Advanced Helicopter FDM Feedback

[gatordev 219]

I believe the RHS helicopters just utilise the vanilla Arma 3 advanced flight models based on similarities in airframe design. For example the Mi-17 flies identically to the CH-49 Mohawk.

Sounds familiar. They just seemed to be at least interested in messing with values/flight model as the mod matures. That's all I meant. Since I'm not even using a joystick, I can be patient to see how they develop it...or how other mod makers embrace the FM.

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

Sounds familiar. They just seemed to be at least interested in messing with values/flight model as the mod matures. That's all I meant. Since I'm not even using a joystick, I can be patient to see how they develop it...or how other mod makers embrace the FM.

Seeing as your a person very familiar with helicopter flight behaviour; is it normal how rapidly the CH-49 Mohawk seems to re-center/upright itself after cyclic input has ceased? This is with the AFM.

[b00ce 160]

What are you and gaterdevs view on AFM as it is in game.

I strongly prefer the standard FM over the AFM at the moment. It seems like its trying too hard to BE hard, rather than realistic; it doesn't feel as rewarding (Or fun) as zooming around with the SFM. I'll fly the rotors off in DCS Huey (In a good way, I promise :rolleyes:) but I can barely get off the ground in ArmA 3.

The primary reason is the delay in input which leaves me feeling like I'm constantly on the verge of losing control. There should be zero input lag; when you move the stick, there is an immediate change in rotor blade pitch and the tip path plane which translates into a corresponding change in direction. The delay in the input from my joystick to the motion manifesting in-game is atrocious and more frustrating than realistic. I'll take SFM w/ keyboard & mouse over AFM and my Warthog / pedals any day of the week. With the SFM and mouse I can have the control touch and response I need to play, with the AFM I just end up chasing my own inputs due to the lag. The AFM is something that I've been yearning for, and I wholeheartedly support the improvement of it. But at the moment the input delay murders the experience and immersion.

[blackpixxel 53]

is it normal how rapidly the CH-49 Mohawk seems to re-center/upright itself after cyclic input has ceased? This is with the AFM.

I also noticed this, but it only seem to affect the Roll-Axis. I would say that this stabilisation is a bug.

And I would also love to see input delay fixed.

[gatordev 219]

Seeing as your a person very familiar with helicopter flight behaviour; is it normal how rapidly the CH-49 Mohawk seems to re-center/upright itself after cyclic input has ceased? This is with the AFM.

Sorry, I haven't really messed with it, but I may try to take a look at it. Independent of this particular behavior...

Sometimes in the -60, depending on how new the navigation/flight control system is (and if it's getting buggy just due to weirdness that occassionally happens), you can have the FCS "lose" it's sense of what is trimmed (or nulled, which may be a better term). When that happens, and I've usually experienced it in a turn, the trim/FCS will "excitedly" move the stick back to what it thinks is the right place, which is usually WELL past what it should be. When that happens, and if you actually let it do this, the roll rate is pretty damn fast, at least for a helicopter. So, it's possible that what you may be seeing is physically possible, it just may not be how it "should" work in normal operations.

Does that make sense? It's hard to describe how the FCS can go out to lunch sometimes.

[Sethioz 10]

i find this disappointing, it is meant for keyboard noobs and it's nearly impossible to fly the helicopter with the "advanced" mode using a controller or joystick.

when i first saw this advanced mode, i was hoping it's really ADVANCED, but instead it's basic that is meant for keyboard. very disappointed.

i like the gauges and all, but still disappointing that it's meant for keyboard only.

i hope to see REAL advanced mode in future.

btw i'd also like to point out, that helicopter physics are completely wrong in arma3. developers, are you aware what is "gyroscopic motion" ? What i mean, is that when you look at the helicopter blades and then roll left slightly, then blades turn left < this is wrong, in real life, you do not move the blades to the direction you want to move, because of gyroscopic motion, you need to move blades 90 degrees off the direction you want to move to.

anyone who don't believe this, look up real helicopter physics.

you can even make a simple test with external HDD that is spinning, try to turn it like you turn the helicopter, feel how it tries to rip out of your hand and turn 90 degrees off from direction you turn it to. I think developers have lot of work to do in researching how real helicopters work. I like arma3 and i hope this will be fixed in future.

