Stick pitch reaction slow

[frumpy]

Hi there,

I found the movement of the virtual sticks pitch movement does not correspond to the input. There is something like half a second of a delay. The aileron movement is okay. The pitch response should be much faster.

I am using a Rhino FFB stick and the latest beta of DCS.

[Zabuzard]

The stick visuals are subject to animation smoothing to ensure it doesnt look silly when you jank around your stick IRL. Otherwise it would teleport and it would look really silly and break immersion. Its a compromise.

Take note that this is visual only, your input is being registered and transferred to the FM instantly. The stick animations are decoupled from that (see the Controls Indicator UI).

Afaik Cobra said some time ago that he might be tuning the animation again to find a slightly better compromise.

[frumpy]

Thanks for explaining!

[Cgjunk2]

My impression was that the stick position in game should actually be one-to-one if you are using a FFB stick.   Is that not correct?

Also, I thought that spring joystick positions (non-ffb) are decoupled from actual control surface and stick positions in the game on purpose in order to simulate forces from the bob weight/bellows system by making you displace your spring joystick more (as a way to simulate force).  
 

Or do I have this all wrong?  Is the stick visual animation referenced here a totally different thing (like pilot head animation delay in mirror reflections)?

Edited March 23 by Cgjunk2

[Cgjunk2]

On 3/17/2025 at 2:57 AM, Zabuzard said:

The stick visuals are subject to animation smoothing to ensure it doesnt look silly when you jank around your stick IRL. Otherwise it would teleport and it would look really silly and break immersion. Its a compromise.

Take note that this is visual only, your input is being registered and transferred to the FM instantly. The stick animations are decoupled from that (see the Controls Indicator UI).

Afaik Cobra said some time ago that he might be tuning the animation again to find a slightly better compromise.

 

My impression was that the stick position in game should actually be one-to-one if you are using a FFB stick.   Is that not correct? @frumpyhave you checked to make sure you selected the correct FFB special menu settings?  

Also, I thought that spring joystick positions (non-ffb) are decoupled from actual control surface and stick positions in the game on purpose in order to simulate forces from the bob weight/bellows system by making you displace your spring joystick more (as a way to simulate force).  
 

Or do I have this all wrong?  Is the stick visual animation referenced here a totally different thing (like pilot head animation delay in mirror reflections)?

[Zabuzard]

My impression was that the stick position in game should actually be one-to-one if you are using a FFB stick.   Is that not correct?
Also, I thought that spring joystick positions (non-ffb) are decoupled from actual control surface and stick positions in the game on purpose in order to simulate forces from the bob weight/bellows system by making you displace your spring joystick more (as a way to simulate force).  
 
Or do I have this all wrong?  Is the stick visual animation referenced here a totally different thing (like pilot head animation delay in mirror reflections)?

The animation is decoupled in order to smooth it out.
Otherwise IRL you could jank your stick forcefully from top to bottom back to top within a split second, even with FFB (since it's not the real force but only a fraction of it) and without smoothing the animation ingame would have to move faster than DCS can animate it, resulting in the stick visuals literally teleporting.
That looks silly, so the anims are smoothed.
Same with the character model movements, yes.

[Cgjunk2]

Hmm, but the pilot and stick animations in the Tomcat don’t suffer from this delay.   Even if I yank the stick or move my head as fast as possible, it tracks immediately.  This goes for all other modules as well.   What is different on the F4 that makes this smoothing delay necessary?   For example, the pilot head reflection in the F4 often starts moving only after I finish a 45 degree head turn.  
 

By the way, I don’t notice any delay in stick movement in the F4 at all.  The only thing I notice is decoupling between the physical stick and simulated stick, in the attempt to simulate stick force on non-FFB sticks (through increased physical stick displacement).   It’s not simply visual smoothing, rather the virtual stick will move past the position commanded by the physical stick, and the aircraft will move based on the movement corresponding to the virtual stick’s position.  
 

That’s why I was wondering if the  OP is experiencing the force modeling for non-ffb sticks, and why I suggested he double check his settings in the special options menu to make sure he has it set up for FFB.   

Edited March 24 by Cgjunk2

[Zabuzard]

Hmm, but the pilot and stick animations in the Tomcat don’t suffer from this delay.   Even if I yank the stick or move my head as fast as possible, it tracks immediately.  This goes for all other modules as well.   What is different on the F4 that makes this smoothing delay necessary?   For example, the pilot head reflection in the F4 often starts moving only after I finish a 45 degree head turn.  
 
By the way, I don’t notice any delay in stick movement in the F4 at all.  The only thing I notice is decoupling between the physical stick and simulated stick, in the attempt to simulate stick force on non-FFB sticks (through increased physical stick displacement).   It’s not simply visual smoothing, rather the virtual stick will move past the position commanded by the physical stick, and the aircraft will move based on the movement corresponding to the virtual stick’s position.  
 
That’s why I was wondering if the  OP is experiencing the force modeling for non-ffb sticks, and why I suggested he double check his settings in the special options menu to make sure he has it set up for FFB.   

Now im getting confused a bit. The movements of the visual stick in the cockpit are, on a technical level, completely decoupled from the simulated aircraft stick for the actual movement commands and from the FFB simulation for your hardware.
If you need a proper indicator for what's going on with the real stick or ur FFB stick then open the controls indicator display, it shows both.

Whenever talking about the stick in the Phantom its important to hint at the bellows vs bobweight system that automatically moves the stick in pitch based on airspeed and G-load.

So if you for example just fly straight but increase airspeed, your stick will automatically pull aft through the bellows. For FFB users this is very noticable IRL.

