optional alternative flight model

[Beagle 684]

..but still harder than a hardcore flight sim...does'nt make sense to me.

And aditionally ist is obvioulsy part of the game.

[LeftSkidLow 1]

..but still harder than a hardcore flight sim...does'nt make sense to me.

And aditionally ist is obvioulsy part of the game.

Dude have you ever played X-plane, how can you say its harder than a hardcore flightsim. In ArmA you can establish a hover and just let go of the controls and it will pretty much stay there, it doesn't get any easier than that.

Quote[/b] ]If helicopters being able to roll axialy about the X axis is "more realistic" someone shoot me now.....

I don't know who is going to shoot you, but here you go.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7lPdnTT2xVY

http://video.google.com/videopl....er+roll

I know everyone and their mother has seen this one but has a AH-64 barrel roll at the end.

Bo-105 can do anything

I'll never try it, but I don't see any reason why if done correctly inverted maneuvers would be impossible in a helicopter. Probably just need to keep the rotor disc loaded to prevent mast bumping and keep the ball centered.

[Beagle 684]

..but still harder than a hardcore flight sim...does'nt make sense to me.

And aditionally ist is obvioulsy part of the game.

Dude have you ever played X-plane, how can you say its harder than a hardcore flightsim. In ArmA you can establish a hover and just let go of the controls and it will pretty much stay there, it doesn't get any easier than that.

Yes I've testet the S-61 in X-Plane.

It is much easier to fly than ArmAs Helos, since it reacts as exspected... just like a Helicopter.

It's even more agille, than ArmAs UH-60 at speed.

[LeftSkidLow 1]

I don't ever use the S-61 in X-plane, but all the others (ie jetranger) are twitchy as f*ck, yes just like a real helicopter, except you aren't in a real helicopter with all the senses so its just frustrating more than anything. I'll even tell you a real cyclic is touchier than in X-plane, but its alot easier to fly a real helicopter than in X-plane. Xplane is just over the top unless you have a full motion sim with correct controls, even then it wouldn't be the same. So if you can hold a dead hover in X-plane there is no logical explanation to me how you can say its harder in ArmA. It doesn't do what you expect it to do? it just sits there 100% stable unless you are over correcting. Turns at cruise airspeeds? yeah they're funky and need correcting but are not difficult, same deal with aft cyclic.

[Fiasco 0]

Of course this is not a flight simulation. But, some basic physics should still apply. It doesn't have to be a hi-fidelity flight model, just good enough to be convincing (ala, a early 90's helicopter game flight model).

A big part of ArmA (or OPF) is immersion. The more convincing the environment, the more you forget it's a game.

In the case of the motorcycle, something modeled that badly shouldn't be included in the game at all. Nothing knocks you back to reality then having to use a motorcycle (first SP mission after training).

They do promote operating vehicles as part of the game and if they are going to include them they should be somewhat passable.

[Beagle 684]

@ LeftSkidLow

It's not hovering oder the general clumsiness of input that's the big Problem with ArmA...its helicopters at speed and the strange behavoiur there...like poor turning rate with bank and/or cyclic or refuse to climb when pulling up at speed.

Just try to fly at 184km/h-100kn in one of the canyons, and you will see.

[max power 21]

You're confusing the real world with the world of ArmA. In Arma, assault rifles will bring down a cobra.. And there were plenty of AA threats. We killed them all in the course of our 3 or 4 missions... all that were left were some troops ambling about as if they didn't care we were there, and we just chuckles as we hovered 20 meters over them and killed them in different and interesting ways with the 20mm cannon.

actually, relatively few 5.56 bullets are needed to cause a fuel leak that forces the cobra to disengage.

No I'm not confusing them, I'm talking about reality which is essentially always the same as how I think Arma should work.

Since small arms fire could down a helicopter in Arma, possibly even at a distance, then unless that is realistic it's better if the ai doesn't engage.

Anyway I passed your point which I agree with, helicopters are very powerful thus they shouldn't be to easy to control.

A challenging flight model also makes it more fun.