[blackpixxel 53]

'Gyroscoptic Motion' doesn't matter for the flight physics. When you push the cyclic forward, a real helicopter will rotate forward, just like in Arma.

[gatordev 219]

developers, are you aware what is "gyroscopic motion" ? What i mean, is that when you look at the helicopter blades and then roll left slightly, then blades turn left < this is wrong, in real life, you do not move the blades to the direction you want to move, because of gyroscopic motion, you need to move blades 90 degrees off the direction you want to move to.

anyone who don't believe this, look up real helicopter physics.

I'm afraid you are incorrect. When you move the cyclic to the left, the rotor DISC will move to the left. What you're describing is what happens to the individual rotor BLADE. So for a North American helicopter, when you move the cyclic to the left, the input will be made to the blade that is at the back (6 o'clock) position of the aircraft. This will increase the AoA of the blade, which will then be felt at the right side (3 o'clock) position, causing the disc to tilt to the left and causing the aircraft to bank left.

The disc and the blades aren't necessarily the same thing.

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

Sorry, I haven't really messed with it, but I may try to take a look at it. Independent of this particular behavior...

Sometimes in the -60, depending on how new the navigation/flight control system is (and if it's getting buggy just due to weirdness that occassionally happens), you can have the FCS "lose" it's sense of what is trimmed (or nulled, which may be a better term). When that happens, and I've usually experienced it in a turn, the trim/FCS will "excitedly" move the stick back to what it thinks is the right place, which is usually WELL past what it should be. When that happens, and if you actually let it do this, the roll rate is pretty damn fast, at least for a helicopter. So, it's possible that what you may be seeing is physically possible, it just may not be how it "should" work in normal operations.

Does that make sense? It's hard to describe how the FCS can go out to lunch sometimes.

Thanks for the explanation; I'd put down what occurs with the Ch-49 to an overly enthusiastic return-to-center behaviour for that specific helicopter in the AFm as it's the only one where this occurs. Makes it just that little bit harder to hold a smooth turn with the Mohawk as you have to constantly fight the helicopters tendancy to immediately (and it happens very quickly) re-upright itself.

[Healbeam 10]

Has VRS been removed? I just tested it yesterday, after a long break from ArmA piloting, and it seemed to be gone. Tried it on Dev Branch with the MH-9, AH-9, CH-49, Huron, Taru, M-900 and Orca. Every time auto-hovered at ~900 feet AGL, set collective to zero and pushed it back up when I was falling like a rock, every time I perfectly recovered (AFM of course). If this isn't a bug, that is very disappointing.

[metralla 19]

Unfortunately this is the main problem of piloting a helicopter in arma 3 "Input delay Joystick". FPDR

There are several videos where you can clearly see the problem and the difficulty of controlling the helicopter with precision and better control with a joystick. :couch:

Someone has created an entry about this problem ? :confused:. Wonder if the developers can fix in the future the "Input delay Joystick" :436:

[Bleemus 10]

My thoughts on AFM. I am a joystick user.

As everyone is aware the Standard Flight Model had an issue where the collective had to have both X+ and X- bound to Collective Raise (analog) to make throttles work for more than 50% of the range.

Now we have Advanced Flight model where it works with X- bound to Collective Raise (analog) and X+ bound to Collective Lower (analog) as it should be.

The mentioned issue with Standard model was answered by BIS as "being a legacy code issue" and that the workaround described above was the only way to deal with it.

Well, now that it works with Advanced Flight Model can we please change so that the Collective inputs for Standard match the ones for AFM. It is quite tiring having to set Collective settings every time you want to switch between flight models.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[twisted 128]

Any news on fixing the input lag? It's important enough to be stopping people, myself included, from using this AFM.

