It's Clean-up Time...

[Sunjah]

One of my favorite Lennon tunes...

 

I have not been playing Black Shark that much, mostly because I feel I should be getting a decent handle on it by now. I don't!

 

I just spent 2 1/2 hours flying a mission that really should've taken maybe 1/2 hour.

 

There are some thing I am just really not understanding:

 

1) Why do the Auto-Pilot heading, altitude, bank and pitch turn themselves off? Somtimes I will start swinging wildly out of control, not understanding why, and sure enough if I look, all 4 (or 3, with altitude on) are shut off. This is really driving me crazy. WHY?

 

2) Does not hover mean to stay stationary with the same altitude? There are times I hover, with AP Altitude assistance and AP Heading assistance assigned, but the helicopter floats, oh, 2 or 3 or maybe 5 on the speed indicator.

 

3) If the above happens, I have heard it mentioned many times to use trimmer constantly. Well, if I am in a situation like above, almost a hover, and I want to correct whatever minor thing is wrong (shouldn't an attack-helicopter of the 21st Century know enough to "hover" on its own when told to do that?), if I dare to press trimmer it makes everything way worse. Before it acknowledges where my joystick is, the first thing it does is pitch up, EVERY TIME! Needless to say, my minor rocking now turns into a lot of rocking.

 

4) I can only seem to achieve a hover when my chopper is tilted upwards. It never seems to be level as it hovers, it has an upward tilt. Well, again, needless to say, this make firing rockets/gun pods that much harder. I have to dip a lot, which forces me to go at high-speeds and I don't want to, to even get the gun sights on the enemy.

 

5) I have the pitch and roll axes modified to something like the diagram below. This is so they will start out with small movements, but if I force them all the way, they will respond all the way. Unfortunately, IT ISN'T WORKING like that. If I barely tap the roll axis, the hellicopter comes close to going 90* on it's side. If I am in a hover (or close, ugh), it is as though it recognizes the input-curve, but in real movement or any other time, it is usually unbelievably twitchy either x- or y-axis.

 

HEEELLLLPPPP!!!

 

I don't understand any of this. I have tried practice, I have tried training, some of these things I just don't get. I have not read the manual cover-to-cover, but some of these (like the AP assists suddenly turning off by themselves) I have never found in the manual.

 

Ugh, do I sound frustrated? I want to love this game but keep fighting it because at times it will be so twitchy, at times it won't do what I ask it to.

Edited January 30, 2009 by Sunjah

[Nieldo]

1-4) Sorry cant give a proper answer for these. But I can tell you its very much a 20th Century helicopter.

 

5) Personally I cant stand curves on my axis controls. On a curve like that it looks like at first you get nothing, then it picks up and you have more then you wanted/needed.

 

First try lowering the curve, or taking it away all together. Then try lowering the saturation to give you less sensitive controles.

 

This is what I use:

Edited January 30, 2009 by Nieldo

[koyan]

Hi, i understand your frustration, same thing i went through untill tonight. I suddenly got the grips of how to trim well, it has to be a very quick tap of the trim button while at the same time (just as quick) the controls have to be released to center position.

 

I also had the problem with the AP buttons switching themselves off. I went through the key and yoke assignment setup and deleted all axis assignments that i don't use for a particular device. I also checked for double key assignments. After that the AP disconnect didn't occur anymore.

 

One other thing maybe usefull: yoke buttons don't seem to work as long as a SHFT or CTRL button is depressed.

[Sunjah]

1-4) Sorry cant give a proper answer for these.

 

5) Personally I cant stand curves on my axis controls. On a curve like that it looks like at first you get nothing, then it picks up and you have more then you wanted/needed.

 

First try lowering the curve, or taking it away all together. Then try lowering the saturation to give you less sensitive controles.

 

This is what I use:

 

 

Yes, the rudder on the twist-a-stick is where I came up with that curve. I wanted some play in the stick before it took hold, didn't want it too strong at first, but if I need to twist badly I could go all the way and get 100% effect. I was trying it with x- & y- as well, but I just reset them.

 

I might give your idea a try if they are still all fidgety.

