Fixed Wing Flight Model (dev branch)

[Retch 15]

There have been quite a few changes to flight model of VTOLs, Caesar BTT and Fenghuang drone and AI handling of the airplanes.

While the changes still don't make it perfect and flawless, we're interested to hear your feedback. Please give it a try and let us know, how you like flying these beasts now and what issues you've encountered!

Thanks a lot!

Will definetly do that as soon as im home, as we are already talking alot about fixed-wing aircraft, I would like to suggest to also get a Manual flaring System, just how it was in ArmA 2 with 2 flares being

deployed and not 24. I run out of flares really quick in A3 and have to RTB for that. I think that would improve alot, especially in Mil-Sim /COOP-Units.

The System for changing countermeasures is already in the game (CTRL+C) and would be just a cycle Option.

 

What do you guys think about it?

Retch

[en3x 209]

Will definetly do that as soon as im home, as we are already talking alot about fixed-wing aircraft, I would like to suggest to also get a Manual flaring System, just how it was in ArmA 2 with 2 flares being

deployed and not 24. I run out of flares really quick in A3 and have to RTB for that. I think that would improve alot, especially in Mil-Sim /COOP-Units.

The System for changing countermeasures is already in the game (CTRL+C) and would be just a cycle Option.

 

What do you guys think about it?

Retch

 

Agreed.

 

Argument for current system is that is commonly used in aircraft.

 

However it stand on weak basis because of configuration option

in common aircraft.In another words pilot can choose how many

flares, how long intervals and what type can he deploy.

 

For that reason giving player more control (manual flaring system) seem the right choice.

[x3kj 1247]

i too dont understand why it was changed from the more detailed version to the forced "dump all the flares" mode ... leave this mode as default mode (for new players), but let us switch to manual

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

In the recent dev-branch updates there has been quite a few changes to flight model of VTOLs, Caesar BTT and Fenghuang drone and AI handling of the airplanes.

While the changes still don't make it perfect and flawless, we're interested to hear your feedback. Please give it a try and let us know, how you like flying these beasts now and what issues you've encountered!

Thanks a lot!

Ceaser BTT racing variant received some custom performance upgrades...check it out ;)

 

G'day oukej, are these changes specifically limited to Apex aircraft?  If so I will focus testing on those only.

 

The changes to the BTT racing variant are nice.....much much faster airplane I like it!

 

 

 

x3kj - BI have commented on this previously and it's to do with appearance and visual presentation I believe.  Pre-cautionary flare dumping serves no purpose in Arma so instead they made it that 1 flare push deploys a larger amount of flares similar to how modern aircraft would do so if a missile was heading there way.

[oukej 2910]

Yes, only Apex fixed-wings flight model atm. (AI improvements apply to all airplanes)

Thanks!

[Retch 15]

 

x3kj - BI have commented on this previously and it's to do with appearance and visual presentation I believe.  Pre-cautionary flare dumping serves no purpose in Arma so instead they made it that 1 flare push deploys a larger amount of flares similar to how modern aircraft would do so if a missile was heading there way.

That makes no sense you cant still deploy them "pre-cautionary" just that you lose to many. You where able to prevent a hit with pressing it 2-3 times now, I think it should be the pilots decision.

I see how the System works, I'm pretty sure you can rewrite it and add it in as a small mod/script, I know RHS for example has the timed System too.

I'll Report about it once I know more.

 

Retch

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

That makes no sense you cant still deploy them "pre-cautionary" just that you lose to many. You where able to prevent a hit with pressing it 2-3 times now, I think it should be the pilots decision.

I see how the System works, I'm pretty sure you can rewrite it and add it in as a small mod/script, I know RHS for example has the timed System too.

I'll Report about it once I know more.

 

Retch

 

It's literally a config setting in the vanilla airplanes that could be swapped but for design reasons they have not.

[dragon01 902]

Tthis should be toggleable. There's actually a control binding to do this, even. In AII:OA, when the system was first added, some vehicles had multiple firemodes for CMs. I think that there should be multiple burst settings available.

[jone_kone 158]

These are all old stuff, but I thought I would bring them up again. :)

 

Flying gears/flaps down has no noticeable effect on airplane/helo/VTOL speed/handling (no point in gear up).

