Slowing down throttle response

[Rabbitthole]

ok Gang here's a weird one. Due to a stroke I can only use my right arm/hand, which eliminate using a separate throttle quadrant. In all other sims I assign a "hat switch" for "up throttle/Down throttle, which has always worked just fine. Now the mosquito. Well one click of the hat switch and I have 1/3 throttle another click 2/3rds. Pretty hard for take off or landing:

any one know a way to slow this down, Like maybe in the "config file (I have slowed the zoom rate this way)

I am using a thrustmaster Warthog. any ideas

 

Denis

 

 

[Terry Dactil]

Sorry to see you have that problem. It must be hard to fly with throttles like that.

I checked using keystroke for the throttles on my Mosquito and Spitfire,. Like you I found it terrible with only 3 or 4 button presses for full travel no matter how short the press. However there is an easy solution using Voice Attack. This is a great program, as apart from reacting to voice commands, it can also recognize keystrokes or hotas button presses and output a different keystroke or button press(or a series of) them.

I mapped some hotas buttons to the throttles (num+ & num-) and changed the default key down time from 0.1 second to 0.01 seconds'

Success! I

It now takes about 25 button presses to get full travel on the throttles. Voice Attack to the rescue once again!

I haven't checked this in a mission yet, and it is possible the sensitivity may change a bit when the CPU is working hard. However, it is possible to use a voice command to vary the sensitivity or other parameters if required.

PM me if you need help with Voice attack. This could be an interesting project. I'm thinking that if you steal the use of the 8 position hat switch, you could control the Mosquito throttles individually or both together, and also switch to controlling the rpm levers too. Also having a long button press giving increased travel would be handy when large power changes are needed.

 

[Rabbitthole]

Terry interesting idea, I will investigate all that. I have use "voice command programs before as agin they help the fact I only have 1 hand to use, the only issue I kept having was conversing on like "team Speak" in the middle of a sentence my gear would go down or my guns would fie

 

I'll check out voice attack. as I really would like to fly this aircraft, IL 2 mosquito is nice, but no where near DCS

 

Denis

[Terry Dactil]

Quote

the only issue I kept having was conversing on like "team Speak" in the middle of a sentence my gear would go down or my guns would fie

That is easily fixed. Normally Voice Attack would be set to listen for a command only while a particular (e.g. radio tx) button is pressed.

In this case it does not have to listen at all; just respond to some button presses to move the throttles. 

However,  that would be wasting the capabilities of Voice Attack. In my case I use it to get Nigel (my navigator) to set up the bomb arming panel, select fuel tanks, feather an engine, read me a checklist and lots of other useful useful stuff.

[Terry Dactil]

OK. I couldn't resist seeing if Voice Attack could handle this problem. It can!

I programmed VA to look at a 4 position switch  on the stick. Left  sets the throttle mode, Right sets the RPM mode. Up and down move the selected levers fore and aft.

Short presses move the levers in small increments, while a long press gives continuous movement. It's almost like an analog axis control.

It works well on my setup, but some adjusting of the key down times may be needed on othe computers. I noticed that the RPM levers stopped responding if the time was too short.

Here is the VA profile for anyone who wants to use it.Moz throttle & RPM-Profile.vap

[scoobie]

Hey, Rabbithole. I'm very sorry to hear about your condition

If you want to go for Voice Attack - valid option (I believe), case closed.

If you want to go without it, here's how you can make throttles slow. You choose.

