What are the new Pitch and Roll settings in special menu for the F-16C doing ?

[lester]

On 12/27/2024 at 4:52 PM, jojojung said:

That would also be my interesst. As far as I understand it, the deadzone is put up when the % in the special options is more than your axis deadzone via controls. The higher value counts. But I can be wrong of course...

Yeah, I'd also be interested to know. I had deadzone set to 4 in the traditional Axis Tune settings for both Pitch and Roll. Now with the Gradients on (tried to turn them off and quickly realized it's not for me despite I have traditional self-centering, spring-loaded stick - due to years of practice with the old scheme I think) and Deadzone values maxed out in the Special settings (which and according to the post above should give me the previous behavior) I feel it's still different from what I used to feel before (need more input in the Pitch axis during AAR for example), with Deadzone values set to 0 it's also different (too sensitive for me). I found it when I have Deadzones set to ~ middle values (2.25 pitch and 3 roll) to be closer to what I got used to. If "The higher value counts" were true that might have explained it (as both values are less than my old deadzone setting of 4 in the Axis Tune panel), but on the other hand there shouldn't have been any difference when both Deadzones set to 0 I definitely feel it's much more sensitive though.

Edited January 1 by lester

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

It's all been explained before: on the forum, on the in-game tooltips and Wags made a video about it. Don't touch the Special Options unless you have a force-sensing stick. If the special option is disabled, your normal axis/deadzone settings are used.
 

 

[lester]

19 hours ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

It's all been explained before: on the forum, on the in-game tooltips and Wags made a video about it. Don't touch the Special Options unless you have a force-sensing stick. If the special option is disabled, your normal axis/deadzone settings are used.

Thank you for reply.

I watched the video before, but I did miss this part:

Quote

If not enabled, the dead zone will mimic your Axis Tuning dead zone setting.

Which I believe confirms what you wrote above: Axis Tuning dead zone setting is only effective when Pitch/Roll Axis Force Stick Gradient is set to OFF.

Also I didn't touch Special Options after the update at all and I had Pitch/Roll Axis Force Stick Gradient set to ON which is NOT recommended setting for traditional self-centering stick that I have. So based on recommendations I in fact should have touched Special Options and set Pitch/Roll Axis Force Stick Gradient to OFF.

Now I wrote already that I got used to previous behavior (which was optimized for force sensing sticks) so much that I feel uncomfortable with Pitch/Roll Axis Force Stick Gradient set to OFF (linear gradient) specifically during AAR so I prefer to have it set to ON even with my traditional self-centering stick.

Another thing in my post relates to this comment from ED Closed Beta tester:

On 10/3/2024 at 6:23 AM, Default774 said:

If you set both gradients to on and max out the deadzone sliders, nothing changes from previous versions.

Behavior with these specific settings doesn't exactly match the one I experienced before this change (again during AAR), might be subjective ofc.

Edited January 2 by lester

[Default774]

There seem to be some misunderstandings in this thread about how these settings interact, so I'll attempt to clear some of them up.

First, its important to understand how the F-16s FLCS works in broad strokes:

As the force on the stick increases, the commanded G increases non linearly. You can see that in the graph, for the first few percentages of force applied to the stick, there is no G commanded. This is the dead zone built into the FLCS which you can adjust with the slider in special.

Second, you can see the "kink" or gradient built into the response making it non linear. This is what the gradient setting in special controls is, if you turn the gradient off, the force to G command curve becomes completely linear.

The two settings are separate and not related to each other, you can have one without the other.

Axis tune is also completely unrelated to the special settings. You can set 50 deadzone in axis tune if you want and if you have the deadzone slider is maxed out there will still be no G commanded for the first ~4-5% of axis travel. DCS is only concerned with the output of your axis, whatever settings you use in axis tune is irrelevant. Why would ED couple their FLCS to the in-game dead zone setting, it makes no sense (and also isn't the case).

As an experiment, you can try messing around with axis tune and saturation so you can see exactly what these settings do. For example, you can set your axis to have a maximum output of 5% with Y saturation, then try the results with different deadzone settings. With the sliders maxed out, you can see that on the controls overlay your axis is still moving but there is no G commanded and you have no control. In this same scenario you can give your axis whatever amount of deadzone in axis tune that you want, but the only thing that matters is the actual output of the axis (it moving in the controls overlay). There is ZERO coupling between axis tune and special settings.

Then try the same with the deadzone slider at the minimum, and you will see that you can now actually control the aircraft when giving inputs smaller than 5% of maximum. Again, you can give yourself as much deadzone in axis tune as you want, since its not related in any way, and as soon as the axis starts moving in the control overlay, the aircraft will as well.

I hope this clears up some confusion.

My personal recommendations for the special settings are that you leave the gradients ON and set the deadzone sliders to as low as possible. The real FLCS has the gradient built into the response curve for a reason, so I would leave it on. The deadzone is simply not appropriate for a desktop gimbal joystick and should be eliminated as much as is practical for your setup. 

