Force Feedback Settings Discussion

[amadeus]

The problem is that friction force in the rhino is very susceptible to buzzing and causing the motors to shut down, so it often has to be extremely limited. Damping is a possibility though, but I think ultimately it speaks to the question of — full accuracy may not be possible given the nature of current hardware, so how do we create an experience that “feels” as close as possible to the real thing (something I imagine only a pilot of an F4 could tell us)

[Hiob]

4 minutes ago, slowmover said:

I just broke my VPForce ffb on the F4. So be careful

How did you that? Do you mean physically broke it in pieces or crashed the software?

[Super Grover]

9 minutes ago, Lt_Jaeger said:

So you basically say, if I add some friction, I would be close(er) to the real thing? 

As Hiob said, friction can be introduced with a click or two in 10sec.

Yes. Writing off the top of my head, friction is around 6 lbf. Assuming that the reasonable max force when pulling 8-9 G would be 40-60 lbf; and that the full aft deflection on take-off at 220 kt is approximately 10 lbf, you could try to guestimate the ratio and set it accordingly in your hardware settings. I'll search for the precise friction value and let you know when I find it (I know, I've seen it), but it may take a while.

Edited May 23 by Super Grover

[Hiob]

3 minutes ago, amadeus said:

The problem is that friction force in the rhino is very susceptible to buzzing and causing the motors to shut down, so it often has to be extremely limited. 

Have you tried to adjust the LPF? I don’t have problems. I think I set it to 100% * 15% (main gain is on 100) and put it on one of the potis. It is plenty strong enough to hold even my heavy warthog metal grip in deflection. (with extension)

[slowmover]

3 minutes ago, Hiob said:

How did you that? Do you mean physically broke it in pieces or crashed the software?

Something broke at pitch no the 3d printed parts. i think i added too much force into it. I did not had that problem with F-18C

 

[shwed]

everything works well on FFBeast devices, and the forces are comparable to a real plane (~60lbs), but it is unclear why the "center" is moving forward and backward

[Super Grover]

I recommend watching this video:

 

[Hiob]

1 minute ago, slowmover said:

Something broke at pitch no the 3d printed parts. i think i added too much force into it. I did not had that problem with F-18C

 

Check if the pulley on the motor axis doesn’t have play. I had problems with the roll axis in the beginning until I noticed that I forgot loctide on the pulley fixation.

2 minutes ago, shwed said:

everything works well on FFBeast devices, and the forces are comparable to a real plane (~60lbs), but it is unclear why the "center" is moving forward and backward

Trim?

[shwed]

3 минуты назад, Hiob сказал:

Trim?

no, when the grip is abruptly released, the "center" "floats" back and forth several times

[Phantom12]

Changing load factor and airspeed will move the zero force position. Thats how the bobweights and bellows work. The video grover linked above is a good overview.

[Super Grover]

The central position is affected by speed (impact pressure), G-force, system inertia, and, when AFCS is enabled, the auto-trim function.

[Hiob]

2 minutes ago, shwed said:

no, when the grip is abruptly released, the "center" "floats" back and forth several times

I don’t know if it the same, but I had a similar problem in the Mirage, where I got this fluctuations (or pumping). For me the reason was to much gain on „constant“ force which then engaged in a feedback loop with spring. When I tuned it down, the problem stopped.

Other than that, I can only think of aerodynamic forces, that act as a „spring“ with abrupt deflection of control surfaces…..

[shwed]

That's how the FFB grip moves

Edited May 23 by shwed

[Hiob]

Yeah, that‘s just aerodynamic forces at play there - nothing out of the ordinary. Why would you ever yank on the stick like that? 

Edited May 23 by Hiob

[shwed]

4 минуты назад, Hiob сказал:

Why would you ever yank on the stick like that? 

you can't pull like that with a lot of force

This is an illustration of the incomprehensible movement of the "center

Edited May 23 by shwed

[kablamoman]

I hate to be that guy, but I think there is a huge problem with the way the stick has been modelled.

The bobweight/bellows system is meant to provide artificial feel, and as far as I can tell, it shouldn't really behave much differently from the pilot's point of view compared to any other aircraft. The more out-of-trim you get, the more restorative pressure there is on the stick. The more G's you want to pull, the heavier the stick. This is the same for any aircraft.

