LUA or HELIOS for Switches?

[JaseGill]

Hi,

What is the group consensus on this?

 

It seems that the LUA scripts for control sets are often changed or sometimes reset to default with some patches? Is this true?

 

With that in mind would you use HELIOS as the connection between USB Button Boxes and the such instead of messing about with LUA? I already use HELIOS on a 2nd screen for displaying some gauges and was thinking that maybe I should go that way with switches rather than play with LUA. Is there a time that you'd always use LUA for one reason and HELIOS for another?

 

Probably not looking for a definitive answer, more a sense of what others use and whether one or the other has any major benefit?

Thanks in advance,

J.

[JG14_Smil]

Helios makes it easy. You just send an analog button through your HID controller, Helios sees it and you drag and drop the binding to it, plus you get your gauges thrown in.

 

If I knew lua and C or C++, I would not need to use Helios with my hardware.

[Hansolo]

I agree. Helios is very good and fairly easy to handle. I use a combination of connecting switches through Helios and switches connected directly to the sim.

 

Reason is that some of the state are well defined in the sim, e.g. RDR Altimeter. It has two state;

iCommandPlane_RDR_ALTM_NRM &

iCommandPlane_RDR_ALTM_DIS.

 

Therefore it is fairly easy to connect it straight to the sim even though your toggle switch only give logic "1" in one position.

CDU, UFC, radio encoders etc. are also very easy to send straight to the sim.

 

Others e.g. AC generators only have one state "on". Since the "off" is not available in the joystick lua code I let Helios deal with those. Helios will then be able to tell the sim to go to the other state.

 

Another very nice feature about Helios is the fact that it will be able to simulate the engine gauges, ADI, HSI etc. I have seen a few using USB gauges but in my oppinion it add up the cost very fast. The real hardcore guys use the real instruments.

 

 

Only drawback with using Heliosis actually game related, and not Helios' problem. When flying the sim it makes a "track" of your inputs so that in case you find an observation/bug then others can re-fly your track and see what happens.

However for some reason the sim does NOT record inputs given via Helios. It may be related to the fact that Helios is sending the information internally in the PC via UPD protocol which the sim does apparantly not look at. Anyone very familiar with the way Helios is sending information back and forth please correct me if I am wrong.

Helios works perfectly when you fly, it is only when someone wants to review the "track" the situation occurs.

 

Hope this was a little assistance.

 

Cheers

 

Hans

[JaseGill]

JG,

That was half my question I guess, learn LUA or just use HELIOS. I think I know which way to go now.

 

Hans,

Thanks, much appreciated.

I have configured both On/Off/On switches and On/Off switches to be tracked in LUA (you simply get it to recognise the release of the button given that toggles used above are always On once on). I used this as an example: http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1559307&postcount=10

 

That said, as I already have HELIOS running and once set it wont change with a DCS update I think Im going to change my home built panels to HELIOS from LUA.

 

Thanks again guys, just confirmed what I had already in mind I guess.

J.

[JaseGill]

Hi all,

Just in case anyone else is thinking of this I changed it and I think HELIOS is definitely the way to go. The LUA Changes you make (and any changes ED make when you update) are just too much bother. I set the AHCP and Electrical Panel up in HELIOS in about 10 minutes with no manuals, it was that intuitive.

 

Altogether, from my limited use so far I'd heartily recommend HELIOS for a 2nd screen and now also for interfacing to the sim. Thanks Gadroc, you're a star :)

J.

[JG14_Smil]

yeah, that's what we said...

[agrasyuk]

Yep, even if one has no intentions to display instrumentation on second screen Helios can still be a way to organize inputs from all the additional devices.

[MTFDarkEagle]

Yep, even if one has no intentions to display instrumentation on second screen Helios can still be a way to organize inputs from all the additional devices.

 

Yepyep!! Even while using helios you can hotswap what aircraft you fly! :D