Advanced Helicopter FDM Feedback

[rübe 127]

Auto rotation (fuel cut off) is now not possible, because engine start-up was removed and engine can be started using collective input (consistency with other vehicles). We are working on some solution.

If consistency with other vehicles is the key argument here, would it really be too much of a hassle to change start-up for all vehicles? Maybe in preparation/seen as an investment for maybe yet another DLC that would be focused on wheeled/tracked vehicles (finally introducing manual gear change/shifting :lookaround:)?

I don't wont to derail this thread. It's about the helicopters. But it would be rather disappointing to see lovely details (such as controlled autorotation) being neglected merely due to consistency with other vehicles. And really, a proper "start-up" (from as easy as turning the carkey) instead of having this action superimposed on the acceleration/forward-key for any other vehicle wouldn't hurt either.

[samb 15]

Make start up procedure/ controlls optional. Problem solved.

[Kemeros 1]

I'm all for stuff like advanced damage systems and realism but there needs to be a line somewhere... This ain't a full blown heli simulator, it's a bit excessive to put stuff like start up mechanics... If it's optional it's fine but personally i wouldn't invest time and money on such a feature. It doesn't add much to the fun.

[dr. hladik 231]

If consistency with other vehicles is the key argument here, would it really be too much of a hassle to change start-up for all vehicles? Maybe in preparation/seen as an investment for maybe yet another DLC that would be focused on wheeled/tracked vehicles (finally introducing manual gear change/shifting :lookaround:)?

I don't wont to derail this thread. It's about the helicopters. But it would be rather disappointing to see lovely details (such as controlled autorotation) being neglected merely due to consistency with other vehicles. And really, a proper "start-up" (from as easy as turning the carkey) instead of having this action superimposed on the acceleration/forward-key for any other vehicle wouldn't hurt either.

It would be huge amount of work.

[Azzur33 1]

If consistency with other vehicles is the key argument here, would it really be too much of a hassle to change start-up for all vehicles?

This "auto-start-up"-feature is quite annoying and has sometimes caused bigger problems, and it is not exactly "realistic". The engine off/on option is almost useless. You should have to start the engine before you can move. And when you stop the engine, the engine should stop until you start it again, and not by touching the gas-collective-whatever. I wonder if this is has been because it is simpler for the AI to manage the vehicles.

"It would be huge amount of work. " ...ok then.

---------- Post added at 13:40 ---------- Previous post was at 13:19 ----------

Note the immediate disintegration of the right-hand aircraft. I think 7 died altogether? At the most, you and any passengers would have to walk away seriously injured from an accident at very low and slow speeds (like the above link).

I didn't see any explosion though. And 24 soldiers, 8 crew members, six died.

In Arma, main rotor hits something, main rotor is damaged. If this happens high up, helo will drop down, of course. And if lower, there should be survivors. There has been enough damage for the rough landings in Arma3 to injure those inside and disabling the helo totally.

But now it is instant death with fireworks. And if a tail of almost stationary vehicle hits something, it should damage it, but not cause immediate exploding death, like the body was made of very unstable high explosives.

[nodunit 397]

Any chance we can get a response from the devs as to why rotor destruction like this was removed?

[worldsprayer 0]

The issue is less with the dieing and more about how you die, in that video you posted and videos anywhere on the net wherein a main rotor collides with a hard enough object the blades are sheared and the aircraft tumbles down, it doesn't just ignite and go boom. A lot of helicopter crashes occur at low level and its not uncommon to see them flip onto their side and obliterate their rotors, but at the same token the pilots still have a good chance to survive as opposed to here where one contact with the rotor or rolling onto the side means instant death. It's actually astonishing to see how many crashes people manage to walk away with in compilation videos (don't forget the seats are usually designed for impact)

Imagine this scenario in Arma 3

as soon as the cable or rotor blade hit the tower it would be an instant explosion, but you can clearly see the pilot moving and even get out and walk at 1:13. It also adds a gameplay element in terms of support.

For example, a transport helo is approaching a landing zone, a gust of wind comes out of nowhere and the rotors shear into a tree or other hard obstruction, the rotor blades are destroyed and the aircraft tumbles, leaving the crew and passengers stranded. Suddenly CSAR becomes meaningful, or they have to devise a plan to get away from their location, or other scenario's could occur that would make the game really stand out from the rest.

As it is right now however the scenario goes- approaching LZ, gust of wind, rotor or body taps tree, BOOM, all dead.