[Sunjah]

Hi, i understand your frustration, same thing i went through untill tonight. I suddenly got the grips of how to trim well, it has to be a very quick tap of the trim button while at the same time (just as quick) the controls have to be released to center position.

 

I also had the problem with the AP buttons switching themselves off. I went through the key and yoke assignment setup and deleted all axis assignments that i don't use for a particular device. I also checked for double key assignments. After that the AP disconnect didn't occur anymore.

 

One other thing maybe usefull: yoke buttons don't seem to work as long as a SHFT or CTRL button is depressed.

 

 

Hey, I'm sorry, but I am so frustrated I am just angry right now. Could you explain again how you got it so that it didn't shut off all the Auto-Pilot's again? I think I do have all axes taken away except the 3 for the mouse, the 4 for the Siatek Pro and the 4 for the Logitech 3DPro, which I kind of retired since I got the Saitek. The Logitech still had this happen when it was the only joystick.

 

As if this thing wasn't hard enough, AP's turning themselves off is not good. Thanks for the tips so far.

[Sinner6]

I'm no expert, but I'll try:

 

 

1) Why do the Auto-Pilot heading, altitude, bank and pitch turn themselves off? Somtimes I will start swinging wildly out of control, not understanding why, and sure enough if I look, all 4 (or 3, with altitude on) are shut off. This is really driving me crazy. WHY?

 

This happens occasionally to me as well. There is a keystroke (that I don't recall offhand) that "cancels" autopilot, and has this effect. It's possible you may be accidentally pressing this, it's possibly something else.

 

2) Does not hover mean to stay stationary with the same altitude? There are times I hover, with AP Altitude assistance and AP Heading assistance assigned, but the helicopter floats, oh, 2 or 3 or maybe 5 on the speed indicator. The Heading AP influences your flight vector (direction of travel), not necessarily the direction your nose is pointed.

Are you using the "auto hover" and having it drift? Or just drifting when you "trim in" a good hover? If you are using the autohover, one very important fact to know is that the autopilots never have more than 20% authority over the control of the cyclic from where you are presently trimmed to. This means that if you are holding the stick %25 of the way to the left to achieve a hover, and press "autohover" the AP will give you the %20 that it has, but you will still be %5 off from a stable hover and the ship will drift. To avoid this simply trim to a hover (less than 5kph) before engaging autohover and you will find much better results.

 

3) If the above happens, I have heard it mentioned many times to use trimmer constantly. Well, if I am in a situation like above, almost a hover, and I want to correct whatever minor thing is wrong (shouldn't an attack-helicopter of the 21st Century know enough to "hover" on its own when told to do that?), if I dare to press trimmer it makes everything way worse. Before it acknowledges where my joystick is, the first thing it does is pitch up, EVERY TIME! Needless to say, my minor rocking now turns into a lot of rocking.

 

On the subject of trim a couple important concepts to keep in mind:

 

-trim takes effect upon the release of the button

 

-it acts differently if you press and release quickly versus holding it down. By holding it down a second it seems to have the same effect as the "flight director mode", meaning that all AP input is removed, but there is still stabilization applied (as opposed to tuning the AP channels OFF).

 

What this means in practice is that you must press and hold the trim button BEFORE changing flight attitude or direction! If you move the stick to roughly where you had it when you engaged trim while you press the button it will minimize the "bump" you get from the AP's momentarily disengaging. Then complete your manouver, stabilize, release the trim button, and make minor adjustments as needed. If you like how the craft flies when you are holding down the trim button, try "flight director mode", but keep in mind this cuts the AP's out of the loop, including the AutoHover and Turn to Target.

 

 

4) I can only seem to achieve a hover when my chopper is tilted upwards. It never seems to be level as it hovers, it has an upward tilt. Well, again, needless to say, this make firing rockets/gun pods that much harder. I have to dip a lot, which forces me to go at high-speeds and I don't want to, to even get the gun sights on the enemy.

 

The craft hovers with a 5 degreee nose up pitch. Thems the breaks, thats why you have a nose mouted camera and slewable gun.