 

Buzzard A-143 thrust level is a bit too low. Flying would be much more enjoyable (= fun) if the airplane had any ability to make a few turns without stalling. I know Arma 3 is not a flight simulator and that the buzzard is supposed to be underpowered vs. BLUFOR / CSAT Assets. However it is the only "fighter" that is not too OP with it´s standard loadouts. It should be available in more variants and textures.

[sjaba 19]

 

What i would expect: Banking a straight flying plane to the left or right -> The plane starts slipping to the roll-direction and also starts to pull its nose slightly down (if it is trimmed neutral).

What i actualy get: The plane just keeps flying its old straight direction. That's it. No Side-slip. A fundamental part of flight-physics not existing.

 

What i would expect: In a final approach i lower the flaps to full, plane decelerates, i raise the throttle to maintain a clean approach-speed.

What i actualy get: Doesn't matter if i lower flaps to half or full, they have no effect. It's also almost impossible to maintain a speed. Throttle (i have the Warthog HOTAS Throttle Unit) is to imprecisely.

 

 

 

This above would make me and many with me happy puppies...its not about simulation, its about immersion.

Looking forward to the adjusted APEX configs, and hope the above will be implemented atleast at some degree soon.

Looking at this threads life span, it is a topic of great concern.

[dragon01 902]

If the AI improvements were supposed to fix VTOL landing approach, well, they didn't. They still do the "overshoot and circle back around" routine, no matter what I do. This is especially bad with the Xian. They do land (eventually...), but it doesn't look right and makes tight insertions problematic (it'd overfly the target in VTOL mode trying to bleed speed, getting shot full of holes in the process). It seems that they are transitioning to VTOL mode only when directly above the "land" waypoint, when in fact they should do so much earlier.

 

Also, is the smoke and thermal haze on Xian ever going to be fixed? Right now, it doesn't move with the nozzles, making it look weird when landed. The smoke could be removed entirely, IMO, since real jet engines (decent ones, at least) don't smoke unless something goes wrong.

[phunkmaz 3]

Alright, the BTT feels much better now! It's not perfect but it handels like a plane should do.

 

But i may found a bug and hope someone can replicate and/or confirm it. It looks like the analog axes, mapped twice or more to the same output, multiply their strenght. For example:

 

I mapped the rudder-axis to my pedal + to the pitch-trim wheel on my throttle-unit for ground-handling. Now if i push them both together in the desired direction the input is twice that strong as usual. Basicly thats not bad because the rudder input for the M-900 in the air and the BTT on the ground is way to weak. But wouldn't it be better if we could get more global input without multiplying the input?

 

Cheers

Matze

 

PS: Please excuse my english, it's not my main language but i try to describe the things i see and that are floating around in my brain as good as i can :)

 

Edit: Found the answer to my question or a simple workaround. It was the two different axes for the rudder. They don't multiply the strenght but cut them down to 50%.

[oukej 2910]

08-07-2016

Tweaked: AI should now be less prone to crash the VTOLs while piloting them

We've done couple of tweaks to the FM to help the AI control the airplanes. Some trade-offs were made, as a by product making the VTOLs possibly more maneuverable than we'd like them to be. Please try it and let us know what you think! If you find a reliable repro where the AI would always take the same flight path to a crash, please share it with us. Thank you!

[dragon01 902]

Didn't try out any particularly mountainous LZs yet (landing in crowded conditions seemed to screw them up the most), but the fundamental problem with VTOLs is still there. On approach, they circle around the LZ before landing. 100% reproducible, in fact I don't know of any way to stop it from happening (is there a scripting command to force a VTOL into helicopter mode?). I saw that the maneuverability got somewhat better (that is, they make a tighter circle), but it's still an issue. If it doesn't crash, there's still a good chance it'll get shot up.

 

Really, fixing the AI landing routine would've been a much more sure-fire way of fixing those crashes than any FM tweaks. If it engaged helicopter mode and started slowing down before the "land" waypoint we'd never have this problem in first place. 

[Jnr4817 215]

Is there anyway to use these in a script to help with landing with the ILS? What does the scripting for the BI autopilot look like or will you ever release this code? What is  rad3 in landingAoa = "rad 3";// Caesar BTT

versus the numeric values of the other planes?

 

Thanks,

landingAoa

Advised landing angle of attack for AI, autopilot and ILS indicator.

Float

landingAoa = 0.174533;        // A-164 Wipeout
landingAoa = "rad 3";        // Caesar BTT
landingAoa = "1*3.1415/180";    // V-44 Blackfish

landingSpeed

Advised landing speed for AI and autopilot.

