Force Feedback Settings Discussion

[Hiob]

2 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

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.

Can’t copy that. (talking about pitch only). The faster I am, the stiffer the controls get. Eventual it will start to shudder when I approach critical AOAs and when I bleed of to much speed or stall, the force will go away - as expected. Of course I don’t own a brunner and can’t tell the differences between different ffb sticks.

[shwed]

1 час назад, Number481 сказал:

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. 

it looks logical

but it doesn't work, the "center" shifts not when I pull, but when the grip returns to neutral

[Gunfreak]

11 minutes ago, Hiob said:

Can’t copy that. (talking about pitch only). The faster I am, the stiffer the controls get. Eventual it will start to shudder when I approach critical AOAs and when I bleed of to much speed or stall, the force will go away - as expected. Of course I don’t own a brunner and can’t tell the differences between different ffb sticks.

I got a slight sake when I got slow in a turn. I haven't flown to the limit yet. But in the Viggen the stick will violently throw itself around as soon as you fly just slightly out of lazy 747 style flying.

Edited May 23, 2024 by Gunfreak

[Hiob]

1 minute ago, Gunfreak said:

I got a slight sake when I got slow in a turn. I haven't flown to the limit yet. But in the Viggen the stick will violently throw itself around as soon as you fly just slightly out of lazy 474 style flying.

 

Have you checked the special options and adjusted the gain for pitch and roll? (go straight to 100% on both - and in the VP discord someone suggested, you can even go above that like 300% on roll. Haven’t tried that myself yet)

Edited May 23, 2024 by Hiob

[Maksim Savelev]

Hello. I'm participating as a test pilot and some kind of expert in the FFBeast project. It all started more than 3.5 years ago, but the devices are only now getting ready to be delivered to the first customers. We made significant progress by understanding the necessity of a wide range of feedback forces required for correct simulation and implementing them into our products. At this moment, some versions can produce about 60 pounds of force, which makes them a perfect fit for use with the Phantom. I have been talking to other people about how important it is to have such devices. Coming from my real-life experience of flying a wide variety of different aircraft, I was able to replicate the feel of controls of most airplanes and helicopters in DCS throughout the project software. For example, when we’re talking about the Mosquito or Spitfire, very little stick movement is required to control the aircraft in the longitudinal axis. That is why the stick has to be very firm and well-loaded from the first millimeters of movement to prevent over-control. But it would be a very different story for the Fokker A-8. The same applies to different types of jets depending on the type of boosting systems they have, Fly-by-wire, or the absence of any boosters. The main idea behind all of this is that through the control stick and pedals, you can feel the “character” of the aircraft you’re flying. Let’s say you’re sliding the tail down in your P-51 after a vertical line; you should be prepared and keep your flight stick firmly; otherwise, it will probably kick you very hard between your legs. So all of this makes people with flight experience believe that they’re flying the real thing, especially in VR, and teaches virtual pilots what to expect from real controls and helps them better understand the regimes they’re getting themselves into. Using FFB is what makes flying “bright and colorful,” and no matter what, you can’t replicate the same with a regular spring-loaded joystick. Sliding the tail down on a regular joystick won’t give you the feel of airflow going in the backward direction. But it doesn’t mean you can fake this by breaking the linkage between a physical joystick and the 3D stick in the cockpit, letting it go all the way to the pilot seat because you will affect the pilot’s decision, will, and control of the aircraft. It might be that he wanted to have the stick all the way forward to make the airplane fall on its back. What you have done by trying to fake FFB feelings on the stick when using a spring joystick is absolutely unacceptable because the pilot doesn’t have any control over this. No matter what, you’re not allowed to interrupt the pilot’s control input in such a way because it doesn’t work right, replicates nothing except your poor judgment, and brings only frustration and poor flight technique, which is already a problem among virtual pilots. I get your point; I read the manual and went through the schematics very precisely, watched a lot of videos to compare stick behavior, and even though I don’t agree with you on how in a very exaggerated way you wanted to simulate stick rebalancing, on FFB I can overcome it by force, but there’s no possible way to fight it on a spring joystick. Please leave this “rebalancing” feature only for FFB users and don’t try to fake it in a very “arcadic” way for people with spring joysticks. They are at a disadvantage already, having all aircraft and helicopters “flat and grey,” it’s already very difficult.

