fixed internally for next update Impossible to do the AFCS start and get damper with Force Feedback, any clue ?

[Frost]

You'd have to dial DCS's FFB down to "0" in the controler menu(FF Tune) then it will work*. At least that did it for me.(I have the Moza AB9 Base with the Warthog stick from TM)

*I did that with "Shake" and "Trimmer Force", maybe you'd only need one of the two to be switched off.

Edited September 22 by Frost

[Hiob]

Nah, I‘m a clickable cockpit guy. That’s why I love the startup in the Mi-8! (sorry OT)

[Psifire]

2 hours ago, Hiob said:

Nah, I‘m a clickable cockpit guy. That’s why I love the startup in the Mi-8! (sorry OT)

This is the way.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

Hmm there might be an issue with all FFB sticks after all: today after my flight I had issues with my right engine so I decided to do a full shutdown and restart. After I got both engines back up and running, the AFCS test kept failing too: the stick was stuck in the forward left position with all lights blinking. Following the "AFCS test fail" procedure as detailed in the cold start training mission, didn't help...

[Gunfreak]

I'm gonna have to check with my brunner. I wasn't really gonna invest myself enough into the 29 to learn the cold start procedure. But now I'm curious.

[Major Corvus]

On 9/19/2025 at 6:59 PM, Jarda said:

I’ve got a Moza AB9 and was playing around with the settings. Looks like the main issue is the force-feedback mode—it’s gotta be set to Integrated, and the axis travel has to be Linear.
The rest of the stuff in the basic settings doesn’t really seem to make any difference.

I’m flying with the MiG-29 (Crazy Andy) profile I grabbed from the Moza Discord.

That's the preset I'm using, but it wouldn't work on mine. Saying that though, I've tweeked the profile a bit to suit me so I might have upset something.

[Frost]

34 minutes ago, Major Corvus said:

That's the preset I'm using, but it wouldn't work on mine. Saying that though, I've tweeked the profile a bit to suit me so I might have upset something.

Just try what I've posted above you. It does work for me without exceptions so far

[Psifire]

7 hours ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

Hmm there might be an issue with all FFB sticks after all: today after my flight I had issues with my right engine so I decided to do a full shutdown and restart. After I got both engines back up and running, the AFCS test kept failing too: the stick was stuck in the forward left position with all lights blinking. Following the "AFCS test fail" procedure as detailed in the cold start training mission, didn't help...

Considering how touchy this BIT is, and the fact that you are able to get through the initial BIT (something I can only do if I unassign X and Y axis from my Joystick,) my guess would be this is just an issue with the aircraft systems as simulated rather than the FFB forces.  Just a guess though.

[Volator]

On 9/23/2025 at 12:21 AM, Psifire said:

it's neither historically accurate nor advantageous to cold start a fast jet.  The ground crew does it IRL.  None of the mil pilots who fly DCS cold start their jets as far as I can tell because they didn't cold start their jets in the military. 

Uhm... no, that's not correct at all.

[Gunfreak]

10 hours ago, Volator said:

Uhm... no, that's not correct at all.

Indeed. In jets the pilot and back seater(if the jet had it) would always start the jets. And go through the checklist. What ground crew would do is start the jet now and then to align INS etc. Hence fast alignment/stored alignment being the standard start up procedure. 

 

But during WW2 things were different. While of course the pilot knew perfectly well how to start their fighter. The ground crew would usually start the aircraft some 15 minutes before take off. This was to warm up the engine and let the pilots get their coffee and food in them. The pilot would jump in. Do some last minute checks. The crew would top off the fuel and off the pilot went. (This specifically deals with Western allied airforces on plan missions. There would of course be variations depending on nation, aircraft and mission type.)

[Psifire]

17 hours ago, Volator said:

Uhm... no, that's not correct at all.

