Vehicle controls in ARMA2 1.07?

[Chumba 10]

Is it just me or are the vehicle controls MUCH better in 1.07 than 1.05? I've reached Manhattan and driving the Hummer seems MUCH better using mouse than when I've played that mission in 1.05.

If it's been fixed and not just my imagination: WELL DONE BIS!!!

- now for Helicopters we just need decent tailrotor authority at all speeds, more effective collective and proper climb / descent relationship to airspeed changes (ie. chopper LOSING height when you reduce forward airspeed with no collective change is WRONG - is THE big difference between fixed wing and chopper flight dynamics) and I'll be a happy camper

[MengJiao 10]

Is it just me or are the vehicle controls MUCH better in 1.07 than 1.05? I've reached Manhattan and driving the Hummer seems MUCH better using mouse than when I've played that mission in 1.05.

If it's been fixed and not just my imagination: WELL DONE BIS!!!

- now for Helicopters we just need decent tailrotor authority at all speeds, more effective collective and proper climb / descent relationship to airspeed changes (ie. chopper LOSING height when you reduce forward airspeed with no collective change is WRONG - is THE big difference between fixed wing and chopper flight dynamics) and I'll be a happy camper

I've noticed some improvement. I thought I was just getting better at driving, but maybe the controls are a little smoother.

[b101_uk 10]

we just need decent tailrotor authority at all speeds, more effective collective and proper climb / descent relationship to airspeed changes (ie. chopper LOSING height when you reduce forward airspeed with no collective change is WRONG - is THE big difference between fixed wing and chopper flight dynamics

:rolleyes:

As speed increases tail rotor authority gets less due to the vertical tailfin which starts to get more authority, its not just there to e.g. mount the tail rotor on! Look up stuck pedal/failed tail rotor landings.

forward airspeed has an effect on lift (e.g. 0mph vs. 25mph)

[Chumba 10]

:rolleyes:

As speed increases tail rotor authority gets less due to the vertical tailfin which starts to get more authority, its not just there to e.g. mount the tail rotor on! Look up stuck pedal/failed tail rotor landings.

forward airspeed has an effect on lift (e.g. 0mph vs. 25mph)

I understand the aerodynamics - I'm an aviation mechanic by trade.... :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

A Sikorsky (not sure what model) carrying oil rig workers near where I worked a few years ago made a successful return to base after losing it's tailrotor drive: flew quite happily and evidently controllably for quite a while to return to the airfield and landed more or less like a conventional fixed wing on the runway at 80 kts or so.

To the game:

Tail Rotor: - aside from the amount of effect the tailrotor should still have at even fairly high speed (the fin comes into play as a reduction in required tailrotor effort to counter mainrotor torque - NOT as a force that totally kills tailrotor effect :rolleyes: - tho I have no doubt it will affect it ), my big issue is if you hold in full pedal one way or the other, ARMA2 chopper will turn it's nose a bit but fly along the same original flight path (heading) and won't even gradually change course... That's simply not right: ie. the chopper should turn to a new heading - ie. follow it's nose - even if it's gradual. In ARMA2, above a certain speed, you can crab along like this with full pedal left or right indefinitely and when you release the pedal control the chopper will "snap" back to the original course - the only way you can change heading above a certain speed is to use cyclic (bank) and this simply isn't right. Tailrotor effect is correct at low speed in the game - it should should have that same effect AT ALL SPEEDS albeit somewhat reduced as speed increases.

Forward speed and lift - setting aside translational / transitional lift which indeed comes into effect at quite low speed but ISN'T modelled in ARMA2 (I suspect it might be in OA but it's definitely not in ARMA2), helicopters behave very differently to fixed wing aircraft when you change attitude via cyclic control - ie. the basic effect of attitude change is the same inasmuch as "nose down" causes descent and airspeed increase and "nose up" causes climb and airspeed decrease, but because in a chopper you're changing the vertical / horizontal THRUST vector relationship, the immediate effect on lift is very pronounced and THEN you'll see the effect on speed. This is not modelled very well in ARMA2 but it's excellent in OFP. I've had 45 minutes flying a Squirrel (AS350 I think) helicopter - cyclic only - in forward cruise with collective "locked" and believe me, the effect on lift is VERY CLEARLY the FIRST thing you get when you push stick forward or pull it back - choppers in OFP behave exactly the way that Squirrel did. This effect is almost totally absent from ARMA2 but it's very clear in OFP.

ARMA2 collective control response in general is actually too mushy as well.

