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Advanced Helicopter FDM Feedback

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@doveman

In DCS we have Force Trim. I would love to get it in Arma too. It is very easy to do, so BiS- pretty please:)

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The TRQ that keeps lighting and dimming is not related to throttle, but the torque, or rather how hard the engines are having to work to accomplish their current power demand. Go into a dive and pull back, you'll hear the rotors spool down and the torque lights up because the engines are straining to maintain Nr (rotor rpm), during which your torque is skyrocketing.

I haven't had a chance to mess with the new FM in-game yet, but if what you describe is happening in-game, this is modeled completely wrong. If you go into a dive and and then pull back, Tq should go to near 0%, your engines will decouple (and be at flight idle) and your rotor head will start INCREASING Nr, not maintaining Nr. If what you describe were happening in real life, it would indicate a major malfunction in the drive system.

Honestly, I think we should eliminate torque from Arma 3. They've already stated they don't want to deal with the maintenance issue, and torque is ultimately just a gauge to tell how hard you're pushing the aircraft, primarily the transmission. If we don't need to worry about any of our maneuvers causing us to come apart mid-flight, I would rather torque be replaced with either a rotor icon, or even better a larger Nr gauge so we can see our rotor speed, which is a much better indication of whether or not your maneuver is going to drop you out of the sky.

Probably not a bad idea. It really depends on the aircraft on whether you'll be Tq limited or power (Ng/Np) limited. For example, one model of a H-60 will be power limited (just can't pull any more power without the rotors drooping) while another model will be Tq limited (can pull for the moon until the tranny is max'ed, but the engines are still giving plenty of power). Within the confines of A3 (and not TKOH), just making everything power limited is probably the easiest way to do it, especially with all the varying joysticks/throttles that BIS has to support in-game.

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@devs

Will this be a client side or server side difficulty setting ?

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This. Dslyecxi's video also summed it up pretty well.

Helicopters need to stop exploding at the drop of a hat.

Not just what happens when damaged but what CAUSES damage. I wanted to see if I could land the Ghosthawk with a decent amount of forward velocity. It worked pretty well! The wheel stuff still feels kind of terrible but I landed it. Or so I thought. After a few seconds of rolling, the chopper was damaged and of course, destroyed.

EDIT: Looks like there was an issue saving my keybindings, as even the defaults weren't working for the wheel locks (I never thought to check the indicator on screen :p) Which explains most of my issues with the wheels being slippery. But some sort of feedback when that happens (sound of tires skipping, etc) would be nice because I felt like I was gliding on ice, up into the point that I exploded. And I think the brakes maybe should do more to stop the wheels from sliding, unless it's realistic for them to allow the wheels to spin with a relatively low amount of force.

Another thing I've noticed is that the wheels barely act like wheels. It's sort of like shopping cart wheels, if they could only turn about 45 degrees either way. If you try and land with lateral velocity, you'll catch up a bit, but otherwise you can slide all over the place. I'm sure they shouldn't be totally unable to slide, but it feels like too much at the moment. I'd prefer the danger of the wheels catching and turning me around than having to struggle to get the chopper to move in a straight line. Maybe I'm just terrible at this stuff as I've never really done stuff like taxiing in a chopper before, but it feels a little weird.

I'm also not sure what the deal is in this regard, but I'm not sure why the Ghosthawk needs to tilt onto it's front wheels to taxi as far as I can tell. Am I doing something wrong? Blackhawks taxi without needing to do that. But for me it's just sliding all over the place trying to keep balanced.

---------- Post added at 16:28 ---------- Previous post was at 16:16 ----------

Also, if you want to have a good time, turn in the landing gear on the Ghosthawk and try to land :p

Edited by MordeaniisChaos

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@devs

Will this be a client side or server side difficulty setting ?

according to the dev notes it can be set in the mission parameters so if you want your server to only have advanced flight model you can...or basic... but as you the single player for campaign missions its also selectable in your configure menu, under the general tab,

Now, my first impressions. First off let me start by saying im a professional rc aerobatic helicopter pilot... having flown in lots of compititions and events over the last 17 years... As rc heli pilots we do crazy things that very few full scale helis can do...including aerobatic autorotations... ive done thousands of autorotations... most by choice, but a few not by choice... I also have TAKE ON HELICOPTERS SIM and its autorotation physics seem pretty dam good... BIS used to say in the alpha/beta days that the toh engine would be implemented into arma 3... looks like we got some of the UI but not full on physics.... so its in the middle now between full sim and arcade...