[Dentedend10]

I also wonder why the F14 head movement and stick movement isn’t as compromised as the F4. And why is only pitch axis delayed on the stick but not the roll. I’d prefer F14-like visuals for head and stick movement 

[Zabuzard]

6 hours ago, Dentedend10 said:

I also wonder why the F14 head movement and stick movement isn’t as compromised as the F4

The head movement is a different topic. As said, its to prevent silly looking glitches. In the Tomcat you can get them if you move your stuff fast.

6 hours ago, Dentedend10 said:

And why is only pitch axis delayed on the stick but not the roll

You seem to be mixing topics on this one. The pitch axis isnt "delayed". It is the bobweights and bellows influencing the pitch axis. A system which the Tomcat (and most other aircraft) do not have.

[Dentedend10]

13 hours ago, Zabuzard said:

The head movement is a different topic. As said, its to prevent silly looking glitches. In the Tomcat you can get them if you move your stuff fast.

You seem to be mixing topics on this one. The pitch axis isnt "delayed". It is the bobweights and bellows influencing the pitch axis. A system which the Tomcat (and most other aircraft) do not have.

I see, thanks! In that case, is there a way I could feel that thru the force feedback? Currently, there is no resistance on the pitch axis when I’m on the ground. Yet, the movement is still slow. Shouldn’t there be some sort of resistance then to movement even when on the ground?

[Super Grover]

The topic is slightly more complex. The stick behaviour on the ground, including the animations, is in a special mode due to the system's physical properties, which otherwise would cause confusion and unrealistic visuals. Based on feedback from our testers, we introduced this mode before the release. The most crucial difference is the lack of friction forces (or no direct control over them from DCS for FFB sticks), while friction is the most prominent force on the ground.

We simulate the non-friction for FFB sticks on the ground; it's just that they are very small compared with those in flight. On the ground, the difference in force between the most forward and the most aft stick position is less than 5 lbf. At 220 kts, it should be close to 18 lbf. For 350+ kts, that difference can easily reach 80-100 lbf. So we assume that 40-50 lbf in each direction corresponds to the max force from the FFB and scale all forces proportionally. It means that on the ground, the commanded force may be below the threshold for your FFB stick to react. You may want to set a nonlinear function for the force in your FFB driver, but we may also add a slider for fine-tuning of the FFB linearity as a quality of life feature in one of the future updates.

[Hiob]

On 3/23/2025 at 7:06 PM, Zabuzard said:

Same with the character model movements, yes.

A little side note on that (sorry if it was brought up already).
Especially with Mirrors on, the delay between head movement (TrackIR) and the movement in the mirrors, is very off-putting. I would rather have the animation skip a beat than have the delayes reaction in the mirror. THAT is immersion breaking.
I never has this particular issue in any other mirrors in DCS. Is it correlated? Probably I assume.

Edited May 7 by Hiob

[Zabuzard]

43 minutes ago, Hiob said:

Especially with Mirrors on, the delay between head movement (TrackIR) and the movement in the mirrors, is very off-putting. I would rather have the animation skip a beat than have the delayes reaction in the mirror. THAT is immersion breaking.

This is a known issue and has been confirmed already to get tweaked eventually.

But yes, lets not mix the character/mirror topic with the stick topic for now

[Hiob]

2 hours ago, Zabuzard said:

But yes, lets not mix the character/mirror topic with the stick topic for now

Roger! I thought it might be the same underlaying issue. I'll shut up now! 

[pierscockey]

11 hours ago, Super Grover said:

The topic is slightly more complex. The stick behaviour on the ground, including the animations, is in a special mode due to the system's physical properties, which otherwise would cause confusion and unrealistic visuals. Based on feedback from our testers, we introduced this mode before the release. The most crucial difference is the lack of friction forces (or no direct control over them from DCS for FFB sticks), while friction is the most prominent force on the ground.

We simulate the non-friction for FFB sticks on the ground; it's just that they are very small compared with those in flight. On the ground, the difference in force between the most forward and the most aft stick position is less than 5 lbf. At 220 kts, it should be close to 18 lbf. For 350+ kts, that difference can easily reach 80-100 lbf. So we assume that 40-50 lbf in each direction corresponds to the max force from the FFB and scale all forces proportionally. It means that on the ground, the commanded force may be below the threshold for your FFB stick to react. You may want to set a nonlinear function for the force in your FFB driver, but we may also add a slider for fine-tuning of the FFB linearity as a quality of life feature in one of the future updates.

I’m not sure I fully understand (I need to read it a few more times!) but would this have anything to do with the stick having no feeling when taking off?  

I have to fully rely on the visual of the front wheel lifting off before pushing the stick forward to catch the correct pitch angle.  I get zero feeling through the stick.  Always wondered if this is accurate?  
 

 

[Super Grover]

Quite possibly, yes. The bellows-bobweight stick forces would be just a bit higher than the friction forces and relatively small to other flight regimes.

The figure below comes from a publicly available document: VALIDATION OF THE FLYING QUALITIES REQUIREMENTS OF MIL-F-008785A (USAF)

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It's for the B version, but the changes between the systems were minimal and shouldn't impact the bellows behaviour at this speed. Higher speeds are not visible here, but you can extrapolate and roughly get the idea of how much they would increase at high speeds.

 

Note that the takeoff pitch controls will change in the next update as we added a more detailed stabilator simulation close to the ground, significantly improving and simplifying handling and making it more realistic.

[Volator]

7 hours ago, Super Grover said:

Note that the takeoff pitch controls will change in the next update as we added a more detailed stabilator simulation close to the ground, significantly improving and simplifying handling and making it more realistic.

Fantastic news, thank you!