Whatever happened to the pitching deck?

[obious]

I last read that the additional work to add ‘enhanced’ pitching deck functionality to the SC was ongoing back in June of last year. Any updates on when we’ll see increased pitch, roll, list etc behaviour without having to set the wind speed >40kts?

 

thanks

[Steel Jaw]

+1

[fagulha]

+1

[norman99]

What we desperately need is a separate sea state control. Hopefully that'll be part of the new weather system.

[Boosterdog]

+1

[Northstar98]

8 hours ago, norman99 said:

What we desperately need is a separate sea state control. Hopefully that'll be part of the new weather system.

True, but we also lack proper physics for naval units; the pitching and rolling effects are purely random with their magnitude dependent on wind speed.

[Silver_Dragon]

31 minutes ago, Northstar98 said:

True, but we also lack proper physics for naval units; the pitching and rolling effects are purely random with their magnitude dependent on wind speed.

The waves has generate by the wind, no apears a state 5 on calm time. That require a deep improvement on the weather engine and the sea phisics, no a a simple sea state slide.

Edited January 1, 2022 by Silver_Dragon

[Northstar98]

3 minutes ago, Silver_Dragon said:

The waves has generate by the wind, no apears a state 5 on calm time. That require a deep improvement on the weather engine and the sea phisics, no a a simple sea state slide.

I more meant ships actually interacting with the waves, instead of their motion solely being random, with a magnitude dependent on the wind.

It shouldn't change anything to weather engine.

[Silver_Dragon]

The rolling ship phisics has been afected by the weater always. The problem, has de same, requirre a deep study to bulld some "realistic" on sea environment, no the actual placebo.
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/mpe/2010/934714/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268159654_Numerical_Study_of_Ship_Rolling_in_Turning_Manoeuvres
 

[Northstar98]

35 minutes ago, Silver_Dragon said:

The rolling ship phisics has been afected by the weater always. The problem, has de same, requirre a deep study to bulld some "realistic" on sea environment, no the actual placebo.

It seriously doesn't look like it at all, and it's fairly obvious to see - especially with smaller vessels (they don't actually interact with the waves).

Wave size has always been wind speed dependent, but ships don't actually interact with waves (so if a ship moves over a large wave, moving from bow to stern, you won't see the ship necessarily pitch up and down), their motion appears to just be completely randomised, but with a magnitude dependent on wind speed.

[Stearmandriver]

Ships definitely don't really interact with the waves in DCS.  Personally I'm kind of ok with this; as long as they move somewhat realistically I don't mind it being randomized.  One of those things that might be more work to model and render than it's worth. 

But we need a sea state slider (controlling ship motion) for sure.  In reality, waves don't have to be dependent on wind - large swell can exist on a calm day. So can secondary swell.

I'd take bug fixes so the SC can reliably launch multiple planes first though ...

[hannibal]

i would like to know about this as well..

i have a motion platform, and it would be amazing to feel the pitching deck on a parked F14 or F18...

 

[Northstar98]

14 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

Ships definitely don't really interact with the waves in DCS.  Personally I'm kind of ok with this; as long as they move somewhat realistically I don't mind it being randomized.  One of those things that might be more work to model and render than it's worth. 

I don't know, for me I definitely notice it compared to for instance, Cold Waters.

As ships get bigger, it becomes less obvious (well, unless you dial the wind up), but for smaller stuff it's clear as day for me.

14 hours ago, Stearmandriver said:

But we need a sea state slider (controlling ship motion) for sure.  In reality, waves don't have to be dependent on wind - large swell can exist on a calm day. So can secondary swell.

I'd take bug fixes so the SC can reliably launch multiple planes first though ...

Agreed on both points.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Northstar98

[WobblyFlops]

The issue with the pitching deck that it not only has to be realistic regarding the physics of the boat and the sea state and their interaction with the (very WIP) weather system, but they'd have to simulate things like the MOVLAS, an intelligent AI LSO giving you calls regarding the deck state, the effects of the deck state on AI and the fact that the ACLS would have to compensate for the oscillations and give you accurate information. If we take all these highly complex and intertwined interactions and add them to a feature that only hardcore, experienced people would even appreciate (especially considering that the vast majority of servers where most people play very rarely if ever use anything other than CAVOK weather), and in fact it would just alienate the ever growing casual audience, I'd bet that ED probably don't think that such a feature justifies the vast amount of resources that's required to have a proper implementation.

