Is there a way to use nozzles with a spring-centered axis?

[Snappy]

Hi,

unfortunately I’m not that familiar with advanced DCS controls setup and never had much need for it anyway.But now with the harrier, I ran into a problem.I would like to assign the nozzle movement to an axis on my Hotas throttle because I noticed assigned to an axis the actual nozzle movement is quite a bit faster than compared to assigning it to two nozzles up/down buttons.

The only available remaining axis on my Hotas is a spring centered mini stick.Assigning it to nozzle movement works, but because it is spring- centered the nozzle position defaults to something like 45degree down,in other words for normal forward flight I constantly need to push the mini stick to its forward stop to make the nozzles stay in up position.

Is there clever way around this to still use the spring centered stick for this.Ideally stick down should still move nozzles down and stick up should still be nozzles up , but the centre default position should be not be nozzles at 45degrees but nozzles up.

Sorry for the block of text, just wanted to describe the issue hopefully clearly .

If anyone has an idea, that would be cool.

Kind regards,

 

 Snappy 

Edited October 14, 2021 by Snappy

[jonsky7]

Only thing I can think of is playing with a user curve for the axis.

You could set the centre position to be nozzles full back, and mini stick down end point for nozzles fully forward but, but you would only have half of the axis travel for the full nozzle travel.

I think this would be very difficult to hold any in-between position.

I use my left throttle for nozzles, and right for engine, not the right way round sure, but it works for me.

[Snappy]

On 10/14/2021 at 11:16 AM, jonsky7 said:

Only thing I can think of is playing with a user curve for the axis.

You could set the centre position to be nozzles full back, and mini stick down end point for nozzles fully forward but, but you would only have half of the axis travel for the full nozzle travel.

I think this would be very difficult to hold any in-between position.

I use my left throttle for nozzles, and right for engine, not the right way round sure, but it works for me.

Hi Jonsky, sorry for my late reply.Thank you very much for your that answer, I already thought it might be difficult.

But thats a starting point, thank you for the idea!

Kind regards,

 Snappy 

[Tuuvas]

What you're basically looking for is relative axis control - a similar function would be using a console controller thumbstick to turn the pilot's head.  There are two ways to do this that I'm aware of

1. Absolute Camera Horizontal/Vertical
   1. This is when the position of the pilot's face is tied directly to the position of the axis.  If you push the stick left 50% and hold it there, the pilot's head turns left 50% of the way and holds that position for as long as the thumbstick holds that position.  The moment the player lets go of the stick, since the thumbstick snaps to center, so does the pilot's head.  This is similar to what you're describing for your spring-centered ministick and how it affects the nozzles.
2. Relative Camera Horizontal/Vertical
   1. This is when the position of the pilot's face is adjusted by the relative position of the axis.  If you push the stick left 50% and hold it there, the pilot's head continues turning until it cannot turn anymore.  In any first-person shooter, action RPG, etc, the character would simply keep spinning/turning indefinitely.  Once the player lets go of the stick, since the thumbstick snaps to center, the character/pilot will simply stop turning instead of returning to a center point.  This is the kind of action you're looking for.

Unfortunately #2 above doesn't exist in DCS except for a select few axis actions.  One notable example is the F/A-18C Hornet's radar elevation control.  This behaves like a relative axis, compared to say... the F-15C's radar elevation control which is an absolute axis.

Edited October 22, 2021 by Tuuvas

[Supmua]

Yep, you can use a modifier button to do this.  Add a modifier switch in DCS setting, then bind that switch + your ministick to the nozzle angle control.  When you want to move the nozzle hold down the modifier key and move the ministick up or down to the amount that you want, then release the modifier key, and it'll stick.  You can add the curve to the ministick to reduce its sensitivity for tighter control also.