Advanced Helicopter FDM Feedback

[aluc4rd 47]

Hello!

Today we deployed our advanced helicopter flight dynamics model to the development branch. You can find more information in the recently released OPREP, but, in short:

• The advanced flight model is an optional feature, which we hope will make helicopter gameplay more authentic, challenging and enjoyable to master.
  
• You can switch to the advanced flight dynamics model in Game Options (section General) and try it with each helicopter we have currently in game.
  

Please be so kind and share with us your experience! We're specifically looking for feedback on these these topics:

1. Flight Experience - behavior and handling of helicopters
   
2. GUI- layout customization, lucidity, informativeness etc.
   
3. Controls - schemes usability, customization, controllers issues and related
   

But we are grateful for all for your valuable, constructive and civil feedback. Oh, and don't forget, this is just a first step and we are still working on the RotorLib functionality, alongside the other key features of the Helicopters DLC.

Happy flying!

Edited August 4, 2014 by RoyaltyinExile

[x3kj 1247]

U no land?

no landinggear->no landing, simple :D

Edited August 4, 2014 by Fennek

[blackpixxel 53]

Nice to see that there is a place for feedback. I would like to share my flight experiences:

Here are my experiences (without autotrim):

Mi48: -completely unplayable. While it hovers extremly nice (no real need for trim) the helicopter has _no_ power. It sinks even with full throttle (Is there no testing? How does this find its way to the dev branch?)

AH99 Blackfoot: -not enough power, the aircraft hardly climbs. I expect an atack helicopter to be agile and fast.

Ghosthawk: -defalt trim is completely messed up. When I want to hover at one place I have to push my joystick nearly to the down-right limit and give about 50% pedals to the right. Shouldn't the default trimm allow the helos to hover at least a bit stable?

But all in all I really love this new update. It makes alot of fun and the sound improvements are awesome too. It is nice to hear when the engine RPM changes when you tilt your swashplate or give more collective!

[kbbw123 115]

Okay I'm a real keyboard user so first off all I EXTREMLY suck at this XD

but next thing that i noticed was that it looked amazingly nice and the dashboard meters where pretty mutch the same as the GUI in advanced mode so even in copilot i could see the stats the same.

other thing is that the AH-99 has aaweful flaw and that is that its unturnable when you go 280 + KM/h (each time me and a frend did it we made about 5 salto's combined with 10 sideways rolls.....

Handling of the choppers seams to be specified to Joystick users who appear to have it more easy with it while keyboar users are having a hard time even taking of.... pressing q all the time is now a killer move on keyboards ;)

ow and if you take of, make a strange turn (more like sideways turn...) your engine will stall making you go upside down. crashing you into the ground and when the chopper explodes it jumps up in the air (about 20-50 meters) and you stay on the spot where it exploded. (also happend after a frend started up and laned a pawnee but the tail hit the ground. BUT the chopper did not explode frend just died. chopper flew into the air and exploded once it reached the ground again)

But further its awesome! a real good challenge to become a better pilot. people who can fly good here are ACE's at the standard version for sure!

[x3kj 1247]

if you use rudder on ah-99 at greater speed then maybe 100kph it "passes out" apparently, going out of controll. Even with just very small rudder adjustements. As you can only use 0 or 1 with keyboard its impossible to use rudder with keyboard on this chopper.

Other helicopters are not as itchy. I#ve noticed on the wy55 that the heckrotor repeatedly keeps going into red when flying at max collective. (auto trimm off). Everytime it recovers you make a forced dive downwards. I'm not sure if this is realistic, but it makes it hard to fly at high collective. Maybe its supposed to be like that? Im no reallife pilot.

I fly with sidewinder 2 joystick, once you know what happens if you do this or that, its nice to controll. The only "helicopter flightsimulator" i playe before was arma2 vanilla :D So its definitely not too hard to get used to. Enabling Autotrim helps to learn, but even without i manage ok so far. You just have to avoid to give very sudden and strong reactions. Make changes slow and steady.

