose between whether stick input or AP is more important to us; and both systems would work. Thanks for your consideration ED.

[Brun]

A very reasonable suggestion. Totally agree that it shouldn't be necessary to add a deadzone for this.

 

However I think it would be better if the tolerance was a function of the stick's axis rather than g force. For example the autopilot will engage if the stick is within 2% of the centre.

[==Wiggy==]

However they do, It makes no difference to me, I just think that adjusting the tolerance would enable both AP and stick sensitivity to be sympatico.

[Frederf]

The real plane probably has a force measurement device to know when to disengage AP. You can probably apply some small amount of force and/or displacement to the real airplane before the AP is disengaged.

 

DCS has a fundamental difficulty simulating this because it cannot measure both position and force applied to the joystick. When you command DCS "move joystick to position X" it does it with 100% of the pilot's finite strength even though you personally may be using very little strength to move your physical joystick.

 

Anyway, the real thing probably doesn't take any input other than 0.00000 as "turn it off" so DCS shouldn't either.

[==Wiggy==]

But we don't have such devices on our HOME PC's....so it's kind of silly to make the AP NOT engage unless you're at 0.000 "force" since all joysticks setups are not equal. This would give the widest user base the most workable solution, and still be completely real. There's 100% absolutely no chance, you or I or ANYONE would know the difference if they allowed some slack in the tolerance of the AP turning on so that most users could still use the most sensitivity in their controller inputs. This makes the most sense. Logically and from a practical standpoint, as I'm willing to bet that about 99% of us are not using something more expensive than a TM warthog as our controller. This is a pretty reasonable request. In my view this is a bug. I've beta tested for other developers for more than 6 years now and this would be changed for simply user friendliness since we're not in a real hornet pit. It will literally have ZERO effect on those who for some reason think it should remain. I bet you wouldn't notice or care if it is implemented. I bet there's already a TON of features that are compromised to afford user friendly interface vs strict reality...simply because we have to use a mouse to interface with the jet...anyway...that's my plea! Thanks for listening!

Edited June 23, 2018 by 000rick000