Ah gotcha,

Same issue everyone has with multiple issues: Touch a building..explode. Roll on too fast...explode. That I think is far more than a rotorlib issue because rotorlib is a physics system, where as this would involve completely redoing how their models are built I suspect. They have working models, damaged models, and destroyed models, and simply swap them out depending on damage levels. To do as we both showed in our videos (bassicly ripping the aircraft apart) would involve multi part models, each with physics sensors/values...bassicaly lots of work when BI has demonstrated (and mentioned earlier in this thread I think) that they have had no intention of changing their system. {Perhaps they will, but something tells me they arean't going to redo the visual element of their game just for helicopters, since if you do it for the helis, you'll need it for vehicles too (since all the helis are are floating vehicles to the engine...its why they're having such issues using rotorlib. its not a flight simulator, its a flight simulator simulator.)

---------- Post added at 14:19 ---------- Previous post was at 13:56 ----------

Well I just realized something: The autorotations we're doing right now ARE impossible because we're trying to start up a functioning engine again during the A/R. The system FOR the A/R works perfectly well as I just autoed in 3 aircraft all the way to the point of needing the final cushion after the flare, so the only issue is not forcing the engine to fire up when the collective is applied.

Now, first off: Ground Vehicles don't HAVE collective controls mappable so I'm curious what the mapping system is doing to cause a conflict between vehicles (are helos simply flying trucks that look like helos?)

Second: If your programmers can't think of a solution for this super easy then you need new programmers. The code to check if it's a helo...in flight...with a working engine...should be easy. If all the above is true, then the code to NOT start the engine, yet still apply rotor thrust but with a decreasing thrust strength based on collective position, pulling from a pool of potential thrust determined by the combination of aircraft speed, decent, and rotor rpm should also be easy (sorry for run-on). I can almost see the function layout in my head.

Finally, what I can't test very easy since I dont have access to multiplayer where I'm at is whther or not the A/R system works right now if you engine is shot out. if you can't start the engine, will the helo let you auto like it did before? (And didnt it work a few days ago? I'd swear I did an auto in an mh9 after the first release).

Ok that's my spiel :)

Oh and another bug (I'm posting them here since there's an obvious dev here) Helo thrust for the pitch axis is inverted when on the ground with no power applied. Hop in a wheeled helo, release the breaks, start the engine, and push forward on cyclic....you'll go backwards.

[nodunit 397]

Ah gotcha,

Same issue everyone has with multiple issues: Touch a building..explode. Roll on too fast...explode. That I think is far more than a rotorlib issue because rotorlib is a physics system, where as this would involve completely redoing how their models are built I suspect. They have working models, damaged models, and destroyed models, and simply swap them out depending on damage levels. To do as we both showed in our videos (bassicly ripping the aircraft apart) would involve multi part models, each with physics sensors/values...bassicaly lots of work when BI has demonstrated (and mentioned earlier in this thread I think) that they have had no intention of changing their system. {Perhaps they will, but something tells me they arean't going to redo the visual element of their game just for helicopters, since if you do it for the helis, you'll need it for vehicles too (since all the helis are are floating vehicles to the engine...its why they're having such issues using rotorlib. its not a flight simulator, its a flight simulator simulator.)

Oh my interest isn't so much in physical damage such as the tail ripping off, I built one of those and even set it up and am aware with how time consuming it is, nevermind on the coders side of things and all the fun issues you can run into.

My biggest gripe is two things, rotors causing helo destruction when a feature of rotor obliteration was in TKOH and even Arma 3 beta (shown in the above video) and how when an aircraft rolls on its side it explodes.

The rolling landings have been greately improved, I've been able to land various helo's at 90+ to even 100+ with at most damage as opposed to explosions.

[metralla 19]

watch the movement of the hand with controls, movements should be smoother for the pedals and control.

http://youtu.be/y166Gow7MKw

[marcai 1]

As there have been a few comments about crashing, and the oversensitivity of wrecks I'd love if it were solved by having an extra 'destroyed' state for aircraft (and possibly ground vehicles vehicles) on top of the current wreck and exploded. The current exploded state makes sense for low speed or stationary vehicles, which could be battered but remain mostly intact. If the vehicle was travelling at say... 140kmph before exploding, it instead becomes a scattered debris field about 10-40m long. I will join everyone else in the wish for a GTAV/DCS level of wreck detail, but small steps towards different damage models would be a great start =D

[liquidpinky 11]

It would be huge amount of work.

But hugely appreciated. :)

[blackpixxel 53]

There are many things that need a huge amount of work in Arma 3 (multicore-performance, AI, lightning, replace copy/paste vehicles by individual ones, ...) But BI only seems to do what is easy.