Overall the dynamics of all this stuff is modelled very decently in OFP - BUT NOT FOR MOUSE / KEYBOARD PLAYERS.

In OFP it's all good as long as you use an analog control for thrust increase / decrease - but using keypress makes choppers just increase or decrease altitude to a fixed height above ground - it doesn't model proper collective thrust. Using an analog control - ie. joystick with throttle slider - DOES.

In ARMA2 we've lost that nice model that works so great with Joystick and analog thrust and ended up with a sort of nasty hybrid between OFP keyboard / mouse model and OFP analog thrust model - leaning more toward the dumbed down crappy mouse / keyboard version. What I'd like to see is OFP analog collective dynamics but with proper collective modelled for keyboard inc / dec as well as for analog input - as well as tailrotor having proper effect - ie. chopper WILL follow it's nose at all speeds - even if the AMOUNT of effect is drastically reduced at higher speed.

[r71 0]

I have seen MD 500s do this at high speed also.

[Chumba 10]

Yes - but the pilot in that video would be using the cyclic to maintain that direction of flight (you'll notice it's layed over slightly toward the direction of travel - he's ended up with cyclic SIDEWAYS and nose level) - I'm talking about with NO change to cyclic from forward stable flight - in other words ARMA2 is automatically doing what the pilot in that video is doing - but I want ME to be the one flying the chopper.

That video also actually confirms what I've said about the fact that tailrotor SHOULD be able to have decent amount of authority even at high speed - it proves that the tailfin WON'T completely kill the tailrotor's ability to push the tail sideways - in fact that video proves it's capable of pushing it completely sideways even at high speed - obviously Comanche and Lynx are really good at it and perhaps the Huey family might not be so good but not as completely weak as the ARMA2 model.

Like I said tho - when I'm saying the chopper should follow it's nose I'm talking about from straight and level forward flight with no offsetting or change in cyclic - but indeed, if it's modelled right we too ingame should be able to push the nose sideways whilst using cyclic to keep the chopper going in the original course and end up flying sideways...

[b101_uk 10]

<70mph is NOT high speed! and as you should know the resistance of air has dose much more than double by the time by the time you get to 140mph yet alone going faster than that, its not just the tail fin but trying to present the side of the body and tail section and the tail fin, also the Comanche has one of the most powerful/efficient tail rotors for its size.

also remember Arma has auto throttle and the tail rotor pitch automatically counters torque as it ramps up/down with collective changes, otherwise on takeoff etc you would constantly have to counter collective changes vs. torque or torque from changes in power setting vs. the collective.

with respect to stuck peddle/failed tail rotor landings ~80kts is the standard approach speed for landing for "most" tail rotor helicopters as the tail maintains directional flight as it has enough authority to do so, if the ground is ruff or the skids or wheels are out of line with direction of flight you have to bleed off speed and wait for the tail to come around and drop it on the deck at that moment like below.

e.g.

vCTMgbX17ds

Yes arma helicopter flight has compromises vs. reality but not everyone has a set of foot peddles (with trim change) and a collective + throttle at there PC desk! However at e.g. 140mph you should still be effecting turns mostly with the cyclic and using the tail rotor for a coordinated turn.

The trouble is if you invoked a true “sim†like flight modal for helicopter it mostly wouldn’t get used to its full potential, it would quite quickly become tiresome constantly holding in some “ruder effect†on your joystick countering torque changes if you didn’t have some keyboard keys for trimming it out for a given speed or torque level unless you wished to go out and by peddles and a collective etc.

[Chumba 10]

"<70mph is NOT high speed! and as you should know the resistance of air has dose much more than double by the time by the time you get to 140mph yet alone going faster than that, its not just the tail fin but trying to present the side of the body and tail section and the tail fin, also the Comanche has one of the most powerful/efficient tail rotors for its size."

- I think my point is clear - I'm not claiming tailrotor should have the same effect at 200kts as 20kts - but I don't think it should have as little as it does in the game. All that aside, my BIG issue is with the QUALITY of the effect, not the QUANTITY.

Ingame we should still be able to drive the tail around - which amongst other things WOULD cause loss of airspeed as the much larger airframe profile is presented to the direction of flight - eventually resulting in sideways flight at yes, a speed that probably wouldn't be defined as "high speed".

Perhaps I should have said "reasonable speed" rather than "high speed".

"also remember Arma has auto throttle and the tail rotor pitch automatically counters torque as it ramps up/down with collective changes, otherwise on takeoff etc you would constantly have to counter collective changes vs. torque or torque from changes in power setting vs. the collective."

