HMCS not tracking with head turn

[invisi-wall2]

Hi,

I'm new to the A10CII - I have a tobii head tracking system and trying to adjust the settings, but I'm finding that when I turn my head, the view changes where I can look 90-120 degrees left and right, but the HMCS only turns to about 30 degrees left or right.

 

Any suggestions?

[Priest]

The HMCS display is always right in the middle of your screen, it does not actually move with the headtracker. The more your head moves physically away from the center of the screen the more difficult it can be to use. For widescreen and ultrawide displays in particular it can be annoying for some. What we need is a way to "uncage" the HMCS display from the center of the screen and have it move independently of screen center and in sync with the headtracker instead. This feature has been asked for a few times, but there's no way to do it today that I know of.

A couple things you can do:

1) Increase the sensitivity of your headtracker so you are physically moving your head less to get the same range of virtual head movement. This keeps your head more toward the center of the screen when you're looking around which makes it easier to use the HMCS. Downside is the increased headtracking sensitivity comes with its own problems.

2) Another thing you can do is increase the size of the HMCS display "box" a little bit I find this very helpful and highly recommend it. To do that you'll need to make a little tweak to the Scorpion HMCS .lua file make sure you save a backup of the file if you go this route!!!

File to update is HMCS_definitions.lua located in your main DCS install folder, here's where mine is:

C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\Mods\aircraft\A-10C_2\Cockpit\Scripts\Scorpion_HMCS\Indicator\HMCS_definitions.lua

The two values you want to change in this file are in bold here:

HMCS_horizontal_sz_mil         = 26 * degToMil
HMCS_vertical_sz_mil           = 20 * degToMil

I change the above to the following values to increase the HMCS display box to 1.5x of default size and still maintain the correct 13:10 aspect ratio.

HMCS_horizontal_sz_mil         = 39 * degToMil
HMCS_vertical_sz_mil           = 30 * degToMil

I've experimented with larger sizes, you can size it to fill the whole screen if you want, but go too big and there are some drawbacks. Things like occlusion for example get funky if make it too big. I find the small tweak to 1.5x is just right for me.

Good luck

 

[invisi-wall2]

Thanks @Priest amazing!

[Priest]

No problem. One note on the Scorpion HMCS .lua file tweak if you did that, any time DCS gets an update the DCS installer will repair that file so any changes you've made get switched back to the default values. You just have to make the tweak again on patch days.

Also one last thing, for headtracker users and especially if using wide displays I highly recommend this mod by hannibal which moves the radio/comms menu and radio messages closer to the center of the screen.

Link to here to DCS user files:

CENTERED COMMAND MENU AND RADIO MESSAGES v0.04

This one is pretty much a must have. Enjoy!