Edited January 2 by Default774

[Mr_sukebe]

Default>

That's a very interesting graph to provide.

Would you know if that's how ED have implemented it in the F16, or is that something that is recommended to emulate in the axis tuning?

[Default774]

2 hours ago, Mr_sukebe said:

Would you know if that's how ED have implemented it in the F16, or is that something that is recommended to emulate in the axis tuning?

Yes, this is also what the FLCS response of the DCS F-16 looks like. You can verify this yourself by charting out the input and corresponding G.

How I've done it previously is by using axis tune and saturation to limit my maximum deflection, and note down the G for each input in a table, making sure you stay fast enough to where you will not have any AoA blending in the FLCS response.

Edited January 2 by Default774

[lester]

10 hours ago, Default774 said:

There seem to be some misunderstandings in this thread about how these settings interact, so I'll attempt to clear some of them up.

Now that's an explanation! Thank you very much for your time writing this, now it's clear as day.

On 1/1/2025 at 4:59 AM, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

It's all been explained before

Well, a bit different perspective, don't you think?

[DocSigma]

Setting the gradient to off for both axis really improved controllability for me. I use a 200mm extension. I've settled on all curves set to 0 in axis tune for both x and. As I understand my inputs are now completely linear. I didn't touch the dead zone sliders so if I'm understanding things correctly, there still is a `4.8% dead zone in the background. 

[ViSzKe]

Should I use gradient + no curve or no gradient + curve to make it feel as close to the real aircraft as possible on a spring stick?

[Moonshine]

2 hours ago, ViSzKe said:

Should I use gradient + no curve or no gradient + curve to make it feel as close to the real aircraft as possible on a spring stick?

Might be subjective. Normally, no axis curves, gradient to „off“ (unless you use a force sensing stick) and sliders to the maximum.

[ViSzKe]

41 minutes ago, Moonshine said:

no axis curves, gradient to „off“

That would be way too sensitive, so I need some sort of curvature (should have wrote that in the question)
I meant to ask if it's more realistic to use the gradient instead of a curve or it doesn't matter

[Default774]

40 minutes ago, ViSzKe said:

That would be way too sensitive, so I need some sort of curvature (should have wrote that in the question)
I meant to ask if it's more realistic to use the gradient instead of a curve or it doesn't matter

The gradient should be on, it is a real thing in the real FLCS response curve.

[Moonshine]

7 minutes ago, Default774 said:

The gradient should be on, it is a real thing in the real FLCS response curve.

isnt that "on" or "off" thing meant to be for force sensing sticks (when set to "on") and for spring ones when set to "off"? thought either newy or nineline posted about that a while back, cant find the post just now

Found it:

Edited January 15 by Moonshine

[Default774]

1 minute ago, Moonshine said:

isnt that "on" or "off" thing meant to be for force sensing sticks (when set to "on") and for spring ones when set to "off"? thought either newy or nineline posted about that a while back, cant find the post just now

As I explained earlier in the post, turning the gradient off will make the FLCS response curve completely linear as opposed to the real one which has a slight curve built into it to make precise control inputs easier.

Sure, you can turn it off, but this will make the aircraft extremely sensitive with small control inputs. The real plane has the gradient in the FLCS for a reason.

This is a completely different situation with the deadzone, which is also a real thing in the actual FLCS but makes absolutely no sense for desktop gimbal joysticks. On a force sensing base such a deadzone makes sense to some extent, this is why there was such a large difference in testimonials between people flying the DCS F-16 with an FSSB base and everyone else before we got these options. It's not an issue on FSSB bases (or less so) but it's catastrophic on gimbal bases.

In the end, all these settings are personal preference, but I would personally recommend you never turn the gradients off unless you prefer your aircraft to be extremely sensitive and twitchy with small flight control inputs.

[darkman222]

I have been using both, a force sensing stick and traditional gimbal. And I still alternate between them.

 

My personal rule of thumb is:

For a force sensing stick:

Remove all curves from the DCS input mappers, and dial gradient up to max and activate dead zone. This is how the F16 special menu looks by default and how the real FLCS works. So we want that for force sensing input.

 

For a gimbal spring loaded stick:

Gradients to 0 , dead zone off.

Now you use the DCS Input mapper curves only and don't fight the curves provided from the F16 special menu. So you have pure and unfiltered control over what happens with your inputs.

The jet will feel way too sensitive now. Use the input mapper curves to find the sweet spot for your spring loaded stick now.

 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

On 1/15/2025 at 2:25 PM, darkman222 said:

For a force sensing stick:

Remove all curves from the DCS input mappers, and dial gradient up to max and activate dead zone. This is how the F16 special menu looks by default and how the real FLCS works. So we want that for force sensing input.

On top of that, it also depends on how you have the Realsimulator software configured. "BFA roll level" and "BFA pitch level" to OFF (which is recommended) instead of for example MIN makes a huge difference: I still get a response even I gently tap my fingers on the stick (even with the proper Special Options) which makes especially aerial refuelling so much easier.