[Gunfreak]

2 minutes ago, Hiob said:

Have you checked the special options and adjusted the gain for pitch and roll? (go straight to 100% on both - and in the VP discord someone suggested, you can even go above that like 300% on roll. Haven’t tried that myself yet)

 

I flew with 150 and 120 I think.

[Hiob]

1 minute ago, Gunfreak said:

I flew with 150 and 120 I think.

Hmmm, okay. Then I have no ideas left currently. As I said, I don’t know the Brunner unfortunately.

[CaptainFlint42]

So in the F4, which types of spring forces can it enable from the game? Is it only Spring and Periodic?

 

In the VPForce Software, we have a lot of settings available for setting "sticky" forces that will not let the game override it, or for setting forces the game doesn't it.

 

If you can't set a high friction from the F4/DCS, should we try a "sticky" friction force in the VPForce software? null

 

null

[Phantom12]

Theres plenty of warning before departure, with the aural tones, Rudder pedal shaker (stick shake), and buffet its more than telegraphed. The feel is ofc very different to the F-14, generally the displacement is much less and IRL I imagine they flew more by feeling the forces at high speed than by deflection. That video I posted above mentions 6G for 1" of travel.

 

I feel basically the same as Hiob said. From everything I can see I dont think the model is incorrect in any way, and I hope you dont take my comments more negatively than I intended them. The model certainly seems very detailed and thorough. Mostly I just wanted to find the right settings for me and understand what a few of the options do.

Although it might not be 100% realistic in terms of how forces scale to one another, an option to boost the forces a bit at lower speed might be one compromise to allow users that want to to get better handling with the comparitively weak consumer sticks we have.

Also maybe its worth mentioning in the special options description that the blending doesnt apply to FFB. I (and probably a few others) only turned it off initially since the description made it seem like it would do things that were not necessarily desirable for an FFB stick.

 

Also RE the pumping thing mentioned before: I know that DCS FFB effects sometimes spaz out... For me it happens most with the F-14, and more often when I hit fly before the mission/textures are properly loaded, or leave the stickytape over the sensor activating FFB before FPS has smoothed out. That has also given me some weird erratic pumping or similar. Its only fixed by restarting DCS, or waiting till the mission is properly loaded to start flying.

Edited May 23, 2024 by Phantom12

[Hiob]

11 minutes ago, CaptainFlint42 said:

So in the F4, which types of spring forces can it enable from the game? Is it only Spring and Periodic?

 

In the VPForce Software, we have a lot of settings available for setting "sticky" forces that will not let the game override it, or for setting forces the game doesn't it.

 

If you can't set a high friction from the F4/DCS, should we try a "sticky" friction force in the VPForce software? null

 

null

I think the only effect that is completely overridden by the game is "Spring". But when you make it sticky, you loose the proper feedback in the game. You can get around this by NOT making it sticky and instead use "Balance Spring" for that. Make use of aircraft individual .conf files!

Those are my settings for the Phantom so far (still wip), if that is of any use to anybody (disregard the static force - that is only to compensate for my heavy grip):

 

7 minutes ago, Phantom12 said:

Also RE the pumping thing mentioned before: I know that DCS FFB effects sometimes spaz out... For me it happens most with the F-14, and more often when I hit fly before the mission/textures are properly loaded, or leave the stickytape over the sensor activating FFB before FPS has smoothed out. That has also given me some weird erratic pumping or similar. Its only fixed by restarting DCS, or waiting till the mission is properly loaded to start flying.

What kind of FFB stick are you using?

Edited May 23, 2024 by Hiob

[Phantom12]

Sidewinder FFB2. Not sure if the same issue exists with the Rhino, or if there is an interrupt like the sensor on the sidewinder. Just thought its worth mentioning for troubleshooting.

[Hiob]

3 minutes ago, Phantom12 said:

Sidewinder FFB2. Not sure if the same issue exists with the Rhino, or if there is an interrupt like the sensor on the sidewinder. Just thought its worth mentioning for troubleshooting.