Edited January 2, 2022 by WobblyFlops

[Northstar98]

15 hours ago, WobblyFlops said:

The issue with the pitching deck that it not only has to be realistic regarding the physics of the boat and the sea state and their interaction with the (very WIP) weather system, but they'd have to simulate things like the MOVLAS, an intelligent AI LSO giving you calls regarding the deck state, the effects of the deck state on AI and the fact that the ACLS would have to compensate for the oscillations and give you accurate information. If we take all these highly complex and intertwined interactions and add them to a feature that only hardcore, experienced people would even appreciate (especially considering that the vast majority of servers where most people play very rarely if ever use anything other than CAVOK weather), and in fact it would just alienate the ever growing casual audience, I'd bet that ED probably don't think that such a feature justifies the vast amount of resources that's required to have a proper implementation.

Realistic pitching and rolling or not, ICLS, ACLS, OLS and LSO calls should be stabilised regardless, and the lack of it already causes issues (such as the OLS and ICLS needles not aligning). I'm not a developer, but if we can have stabilised RADARs and stabilised TGPs and gun barrels, I don't see why the above can't be stabilised either.

As for alienating the casual audience, DCS' own product description states that they're aiming to try and create assets and modules that are as realistic to their real world counterparts as possible; if people are going to take issue when we actually get closer to achieving that, then I'm sorry, but these people might be playing the wrong game.

Of course we can go on for days about what isn't realistic, or what can't be realistic, or what's never going to be realistic (and in those cases I'm definitely going to take a higher fidelity approximation, over a low fidelity one, over nothing at all), but that is the goal, and the presence of something that doesn't line up with that goal doesn't invalidate it.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Northstar98

[WobblyFlops]

1 hour ago, Northstar98 said:

Realistic pitching and rolling or not, ICLS, ACLS, OLS and LSO calls should be stabilised regardless, and the lack of it already causes issues (such as the OLS and ICLS needles not aligning). I'm not a developer, but if we can have stabilised RADARs and stabilised TGPs and gun barrels, I don't see why the above can't be stabilised either.

 

The more accurate and realistic the deck state behaviour becomes, the more important and difficult it will be to model the accurate stabilization. Plus, in truly bad sea states, the MOVLAS with accurate LSO calls are going to be the main way to get the aircraft back to the boat and I don't think it would be trivial to code all of this, especially to ensure that all the interconnected systems work together seamlessly.

 

1 hour ago, Northstar98 said:

As for alienating the casual audience, DCS' own product description states that they're aiming to try and create assets and modules that are as realistic to their real world counterparts as possible

That's a marketing statement, if you actually examine the game, you'll see this sentiment  very often, even from developers and of course from the vast majority of the playerbase. It's probably not something that would make it 100% impossible to implement realistic pitching deck but it's yet another factor why ED most likely thinks that dedicating resources for a task like this wouldn't be a good idea.

[Northstar98]

53 minutes ago, WobblyFlops said:

The more accurate and realistic the deck state behaviour becomes, the more important and difficult it will be to model the accurate stabilization.

Why? And again, these systems should be stabilised as it is, the fact that they're not in some cases already presents an issue.

All improving the physics would do is make the motions such that they actually correspond with the waves and not just randomised.

53 minutes ago, WobblyFlops said:

That's a marketing statement,

Doesn't really change anything - even if it is marketing it's clearly towards high fidelity and realism where possible to do so. So my point still stands.

53 minutes ago, WobblyFlops said:

if you actually examine the game, you'll see this sentiment  very often, even from developers and of course from the vast majority of the playerbase.

I'm going to have to see a citation on that one. But just so we're clear, accurate as possible doesn't necessarily mean 100% accurate, and there are things that aren't feasible.

[Silver_Dragon]

The main problem about "realism" has the clearance level. All available by open sources and SMEs, and the ED interal studies to aprox simulate them.

About realism... that can implement, but require three steeps. Enought personal (always growind), money and know-how... DCS has start to remember me some "big space game" with years and years of develop and none a release date insight.... 

[WobblyFlops]

44 minutes ago, Northstar98 said:

Why? And again, these systems should be stabilised as it is, the fact that they're not in some cases already presents an issue.

All improving the physics would do is make the motions such that they actually correspond with the waves and not just randomised.