I think it is important to take this time and make the game not only nice, but immense. The players will be more happy and you may sell even more copys and collect knowledge for a next Arma title. It is simply not enough to just add little things based on the current system.

But now back to topic: It is great that you improved the rudder mechanic and I hope to see it available for autotrim=off in the next patch.

[vicx 10]

Well I just realized something: The autorotations we're doing right now ARE impossible because we're trying to start up a functioning engine again during the A/R. The system FOR the A/R works perfectly well as I just autoed in 3 aircraft all the way to the point of needing the final cushion after the flare, so the only issue is not forcing the engine to fire up when the collective is applied.

Spot on Worldsprayer. This and all your other contributions have been well focused.

I've been doing experiments with this in the VR map and editor. I spawn my player chopper at 5000m and I don't touch the throttle once and I can basically auto from there.

I haven't been trying to land a chopper yet. My focus is on how fast I can get in the dive. Answer about 900kph in the Mi-48 which is rediculous because IRL your blades would self-destruct OR maybe the heli would self-stabilise out of the dive. I don't know enough to say.

Just for laughs I decided to see if I can dive the Mi-48, and level and overtake a fastmover at their top-speed. What I was able to do was pass the CSAT jet going about 700kph and then do a loop-the-loop and drop back in on it's tail. :pistols:

I think Rotorlib has a lot of potential, I don't want to see people in this thread get distracted by exploding helicopters, because the DEVS need feedback on how EACH individual helicopter FLIES when it isn't exploding.

Maybe there should be a separate thread for each heli and those threads can focus on the flight modelling for each heli.

Edited August 8, 2014 by vicx
typo

[blackpixxel 53]

When I do autorotations with the new flight model and I want to give more pitch to stop the fall near the ground the rotor just stops and looses all it's energy. Do you think that this is caused by the engine that is trying to run again? Even if it would start again, shouldn't there be some kind of 'free-running' wheel between rotor and engine, so that the rotor is always able to rotate faster than the engine? This is already the case with the vanilla flight model, the rotor keeps rotating when you give full pitch after autorotation. This would be a solution IF you don't implement an engine on/off button, which would be very sad..

Another issue:

construction side buildings still cause the death of every helo when you land on them with more than 0 km/h. You get constant damage over time and the aircraft (and the pilot) explodes in one or two seconds.

Edit: Same for office buildings

EditEdit: I slightly hit a building and my instrument indicator turned red, everything else was white. But I lost engine power and the fuel was constantly leaving the MH9. Something must be wrong with the damage indicators, they don't seem to show the actual helicopter damage.

Edited August 8, 2014 by BlackPixxel

[Azzur33 1]

There are many things that need a huge amount of work in Arma 3 But BI only seems to do what is easy.

I'm a total fanboy of BI and this series, and proud of it, too.

I'm critical too, of course, because this "Armaverse" is quite unique. It has never come to my mind that BI was taking the easy way out with Arma.

Now we have the new flight model to try out and help with the tweaking, and seems like BI is serious with it and want it to work as well as it is possible with a sensible amount of work.

The engine won't change, so the little things and tweaks are what we can expect.

For me, as I have no Real helo flying experience, is enough that they are usable and behave approximately the way they naturally should.

At the moment, the damage problems are the ones that I'm (and most of the others who have less experience about helos and flight simulators are) mostly concerned about. It is ok when you, the crew and the cargo is 100% killed if you make a Bad Mistake. But with no chance to survive the little mistakes, or even the rather weird ones that make you say "WTF just happened" ...that makes using helos in missions less fun, for sure.

[mjolnir66 48]

The ARMA series is a series of stories. The games give you the tools to make the stories and you go ahead and make them. And what is the better story:

1. One of the helos doged AAA fire and clipped a tree on the way in and exploded , all on board KiA.

or

2. One of the helos dodged AAA fire and clipped a tree on the way in and went down hard, injuring some of the crew and passangers, killing others and forcing the rest of the force to come back into a hot lz, set up a perimeter and defend the extraction of the injured before continuing with the mission?

The damage model is important, and the "x explodes, everybody on bored dies" is both no fun and not realistic, whether its for aircraft or ground vehicles.

[Henry Rollins 10]

When I do autorotations with the new flight model and I want to give more pitch to stop the fall near the ground the rotor just stops and looses all it's energy. Do you think that this is caused by the engine that is trying to run again? Even if it would start again, shouldn't there be some kind of 'free-running' wheel between rotor and engine, so that the rotor is always able to rotate faster than the engine? This is already the case with the vanilla flight model, the rotor keeps rotating when you give full pitch after autorotation. This would be a solution IF you don't implement an engine on/off button, which would be very sad..