I asked, because those "spazzed out" effects can be tuned away with the rhino from my experience. It's mostly a matter of gain for different effects - but I have no idea how the Sidewinder works.....

[Phantom12]

Its definitely some sort of bug and not something to be tuned out. I have occasionally mistaken it when hitting gusts or wake turbulence, but usually its very noticeably different. Its sort of just random jerking of the stick/spiking of the forces during maneuver. Theres no fancy software for the FFB2 that I know of like for the Rhino either. Its more of a nuisance in the end as you can avoid it with a bit of patience.

[CaptainFlint42]

43 minutes ago, Hiob said:

I think the only effect that is completely overridden by the game is "Spring". But when you make it sticky, you loose the proper feedback in the game. You can get around this by NOT making it sticky and instead use "Balance Spring" for that. Make use of aircraft individual .conf files!

Those are my settings for the Phantom so far (still wip), if that is of any use to anybody (disregard the static force - that is only to compensate for my heavy grip):

 

 

Quote

Supergrover said:

The stick position in the cockpit when stationary on the ground isn't directly related to your physical stick position, as high friction in the real aircraft cannot be applied when combined with the joysticks we use.

 

So my theory is that if we could get some guidance on the "friction" that the real thing has that the game can't do, we could set a "Stick Friction" (and maybe damper?) in VP Force and then have the game still send the Spring/Periodic effects.

[Hiob]

Ok, so I tested putting the ingame gains for roll and pitch (special options) over 100. That works well. Roll 250-300, Pitch ~150 seems a good setting for me. The workaround with the balancing spring isn't further necessary. (feels similar though) 

21 minutes ago, CaptainFlint42 said:

 

So my theory is that if we could get some guidance on the "friction" that the real thing has that the game can't do, we could set a "Stick Friction" (and maybe damper?) in VP Force and then have the game still send the Spring/Periodic effects.

Putting the friction to 10-15% (effect gain 100%, master gain 100%) works good for me.

[Number481]

1 hour ago, shwed said:

it looks logical

but it doesn't work, the "center" shifts not when I pull, but when the grip returns to neutral

Your correct that the offset changes when returning to center, but that is in response to the unloading of the g forces.  The center also moves when you load up the Gs, which is what causes the force to appear to increase.  

I don't know what monitoring capabilities you have with your stick, but pay attention to the center offset for the spring effect (ID:5) in this short clip.  As I pull in the turn, you see the offset shift farther negative (forward) the harder I pull.  When I return to center, the offset moves back towards natural center again.  

My point was that the oscillations occur because it is too sensitive with minor fluctuations in the G forces around 1G.  There needs to be some sort of non linear factor applied to the force such that the generated offset between 1-2G is significantly less than the offset generated between 2-3 or 3-4..  that would eliminate a lot of the wobbly feeling around center.

[kablamoman]

2 hours ago, Maksim Savelev said:

Hello. I'm participating as a test pilot and some kind of expert in the FFBeast project. It all started more than 3.5 years ago, but the devices are only now getting ready to be delivered to the first customers. We made significant progress by understanding the necessity of a wide range of feedback forces required for correct simulation and implementing them into our products. At this moment, some versions can produce about 60 pounds of force, which makes them a perfect fit for use with the Phantom. I have been talking to other people about how important it is to have such devices. Coming from my real-life experience of flying a wide variety of different aircraft, I was able to replicate the feel of controls of most airplanes and helicopters in DCS throughout the project software. For example, when we’re talking about the Mosquito or Spitfire, very little stick movement is required to control the aircraft in the longitudinal axis. That is why the stick has to be very firm and well-loaded from the first millimeters of movement to prevent over-control. But it would be a very different story for the Fokker A-8. The same applies to different types of jets depending on the type of boosting systems they have, Fly-by-wire, or the absence of any boosters. The main idea behind all of this is that through the control stick and pedals, you can feel the “character” of the aircraft you’re flying. Let’s say you’re sliding the tail down in your P-51 after a vertical line; you should be prepared and keep your flight stick firmly; otherwise, it will probably kick you very hard between your legs. So all of this makes people with flight experience believe that they’re flying the real thing, especially in VR, and teaches virtual pilots what to expect from real controls and helps them better understand the regimes they’re getting themselves into. Using FFB is what makes flying “bright and colorful,” and no matter what, you can’t replicate the same with a regular spring-loaded joystick. Sliding the tail down on a regular joystick won’t give you the feel of airflow going in the backward direction. But it doesn’t mean you can fake this by breaking the linkage between a physical joystick and the 3D stick in the cockpit, letting it go all the way to the pilot seat because you will affect the pilot’s decision, will, and control of the aircraft. It might be that he wanted to have the stick all the way forward to make the airplane fall on its back. What you have done by trying to fake FFB feelings on the stick when using a spring joystick is absolutely unacceptable because the pilot doesn’t have any control over this. No matter what, you’re not allowed to interrupt the pilot’s control input in such a way because it doesn’t work right, replicates nothing except your poor judgment, and brings only frustration and poor flight technique, which is already a problem among virtual pilots. I get your point; I read the manual and went through the schematics very precisely, watched a lot of videos to compare stick behavior, and even though I don’t agree with you on how in a very exaggerated way you wanted to simulate stick rebalancing, on FFB I can overcome it by force, but there’s no possible way to fight it on a spring joystick. Please leave this “rebalancing” feature only for FFB users and don’t try to fake it in a very “arcadic” way for people with spring joysticks. They are at a disadvantage already, having all aircraft and helicopters “flat and grey,” it’s already very difficult.