 

6 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

Indeed. In jets the pilot and back seater(if the jet had it) would always start the jets. And go through the checklist. What ground crew would do is start the jet now and then to align INS etc. Hence fast alignment/stored alignment being the standard start up procedure. 

 

But during WW2 things were different. While of course the pilot knew perfectly well how to start their fighter. The ground crew would usually start the aircraft some 15 minutes before take off. This was to warm up the engine and let the pilots get their coffee and food in them. The pilot would jump in. Do some last minute checks. The crew would top off the fuel and off the pilot went. (This specifically deals with Western allied airforces on plan missions. There would of course be variations depending on nation, aircraft and mission type.)

Hey, I could be wrong, I'm going off internet information after all, but it was internet information from confirmed fighter pilots.  What sources do you have that contradict this?  

Edited September 24 by Psifire

[Dirty Rotten Flieger]

I just watched Matt Wagner's YouTube cold start tutorial and he just skips the control BIT somehow.   Once he has the Nav systems aligned and engines started he turns on the AFCS  switch and the damper light on the left comes on and the Damper off warning light goes out.    How did he do that?  I would like to skip the BIT rather than turn off my FFB stick and turn it on back on again after the BIT.    

 

[Frost]

11 hours ago, Dirty Rotten Flieger said:

I just watched Matt Wagner's YouTube cold start tutorial and he just skips the control BIT somehow.   Once he has the Nav systems aligned and engines started he turns on the AFCS  switch and the damper light on the left comes on and the Damper off warning light goes out.    How did he do that?  I would like to skip the BIT rather than turn off my FFB stick and turn it on back on again after the BIT.    

 

You'd have to dial DCS's FFB down to "0" in the controler menu(FF Tune) then it will work. My FFB-Stick still works after I did that. Just turn down DCS's FFB output

Edited September 25 by Frost

[Psifire]

On 9/24/2025 at 9:18 PM, Dirty Rotten Flieger said:

I just watched Matt Wagner's YouTube cold start tutorial and he just skips the control BIT somehow.   Once he has the Nav systems aligned and engines started he turns on the AFCS  switch and the damper light on the left comes on and the Damper off warning light goes out.    How did he do that?  I would like to skip the BIT rather than turn off my FFB stick and turn it on back on again after the BIT.    

 

Yeah, I noticed that too.  As soon as he flips the AFCS switch, Damper Off turns off on his warning panel without going through the BIT.  Made me wonder if the AFCS BIT was a late addition.

[Volator]

On 9/25/2025 at 12:51 AM, Psifire said:

What sources do you have that contradict this?

All the other fighter pilots, the aircraft manuals, the procedures of the fighter-bomber wing I served in, many books and many videos.

What kind of fighter pilot told you that?!

[Psifire]

16 hours ago, Volator said:

All the other fighter pilots, the aircraft manuals, the procedures of the fighter-bomber wing I served in, many books and many videos.

What kind of fighter pilot told you that?!

I'll do more research and see what I find.  I was hoping for a source, (like a specific book or video link) but I can do my own research.

[VANOIS]

Fixed in 2.9.20.15384, tnx.
 

 

[TheTaker]

Still not fixed

[TheTaker]

I think I tracked down the issue and the reason is stick curves setting. I had them around 8-15. With curves set to 0 on both axes damper passes the test every time. Which is bad, because I want to use them, now I need to reset everytime. 
 

[CommandT]

For anyone who is still struggling with this - I found a solution that might work for some of you. I use FFBeast but it might help others who don't. 

In my case it turned out that having too much of a curve on the roll axis (in your DCS control settings) was the reason for the AFCS test fail. In my case a curve of 22 seems to be the maximum it will accept to have a successful AFCS test. 

Hope this helps! 

[MAXsenna]

10 minutes ago, CommandT said:

In my case it turned out that having too much of a curve on the roll axis (in your DCS control settings) was the reason for the AFCS test fail. In my case a curve of 22 seems to be the maximum it will accept to have a successful AFCS test. 