The new "middle of the road" rotorlib physics they just released are way off when it comes to autorotations... Using one of the armaholic community missions that allows you to select engine failures and tail failures when you want I tested autorotations right away... The default game wont allow you to shut the engine off once in air...

Unfortuneatly not all the aircraft that mission creator had in that mission work with the new library when it comes to the failures, so he needs an update...but the few that did work, the little bird and pawnee... I can tell you the flight model is hosed when it comes to autorotations. I don't want to get into a big huge thread explaining how autorotations are done and the tradeoffs when it comes to forward speed vs sink rate vs rotor rpm.. but suffice to say if I nose the chopper forward in my autorotation it SHOULDNT just kill the rotor rpm (even though im holding negative pitch which is proper)and nose dive the chopper into a downward spiral... It should, if I nose it forward, maintain rpm depending on my collective input but gain forward speed which puts air across the rotor which allows the heli to glide down more or less ... you never want to come straight down in a heli especially in an autorotation as you will enter vrs (vortex ring state) which is deadly...

anyways, after several several attempts at doing autos with these two aircraft it is near impossible to get a proper glide path much less institute turns to complete the autorotation safely...the game just pitches the heli over and kills the rpm and you cant recover, which you CAN do in real life... you can even dang near stop the blades and spin them back up again and still land the models safely.... its what we call a "blade stop auto"... but you can get the blades spinning again.... you just cant do that with "rotorlib"...

I don't expect it to be perfect... I do wish they had just implemented the entire toh physics into arma, it would keep newbs from just jumping in the helis and crashing them cause they probably wouldn't even know how to start it lol... but in its current state I doubt ill be flying in the advanced mode until they advance in their rotorlib ;)

14847727715_8ef46202a3_z.jpgFuriousmower by IndyHelis, on Flickr

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5590/14661204577_65306430d1_z.jpg (137 kB) davenfuryneon2 by IndyHelis, on Flickr

14661134958_f99f329a47_z.jpg01MED by IndyHelis, on Flickr

14844682561_054441b760_z.jpg012 by IndyHelis, on Flickr

Some of my rc helis ive had over the years

https://www.flickr.com/photos/52018479@N03/sets/72157646236944534/

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Awesome RC helo collection you have there.

Generally speaking you're not supposed to blitz in to the runway but on the subject of 100+ I haven't really run into the whole insta boom issue myself...could be that something was changed in recent patches.

Far as I can tell most of these hard landings just break everything or critical stuff which isn't that far of a stretch.

That said, there is definately odd behavior between the heli's. For example in the 2nd blackfoot landing it skids a bit and then suddenly roll flips.

At 1:10 the kajiman suddenly veers and bursts without even listing.

And finally the stealthhawk lands smoothely but everything starts breaking.

Even if the exploding was removed at 100+ you're definately going to have a busted helo and possibly some nasty whiplash or spinal injury.

Edited by NodUnit

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Awesome RC helo collection you have there.

Generally speaking you're not supposed to blitz in to the runway but on the subject of 100+ I haven't really run into the whole insta boom issue myself...could be that something was changed in recent patches.

Far as I can tell most of these hard landings just break everything or critical stuff which isn't that far of a stretch.

That said, there is definately odd behavior between the heli's. For example in the 2nd blackfoot landing it skids a bit and then suddenly roll flips.

At 1:10 the kajiman suddenly veers and bursts without even listing.

And finally the stealthhawk lands smoothely but everything starts breaking.

Even if the exploding was removed at 100+ you're definately going to have a busted helo and possibly some nasty whiplash or spinal injury.

We regularly do roll-on landings at ~60 knots (111 KPH) in blackhawks. If you tried using your wheel brakes at that speed they'd light on fire; worst case is if you hit them hard enough you'd run the nose into the ground. But your aircraft would be no worse for wear otherwise.

By no means should you be losing control and spinning out though, causing your aircraft to spontaneously detonate; that needs to be addressed.