Edited March 31, 2015 by twisted

[sqb-sma 66]

I just can't fly using AFM without auto trim. Heck even with auto-trim it feels odd and unrealistic. I fly in real life (R-44) and in high fidelity sims (DCS:BS/UH1-H) and no other sim has helicopters this difficult to fly.

Mainly I feel like I can't use 100% of the cyclic range, only 20-30%, my controls feel very ineffective and the helicopter feels very, very unstable. The small, agile, birds are death traps, and the larger helicopter fly like they don't have an AFM, I have to double check that the AFM is running every time I hop in the Ka60.

It feels like the BT rotor weights (or stabilizer bar, in olde style helicopters) aren't even being simulated, nor is the dihedral effect on collective (which stabilizes the helicopter). Settling under power, or VRS, also feels weird, as does Autorotation.

I was really expecting more from this tbh. A proper sim level FM for Arma would be amazing.

[nerdwing 13]

Has there been any advance in "making helicopters not explode when they roll over" yet? :P

[metralla 19]

I just can't fly using AFM without auto trim. Heck even with auto-trim it feels odd and unrealistic. I fly in real life (R-44) and in high fidelity sims (DCS:BS/UH1-H) and no other sim has helicopters this difficult to fly.

Mainly I feel like I can't use 100% of the cyclic range, only 20-30%, my controls feel very ineffective and the helicopter feels very, very unstable. The small, agile, birds are death traps, and the larger helicopter fly like they don't have an AFM, I have to double check that the AFM is running every time I hop in the Ka60.

It feels like the BT rotor weights (or stabilizer bar, in olde style helicopters) aren't even being simulated, nor is the dihedral effect on collective (which stabilizes the helicopter). Settling under power, or VRS, also feels weird, as does Autorotation.

I was really expecting more from this tbh. A proper sim level FM for Arma would be amazing.

Do not compare with the simulation of DCS UH-1Huey, is another world. The AFM arma3 for helicopters is fine, but fails one thing, watch the video below.

Hi,

I noticed that not only the AFM helos, but basically every vehicle in the game has an input delay of at least 100ms.

This makes the controlls very unresponsive, and flying with AFM enabled is very hard, because the delay gets increased to about 500ms (at least for me).

Another interresting fact is that this delay seems to be scaling with the simulation time. If you use 'setacctime 0.1' , the delay gets increased by factor 10. This shows that this delay is not a hardware problem, but something with the game.

But John_Spartan and Souls FA-18 does not have any delay at all. The controlls are super-responsive. That means that this problem is fixable.

Here is an ugly video I made to show it:

I am curious if other people have the same issue. If yes, it is time to fix it, because it really makes driving at high speed harder than it should, and aiming with an AH-9 is not that easy with 100ms delay.

This is the main problem to fly the helicopter in ARMA3, "input delay of at least 100ms". that's what I think

[ruPal 143]

Input lag is good for keyboard but not for joysticks. Input lag should compensate the speed of motions for key pressing. But with joysticks it takes longer time to do something so it already have some king of "physical lag". That is why input lag for joystick should be much less or disabled.

Btw, also a good proposition for AFM from Silverdude (http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=12760):

We need this:

http://i.imgur.com/hdLtO2x.jpg [^]

http://i.imgur.com/j45wxDD.jpg [^]

NOT this:

http://i.imgur.com/zUAQqog.jpg [^]

http://i.imgur.com/2Hcozih.jpg [^]

[twisted 128]

if the helicopters MAD tendency to roll on landing was perhaps slightly toned down. and of course expoding so easily was reduced then it'd make a big difference. The input lag still needs a fix. So much potential but its not being relaised here due to some fundamental issues.

[x3kj 1247]

So much potential but its not being relaised here due to some fundamental issues.

Heyyy, welcome to the club, the senior members fixed wing and physx tank greet you

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

Feels like it still needs some work.