(headshake) - I understand VERY well the relationships between rotor torque (which is influenced by throttle AND collective pitch in combination) - and I'm not asking for complete fidelity to THAT degree - again my point is clear - I'm talking about the broad dynamics of the model.

"with respect to stuck peddle/failed tail rotor landings ~80kts is the standard approach speed for landing for "most" tail rotor helicopters as the tail maintains directional flight as it has enough authority to do so, if the ground is ruff or the skids or wheels are out of line with direction of flight you have to bleed off speed and wait for the tail to come around and drop it on the deck at that moment like below."

- huh? - I really don't understand what you're trying to drive at - I understand and agree with the concept... - I used the Sikorsky incident as an example. That oil rig chopper essentially did exactly what that little enstrom did, BUT: the Sikorsky was a MUCH bigger machine so was generating MUCH more torque simply to stay airborn - it had to make a rolling landing at 80 or 90kts else end up spinning like a top. I suspect very strongly that's why the Sikorsky was built with WHEELS in the first place - ie. is the only way to get it safely on the ground in the event of tailrotor failure.

"Yes arma helicopter flight has compromises vs. reality but not everyone has a set of foot peddles (with trim change) and a collective + throttle at there PC desk! However at e.g. 140mph you should still be effecting turns mostly with the cyclic and using the tail rotor for a coordinated turn."

- ummm... yes that's kind of my point: in ARMA2 we DON'T have the function of co ordinating the turns ourselves - I WANT TO BE ABLE TO CO ORDINATE MY OWN TURNS!!! Again I have to point to OFP - it's vastly better at implementing all this stuff than ARMA2 yet even it autolimits final behaviour and doesn't give full realistic range of control input (you can crash, but not really lose control as such), BUT it still gives player a satisfactory range of control that behaves in broad terms as it all should...

"The trouble is if you invoked a true “sim†like flight modal for helicopter it mostly wouldn’t get used to its full potential, it would quite quickly become tiresome constantly holding in some “ruder effect†on your joystick countering torque changes if you didn’t have some keyboard keys for trimming it out for a given speed or torque level unless you wished to go out and by peddles and a collective etc."

- I NEVER asked for any of that hi fidelity stuff... I've had idiots before reply to the idea of wanting to be able to "turn the aircraft by making pedal input" by saying that in a soldier sim it's unreasonable to expect to be able to dial up individual frequencies on the UHF etc. - WTF!! - all I've said is that:

1. tailrotor SHOULD be able to cause more yaw at high speed than ARMA2 has it do... ALTHO I might be completely out of line there as indeed I don't know first hand exactly how much effect the tailrotor of a Venom SHOULD have at 160kts(the light switch style tailrotor effect on / off IS totally BOGUS tho) - and:

2. even with the small-amount-of-nose-deflection-with-tailrotor-control ARMA2 gives us, the actual yaw effect is not properly implemented - if ARMA2 model was altered so that the machines at least followed their nose when I pushed full pedal (and by that I actually mean hold down my "delete" or "end" key BTW) EVEN WITH the resultant TINY nose movement to left or right then I'd be happy - and if this also induced all the other dynamic effects that flat yawing in a chopper actually causes then I'd be VERY happy. Just changing heading would be enough tho - that's sufficient in OFP and so it would be in ARMA2.

The precedent for all this exists!!!!!!! - in OFP where there's a beautifully compromised flight model that achieves all the essential characteristics of chopper flight / handling / performance in an easy to use form that's terrific fun and usable by total noobs yet essentially correct enough that more harcore flyers can enjoy the experience and even develop skills - ie. with the PROPER COLLECTIVE effect in OFP - ie. flying with joytick+throttle slider+rudder twist grip - making fast approach/rapid landing CA type insertions and extractions is very challenging - in fact it's harder than in ARMA2 because of the proper lift effect - in ARMA2 you just set up descent rate and steer it in, but in OFP the rate constantly changes AS you "steer" which is quite realistic.

---------- Post added at 08:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:01 AM ----------

And with regard to vehicles - I don't think the steering characteristics have changed - I had reinstalled ARMA2 before patching to 1.07 and left mouse smoothing set quite high. The drive up to the top of the hill was easy enough but once I was trying to drive around accomplishing the tasks then it became obvious the steering rate etc. is still just as crap as ever. Again, thay HAVE this absolutely spot on in OFP - so why is it so screwed in ARMA2???

(My 6 y.o. tears around no worries in any and all vehicles in OFP but in ARMA2 I can barely control a Hummer)

Edited July 31, 2010 by Chumba