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Could do with some information on how we're supposed to use the Set Trim (Rctrl+Num5)

After you press Set trim the actual position of pedals and cyclic is set as a new "center" and you should return controls to neutral position. Than when you again change the controls input, this value is added. I think that functionality is also available in DCS in case one does not use FFB.

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After you press Set trim the actual position of pedals and cyclic is set as a new "center" and you should return controls to neutral position. Than when you again change the controls input, this value is added. I think that functionality is also available in DCS in case one does not use FFB.

Yes, that's right. I'm a no FFB user, and it pretty much works the same as in DCS.

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Magnifique !

I'd just like to have more realistic emergency crash, not just touch the ground and get disintegrated. It would be great to be able to survive some crashes.

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Magnifique !

I'd just like to have more realistic emergency crash, not just touch the ground and get disintegrated. It would be great to be able to survive some crashes.

I understand your point, but damage simulation of vehicles in Arma is not part of the Advanced Flight Model feature.

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I understand your point, but damage simulation of vehicles in Arma is not part of the Advanced Flight Model feature.

Does that mean that we will see no improvements for the collision issue? It is much needed, I dont want to explode with the sound of an arty shell impact because I hit a leaf of a tree. And I dont want to get a completely destroyed helicopter because I landet buttersmooth on top of a roof.

Or do you just mean that damage simulation is the same for TKOH flight model and vanilla flight model? Which would mean that we might see improvements in the future?

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Does that mean that we will see no improvements for the collision issue? It is much needed, I dont want to explode with the sound of an arty shell impact because I hit a leaf of a tree. And I dont want to get a completely destroyed helicopter because I landet buttersmooth on top of a roof.

Or do you just mean that damage simulation is the same for TKOH flight model and vanilla flight model? Which would mean that we might see improvements in the future?

I think (hope) he means this is a thread about the flight model itself, and as such the feedback about the damage model should go in an appropriate thread instead.

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You should consider advanced damage model, Bohemia. It's really irritant that touching anything with a rotor (and lets not talk about crashed, landing, etc.) causes an explosion, instead of just disabling helicopter to fly, which leads to helicopter crash (..in which it doesnt just explode). You can use physx in order to simulate - on example: helicopter loosing it's rotor. Rotor is a proxy (external model with it's own geometry, physx, etc.), so when it touches another object (on example house), helicopter will loose it in a way that game will just dismount rotor proxy from a helicopter (removing his ability of control/flying) and it will fly away, while helicopter will crash and thats it.

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We regularly do roll-on landings at ~60 knots (111 KPH) in blackhawks. If you tried using your wheel brakes at that speed they'd light on fire; worst case is if you hit them hard enough you'd run the nose into the ground. But your aircraft would be no worse for wear otherwise.

By no means should you be losing control and spinning out though, causing your aircraft to spontaneously detonate; that needs to be addressed.

Oh well nevermind on the spine stuff then.

The stealth hawk seemed to handle its landing very well with 0 damage for a short time, not quite sure why everything started breaking apart but for the Arma 3 helo's I think it had the best rough touch down of all.

Even so its nice to see that despite the helo's breaking, they didn't all explode.

The apache bit was just there to show that its possible to do these things and not have your aircraft rip apart from the landing alone.

You should consider advanced damage model, Bohemia. It's really irritant that touching anything with a rotor (and lets not talk about crashed, landing, etc.) causes an explosion, instead of just disabling helicopter to fly, which leads to helicopter crash (..in which it doesnt just explode). You can use physx in order to simulate - on example: helicopter loosing it's rotor. Rotor is a proxy (external model with it's own geometry, physx, etc.), so when it touches another object (on example house), helicopter will loose it in a way that game will just dismount rotor proxy from a helicopter (removing his ability of control/flying) and it will fly away, while helicopter will crash and thats it.

They don't need physX for that, it was a feature in TKOH. If you hit the rotor against something hard enough it breaks off and you plummet.

Edited by NodUnit

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Odd...I don't know if this is addon related or what but I more or less had a small hard landing in my helicopter above 100kph and didn't explode.

I'll experiment with it more and see if it was just a fluke or what as it may be related to the massive quantity of HP the helicopter has, relying more on system failures than pure hit points.

