Fixed Wing Flight Model (dev branch)

[EricJ 765]

Was training a player last night and was in the Wipeout and have to say oukej good work so far. Plane moved slow as shit, which is comparable to the A-10A/C in DCS, so good work man!

[sjaba 19]

first we need proper flight basics

Very true, was doing some training again last night with fixed wing ( kind of been busy with helos since the DLC ;) )

It feels very wrong having to pull hard on the stick just to make the plane turn when allready banking 60 degrees..

Also i noted that applying full brakes no longer holds the A10 still on the ramp? but with F18 ( mod) its working fine.

Quite difficult to take of in a 2 or 4 ship flight when you cannot "run em up" and release at leads command.

I also miss an autopilot function to allow CAS pilots to be "heads down" working with target information, maps etc..just a simple function to allow the plane to stay in same altitude and bank if possible.

I am fully aware that this is not suppose to be DCS, nor should it be, but some sort of autopilot except the auto landing ( which i DONT understand the need for) would be appriciated.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Very true, was doing some training again last night with fixed wing ( kind of been busy with helos since the DLC ;) )

It feels very wrong having to pull hard on the stick just to make the plane turn when allready banking 60 degrees..

Also i noted that applying full brakes no longer holds the A10 still on the ramp? but with F18 ( mod) its working fine.

Quite difficult to take of in a 2 or 4 ship flight when you cannot "run em up" and release at leads command.

I also miss an autopilot function to allow CAS pilots to be "heads down" working with target information, maps etc..just a simple function to allow the plane to stay in same altitude and bank if possible.

I am fully aware that this is not suppose to be DCS, nor should it be, but some sort of autopilot except the auto landing ( which i DONT understand the need for) would be appriciated.

I don't want to put it too... Blunt, I guess, bad word for that but whatever... Anyway, I don't think that testing flight models is a good idea from custom mods. It's easier with Official aircraft, given, it's vanilla content, but modded aircraft can be made to turn, and do a dozen other things, and be hard lee to judge with the flight model. As I've obsurved with most aircraft though, is when rolling 45 degrees and holding the plane like that, you can watch the exhaust trail from the aircraft, and see that the plane is horrifically mis aligned with the trail, which will tell you exactly what's wrong with the flight model. Easier is if you could create a longer lasting smoke, or trail just like the ballistics trail, you could see a lot of issues. The best thing to do, is to start simple, as someone else mentioned. It's a lot harder than it sounds, but surely, the fixed wing model simply needs a serious fix, it's just terrible in some aspects, good in few.

[EricJ 765]

Agreed, takeoffs shouldn't be that short either. Okay yeah it's 2035 but... I figured that the Wipeout could use a longer run to just approximate it with what I experience in DCS and reality as well.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Agreed, takeoffs shouldn't be that short either. Okay yeah it's 2035 but... I figured that the Wipeout could use a longer run to just approximate it with what I experience in DCS and reality as well.

I think the take offs are just fine. According to the speeds and everything. But remember, we now have a proper airfield, unlike the super basic ones in Arma 2. The Altis National Airport is fairly large (in real life too), and seeing as we don't have any VSTOL or STOL aircraft in game, it's pretty decent... Although, the neophron in real life can take off on a very short runway, and if I'm not mistaken so can the Buzzard (ALCA).

[the_demongod 31]

Maybe the speeds and stuff are fine but something feels wrong. I'll have to play some DCS and compare them but it's not quite there yet.

[EricJ 765]

I think the take offs are just fine. According to the speeds and everything. But remember, we now have a proper airfield, unlike the super basic ones in Arma 2. The Altis National Airport is fairly large (in real life too), and seeing as we don't have any VSTOL or STOL aircraft in game, it's pretty decent... Although, the neophron in real life can take off on a very short runway, and if I'm not mistaken so can the Buzzard (ALCA).

Not for the load the Wipeout carries at least. For an equivalent load I usually pull back at least around halfway at Kobuleti airfield at full throttle and then takeoff (A-10C). The Wipeout is just heavy and should be able to require at least 75% of the Altis runway in order to take off given that it has more armor than the real A-10A/C.

[Sterlingarcherz101 15]

Darkside has there been any word on your suggestion having a proper trust. As in Not the current constantly holding down the key for trust up.

Hope so it makes total sense for all game styles. way it is now is hella annoying.

[x3kj 1247]

Not for the load the Wipeout carries at least. For an equivalent load I usually pull back at least around halfway at Kobuleti airfield at full throttle and then takeoff (A-10C). The Wipeout is just heavy and should be able to require at least 75% of the Altis runway in order to take off given that it has more armor than the real A-10A/C.

Altis only is ever so big... if you want realistic takeoff/acceleration/stuff you would have to fly until you are over water on altis... Takeoff length is the least of the A3 flightmodels problems currently. Also, its not a parameter you can put in. You have to change all the attributes (weight, lift coefficients, etc) which makes the plane behave vastly different again. Besides, loadout weight isn't modelled in any form, so you would be constantly flying with 100% fuel and weaponload if you demand realistic take off length.

[EricJ 765]

I'll let oukej answer that thank you.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Darkside has there been any word on your suggestion having a proper trust. As in Not the current constantly holding down the key for trust up.

Hope so it makes total sense for all game styles. way it is now is hella annoying.

Not sure. I can't remember, but i believe it was Reviewed. Which is a little frustrating, as it's the first step to better speed control, and works better for everyone. instead of holding the q key 90% of the time, just increase thrust to 90%, or 100% for takeoff, and lower it ounce at desired altitude. It would benefit all pilots, joystick users could see how much thrust they are applying, so could keyboard and mouse users such as myself, would love this feature, give the Q button a break. Leave it for the ground vehicles or something. But this is a minor change really, compared to what's needed for the flight model if it's ever to get better.