Another issue:

construction side buildings still cause the death of every helo when you land on them with more than 0 km/h. You get constant damage over time and the aircraft (and the pilot) explodes in one or two seconds.

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i127/BlackPixxel/2014-08-08_00001_zpse53b4255.jpg

Edit: Same for office buildings

EditEdit: I slightly hit a building and my instrument indicator turned red, everything else was white. But I lost engine power and the fuel was constantly leaving the MH9. Something must be wrong with the damage indicators, they don't seem to show the actual helicopter damage.

Until BI implements a throttle separate from raising collective autorotations will not be possible unless you truly have an engine failure ie red in the engine indicator. This is caused by a correlation between raising the collective and turning on the engine. In effect this re-engages the engine drive to the rotor blades disengaging the sprag clutch Which allows us to autorotate. The final affect is a massive drop in rotor rpms causing the blades to stall. IRL we put the throttle into the detent (roll it off completely) to prevent the throttle from correlating to the collective. Or else we would really die just like in Arma 3.

[vicx 10]

Flying the Pawnee right now with 1.27.126636

I am able to make rough landings yay! but not lots of them (fair enough). Each landing seems to accumulate damage until I do go boom.

My rotors clipped a light pole and my chopper lost power and fell but I was close to the ground and I did not go boom.

I was able to hop from rooftop to rooftop of the service station in Proving Grounds several times without going boom.

I also learned a little something about making the chopper more controllable using a proper throttle and stick (I got a Saitek x55).

In Arma controller customization

• remove ALL deadzones. (thanks Dyslexci)
  
• set stick to 10% or less sensitivity on X,Y
  
• set throttle to 2-3% sensitivity. Your mileage may vary but this has made a vast improvement to my ability to bring her in slowly and under control.
  This is with a basic no curves profile in x55 config.
  

[KeyCat 131]

Just updated to 1.27.126636 then disabled manual trim and flying the MH-9 is indeed different. Less prone to being thrown off by rudder (but still wished we had an option to flatten the axis curves), much easier to reach crusing speed (I previously only flown with manual trim so could be due to auto-trim?). Looking forward to have it working when using manual trim as well...

Another thing observed (and not specific to todays build) is when flying the MH-9 fully loaded (90-100% fuel and 7 passangers) I sometimes see a subtle but noticable airframe shake, even after I dropped of the squad the shake is there. No damage indicators etc. are lit and my guess is that this is an indication that I pushed her to far and induced a permanent airframe stress damage, is this the case?

Adding to lots of similar comments, less catastrofic failures that ends in a big fireball and more system failures with higher survivability really adds to the gameplay and opens up for some great CSAR stories to develop....

/KC

Edited August 8, 2014 by KeyCat

[Henry Rollins 10]

Just updated to 1.27.126636 then disabled manual trim and flying the MH-9 is indeed different. Less prone to being thrown off by rudder (but still wished we had an option to flatten the axis curves), much easier to reach crusing speed (I previously only flown with manual trim so could be due to auto-trim?). Looking forward to have it working when using manual trim as well...

Another thing observed (and not specific to todays build) is when flying the MH-9 fully loaded (90-100% fuel and 7 passangers) I sometimes see a subtle but noticable airframe shake, even after I dropped of the squad the shake is there. No damage indicators etc. are lit and my guess is that this is an indication that I pushed her to far and induced a permanent airframe stress damage, is this the case?

Adding to lots of similar comments, less catastrofic failures that ends in a big fireball and more system failures with higher survivability really adds to the gameplay and opens up for some great CSAR stories to develop....

/KC

If you ever played TOH when you use max power and your torque indicator light turned red for too long there was damage done to the gear box which caused the same type of vibrations. I would just guess that you were using a lot of power when you were fully loaded and over torqued the AC.

[KeyCat 131]

If you ever played TOH when you use max power and your torque indicator light turned red for too long there was damage done to the gear box which caused the same type of vibrations. I would just guess that you were using a lot of power when you were fully loaded and over torqued the AC.

Gear box damage makes a bit more sense than airframe damage in this situation and you are correct that I had to use lots of power. Love you have to take this into consideration so no more "full tilt" when fully loaded. Thanks for clarifying.

/KC

[Degman 73]

But hugely appreciated. :)

And making price of 44,99€ not prepaid ..