What we have with the way the simulation currently works, though (at least with a spring centered stick), is a situation where the system essentially snatches the stick position from the player's hands and moves it uncommanded in response and in opposition to their actual commanded controls -- this should absolutely not happen. If I'm holding the stick at a certain deflection, the stabilator should not budge -- as even the video says, they are directly connected and it's only the control pressures that are being changed.

The end result of what we have in the sim right now is that at low speeds it tends to get especially unstable when trying to trim the aircraft for approach speeds and becomes very hard to control as it actively works against you making it the most ridiculously hard to land plane I've ever flown in the sim or in real life for that matter. Think of using the Huey's force trim with a spring centered stick -- it gets really squirrelly.

Something really needs to be looked at here, and I think it may play a role in a lot of the FFB complaints that are floating around.

I am still trying to wrap my head around it, but something ain't right.

Edited May 23 by kablamoman

[Number481]

26 minutes ago, shwed said:

you can't pull like that with a lot of force

This is an illustration of the incomprehensible movement of the "center

 

Its not incomprehensible if you think about it, HB just needs to add some dampening/hysteresis to the center offset calculations around 1G to cut out some of the oscillations.  .  The shifting center is a mechanism to simulate the stick becoming heavier with G-loading.  In general it works quite well, better than using constant force to achieve the same G-loading effect.  The harder you pull, the further away it moves the center point, which has the effect of increasing the force you need to hold the stick in its current position.

If you fling and let go the stick, yeah, it oscillates as the stick moves in response to the centerpoint offset changing, then overshoots, then tries to react to the centerpoint offset over-reacting because the stick overshot its center position due to inerta....  

[Phantom12]

39 minutes ago, kablamoman said:

I hate to be that guy, but I think there is a huge problem with the way the stick has been modelled.

The bobweight/bellows system is meant to provide artificial feel, and as far as I can tell, it shouldn't really behave much differently from the pilot's point of view compared to any other aircraft. The more out-of-trim you get, the more restorative pressure there is on the stick. The more G's you want to pull, the heavier the stick. This is the same for any aircraft.

What we have with the way the simulation currently works, though (at least with a spring centered stick), is a situation where the system essentially snatches the stick position from the player's hands and moves it uncommanded in response and in opposition to their actual commanded controls -- this should absolutely not happen. If I'm holding the stick at a certain deflection, the stabilator should not budge -- as even the video says, they are directly connected and it's only the control pressures that are being changed.

The end result of what we have in the sim right now is that at low speeds it tends to get especially unstable when trying to trim the aircraft for approach speeds and becomes very hard to control as it actively works against you making it the most ridiculously hard to land plane I've ever flown in the sim or in real life for that matter. Think of using the Huey's force trim with a spring centered stick -- it gets really squirrelly.

Something really needs to be looked at here, and I think it may play a role in a lot of the FFB complaints that are floating around.

I am still trying to wrap my head around it, but something ain't right.

 

If you're using a spring stick the virtual stick moving on its own is by design. You can try blending off but the airplane will likely be exceptionally sensitive at higher airspeeds and difficult to contorl/prevent over-g. Anyway its not related to the FFB issue. Grover already mentioned that system is disabled for FF sticks. At low speed the blending is probably not active, but in that area Longitudinal stability is fairly weak.

 

 

 

Edited May 23 by Phantom12

[kablamoman]

4 minutes ago, Phantom12 said:

If you're using a spring stick the virtual stick moving on its own is by design. You can try blending off but the airplane will likely be exceptionally sensitive at higher airspeeds and difficult to contorl/prevent over-g. Anyway its not related to the FFB issue. Grover already mentioned that system is disabled for FF sticks. At low speed the blending is probably not active, but in that area Longitudinal stability is fairly weak.

 

And I'm saying this is poor design, and no other plane in DCS behaves this way. Essentially what is happening is that a FFB channel has been added to the stick simulation that can't be disabled for traditional joystick users... This introduces a control feedback loop that the player is unable to dampen or arrest, and it gets worse when the simulated stick neutral position gets aft of your actual Y-axis, and things get really touchy.