Primary sticking point for me, where I believe the simulation is not accurate:

1. Hovering. Incredibly difficult with the FDM, much more difficult than real life.

Whichever Dev(s) pioneered the FDM, please do a twitch stream and show us your FDM skills with hovering and performing a sling-loading task while playing in 1st person :)

Have a friend who flies old H1 helis in Canada for O&G corporations. He spends pretty much all day on the stick, sling loading and unloading, hovering at 50ft, transporting machine parts from one site to another over unroadworthy terrain.

Gave him a play with the FDM and he asks "why does the heli keep sliding sideways when hovering?" IRL the forces of gravity vs thrust produced by the rotor is enough to dampen most of this boat-like sliding. And this is not a little R22, this is a mammoth Taru and even the H1-comparable WY-55.

Come on BIS, the FDM is good and almost complete!

Edited May 22, 2015 by MDCCLXXVI

[twisted 128]

Feels like it still needs some work.

Primary sticking point for me, where I believe the simulation is not accurate:

1. Hovering. Incredibly difficult with the FDM, much more difficult than real life.

Whichever Dev(s) pioneered the FDM, please do a twitch stream and show us your FDM skills with hovering and performing a sling-loading task while playing in 1st person :)

Have a friend who flies old H1 helis in Canada for O&G corporations. He spends pretty much all day on the stick, sling loading and unloading, hovering at 50ft, transporting machine parts from one site to another over unroadworthy terrain.

Gave him a play with the FDM and he asks "why does the heli keep sliding sideways when hovering?" IRL the forces of gravity vs thrust produced by the rotor is enough to dampen most of this boat-like sliding. And this is not a little R22, this is a mammoth Taru and even the H1-comparable WY-55.

Come on BIS, the FDM is good and almost complete!

really hope these points get looked at in the relative quiet after the last dlc. as well as the helis tendency to explode far too easily or to tip over easily and then explode. big problem for game play.

edit - just stuffing around with spawning helis and i notice that if they are spawned at an 45% angle off the vertical (dont ask why) they are very top heavy and tipple over to the top where the blades are even though you'd expect them to do the oppsotie and tipple over towards bottom where the gear is which looks like it has a larger mass. is the center of mass causing it to topple over instead of settle better? Im a noob when it comes to these things, but maybe its worth mentioning.

Edited June 1, 2015 by twisted

[icarus99 15]

Just want to add weight to the control delay issue.

If it's a smoothing setting, server level (multiplayer) and player level (single player) would be fantastic.

Xplane dreamfoil robinson r22 has good reviews for realism by real world pilots, as does DCS UH-1H; Both feel significantly more responsive to this. I understand that the goal isn't perfectly realistic simulation, but there is an option for legacy, or advanced flight models. The advanced flight model, seems to me like it's going to cater to a sim-enthusiast crowd.

I also find that the requirement to use anti-torque is nearly negligible. That may be because I got used to touchy tail rotors in other sims.

[Gruman 123]

While the Basic Flight Model seems to be to simple, the AFM is sometimes a bit frustrating.

The Joystick input lag is not helping either. Is there a bugreport on the feedback tracker? I wasn't able to find one.

Another issue thats still there: AFM collective settings differ from Standard

Is anybody familiar with the AFM XML files? If a helicopter is able to fly perfectly without any passengers, but when loaded fully up it barrely gets off the ground, what would I have to change to make it just a tiny bit more capable? I already increased EmergencyHP, MaxTorque. Adjusted the Groundeffect scale and the Lift of AoA scale. Nothing really helped.

Thank you.

Best regards

[doveman 7]

I've upvoted that ticket and will do so for any others related to the AFM. I think it's crazy that BIS would put all that effort into bringing us AFM but leave unfixed a couple of small bugs which make it almost unusable. Whilst it's probably usable with a mouse, I really can't fly using a mouse, there's too much pulling back and pushing forward needed to make it comfortable for me, so I want to be able to use my stick and have the helo respond properly, without any lag.

The AFM collective settings differing from Standard seems like a frustrating annoyance that could be patched quite easily so I don't know why they'd just leave it there annoying people.

[fn_Quiksilver 1636]

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