Helicopter control: Mouse Vs Joystick. can we fix the joystick control...

[George_Smiley 17]

Hello.

I want to try to make this really simple to avoid a pile up of off topic comments.

I use Arma2 OA. I switched form mouse helicopter control to Joystick.

The joy stick if pulled to one side with cause the machine to side slip. Basic stuff.

However if you let go of the stick the machine continues to side slip.

To rectify this you have to give it opposite stick to bring the machine

back to level hover.

This is not correct. For various reasons.

The most obvious is that the "control" of the helicopter is

optimised for mouse use.

Which means if you mouse left and stop the machine side slips.

If you mouse the mouse the other way the machine will change back to level

and more mouse will take it the other direction.

The joystick is "Stuck" with mousecentric code.

To actually get the machine to react properly to joystick input it would need

a non mouse setup.

I bought my joystick to take advantage of the "realisim" only to find the Arma

engine does not have to required code to take any advantage of the joystick.

The test is very simple:

hop in a helicopter and side slip using a joystick.

Once in the slip let the stick go.

The machine should stop side slipping as you have stopped stick input.

But it does not. It continues to slip.

Gravity would pull the fuselage back down and it would hang under the disk.

(with a few swings due to the pendulum effect)

All that is required is a seperate system for REAL joystick inputs to be used by the Helicopter.

When the Stick is at x0 y0 there should be no excentric thrust. and after the pendulum effect has

died off the machine should be level. ish. unless you are in a dive etc etc etc ...

This may seem at first BS, but I assure you it is not. Do the test with a joystick and

if you think about it you will see I am not wrong.

And the second thing is the helicopter when canting over left or right pivots in the center of the

fuselage. this is also incorrect it should pivot at the intersecton of the disk and the mast. ( I think...)

Please do not get me wrong. I love flying in Arma2. I love the AH-6 helicopter. I can fly quite well in fact.

But I bought my joystick for a reason and I am a bit put out that the Arma system has fudged the controls

for the sake of the mouse user and ignored the joystick user.

Can we get this fixed? Or am I asking too much.

Kind regards to all Little bird fans in Arma2,

Mr Amaway.

Ps If teased enough or flamed even I can make a short video explaining what I mean. Cheers.

Edited June 30, 2014 by mr Amway
I tidied it up.

[Tisor 17]

You are wrong.

In real life, when you push the cyclic to the left, then the helicopter will bank to the left and it will keep its banking position until you push to the right to correct it. Is about the basics of flight dynamics. They are correctly simulated, the thing is you are not use to the joystick and its giving you wrong impressions. Look around on google to basic helicopter flying and you will see how it works.

[blackpixxel 53]

Yep, R/C helicopters often turn their rotor even more to the banking direction so that they will accelerate until they hit the ground.

There is a reason why hovering is one of the most difficult manouvers with a helicopter. You always have to stop the helicopter from tilting into a random direction and fly away. With your idea of a helicopter that is stabilized by gravity and the weight of the fuselage hovering would not require any input of the pilot.

[George_Smiley 17]

You are wrong.

In real life, when you push the cyclic to the left, then the helicopter will bank to the left and it will keep its banking position until you push to the right to correct it. Is about the basics of flight dynamics. They are correctly simulated, the thing is you are not use to the joystick and its giving you wrong impressions. Look around on google to basic helicopter flying and you will see how it works.

Soooo if I push my hovering Ah-6j over to the left and side slip to the left then Holding the stick in that position will

continue the side slip.

However if I bring the stick back to zero, the sideslip will continue?

Is that what you are saying? this is how a real live helicopter would respond?

so with thrust being equal on the disk the machine can still continue to sideslip?

and to stop the side slip I have to stick over the other way to produce thrust on the

"leading edge" of the disk?

Is that the real deal?

I find that hard to fathom... I must fly a real one to decide...

Mr AMway

Edited June 30, 2014 by mr Amway

[blackpixxel 53]

Correct, if you want to stop the helicopter from moving sideways you have to tilt him into the other direction to create a force against the moving direction. When the helicopter stops you have to tilt him to a neutral position, otherwise it will move into the other direction.

[Tisor 17]

Soooo if I push my hovering Ah-6j over to the left and side slip to the left then Holding the stick in that position will

continue the side slip.

However if I bring the stick back to zero, the sideslip will continue?

Is that what you are saying? this is how a real live helicopter would respond?

so with thrust being equal on the disk the machine can still continue to sideslip?

and to stop the side slip I have to stick over the other way to produce thrust on the

"leading edge" of the disk?

Is that the real deal?

I find that hard to fathom... I must fly a real one to decide...

Mr AMway

No, you don't get it.

If you want to slip left, just push the cyclic a bit to the left and take it back to its normal position. If you keep pushing to the left, the helicopter will keep turning to the left it self making a 360º over his longitudinal axis.