Well, the DCS doesn't support curves and changes in saturation for FFB. This has been debated to death. It might not be too noticeable always, especially with newer hardware/telemetry software. Any change you do must be done in the hardware's software, and not in DCS. Can easily be observed when trimming helicopters. Unless, ED changed something the past nine months, which I highly doubt.

Just think about it. Let's say you don't use any telemetry, and you apply curves/saturation. How will the FFB, (basically trimming), effects know how far to move the stick when curves do not align with the linearity of the FFB effects? That's why a lot of modules when coded incorrectly for FFB, especially helicopters, don't match the trimming at all at release, (the Gazelle had issues before the new FM), and you get an exponentially trimmed aircraft. Easily observed in the Controls Indicator. 

Cheers! 

Edited September 29 by MAXsenna

[CommandT]

5 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

Well, the DCS doesn't support curves and changes in saturation for FFB. This has been debated to death. It might not be too noticeable always, especially with newer hardware/telemetry software. Any change you do must be done in the hardware's software, and not in DCS. Can easily be observed when trimming helicopters. Unless, ED changed something the past nine months, which I highly doubt.

Just think about it. Let's say you don't use any telemetry, and you apply curves/saturation. How will the FFB, (basically trimming), effects know how far to move the stick when curves do not align with the linearity of the FFB effects? That's why a lot of modules when coded incorrectly for FFB, especially helicopters, don't match the trimming at all at release, (the Gazelle had issues before the new FM), and you get an exponentially trimmed aircraft. Easily observed in the Controls Indicator. 

Cheers! 

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're taking about. 

FFB effects and DCS axis curves are completely independent of one another. The software for my FFB stick (FFBeast) doesn't even allow for an axis curve within the software as far as I'm aware and there is absolutely no issue with using a curve in the game settings whilst applying all the necessary spring and shaker effects to the joystick. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say.

Either way, I'm just telling everyone what eliminated my AFCS bit test failure in the MiG-29 - reducing the curve in the roll axis in the DCS control settings.

Edited September 29 by CommandT

[MAXsenna]

5 minutes ago, CommandT said:

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're taking about. 

That's fine, took me a little while to wrap my head around it when I first got FFB myself.

6 minutes ago, CommandT said:

FFB effects and DCS axis curves are completely independent of one another.

Forget about the gimmicky effects. I'm talking about trim. Unless something has changed in DCS, you can't use curves on an FFB base, because if you do, DCS can't apply the correct "trim" and movement on the stick, because DCS doesn't calculate/support it correctly. It might not be that noticeable in airplanes. But a few years ago, it was impossible to trim helicopters correctly if one used curves with FFB. 

I even had a nasty argument with another user that complained about it, and wanted to have DCS support it. 

You pretty much proved it yourself when reducing the curve. You seem to not have noticed before, so if this have been fixed in other modules, that's great, and then they will probably come around fixing it in the MiG-29 too.

 

[AeriaGloria]

43 minutes ago, CommandT said:

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're taking about. 

FFB effects and DCS axis curves are completely independent of one another. The software for my FFB stick (FFBeast) doesn't even allow for an axis curve within the software as far as I'm aware and there is absolutely no issue with using a curve in the game settings whilst applying all the necessary spring and shaker effects to the joystick. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're trying to say.

Either way, I'm just telling everyone what eliminated my AFCS bit test failure in the MiG-29 - reducing the curve in the roll axis in the DCS control settings.

Look at it this way, if you set the curve in DCS, the in game stick position and FFB stick position won’t match. 
 

Let’s say I fly a helicopter with force trim. I trim left, but becuase I set up a curve in DCS, it thinks after trimming the stick should be closer to center, so my FFB moves away from the spot I trimmed which it shouldn’t do. 
 

If you set it up in independent software for the stick it should be fine 

[MAXsenna]

@AeriaGloria Thank you, that was a simpler explanation than mine!