[mistyronin 1181]

I've been playing around a bit with all the helos with all the advanced options enabled, and without major issues.

The only problems I found were that the Blackfoot behaves a bit weirdly ( it seems to lack power ).

Another issue I found is that the Kajman's wheel break, doesn't break as much as it should, allowing it to slide.

Said that I enjoyed a lot taxing the airports with the wheeled helos, and I don't know if it's a matter of taste, but to me the FM in A3 seems a bit more "easy" than ToH ( it allows you to fly more harshly without major issues ).

BTW I miss the warning sound when you force the torque and the clocks UI maybe it's too big for my taste, but I like the warning lights below.

Edited August 4, 2014 by MistyRonin

[metralla 19]

I've tried it a bit and seems fine, feels quite control the helicopter when you raise the rpm.

Edited August 4, 2014 by Metralla

[mistyronin 1181]

God give him a little time is still in development and will have to optimize and add more things before releasing DLC Helicopter in the main branch.

I thought the idea of this thread was to :rolleyes:

Please be so kind and share with us your experience! We're specifically looking for feedback on these these topics:

1. Flight Experience - behavior and handling of helicopters
   
2. GUI- layout customization, lucidity, informativeness etc.
   
3. Controls - schemes usability, customization, controllers issues and related
   

[KeyCat 131]

Today we deployed our advanced helicopter flight dynamics model to the development branch.

Awesome news, time to switch back to dev branch and plug-in the HOTAS!

/KC

[x3kj 1247]

is it new in this version that you cant shoot out the tail-rotor anymore or is this some old thing? blackhawk and orca dont have any hitpoint there...

It would be nice to have an external engine rpm dial... The lights are ok, but seeing how much "room" you have left would be good. Some helicopters lack a proper dial for this in their cockpit.

Edited August 4, 2014 by Fennek

[ironhawx 15]

Ok so have to say glad to see this finally around. SO my experience is w/ the ghosthawk. with auto trim on everything else was advanaced wind etc, thought it was odd how on spool up and giving just a little throttle this thing wanted to roll right over its nose, as well as liked to spin to the left. Its not severe enough that one can't make slight adjustments get in the air and it settles its self down. However I was sad w/ this b/c i was hoping we helo pilots would finally be able to do rolling take offs and runway maneuvers, possibly can w/ manual trim but I have to do a little more reading on what trim is I get general concept of it, just need to get it better memorized on when to use it and what direction. However landing was pretty simple, and to do a rolling landing and come in on an open field at 70km/h slightly losing elevation while keeping attitude level/slight back, was extremely satisfying so when you have an AO where theres not much cover but forests makes it nice to be able to stay low and land quickly vs the old flight model. Lastly with these changes its nice to finally be able to fly by the collective more vs old flight model. Overall extremely satisfied with the direction its going and how good it feels. With some tweaking to the auto trim working as it should it'll be nice to fly with an advance model over the "standard". Side Note thanks for the gauges very nice to be able to see that info, i don't have trackIr yet so reading the actual gauges was hard to do.

[x3kj 1247]

taxiing: release breakes, keep collective completely down and accelerate by pulling up/down... even a beginner like me can figure this out =P

Orca pilot has some mfd screens, while the copilot has the actually important dials (engine rpm!).

[ironhawx 15]

taxiing: release breakes, keep collective completely down and accelerate by pulling up/down... even a beginner like me can figure this out =P

Orca pilot has some mfd screens, while the copilot has the actually important dials (engine rpm!).

Wait the helos have breaks on them? in all my time playing amra 3 never dawned on me that they would have breaks derp

[x3kj 1247]

i think breaks are new

[nodunit 397]

They are, its part of RTD specificly.

[ironhawx 15]

ok well after he mentioned it went looked found controls noticed the icon in the new gui go from green to white (never noticed lol), but yes one can now taxi around the air port nice. Definitely have some new keys to bind to hotas. Also after testing was the reason why my helo was trying to flip over on its nose. Also realized that one can deploy the landing gear on the ghosthawk vs having to wait for the game to do it for you, another nice little feature.