Is hard to explain but yeah, Arma is working good on this. If you want to go sideslip, just bank left a bit and get the joy neutral. The helicopter will be sliding. When you want to stop, then go to the other side before it stops...

And if you think this is difficult, give it a try to Take On Helicopters with HTR flight dynamics... and you'll see ;)

[George_Smiley 17]

No, you don't get it.

If you want to slip left, just push the cyclic a bit to the left and take it back to its normal position. If you keep pushing to the left, the helicopter will keep turning to the left it self making a 360º over his longitudinal axis.

Is hard to explain but yeah, Arma is working good on this. If you want to go sideslip, just bank left a bit and get the joy neutral. The helicopter will be sliding. When you want to stop, then go to the other side before it stops...

And if you think this is difficult, give it a try to Take On Helicopters with HTR flight dynamics... and you'll see ;)

Hi.

++++++

If I was in a real helicopter.

and I sideslipped to the left, do I have to hold the stick left of centre to continue sideslipping?

and if I return the stick to neutral during a sideslip will it change what the machine is doing.

++++++

As far as I am aware if I return the stick to neutral then there will be no off centre thrust and

the machine will have to pendulum back to it's natural resting position. and possibly go all wonky.

and in Ama2, moving forward:

If I nose down and start picking up airspeed then return the stick to centre

the machine still retains it's nose down attitude.

and to level out I have to pull back on the stick to nose the machine up.

Frankly I would of thought that in RL level forward flight or sideways flight

that returning the stick to centre would change SOMETHING.

It makes sense.

The eccentric thrust is over coming gravity trying to pull the C.O.G back down.

and also the extra air resistance the the disk is now producing because it is

canted over into the air stream. so add some throttle too.

If you remove that eccentric thrust then you have nothing holding the

machine at that attitude and therefore it will try to vane, not just keep on

ploughing through air. (maybe...)

with reasonable airspeed, nose down and then: stick to neutral

I would be surprised if a real helicopter retained it's attitude continuously.

Kind regards,

Mr Amway.

PS. I will go and get a flight in a helicopter on the weekend and get back to you. With video....

[George_Smiley 17]

Hi there.

Slam a mouse onto your mouse pad. Get a chopper hovering in 3rd person, level.

Move the mouse to the left. Chopper should side slip to the left. Let go of the mouse and

the chopper will continue to side slip. ( not a good idea to do this is RL)

If you move the mouse to the right the chopper will roll back to the right.

If you are aware of the difference between a joy stick and a mouse and a real stick

you will see that the mouse flicks from +thrust on the right side of the disk to +thrust

on the left side of the disk, which will cause the machine to roll back the other way.

(the mouse did not move back to zero, then the opposite way, then back to zero)

A joystick/ real stick will do this:

Roll to left:

Stick over to left. 0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 hold at -5

Stick back to zero: -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 (machine now has now NO extra down thrust on the right side of disk)

Here the machine should pendulum back to level flight. Why? because the "off set" thrust was overcoming GRAVITY,

the engine, payload, fuel, occupants were held out to the side, and will swing back to directly below the centre

of the disk once the thrust is equal over the entire disk. (applied logic and basic theory of gravity)

however in Arma you have to counter the side slip by bringing the disk back up to level with an opposite stick input.

so stick over to the right and back to zero.

The mouse is CHEATING.

It is not passing back the way it came, it is merely pointing in which way to move the

model of the machine and then tracking how far it should rotate. The amount of rotation is directly proportional

to the amount the mouse moves. Whip the mouse left and right and the model does the same. no Zero and no dead zone.

and no rate of change curve.

This is WHY people with a mouse will always piss all over people with joysticks. Especially with Arma's

flipping enormous dead zone and rubbish rate of change curve.

I have used the mouse to fly first person through Electrovodsk at 120 kph at 2-3 meters negotiating buildings and poles in the ah-6j.

No problems, too easy.

Try that with a joystick and I'm stuffed.

After using the mouse and getting great results people THINK they know how a chopper flies and are quick

to defend their new found skill. Well I am afraid you are quite mistaken.

an easy fix:

The mouse has to move BACK all the way it came to a dead zone then over an equal amount to counter the

manoeuvre you have just done. Just like a real joystick.

Push it , then pull it back to zero, then back more, then forward to zero.

and that my friends will kill the buzz of flying with a mouse and people will start finding that helicopters

are harder to fly than they think.

Good luck.

[George_Smiley 17]

ah yes...

https://dev.withsix.com/issues/15988

hmmm....

[Tisor 17]

That issue is the same think... You are used to mouse flying and thats why you think it doesnt work... Try FSX, DCS or any other sim and you will see.

[Beagle 684]

All you need to do to "fix the problem" is to set individual sensitivity to axis in user.cfg to a value of 1-1.5