[EricJ 765]

Is it me or did the Wipeout go back to the fast FM? Took it up last night and was interesting how the view zoomed out which isn't bad (managed well as it was before) and just didn't jive with me. Or maybe it's just I haven't flown it in a while?

[the_demongod 31]

I haven't flown it in ages either so I'd have to go back and test.

[EricJ 765]

Yeah I'm flying it now, I think it was just a mod issue, flies normal at the moment so false alarm :)

[the_demongod 31]

Alright :) I got a Thrustmaster Warthog joystick since I last flew in arma so nothing feels the same anymore lol.

[EricJ 765]

Lol true when I switched to the Hotas X it took me a few days to get re-adjusted and just don't have the inclination to drop the money for a Warthog stick, so I'm flying a lot of stuff pretty well as it is though.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

That thing i mentioned, about how you can tell the flight model is messed up by simply having a trail? Here you go.

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/539637611882391899/2B56A94871F2C62BB20D39F951D315EB9FD4E0FD/ (101 kB)

Look at the angle of the jet. Now look at the contrails. Not you can clearly see what probably needs to be done to fix this. BIS, it would be nice if the flight model were improved to at least look good. To some respect it feels ok, and looks ok. But it's a masked issue, so to speak. At some point in the future, it would be great if fixed wing flight model got some love. That is all.

[x3kj 1247]

I would argue that you can't make a flightmodel with wrong assumptions and simplifications but at the same time have it look good / real

Everything needs to be simplified for realtime simulation. But if you make a bogus simplification that goes completely against the basefundamentals of how the real system works it will neither look nor feel like an approximation of the real thing.

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in b 4 "this is usercontent, it doesnt count" ..

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

I would argue that you can't make a flightmodel with wrong assumptions and simplifications but at the same time have it look good / real

Everything needs to be simplified for realtime simulation. But if you make a bogus simplification that goes completely against the basefundamentals of how the real system works it will neither look nor feel like an approximation of the real thing.

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in b 4 "this is usercontent, it doesnt count" ..

Honestly that shouldn't matter that it's user content. For Christ sake, I know a game with 8 BIT Graphics with a better flight model than this one. Yes, I'm not even joking I used to play it a lot, it's called YSFlight Simulator. And believe me, it's the most simple of simple, I could literally give you a line of code later on if you want. But anyhow, if done right, it can be realistic.

---------- Post added at 14:59 ---------- Previous post was at 14:57 ----------

Edit: not to mention that the most realistic flight models of that game actually came from the modders. In terms of the picture, that flight model could use a few tweaks here and there but during a turn like that, it shouldn't be at that angle.

[x3kj 1247]

It doesnt matter how simple it is, if you use valid simplifications and if it is complete in itself (no parts missing that it would actually need), all is good.

You know "in before" ?... as in "in before some one claims"?

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

It doesnt matter how simple it is, if you use valid simplifications and if it is complete in itself (no parts missing that it would actually need), all is good.

You know "in before" ?... as in "in before some one claims"?

I know what you mean, but seriously, all i hope for is for them to give some love to the Fixed Wing flight model as a whole in the future.

[Chairborne 2594]

I don't know if this was already reported, however the two most noticeable bugs with the new physx are that:

- Modded jets (not the ones from the base game let's say) take damage for no apparent reason while turning on taxiway, plus have very weird oversteering effects even at 30-40km/h. Depending on speed you may or may not get damage, sometimes you just blow up on the spot or the pilot gets damage. If there is some config parameter or anything that needs to be added to the model i couldn't find any besides the "driveoncomponent" entry.

- It's impossible to take off or taxi on aircraft carriers like the nimitz or the LHD from Arma 2 . From what i understand, the game doesn't like when you transition from one block of the ship to another and bumps you in the air. This happens with any jet that uses simulation = "airplaneX", be it one of the native A3 ones or a modded one. This was also reported with new helos using advanced flight model.

The old simulation = "airplane" doesn't suffer of neither bug IN arma 3. Turning on taxiway works as intended, no damage taken, and you can take off from any aircraft carrier without any problem.

There is really NO reason whatsoever to use the new simulation over the old one, it has more problems without any added function.

Now please don't break the old simulation while trying to fix the new one. :(

[BeachAV8R 0]

Has there been any official word on whether the fixed wing flight model is going to get a makeover? As others have said (repeatedly) - the fixed wing flight model, particularly in regards to the near complete lack of horizontal component of lift (ie: no turning when banked) is pretty ugly right now. Trust me - you don't need rudder to make a real airplane turn. Yes, it coordinates the turns and makes things feel and perform better, but banking an aircraft should cause an airplane to turn. So much of the fixed wing stuff looks great, sounds great..now if it would just start to feel great. The RotorLib is quite good..it would be great to see similar attention given to the fixed wing side.

BeachAV8R

[Healbeam 10]

Adding to this, what happened to oukej's modified A-164 config? It was awesome, will it be in vanilla soon?

[x3kj 1247]

i assume he's busy with completing marksman dlc right stuff now.

As much as i appreciate the additional work on that plane, i find it a bit futile/waste of time tbh, because it won't solve the big problems the flightmodel has. If the flightmodel gets fixed, the configs will surely have to be adjusted again, so all the time that went into adjustements before that are obsolete then.

Repairing the flightmodel (yes i certainly would argue that it's broken) should be top priority over config changes.