Clarify Jets and VTOLs for Mod'ers?

[scotg 204]

I admit I was a critic of the revamped jets structure at first, but mostly because of the seemingly adverse handling it has on VTOLs, especially custom/mod aircraft. The more I mess with it and learn how to change STOL and VTOL configs, the more I discover it's becoming my preference. There are still a few things unclear, though - things that if they were sorted out might make aircraft mods an easier task.

First, is the landing gear. My aircraft are using altRadar for animating the dampers, but there's no way to tell if this is still in effect on vanilla aircraft. I just know my landing animations look crappy compared to what BI are putting out. Watching the gear dampers on the A-164 Wipeout, I can see they make individual, smooth animations. I try to land it with gears up (in the Virtual Garage), and I don't notice any damper movement when it's about to touch down. The low angle makes it difficult to tell for sure. Doing the same gears up landing attempt with my altRadar-based, modified A-10 model shows an obvious damper movement whenever it gets within range. I can only assume that altRadar is deprecated for BI aircraft landing gear, so what is its replacement, the same as a car?

Next, there's aileron influence for VTOLs. Simply by giving an A-10 a "vtol = 1;" value, the Wipeout's nimble "aileronSensitivity = 0.75;" value now becomes very sluggish. Only when I changed the sensitivity to a whopping 10 did it start to fly more like an A-10 or Wipeout.

All modes take a while to transition from vertical to standard. The visual result is that the aircraft is going faster than it appears it should be because of the thrust position. This would look weird on an F-35, for example. In the case of my A-10 VTOL, where the outer planes of the wings rotate with the engines (which are relocated to the bend in the wings), it looks like there should be too much drag to allow it to fly so fast horizontally. I could maybe slow the aircraft acceleration, but it might be better to make the transition sooner, instead. Also, when I don't want to go into standard flight at all, it would be good to decrease its movement. So, this actually leaves me with two questions:
- Is there a way to make the engines rotate sooner into standard flight position?
- Is there a way to drastically limit the forward/backward movement of the entire vehicle while in thrust vectoring position?
That being said, I can defeat the slow transition and visual mismatch by using manual thrust vectoring adjustments. Setting the incremental positions are a bit annoying, so having a solution to the above questions would allow for a one-touch, automatic transition.

I really like how the VTOLs have several types to choose from. I think there might need to be more modes, though, as finding the right fit for some of my aircraft is a challenge. I have a couple of VTOLS that have landing skids rather than wheels, and they would never, ever take off or land in standard mode. They are intended make the transition to standard flight once they have sufficient altitude, but only then, and this would be good to have as mode 5. Mode 6: HOVERCRAFT - basically a mode 0 with altitude restrictions based on the terrain height. Mode 7 might allow for a completely vertical takeoff, like a rocket or space shuttle, but allow for a standard landing. Mode 8 might be opposite of mode 7, but I can't think of any real-world examples. If there were a mode 9, it would probably just be a helicopter without rotors - a jet vehicle that can take off and land vertically, but never needs to transition to standard flight mode.

The last thing I wanted to discuss is the possibility of how the thrust functions in vertical mode, for certain controllers. Currently, it seems better suited for devices like keyboards and control levers that don't return to a center position. For dual-stick controllers and other devices which DO return to a center position, it would be better for the stick positions to represent absolute thrust values, but only in relation to the thrust needed. To simplify: whatever value of thrust is needed for a VTOL to maintain the current altitude, that is the neutral position on the stick. Due to the differences in mass and thrust coefficients different aircraft, the value would be relative. This is very helpful in not crashing the VTOL during an intense situation, and allows the pilot to make complex low-altitude maneuvers and mitigate the consequences of minor mistakes, especially for those who are more acquainted with helicopters.

[martinezfg11 334]

So your post is a mixture of modding questions and gameplay stuff so I’ll answer the vtol damper question. All aircraft now use the class wheels physx. Same as a tank, car etc, only helos use old altradar stuff. 

 

As for vtol pitch roll yaw sensitivity, Mass distribution on the aircraft will determine how nimble it is when in VTOL mode. E.g more nimble with mass near center of aircraft. 

 

As for gameplay I would like to see them add a vtol mode that would work with a Sikorsky raider type aircraft.

[scotg 204]

17 hours ago, martinezfg11 said:

So your post is a mixture of modding questions and gameplay stuff so I’ll answer the vtol damper question. All aircraft now use the class wheels physx. Same as a tank, car etc, only helos use old altradar stuff. 

 

As for vtol pitch roll yaw sensitivity, Mass distribution on the aircraft will determine how nimble it is when in VTOL mode. E.g more nimble with mass near center of aircraft. 

 

As for gameplay I would like to see them add a vtol mode that would work with a Sikorsky raider type aircraft.

I hope the complexity of my questions and suggestions isn't too confusing. This is a lot of theory, and I was also hoping to stir up some good discussions.

Are you 100% sure about the aircraft using wheel properties? I experimented with dampering the landing gear on my A10/VTOL, the "Rattler." It felt like a nicer landing, but there was no visible motion in the hydraulics. Also, I think altRadar is still used in the Wipeout for visuals (maybe combined with wheel properties) on the gear damping stabilizer links. These are the little elbow joints that compress when the mass of the jet puts pressure on its gears. I may be mistaken, though, as I cannot access the current config for the Wipeout, but I had seen it undergo a few major changes while it was available. I'm not sure if the Sample Jet uses dampering, as a reference.

I can see how the VTOL mode question might fall under game play, but I assure you I am looking at it from a mod developer perspective. When creating an aircraft, I want to select the best fit of functionality for my vehicle. In this case, game play would be an advanced phase consideration of choosing (from an increased selection) which type of VTOL goes into a scenario or mission, but the vehicles must be developed first. The current VTOL modes available for assigning to your aircraft are great but leave room for improvement, and the additional modes I suggested could be utilized, as you have noted for the Raider (excellent reference, btw! I hope someone makes a Raider mod, too). Extra config parameter adjustments would be nice to have at my disposal, because when setting up a VTOL the options are very limited. Here are some suggestions for fine-tuning VTOL configs:

- Over-all Transition Speed - to/from vectored mode. This could even be different for each direction, so two parameters.
- Transition Increment Count and Position. Percentage markers of the rotational positions (not sure how it would work if "translation" animations were used) for the mode-transition animation; also affects vertical/forward movement. In an array, the number of percentage values given would be the count.
     E.G.:

myVectoringTransitions[] = {0.0, 45.0, 85.0, 100}; 

...this would create four increments of rotation, including the beginning and end. The values would be a percentage of the rotational range given elsewhere, and it will probably have to be so that the range of motion in the model.cfg would be full circle, and the actual desired range would be in the config.bin. The name I gave it is arbitrary, but BIS can feel free to use it or some variation as they please.
- Mode Thrust Ratios. Useful for if the min and max engine positions are not 90 degrees, so that the proper mixture of vertical and horizontal thrust is applied. Perhaps if the range of transition motion is located in the config, then its values could also affect the thrust direction.
- Vectored Mode Drag Coefficient, because the transformation might cause a lot more drag with big parts being opened. For my Rattler VTOL, imagine the wings rotating with the engines and becoming walls, and how that would affect forward movement. 

...my brain hurts... gotta go push some pixels around.