Standard controls

[JG13Wulf]

It's a big wish I know but it's really really annoying !

 

Each plane are differents but ... Can you stop making them so different ?

I explain myself with german warbirds ...

 

Look at the control of Bf 109 K4, Fw 190 D9 and Fw 190 A8.

All of them have similar controls because they uses similar systems. But none of them use similar controls on same system.

 

For the 190 D9, you have 1 control on/off for master arm

For Bf 109 K4 you have 2 controls for master arm (on and off) + safety on the stick

For Fw 190A8 you have 1 control for master arm + one safety on the stick

 

But for those 3 it's exactly the same system (yes exactly) and those behave differently

Once master arm is off

 

D9 : you can shoot (no safety)

K4 : you have to turn off safety on stick to fire guns. If not no guns fire.

A8 : You can shoot cowling gun with safety on but not the other.

 

Why they work differently ? They have the same stick (or really similar one with the same safety and touch poisition).

 

Other difference :

Stopwatch. Complete in Fw 190 D9 and A8. Completly different in K4 ... But it's the same in the three planes ...

 

I can find more but i'm borded and really upset about this because it seems that it's not a bug to make things that were created to be similar IRL so different !

German planes were design with similar system in the cockpit so training was easier and it was possible to quickly transfer pilot from a type of plane to another with not so much training.

 

Please make something about it !

There are 3 germans, 1 british and 1 US. Modify them now to have a correct standard and then make the next with the same standard. But stop changing it for each planes ! It would take less time to make it right now than trying to correct 10 planes later !

 

A bored pilot who prefer to remake 5 controls profiles now than 10 in some years !

[Tippis]

A fundamental problem is that the bind UI does not expose a lot of the underlying functionality, so each module developer has to pick and choose what functionality to actually offer the player. This gives rise to these differences, where one developer picks an on/off-toggle implementation and another picks an on-button and an off-button for the exact same thing.

 

If ED made it possible to bind button releases and create toggles directly in the UI, rather than rely on the module maker (or on community mods) creating special-case abstractions for their preferred setup, a lot of that could be standardised far more than it is today.

 

If there was a standard guideline — buttons only exist as momentary binds, switches only exist with each position as its own bind, for instance — a lot of similar planes would end up with far more similar binds (of course, another problem is the difference in cockpit device ID:s and names, but one thing at a time) which would make that kind of interoperability a lot easier to achieve.

[Mars Exulte]

The real problem is that what became DCS was not originally intended as a bevy of modules. It was JUST one aircraft, and ''DCS'' was originally several separate products. DCS came into existence when these disparate products were combined.

 

As a result such ''user friendly'' features were not a concern during their original creation and ''fixing'' it NOW involves going through and completely reworking old control schemes. Of course, that doesn't gave anything to do with why this scattershot method is STILL in effect when at least 'going forward' you could streamline it...

 

 

But hey, I don't know if you were around for it, but the old UI was much worse. It HAS improved immeasurably over the last two or three years. Hell, we only recently got the option to wipe whole columns in the controls.

 

 

 

 

Another ''feature'' that needs to die a harsh death is the autobinding to EVERY control connected to your PC. These autobinds are typically useless and only an idiot would use them, imo, and they cause large scale headaches for everyone with more than one control as it does not even differentiate between sticks and throttles... it assigns the SAME controls to EVERY item, meaning it is UTTERLY UNUSABLE.

 

I suggested removing it once a few years ago and got argued down.by devs and a surprising number of community members, which.just boggled my mind because the current system for autobinding is completely f'ing useless except as a nuisance but it's supposed to ''help noobs'' by totally borking their controls (seriously, look at 90% of noob control issues and it because of shit being bound to more than one control automatically).... *deep breath* /rant

 

I feel better now. Sorry, I recently had to deal with that crap again and it is infuriating because I have like 13 devices now.

[JG13Wulf]

@Tippis

Name of the controls is not the major problem. I can understand some people use a term and some other use another which can be correct too.

But It's really annoying to have to configure planes differently not because they are different but because creator can do what they want :(

As you said, there should be a guideline to follow for the basic thing such controls.

 

They need to do something about this.

 

@zhukov032186

I agree it get better. The D9 recently had a little update on his controls. But I can't believe they didn't make an effort for the A8.

I agree with all the little annoyong feature you describe too. But as a first step, I think they need to plan it a little better for the futur of DCS. It's a mess.

Edited June 9, 2019 by JG13~Wulf

[Tippis]

Another ''feature'' that needs to die a harsh death is the autobinding to EVERY control connected to your PC. These autobinds are typically useless and only an idiot would use them, imo, and they cause large scale headaches for everyone with more than one control as it does not even differentiate between sticks and throttles... it assigns the SAME controls to EVERY item, meaning it is UTTERLY UNUSABLE.

 

I suggested removing it once a few years ago and got argued down.by devs and a surprising number of community members, which.just boggled my mind because the current system for autobinding is completely f'ing useless except as a nuisance but it's supposed to ''help noobs'' by totally borking their controls (seriously, look at 90% of noob control issues and it because of shit being bound to more than one control automatically).... *deep breath* /rant

On a related note, the whole notion of control restrictions could also use a sharp boot to the head.

 

Yes, A-10, I understand that you have MFDs and that it would be logical to bind my TM MFD buttons to their respective MFD binds in the cockpit… but that doesn't mean I should not be allowed to bind them to anything else. Since I'm clinically insane and have three of the darned things (which is very handy for the Hornet), it means I end up with one input device that I can't bind to anything because the module thinks that, oh no, this device must only be allowed to be used for certain binds(!).

 

Let me bind what I want to what I want, and don't enforce restrictions because of your lack of imagination. /also_rant

[Svsmokey]

Adios