The bobweights and bellows perform the same function as regular aerodynamic forces acting on controls in a traditional aircraft, and in the absence of FFB hardware they should not even be introduced into the control loop for the sim if the player has a regular joystick.

One need only fly one of the warbirds to see how the trim forces should be handled properly -- you can trim and recenter the virtual stick neutral position, but there is not the additional feedback channel adding the oscillations and instability.

I really think heatblur needs to take a hard look at this and I am pretty flabbergasted none of the beta testers highlighted it as a huge point of concern.

[Bob_Bushman]

14 minutes ago, kablamoman said:

 

And I'm saying this is poor design, and no other plane in DCS behaves this way. Essentially what is happening is that a FFB channel has been added to the stick simulation that can't be disabled for traditional joystick users... This introduces a control feedback loop that the player is unable to dampen or arrest, and it gets worse when the simulated stick neutral position gets aft of your actual Y-axis, and things get really touchy.

The bobweights and bellows perform the same function as regular aerodynamic forces acting on controls in a traditional aircraft, and in the absence of FFB hardware they should not even be introduced into the control loop for the sim if the player has a regular joystick.

One need only fly one of the warbirds to see how the trim forces should be handled properly -- you can trim and recenter the virtual stick neutral position, but there is not the additional feedback channel adding the oscillations and instability.

I really think heatblur needs to take a hard look at this and I am pretty flabbergasted none of the beta testers highlighted it as a huge point of concern.

Likely none of the beta testers are FFB users, it's better to find more mainstream players for that task than to spend that effort on more common bugs.
We just need to work with HB to help work something out.

[Hiob]

2 hours ago, Bazz_Mulder said:

Cześć Krzysztof,

Thanks for the great insights on how these systems work together!

Is there any chance that you can share your settings? I'm struggling to find a baseline with my Rhino. 

Thanks!

 

Hey, I found a great hack to make the roll axis a bit more pleasant (even though it may be unrealistic). You can use the „balance spring“ option in the VP controls and only apply the y-axis (up to 100% if you want to).

[Super Grover]

Please note that FFB and non-FFB stick inputs are processed differently. In this topic, I observe that these two are sometimes considered one.

Additionally, I wanted to assure you that I spent months analysing control setups in different versions of the F-4, modelling the system, and understanding how the controls impact aircraft behaviour in real life and the flight model in the sim. I can guarantee you that if you look closer at the available flight reports, you'll find that certain aspects of the flight dynamics come not from the aerodynamics but from how the controls closed loop works and how that loop leads to certain types of oscillations. That's why we decided to create a very detailed and innovative simulation of the flight control system for both types of joysticks. I am sure that it brings the feel/experience of the aircraft to another level. However, I understand that this may also feel odd compared with other modules or simulators, but I think it's mainly because this aspect is often overlooked and simplified.

Yet, I'm aware that we can still improve certain aspects of this part of the simulation. For example, I want to enhance dampening when trimming for non-FFB joysticks.

Edited May 23 by Super Grover

[Gunfreak]

I can't talk about what is realistic or not.

But I use the brunner. And I was expecting F14 or Viggen FFB effects. Where the aircraft fights you as soon as you get close to the limit. But in the F4 it's all very docile, I felt a slight shake but that was it. The stick will absolutely not not yell you when you're about to depart. Hopefully simshaker will update. So my seat will tell me.

[Hiob]

@Super Grover Hey, don’t worry. I‘m not hitting on the modelling or anything. It‘s just that us desk pilots fly different aircraft frequently (other than real pilots) and on top can‘t feel the aircraft through our pants. Its just a mixture of adapting to the new module and adapting the module to my taste!

[Super Grover]

1 minute ago, Hiob said:

@Super Grover Hey, don’t worry. I‘m not hitting on the modelling or anything. It‘s just that us desk pilots fly different aircraft frequently (other than real pilots) and on top can‘t feel the aircraft through our pants. Its just a mixture of adapting to the new module and adapting the module to my taste!

Oh, I never felt that way from you . It's the opposite - I find your contribution very constructive. Coincidently, my message landed just below yours. Sorry for the confusion.