This is exactly how I'm processing this.

Understandably, an attempt was made to convey some idea of the control forces and feel of the plane by abstracting the virtual joystick and making its position subject to the simulation forces. The problem is that this cannot be done properly without force feedback. Approximations have been made, as in IL2, where the stick position doesn't command a position, but a force applied -- at least in that title it is consistent across the board, but it also does not result in realistic behavior in terms of real stick position vs. in-game control surface deflection through a range of speed.

In the F-4E module it seems to be trying to do too much and has over-thought and over-engineered the simulation of how the real aircraft's control feel system integrates with the virtual stick. The irony is that from the pilot standpoint this system should not feel any different than regular control forces generated by aerodynamic loads and declage/trim in a more traditional aircraft. The only difference would be to what extent and how heavy or light the loads are -- but certainly not how the stick behaves.

The DCS warbirds and even the F-14, have already solved the problem beautifully, while also allowing for the addition of control pressures to be added to the simulation through proper hardware endabled force feedback. Even for spring-centered sticks, trim neutral stick positions can change (by scaling the axes values instead of changing the virtual stick position entirely), and aerodynamic loads on the controls affect handling and can even restrict pull forces and rates of deflection. There are ways to finesse it while respecting the actual position of the player's control device.

@Super Grover I implore you to rethink how this has been implemented and go fly some of the warbirds to see how to properly handle stick position with regards to self-centering spring-loaded sticks. For instance, with an old warbird parked on the ground without any aerodynamic load, the stick is completely dead -- yet the control input isn't being overridden by the simulation and changing the position of the stick to be resting full forward or at some other appropriate position. Due to hardware limitations, you must assume that the stick is being held in place by the pilot, and so the sim dutifully holds the stick upright, as the real life springs keep the axes centered. But with FFB it's another story and the stick will be appropriately dead.

Right now, with the current simulation of the F-4 stick is a bit of a muddled abstraction without FFB: We have a case of the plane actively fighting control inputs and inducing oscillations with no way to stop it.

I realize a lot of work -- blood, sweat, and tears -- was put into simulating this system, and I believe it should still pay dividends when it comes to providing accurate force feedback. But as someone who really loves flying in both real life and in VR -- and can especially appreciate all the work you've put into this module -- I think the stick behavior we see for non-FFB sticks needs to go back to the basics.

 

 

Edited May 23, 2024 by kablamoman

[Hiob]

17 minutes ago, kablamoman said:

This is exactly how I'm processing this.

An attempt was made to convey some idea of the control forces by abstracting the virtual joystick and making its position subject to the simulation forces. The problem is that this cannot be done properly without force feedback. Approximations have been made, as in IL2, where the stick position doesn't command a position, but a force applied -- at least in that title it is consistent across the board, but it also does not result in realistic behavior in terms of real stick position vs. in-game control surface deflection through a range of speed.