[SG_Smokintodd 0]

And making price of 44,99€ not prepaid ..

I'd pay for it.

[henrique_rp 10]

I've tested all the helicopters and the Pawnee seems like the most logical one in terms of behavior. The other ones feel very strange.

To me the ground effect is extremely exaggerated to the point of causing the helo to pivot around its vertical axis. Truly weird.

The trim system also needs to be rebuilt. Almost all of the helicopters become close to unplayable with the auto trim turned off. Most of them are close to uncontrollable.

I am using the HOTAS Warthog and the Saitek Pro Flight Pedals.

My deadzones are set to zero and my sensitivities to their minimum values.

I don't have real life experience in helicopter flying, just a few hundred hours in the DCS series with the Ka-50, Mi-8 and UH-1.

If you disable the autotrim feature, all of the helicopters behave very similar to the old arcade flight model, with and added loss of torque, a somewhat simulation of retreating blade stalls and vortex ring stalls (these last ones also feel very strange).

These are my impressions after a few hours flying them. :)

[worldsprayer 0]

Just updated to 1.27.126636 then disabled manual trim and flying the MH-9 is indeed different. Less prone to being thrown off by rudder (but still wished we had an option to flatten the axis curves), much easier to reach crusing speed (I previously only flown with manual trim so could be due to auto-trim?). Looking forward to have it working when using manual trim as well...

Another thing observed (and not specific to todays build) is when flying the MH-9 fully loaded (90-100% fuel and 7 passangers) I sometimes see a subtle but noticable airframe shake, even after I dropped of the squad the shake is there. No damage indicators etc. are lit and my guess is that this is an indication that I pushed her to far and induced a permanent airframe stress damage, is this the case?

Adding to lots of similar comments, less catastrofic failures that ends in a big fireball and more system failures with higher survivability really adds to the gameplay and opens up for some great CSAR stories to develop....

/KC

The post one or two above yours discusses this and is how I've been flying: Go into configure-> controls-> controller -> customize. You get the option there to flatten out your sensitivity curve.

---------- Post added at 05:33 ---------- Previous post was at 05:27 ----------

Yes and yes. The theory behind autoing is that you fall at an airspeed that allows enough air up through the rotor to spin it, freewheeling it as you said (the other post was correct, its a clutch in the transmission that decoulples the engine(s) when the power demanded is a certain amount less than current rotor rpm) about 130 feet above the ground you pull back flaring up a bit to slow your decent and forward motion, and then before your rotor rpm decays you pitch into a level attitutde, and apply your collective (and compensating pedal) prior to impact as your final cushion. Its that final collective pull that is broken as you can hear the engine try to spool up, at which point it then sets thrust to 0 (its been simulating thrust during your fall) and stops the blades (yay!).

Note that landing from an A/R to a single spot via hover is damn near impossible. The point of an A/R is to survive falling from the sky, not survive AND wind up on a pinpoint spot. Its easier to try and auto if you're attempting to do a run/roll on landing.

---------- Post added at 05:42 ---------- Previous post was at 05:33 ----------

I've tested all the helicopters and the Pawnee seems like the most logical one in terms of behavior. The other ones feel very strange.

To me the ground effect is extremely exaggerated to the point of causing the helo to pivot around its vertical axis. Truly weird.

The trim system also needs to be rebuilt. Almost all of the helicopters become close to unplayable with the auto trim turned off. Most of them are close to uncontrollable.

I am using the HOTAS Warthog and the Saitek Pro Flight Pedals.

My deadzones are set to zero and my sensitivities to their minimum values.

I don't have real life experience in helicopter flying, just a few hundred hours in the DCS series with the Ka-50, Mi-8 and UH-1.

If you disable the autotrim feature, all of the helicopters behave very similar to the old arcade flight model, with and added loss of torque, a somewhat simulation of retreating blade stalls and vortex ring stalls (these last ones also feel very strange).

These are my impressions after a few hours flying them. :)

I'm not sure exactly what all you're talking about here:

First, when in a hover, IGE or OGE..you will pivet about the vertical axis...its because in a hover you require anti-torque to counter the torque from the main blades...so you input pedal (usually left for western designed helos)

I have yet to turn ON auto trim, and with each patch flyability gets improved...except for odd behavior from specific aircraft (ghosthawk I'm looking at you with your left lean/nose over issues!) or others that dont behave right (hellcat not needing anti-torque to hover) or the mi-48 not getting its highspeed trimming fixed...things ARE performing better. the xh-9 series is running very well at the moment.