Realistic flight dynamics

[xp10 1]

While ARMA II's flight and helicopter physics usually work well enough in the context of the entire battle environment, they are quite unrealistic for the pilot. The best solution for this is to defer all flight related tasks to an external simulator which outputs the results of its flight model to ARMA, which is still responsible for graphics and and some aircraft systems, like weapons. Since I'm familiar with X-Plane and have a little experience with its plugin API (google, I can't post links), it will be the simulator used. In addition to having a versatile and well-documented API, X-Plane is a good choice because of its highly realistic helicopter physics.

What is planned:

• 
  Use X-Plane's flight, avionics engine to drive ARMA aircraft

• AI aircraft remain controlled totally by ARMA for simplicity's sake

• XP exports aircraft vector, instrument data to ARMA @60hz--this drives the vehicle position / velocity ingame, also instruments as necessary

• ARMA tells X-Plane whenever the player boards an aircraft as pilot, and what kind of aircraft he boarded. Events like engine damaged should also be sent to X-Plane. Flight control is relinquished (to ARMA) upon disembarking or crashing the aircraft, and not actually instated until the engine(s) are spooled and ready.

• Send passenger / cargo load / unload events to X-Plane to modify weight and balance dynamically

• Revise all important instruments in ARMA aircraft to be more clear, readable and functional.

Goals:

Substantially heighten the authenticity of flight in ARMA II.

Implementation Details:

X-Plane requires its own geometric model of whatever aircraft is to be simulated. The content is not a problem; all aircraft in ARMA II, or very similar versions of them, are freely available for X-Plane. For the mod to work conveniently, it will be necessary for X-Plane to take as dynamic input the aircraft type whenever the player enters one so it can load the appropriate flight model. It should be possible to make this is a (near) seamless experience as the aircraft file for X-Plane can be loaded very quickly when optimized and untextured. X-Plane should also take damage / systems events from ARMA to modify the flight model appropriately.

Everything so far mentioned is possible to implement in X-Plane. Still, I have a lot more learning to do with ARMA. Feel free to contribute your thoughts on this post. I'm particularly interested to know whether anyone else cares as much as I do about having realistic flight physics.

[raptor 6 actual 13]

Very interesting idea here. I'm especially wondering if there isn't a way via scripting that you can change the weight and balance ingame (kind of like the instant view distance changer). I'm not sure if this is something that aircraft model makers would have to work on, or if a set of scripts would change it dynamically?

I am working on a "Pavehawk Enhancement System" that allows you to use hidden selections to change out different attributes of the airframe. I was hoping that I would be able to take pre-configured loads (premeasured and weighted numbers) and adjust them depending on how many players are on board, ammo, fuel, etc.

Good luck on the work though.

As far as people flying in HUGE limitless maps in X-Plane, how will it look in either game when ArmA's map size is significantly smaller? In Arma, will the plane just basically hover and fly no-where while in X Plane it just continues it's flight path?

Edited July 3, 2012 by Raptor 6 Actual

[heroes maker 10]

wow, i hope you won't have too much problem doing this, good luck with the project

[sakura_chan 9]

In Arma the vehicle's flight model or weight can't be changed in-game. This sounds like an interesting idea! Best of luck to you.

[Defunkt 431]

Interesting idea but, assuming the player is going to still exist in the ArmA game, how will you direct all the flight control inputs to X-Plane? Hook them in ArmA's scripting system and transfer them with the rest of the state? Will X-Plane allow you to fabricate such low-level inputs? Or would you use some sort of external Windows binary to capture mouse/keyboard/controller input?

[Dwarden 1124]

more use for callExtension :)

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/callExtension

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Extensions#How_to_make_an_extension

[metalcraze 290]

The more realistic physics of whatever in ArmA - the merrier.

[Navvar 10]

Cool seeing someone approaching this subject, hope you're able to work things out as it seems like this is something that requires much work, good luck hombre!

[R0adki11 3945]

This indeed sounds an interesting idea, though one thing puts me off is that you would need to purchase X-Plane for you to use it with Arma2

[sarge4267 16]

I have zero knowledge about what you are planning to do but it would make the arma experience alot more realistic.

I hope you carry on with this project.

The best of luck!

[purepassion 22]

According to the forum rules, due to that necro-post the thread is forced to be closed.

If the author wants to provide an update or further explanation on the project, please contact me or another moderator and we'll re-open the thread again :)