Edited August 4, 2014 by ironhawx

[Gutsnav 13]

Is there a way to remove the new gauges? I don't like them at all. I prefer the actual gauges, but I can't figure out how to disable the ones on the HUD?

[royaltyinexile 175]

Is there a way to remove the new gauges? I don't like them at all. I prefer the actual gauges, but I can't figure out how to disable the ones on the HUD?

This user on reddit posted a screen of our WIP UI options: http://i.imgur.com/F3masNS.jpg

This information is also in today's OPREP, which I'd encourage you to take a look at, if you're trying out the new feature, as it offers some extra details!

However, although you can of course simply disable them, I'd also like to ask you why you don't like the gauges? Do you find them distracting/annoying, is the information they provide not clear, etc?

Best,

RiE

[samb 15]

Just spent a while flying around. I like it so far. FMwise I would like more experienced players to review, I might add something after few additional flight hours.

I would like to be able to turn FFB ingame, or to have Force Trim option avaliable (it is different feature from what we have in A3 right now). We can turn additional gauges on, and change their placement, but only gauge I need apart from what is present in 3d cockpit is wind direction (not neccesary merged with compas as in 2d gauge), so maybe an option to disable each 2d gauge indivudually? If we could get at least simplified startup procedure as in TOH- it would be awesome!

[CaptainObvious 95]

Is there a way to remove the new gauges? I don't like them at all. I prefer the actual gauges, but I can't figure out how to disable the ones on the HUD?

Yes, it's cunningly hidden just below the Flightmodel selection, it's named Show Gauges

e: ninja'd

Edited August 4, 2014 by CaptainObvious
slooow

[novemberist 2]

So useable switches and buttons inside the cockpit like in TKOH are not part of the new flight model? :(

[DJankovic 401]

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/577903436703681798/C17820089972528726F954629E20F35FA0F749CA/ (155 kB)

Little bird tail rotor missing texture?

[dezkit 28]

It seems as PhysX is broken with the new RotorLIB Helo class... I can land my chopper on water and let it float without rotorlib, but as soon as I enable it, it sinks into the water.

[Sari 18]

Taken for a very quick spin:

Briefly tried the ghosthawk, all assists off. Upon setting wheelbrake off with absolutely no control input on my behalf it taxis 15kph in reverse.

Tried the orca, all assists off. Bloody nightmare to control but probably just me not being used to it (wasn't very good with DCS huey either).

Tried again with just auto trim on and it handles very well, had quite a bit of fun pushing both its and my limits (you sure as hell cant throw it around in the air any more!). Noticed the wheels are still static when taxiing and it would be nice if the pilots MFD was redone so that it actually displayed airspeed, alt and heading instead of having to constantly look at the copilots seat.

Only other thing I'd say now would be to have an option to resize and/or repostion the on screen gauges. On a 1600x900 monitor they are very 'in your face' and frankly quite annoying. Here are a couple of screenshots at 1600x900 with a few ideas:

http://s29.postimg.org/6sl2o66qv/2014_08_04_00001.jpg (161 kB)

http://s8.postimg.org/94v6uzjth/2014_08_04_00002.jpg (155 kB)

Using a logitech extreme 3d pro stick with saitek throttle quadrants and rudder pedals

Edited August 4, 2014 by Sari

[CaptainObvious 95]

Only other thing I'd say now would be to have an option to resize and/or repostion the on screen gauges. On a 1600x900 monitor they are very 'in your face' and frankly quite annoying. Here are a couple of screenshots at 1600x900 with a few ideas:

http://s29.postimg.org/6sl2o66qv/2014_08_04_00001.jpg (161 kB)

http://s8.postimg.org/94v6uzjth/2014_08_04_00002.jpg (155 kB)

You can reposition them, Layout tab in Game Settings, not sure about resize.