 

5) I have the pitch and roll axes modified to something like the diagram below. This is so they will start out with small movements, but if I force them all the way, they will respond all the way. Unfortunately, IT ISN'T WORKING like that. If I barely tap the roll axis, the hellicopter comes close to going 90* on it's side. If I am in a hover (or close, ugh), it is as though it recognizes the input-curve, but in real movement or any other time, it is usually unbelievably twitchy either x- or y-axis.

 

Are you using the DCS axis controls to make these adjustments or the software with your joystick (which is?)?

You have the right idea with your curves, mine are similar....for what its worth I left the DCS axis controls alone and used the CH software to adjust mine. The bird is twitchy, and keep in mind all your inputs have a delay before anything happens. If you do anything before pressing and holding the trimmer, you will be fighting the AP, for however much of it's 20% authority it still has to play with, this can lead to very erratic behavior as well.

Edited January 30, 2009 by Sinner6

[einar-st]

Hehe... it's not really a 21st century chopper, though.

 

The fact that it hovers with an upwards tilt is just the way it hovers. As far as I understand your not supposed to use rockets from a hover... attack-run and then break. Guns and missiles work fine from a hover with Shkval.

 

Putting autohover on after trimming it for a "hover" with a speed of maximum 20kph (I try keeping it below 10kph) BEFORE pushing the autohover button has never given me the issues you're describing.

 

Pitch and bank AP-channels can disable themselves if applying autohover when the INU is not initialized.

 

The rest of your issues I can't say anything about because I have not experienced them.

[CyBerkut]

2) Does not hover mean to stay stationary with the same altitude? There are times I hover, with AP Altitude assistance and AP Heading assistance assigned, but the helicopter floats, oh, 2 or 3 or maybe 5 on the speed indicator.

 

I believe that would be stationary relative to the ground. If you have a 5 K/Hr head wind, your chopper would need to fly at 5 K/Hr to stay over the same spot on the ground. Of course, if the wind isn't head on, then the math gets more complex. :)

[eV1Te]

I've had the same problems while trying to learn the Ka-50.

 

One thing that I use all the time is the Ctrl-Enter command that displays where your controls are at, this makes it very simple to trim to a hover from whatever position you had before. (IRL you can sens where the controlls are at since the position of the Cyclic doesn't recenter after a trim which justifies to have a visual indication where the controlls are)

 

Good Luck!

[scatter]

I too have had my autopilots turn off by themselves - often while performing emergency evasive manouvers. I haven't worked out why either, and hope that the real aircraft wouldn't do such a murderous thing to its pilot.

 

As for your curves not seeming to affect the response, one possible issue (please forgive me if you already know this). There are two independant modes for the controls, realistic and gaming (selected at the top of the controls screen) - you need to alter the settings for whichever mode you fly in as they are independant.

[eV1Te]

Keep in mind that the Autopilot stabilisations (Pitch and Bank Hold) will disengage if you Auto Hover below 5-10 Meters! (I almost never use auto hover anymore, a simple trim is sufficient to become more or less stationary)

 

Also the INU must have time to spin up before the auto hover will work correctly, so don't use auto hover directly after engine start.

[einar-st]

I too have had my autopilots turn off by themselves - often while performing emergency evasive manouvers. I haven't worked out why either, and hope that the real aircraft wouldn't do such a murderous thing to its pilot.

 

I just did some testing and the reason this happens during extreme manouvers is because the power generators will not generate sufficient power when the rotor is under heavy stress i.e. low RPM.

 

It will however only happen when the batteries are off aswell. Seeing as how they are on when "starting from runway", I guess one should always be flying with them on?

[eV1Te]

The batteries should always be turned on, aswell as the generators and the Inverter auto mode! (I guess that they are recharged by the generator when they are turned on as well?)

[einar-st]

The batteries should always be turned on, aswell as the generators and the Inverter auto mode! (I guess that they are recharged by the generator when they are turned on as well?)

 

Yea.. that's what I do and what seems pretty logical to me. I did however notice that Wags does not do this on his Start-Up producers note. I mean he calls it "enabling the batteries" but he's enabling the generators. The battery-switches remain untouched throughout the video (he starts on external power).

[GGTharos]

The video is a bit out-dated.

[Wags]

More like VERY outdated ;)