In the F-4E module it seems to be trying to do too much, and has over-thought and over-engineered the simulation of how the real aircraft's control feel system integrates with the virtual stick. The irony is that from the pilot standpoint this system should not feel any different than regular control forces generated by aerodynamic loads and declage/trim in a more traditional aircraft. The only difference would be to what extent and how heavy or light the loads are -- but certainly not how the stick behaves.

The DCS warbirds have already solved the problem beautifully, while also allowing for the addition of control pressures to be added to the simulation through force feedback. Even for spring-centered sticks, trim neutral stick positions can change (by scaling the axes values instead of changing the stick position entirely), and aerodynamic loads on the controls affect handling and can even restrict pull forces and rates of deflection. There are ways to finesse it while respecting the actual position of the player's control device.

@Super Grover I implore you to rethink how this has been implemented, and go fly some of the warbirds to see how to properly handle stick position with regards to self-centering spring loaded sticks. For instance, with an old warbird parked on the ground without any aerodynamic load, the stick is completely dead -- yet the control input isn't being overridden by the simulation and changing the position of the stick to be resting full forward or at some other appropriate position. Due to hardware limitations, you must assume that the stick is being held in place by the pilot, and so the sim dutifully holds the stick upright, as the real life springs keep the axes centered. But with FFB it's another story and the stick will be appropriately dead.

Right now with the current simulation making a muddled abstraction, we have a case of the plane actively fighting control inputs and inducing oscillations with no way to stop it.

 

 

 

Why don’t you turn it off in the special options if it bothers you so much? As I understood all the stuff you described above is optional for non ffb-users.

[kablamoman]

1 minute ago, Hiob said:

Why don’t you turn it off in the special options if it bothers you so much? As I understood all the stuff you described above is optional for non ffb-users.

You cannot.

It's built into the stick simulation in this particular module even with the FFB option turned off. The other options in the "Special" settings pertain only to pull force available and "blending" which dynamically adjusts that value. The feedback loop overriding the user's stick positions is not something you can turn off.

[unlikely_spider]

7 minutes ago, kablamoman said:

You cannot.

It's built into the stick simulation in this particular module even with the FFB option turned off. The other options in the "Special" settings pertain only to pull force available and "blending" which dynamically adjusts that value. The feedback loop overriding the user's stick positions is not something you can turn off.

Yep. And as a non-FFB stick user that was what was immediately confusing to me. I spent quite a bit of time checking all the appropriate options and making sure that I wasn't going crazy and unknowingly had some other peripheral that was providing input.

Edited May 23, 2024 by unlikely_spider

[Phantom12]

Turn FFB and Blending off. That is exactly what you are looking for. You will probably find it doesnt work well overall, hence why blending was implemented. If there is still an issue make a bug report or at least another thread so you can stop derailing this one.

 

Anyway I just did a long flight and noticed one more difference for FFB sticks between blending on and off... The stick shake from the rudder pedal shaker at 23.5 units didnt seem to be present with blending on, but Im sure I felt it earlier today when I was trying all the different options out.

[Super Grover]

10 minutes ago, Phantom12 said:

Anyway I just did a long flight and noticed one more difference for FFB sticks between blending on and off... The stick shake from the rudder pedal shaker at 23.5 units didnt seem to be present with blending on, but Im sure I felt it earlier today when I was trying all the different options out.

I don't think the pedal shaker is transferred to FFB shaking - we overlook that they could be connected. Currently, the pedal shaker only emits the shaking sound. I'll make sure this gets fixed quickly, and it will appear as a special option to transfer pedal shaking to stick vibrations, default to on.

Thank you for spotting that!

Edited May 23, 2024 by Super Grover

[Phantom12]

I could swear I felt it while flying this morning. Otherwise it was buffet induced stick shake but it came on pretty much exactly at the AoA it supposedly should and increased in intensity up to 30 units or so. Whatever it was wasnt there when I flew just now. I haven't actually heard the shaker sounds in cockpit yet either... I know the real one could be hard to feel with buffet going on as well though.

[FZG_Immel]

5 hours ago, slowmover said:

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

what did you break ?

[slowmover]

7 hours ago, FZG_Immel said:

what did you break ?