Float

landingSpeed = 195;    // A-164 Wipeout
landingSpeed = 110;    // Caesar BTT
landingSpeed = 230;    // V-44 Blackfish

[oukej 2910]

What is rad3 in landingAoa = "rad 3"

landingAoA is defined in radians - the examples are just different ways of writing it :) "rad X" can be used to convert from degrees to radians.

Is there anyway to use these in a script to help with landing with the ILS? What does the scripting for the BI autopilot look like or will you ever release this code?

As for now there isn't really a way to alter the landing via scripting (except of extreme cases like capturing the path or setting velocity).

[Jnr4817 215]

That makes since. So when I choose the addAction autopilot landing, what exactly is happening?

 

Do any of the planes or helicopters have a working ILS indicator gauge on the console to use in real time for free flying and not when autopilot is engaged?

 

Thanks,

 

 

landingAoA is defined in radians - the examples are just different ways of writing it :) "rad X" can be used to convert from degrees to radians.

As for now there isn't really a way to alter the landing via scripting (except of extreme cases like capturing the path or setting velocity).

[mjolnir66 48]

Can you teach the AI to see powerlines. Having problems with VTOLs flying into them on the landing runs.

[twistking 204]

oukej, are there plans to allow raw, incremental thrust control for mouse&keyboard pilots in near future?

 

(comparable to collective control on AFM helis. air brake could be digital (on/off only) activated by holding "decrease-thrust-key while thrust is zero).

 

that would be much appreciated  :)  the old implementation with auto-thrust/auto-air-brake is really stupid...

[spookygnu 563]

I've not really been following this thread. But are there plans to implement a flight model like what was done for heli's. Atm it is very arcadey for fixed wing.

[xxgetbuck123 945]

oukej, are there plans to allow raw, incremental thrust control for mouse&keyboard pilots in near future?

 

(comparable to collective control on AFM helis. air brake could be digital (on/off only) activated by holding "decrease-thrust-key while thrust is zero).

 

that would be much appreciated  :)  the old implementation with auto-thrust/auto-air-brake is really stupid...

 

If you want manual brakes just use the 'Brake (analogue)' in the plane movement options, that what I use and it works fine. 

[twistking 204]

I've not really been following this thread. But are there plans to implement a flight model like what was done for heli's. Atm it is very arcadey for fixed wing.

 

nothing planned at the moment, as far as i know.

 

If you want manual brakes just use the 'Brake (analogue)' in the plane movement options, that what I use and it works fine. 

 

still, a decent option for incremental thrust is needed. i don't think, that would require more than few lines of code, as it is already there with analogue input. it would also be ok if it only had some steps like: | air brake on | 0% thrust | 25% thrust | 50% thrust | 75% thrust | 99% thrust | 100% +afterburner |

 

(should be even more convenient than smaller steps and should be enough for fidelity of current fixed wing flight model)

 

everything would be better than current auto-throttle implementation for mouse+keyboard.

[sjaba 19]

Tried some searches but with no luck, so i figured i try here where the flyboys linger :)

 

Have anyone come across a mod or function that allows ASL to be displayed instead of AGL...when trying to fly in formations etc, its kind of useless to have a ATL indicator.

I think this was an option in Arma2 or if it was implemented by ACE or some other mod im not sure, but we did use to have both AGL and ASL shown in cockpit before.

[x3kj 1247]

Where do you want it to show? In the ingame plane HUD, or in the normal vehicle UI in top left/right corner? Ingame plane HUD is defined in class MFD in the cfgVehicle class of the plane and can be modded freely (within limits). https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/HUD

[oukej 2910]

3 minutes ago, sjaba said:

On 17. 12. 2016 at 5:13 PM, chortles said:

Official word on Discord: "There's no AFM for Jets planned or in development. We'll still try to do some tweaks, but it's not our primary goal for Jets. We tried to focus on the radar because it can be benefitial to other content too and can add some variety into scenarios."

As long as the ONE critical thing is tweaked im a happy camper ( read airhead). Please adjust the fact that the current planes continues in a straight forward line when turning the stick left or right (except the APEX cessna model, that for some reason seems to behave more corretly, which leads me to belive it should be possilbe for other fixed wings too??).

 

All Apex airplanes utilize the configuration properties that were introduced during post-release Arma 3 development. Wipeout, Buzzard, Neophron and the drone have a config update planned soon(tm).