How could I be such a moron🤦‍♂️

[Turd Ferguson]

I have been struggling for months with the Apache and tonight I found out why

 

So I bought the Apache on release and flew it quite successfully for several months with a Warthog stick and Virpil Collective.

Then last December I upgraded my stick to a Virpil CM3 and 20cm extension. I calibrated it in the VPC software and again was flying it quite well, able to hold a stable-ish hover and thanks to the clutches in the gimbal could hold a constant altitude without too much effort compared to the Warthog.

 

After a couple of weeks I packed my flight sim gear away and didn't touch DCS for a while.

 

When I came back to it I was unable to lift off without the Apache rolling right onto it's rotors and if I could get into the air flying was such an effort i lost interest. Curves, Deadzones, Saturation nothing worked. After watching Casmo's video about the flight model I thought that must be the issue.

Over the last few months I've set up my flight sim setup and tried sporadically but always had issues so packed it up again after an hour or so. Even all the tutorials on YouTube didn't help.

 

I did notice that while flying fixed wing aircraft there was a persistent roll to the right (which should have been the clue to tonight revelation I suppose).

 

I wanted to try and master it so after work today set up my desk and jumped in the Huey as prior to the Apache had been quite good in it. My Controls had reset themselves somehow and needed remapping. I went into the axis menu and noticed straight away once pitch and roll were mapped a white line maybe 5mm long under each axis even though my stick was dead centre.

Somehow my VPC software had recalibrated neutral up and to the left of where centre actually was and for the last 6 months or so everytime I tried to fly the Apache... and the Gazelle I found out a few weeks ago my stick had a constant back and right applied to it which I was flighting against everytime I tried to fly it. After recalibrating in VPC the white line under the pitch and roll axis has gone, i'm able to take off smoothly, get into and hold a stable-ish hover and can now enjoy being back in the Apache instead of finding it such a chore that I largely lost interest in DCS World. I've been out of the Apache for about a year and found i'm quite rusty but i'm happy that I've finally figured out that DCS wasn't the problem it was the moron sat in front of it.

[Antix70]

No, actually it IS DCS that is the problem.

Because if you unplug your <any brand here> stick or throttle or rudders or collective, and simply move it to another USB port, DCS assigns a NEW arbitrary number to the device.

So instead of:
VPC Stick WarBRD-D.diff.lua

You get:
VPC Stick WarBRD-D {F4D26320-975F-11ee-8010-444553540000}.diff.lua

I GUESS this means you could have a couple of the same devices attached and DCS can tell them apart?

But this does nothing to ease the situation for folks like me who copied their entire DCS config folder over to the new computer only to find that DCS assigned new numbers to the same hardware, and none of mappings/curves/settings carried over (with the exception of KEYBOARD and MOUSE, which DON'T get numbers assigned to them), or like you who remove the devices from the computer from time to time, and perpetrated the heinous crime of not putting it in the EXACT SAME USB port as last time!

I had to spend quite a bit of time RENAMING all of the OLD files with the NEW numbers. (Someone on the DCS discord told me about a mass file renamer which I finally got working saving me about half the time)...

How is it that other games just see the same hardware in a new USB slot AS THE SAME HARDWARE, but DCS is like "New Port, WHO'S THIS?"

Edited December 20, 2023 by Antix70

[Hiob]

3 minutes ago, Antix70 said:

No, actually it IS DCS that is the problem.

Because if you unplug your <any brand here> stick or throttle or rudders or collective, and simply move it to another USB port, DCS assigns a NEW arbitrary number to the device.

So instead of:
VPC Stick WarBRD-D.diff.lua

You get:
VPC Stick WarBRD-D {F4D26320-975F-11ee-8010-444553540000}.diff.lua

I GUESS this means you could have a couple of the same devices attached and DCS can tell them apart?

But this does nothing to ease the situation for folks like me who copied their entire DCS config folder over to the new computer only to find that DCS assigned new numbers to the same hardware, and none of mappings/curves/settings carried over (with the exception of KEYBOARD and MOUSE, which DON'T get numbers assigned to them), or like you who remove the devices from the computer from time to time, and perpetrated the heinous crime of not putting it in the EXACT SAME USB port as last time!

I had to spend quite a bit of time RENAMING all of the OLD files with the NEW numbers. (Someone on the DCS discord told me about a mass file renamer which I finally got working saving me about half the time)...

How is it that other games just see the same hardware in a new USB slot AS THE SAME HARDWARE, but DCS is like "New Port, WHO'S THIS?"

 

It is not DCS that assigns a new identifier to your usb devices, but windows. 

You can perfectly move input devices from one usb-port to another on the same windows installation (I do it frequently). You just cant switch to a new computer or make a new windows installation without jumping through some hoops.

[Antix70]

So most games ignore the identifier? Honestly, it doesn't matter who applied the identifier.

I actually saved my entire Saved Games folder, and all of the games that utilized that folder on my OLD pc did not require redoing everything like DCS did. DCS is the only game in that folder that saw my devices as new items that needed remapped, or rename the files one by one in the input/joystick folder for each module, etc.

[Hiob]

DCS is probably some of the few games where you could hook up several devices of the same kind and still have DCS tell them apart reliable. 

Maybe other games don't look for the identifier but the device name instead. That wouldn't work in a flight sim.

Anyhow, there are easy ways around this problem, if you care to solve it. E.g. you can just rename your input config files with the new identifier. Takes like a minute to do.

[Turd Ferguson]

I think for this issue it was VPC that caused it. Neutral was calibrated slightly up and left of where neutral actually was so even when the stick was dead centre it was pulling back and right.

If I didn't need to remap my Huey controls i'd never have thought to check it.

I'm just happy to be flying semi competently again.

[Hootman9104]

17 hours ago, average_pilot said:

The easiest solution is to load the profiles. You still have to do it for each controller on each module, but your bindings, curvatures, etc. will be restored in no time. I do it quite often and it always feels great when for whatever reason I lose my bindings but I know I just have to load the controller profile again and done.

I can't remember the exact path but they are all stored in your Saved Games folder.

This. Took me quite some time to figure out how DCS like to handle it's profiles, in particular if you don't pay attention it always wants to append a new "diff.lua" to the end of the controller  name profile save. For instance, I generally never throw old profile backups away, and looking just now I see old iterations where I have AH-64D_pilot_keyboard.diff.lua (the original), and also AH-64D_pilot_keyboard.diff.lua.diff.lua.diff.lua, which means at some point I updated, saved, and when saving didn't remove the extra new "diff.lua", so it appended to the end of the original. with 3 "diff.lua", I not only did that once, I did it twice (not removing the additional "diff.lua" when saving). That file is dated April 2022, right after initial release, and before then I had not really been into creating entire profiles for aircraft.

So the naming convention is I think a bit wonkier than most sims, but it is great that you can save profiles for each, even the TrackIR.

Getting ready right now to map all the FCR stuff, so I'll be backing up prior to doing that, and glad I saw this discussion as it reminds me to be sure and remove the extra "diff.lua"  as I back up prior to making changes for the FCR.

But yeah, I just built a new PC, and had no issues loading the saved profiles in DCS.

I DID have an issue with IL-2 however, with IL-2 BOS doing what the OP stated, and I had to go into the IL-2 config files and renumber the controllers.

[LuseKofte]

Well in the mids of Reflected lost paradise campaign for Huey.  I forgot the need of choosing how many rockets you want to fire. Rendering me without the ability to fire rockets for month. Until I found out I had to reinstall the Huey. The moment I uninstalled it, I remembered the procedure of firing rockets. 
so you are not alone. 

Edited January 5, 2024 by LuseKofte