1 hour ago, WobblyFlops said:

Currently there is no MOVLAS or proper LSO comms that would address a pitching/rolling deck, paddles would have to inform you of the movement of the deck which would also implicate the validity of the ball, which may not even be accurate due to the movement. This is the basis of pitching deck ops and isn't modelled at all. Same goes for MOVLAS, which also isn't modelled. If the Supercarrier isn't indended to replicate realistic operations in a bad sea state, 'stabilization' isn't going to be relevant because if you're lined up and you're on speed, the glideslope information will be valid. 

 

If the deck is moving up and down, it's not the case, which is why you'd need an LSO to dynamically read the movement of the deck and give correct verbal or visual signs that allow you to compensate. 

54 minutes ago, Northstar98 said:

Doesn't really change anything - even if it is marketing it's clearly towards high fidelity and realism where possible to do so.

It's clearly a balancing act. They say these things to avoid alienatin the hardcore simmers yet still don't fix these issues to avoid alienating the casual audience. 

 

55 minutes ago, Northstar98 said:

I'm going to have to see a citation on that one.

 

Roughly around the linked time stamp the developer clearly says that even if they had access to open source data about ECM, it would still be questionable to implement the functionality because only highly intelligent and well educated users would be able to utilize it and it would upset the playing field too much. But the level of intended realism is kind of an off topic discussion here, so I'll leave it at that.

[Northstar98]

12 minutes ago, WobblyFlops said:

Currently there is no MOVLAS or proper LSO comms that would address a pitching/rolling deck, paddles would have to inform you of the movement of the deck which would also implicate the validity of the ball, which may not even be accurate due to the movement. This is the basis of pitching deck ops and isn't modelled at all. Same goes for MOVLAS, which also isn't modelled. If the Supercarrier isn't indended to replicate realistic operations in a bad sea state, 'stabilization' isn't going to be relevant because if you're lined up and you're on speed, the glideslope information will be valid. 

If the deck is moving up and down, it's not the case, which is why you'd need an LSO to dynamically read the movement of the deck and give correct verbal or visual signs that allow you to compensate. 

That shouldn't be too difficult to do. I'm unfamiliar with the callouts so forgive me, but so long as we know what angle the deck is at, it should be possible.

But even so, this still applies for randomised motion of the deck, so I'm not sure what the difference would be.

12 minutes ago, WobblyFlops said:

It's clearly a balancing act. They say these things to avoid alienatin the hardcore simmers yet still don't fix these issues to avoid alienating the casual audience.

Roughly around the linked time stamp the developer clearly says that even if they had access to open source data about ECM, it would still be questionable to implement the functionality because only highly intelligent and well educated users would be able to utilize it and it would upset the playing field too much. But the level of intended realism is kind of an off topic discussion here, so I'll leave it at that.

Thanks, though yes, we're drifting off topic, but that seems like a very niche case, that largely doesn't apply for ECM systems found in the aircraft we have (the controls typically only include turning it on or off, though interpreting raw displays would be difficult.

But even so I think that implementing more complex jammers (such as the AN/ALQ-99) should be AI stuff anyway.

Edited January 2, 2022 by Northstar98

[Cepheus76]

5 hours ago, Northstar98 said:

 ...(such as the OLS and ICLS needles not aligning)... 

 

 

Since the glideslope antenna is mounted aft of the island and above the flight deck, the electronic and the optical glideslopes should be parallel to each other and hence can't align.

If I understand the procedure correctly, pilots are supposed to fly the ball on the last three quarters of a mile. At that distance, the discrepancy between the two glideslopes should be small enough (or better: the two glideslope beams are wide enough) to allow a smooth transition from one to the other.

[TEMPEST.114]

Any response from ED or Waggs? Will this be addressed soon, esp with the weather associated around the new South America map. Pitching/Rolling/Heaving deck is really required. 

[Gierasimov]

9 minutes ago, Elphaba said:

Any response from ED or Waggs? Will this be addressed soon, esp with the weather associated around the new South America map. Pitching/Rolling/Heaving deck is really required. 

1 - NO

2 - NO

3 - TRUE

[BIGNEWY]

2 hours ago, Elphaba said:

Any response from ED or Waggs? Will this be addressed soon, esp with the weather associated around the new South America map. Pitching/Rolling/Heaving deck is really required. 

Pitching deck is in, but you will need to set rough weather / higher winds to affect the sea state. 

[TEMPEST.114]

1 hour ago, BIGNEWY said:

Pitching deck is in, but you will need to set rough weather / higher winds to affect the sea state. 

Thanks.