On your disk, in the directory:

<DCS main directory>\Mods\aircraft\MosquitoFBMkVI\Input\MosquitoFBMkVI\joystick

there's a file "default.lua". I don't think I may post the whole file here (copyrights and stuff, I imagine), but here's just the beginning of the file where I put 2 homemade commands for you. You'll recognize them by the comments I put there.

local cockpit = folder .. "../../../Cockpit/Scripts/"
dofile(cockpit .. "devices.lua")
dofile(cockpit .. "command_defs.lua")



local res = external_profile("Config/Input/Aircrafts/common_joystick_binding.lua")
join(res.keyCommands, {
-- scoobie begin:
-- for Rabbithole begin:
{cockpit_device_id = devices.ENGINE_CONTROLS, pressed = device_commands.Button_27, value_pressed = 0.1, name = _("Throttle Up Slow"), category = _("Engine Controls")},
{cockpit_device_id = devices.ENGINE_CONTROLS, pressed = device_commands.Button_27, value_pressed = -0.1, name = _("Throttle Down Slow"), category = _("Engine Controls")},
-- for Rabbithole end.

If you put these 2 lines in your file at the same position (in the file) as shown above, you'll have both the old, normal (fast) throttle commands and these two new "slow" commands. Now you can bind fast commands to the hat and slow ones to - for example - "hat + shift button" or perhaps you'll want to use another hat or a pair of buttons. This way you'll be able to control throttles both quickly (e.g. in combat, when neccessary) and slowly during cruise etc.

Alternatively, you can also tinker with these numbers "value_pressed = 0.1" to find a sweetspot and have only one set of commands, like "throttle up/down not too slow and not too fast". 0.1 here is the speed - I just put this value off the top of my head. 0.1 is very slow. The original fast commands have 1.0 of value. You may try 0.2, or 0.5, whatever you want, and see how it feels.

Oh, you need to restart DCS each time you modify the file, changes made while DCS is running will be ineffective (until you restart it).

If you want this solution, let people know, because you'll also need some solution for restoring your changes after each DCS update (which will destroy your modifications). People will help you with that, I'm sure. There are mod managers for the job and there was a mod to keep own bindings in <Saved Games> folder, I can't remember how it was called exactly.

 

Edited September 29, 2022 by scoobie

[Rabbitthole]

exactly what I was looking for

 

 

really appreciate this

 

Denis

[Rabbitthole]

Scoobie:  here's some info from your post to change the "config"

 

any change in the value 1.0 renders the throttles inoperable, I have altered config file before and understand the importance to get all entries exact :periods commas ext.

I know I'm in right right ares because as soon as I put the value back to 1.0 they work again. I have tried 0.1.  0.5. and even 0.9.  only 1.0 works

Seems kinda strange ??

 

Denis

[scoobie]

Hmmm... before I posted the commands, I had tested them. I'll check again at home (in about 11 hours).

EDIT: Deleted my edit - it was silly. You wrote that your file starts working again if you put 1.0 value back. Nevermind, sorry.

Edited October 5, 2022 by scoobie

[LeCuvier]

I tested the solution presented by @scoobie and it works fine here. And there is no reason why it shouldn't work for someone else. I don't want to be patronizing but I suspect you did something wrong. I just inserted the 2 lines modified for "slow" after the original lines, but that difference shouldn't matter.

It should be easy to find out what was wrong if you could provide a copy of your modified "default.lua" file.

[Rabbitthole]

LeCuvier: not patronizing at all cause your right if it worked for you, its got to work for me. I will try again, this issue is I didn't " copy and paste I re typed the code

[LeCuvier]

11 minutes ago, Rabbitthole said:

LeCuvier: not patronizing at all cause your right if it worked for you, its got to work for me. I will try again, this issue is I didn't " copy and paste I re typed the code

That's a very error-prone process in my experience. Copy/paste is much safer.

[Rabbitthole]

would love to see someones config file with these two lines inserted, I bet I'm placing then after the wrong text !!!!

 

 

Denis

[LeCuvier]

I tried to send you my file per PM, but it says that you cannot receive messages. Why would that be?

Can you try to send me a PM?

[LeCuvier]

Rather than trying to figure out what's going wrong and giving piecemeal advice, I suggest you download and read the tutorial under this post: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/270080-lua-editing-for-additional-key-binds-tutorial-no-discussion-here-please/#elControls_4646929_menu