Thats interesting as heck. If i had any recording software (looks time to get some) I'd show you mine. I assume you're running All in arma, as i didn't test the apache since it's not in the base arma 3. I'm very curious though, I see in your aircraft that the wheels stroked when they hit (they do that in real life, they're shock absorbers), and I'm wondering what is different physics wise between that aircraft and stock BIS aircraft. I definitely couldnt hit that hard in a normal helo. Is that an AiA apache or a mod? I need to get it (I fly them real life so im very interested)

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Also if you look at arma 2 TKoH Community Preview helicopter you can see

so it cant be that hard to do the same in arma 3

Edited by RobertHammer

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Thats interesting as heck. If i had any recording software (looks time to get some) I'd show you mine. I assume you're running All in arma, as i didn't test the apache since it's not in the base arma 3. I'm very curious though, I see in your aircraft that the wheels stroked when they hit (they do that in real life, they're shock absorbers), and I'm wondering what is different physics wise between that aircraft and stock BIS aircraft. I definitely couldnt hit that hard in a normal helo. Is that an AiA apache or a mod? I need to get it (I fly them real life so im very interested)

It's my own custom bird and I think she can take the smash due of the high HP present, a carry over from its time in Arma 2.

The idea was a focus on systemic damage rather than the bird itself outright going boom, then she was transferred to TKOH for an overhaul and ported directly into A3.

The physics should be about the same as it was configured specificly for TKOH and if you have more questions then Franze may be able to answer them better since he configured it.

Edited by NodUnit

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Also if you look at arma 2 TKoH Community Preview helicopter you can see

so it cant be that hard to do the same in arma 3

This would be much better than the current damage. In TKOH your helicopter could flip upsidedown on the ground, but it nevery exploded then. The pilot always died, which is unrealistic and should be removed. So just remove the explosions from low velocity crash landings and remove the pilot death as well. Let the helicopter body behave like a physx model instead.

This would be awesome in multiplayer. Imagine how great it would be to get out of a damaged helicopter that is laying on his side and call for help.

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This would be much better than the current damage. In TKOH your helicopter could flip upsidedown on the ground, but it nevery exploded then. The pilot always died, which is unrealistic and should be removed. So just remove the explosions from low velocity crash landings and remove the pilot death as well. Let the helicopter body behave like a physx model instead.

This would be awesome in multiplayer. Imagine how great it would be to get out of a damaged helicopter that is laying on his side and call for help.

Funny thing is that rotor damage was in Arma 3's early beta days.

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Two other important things:

GUI:

Please add icons for gear up/ gear down as well as wheel brake on and off. There is no ways to determine the wheelbrake status since it only uses one button. Otherwise you could make a break on and a second break off button, which would make the icon a bit redundant.

Controls

Please add the option to start and stop the engine manually. It is impossible to do a propper autorotation training without using scripts or other tricks. And you cannot do a full autorotation because the engine will automaticly turn on when you increase pitch.

So, in the default settings, just bind engine on to the thrust key ("q" as far as I know) so that a beginner does not have any problems. But more experienced pilots could really benefit from such a feature and have much more fun!

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"Cyclic behaves correctly in both Advanced and Standard simulation"

Can we get some more information on this?

Wow! The fast touch downs are MUCH better guys!

Very nice fast response time there devs.

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"Cyclic behaves correctly in both Advanced and Standard simulation"

Can we get some more information on this?

We have fixed this - there was some inconsistency in values for animation sources :icon_twisted:

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damage stuff shall be part of the Advanced Damage Model ... but when and if ADM happens that only that Ninja behind me knows and he don't talk much , atm. seems to be sharpening something sharp

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Hey everyone I'm currently posting bugs/issues with the rotorlib engine in the bugtracker. So far a number have been "assigned". I found it interesting that the day after I posted some issues, they were addressed (but not completely fixed) in the next days patch.

Note that discussions here are NOT tracked by BI except by curious employees and moderators of whom they have too few. The tracker is where legitimate feedback is presented, logged, and dealt with. If you see a feature/bug that you agree with/dont agree with, you vote it up or down.

So hop on over here: http://feedback.arma3.com/view_all_bug_page.php

and vote on stuff or submit your own new finds. Feel free to vote for the stuff I'm slapping up. I think I'm posting fairly verbatim steps to duplicate my findings, I'd love to get feedback from others too.

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