I guess I read too much into your post. I thought you were saying that it's reasonable that they don't shoot because they shouldn't be able to damage you anyways. I think that if they don't shoot that they should at least seek cover or attempt to maneover under some cover or a forest canopy. I think that the easiest way to suppress a helicopter would be just to shoot at it. Even if they mostly immune to small arms I doubt that it's wise to let a squad shoot your helicopter up for as long as they please.

[Radic 0]

Just glad this topic keeps getting bumped up...hopefully BIS has noted my input on the subject

Hi murderous, GREAT to see someone like yourself here - and i agree wholeheartedly that hopefully BIS will be taking note of your comments.

As a matter of interest, have you played OFP and flown the choppers in it? - if so, what do you think of that FM in general? Keep in mind that if you're seeing terrain following behaviour in OFP then your control setup needs to be sorted out - ie. I use my joystick throttle lever for cyclic and it behaves properly - ie. as in ArmA but with different (more correct) rate etc.. I ask because your description of how the choppers should fly in ArmA sounds spot on - and as they are in OFP - which I've always maintained gives a pretty decent representation of what flying the real thing must be like - particularly with regard to "cyclic lift" behaviour.

[Radic 0]

Those that have been experiencing that terrain following business<in OFP> due to incorrect control setup have been missing out BIG TIME!!

Flying with mouse and keyboard is NOT an incorrect control setup

Quote[/b] ]My point is that the knocking of the OFP FM as being "the old flawed one" is ridiculous and misguided in light of the fact that the ArmA FM is - as I've said - actually virtually identical. All they did by comparison was: make cyclic a little sloppier (a LOT for the MI17), the collective a fair bit softer, build in a faulty yaw/roll coupling (that has been fixed I gather) and bugger the tailrotor authority (soon to be fixed I gather).

I thought the OFP flight model was pretty good actually, but the ArmA one is way better, and you missed a few important differences in my opinion. For instance an OFP helicopter would become radically unstable and flip around chaoticly under some circumstances at high bank angles or backwards/sideways flying causing it to flip inverted at unpredictable times unless you stayed well clear of the limits - basically to fly with a reasonable degree of safety you had to keep the rotor fairly horizontal at all times and only fly  backwards or sideways extremely slowly if at all. Also some real life manuevers where almost impossible to do in OFP(possibly again only when flying with mouse and keyboard) like popping in and out from cover behind a building by sideslipping, in fact the whole hovering experience seems much more responsive now.

And murderous, ANY aircraft rotates about it's center of gravity while flying, always, even in a barrel roll - it's elementary physics likewise you REALLY wouldn't want BIS to double the gravity as a helicopter is slowing down, it would be much more sensible to reduce the lift at minimum collective Dont' get me wrong though, it makes a lot of sense to me what you are saying apart from that...

I never implied that mouse / keyboard was incorrect - what I'm saying is that if you're seeing terrain following behaviour then there is something NOT RIGHT about the way your cyclic control is configured - whatever that may be.

As I've said before: my OFP helicopter flight has NO TERRAIN FOLLOWING BEHAVIOUR - the choppers behave loosely the same as they do in ArmA except that the collective has a much greater / more rapid effect (both ways), altitude gain and loss with cyclic forward or back is much greater (read murderous's comments about cyclic reaction/response - THAT's what I have in OFP - it's the one aspect of chopper flight I have in fact experienced in real life and OFP behaves EXACTLY as that real helicopter did) and the tailrotor has IMO better behaviour - ie. more effect overall plus loss of effect is properly progressive with forward airspeed - again, in line with murderous's description and the way I've felt the real thing to behave - or as well as I could from the left hand seat (ie. as a passenger) - unfortunately I didn't get to try the pedals and collective - just the cyclic.

Also, I have no idea what this instability you describe is all about - I don't get any of that in OFP. Altho grossly improper control inputs (ie. unrealistically high bank angles or excessive backward cyclic) will of course result in CRASHING - I can quite comfortably sideslip to peek from behind buildings etc. - as well as fly backward (at a relatively low speed) - in exactly the way I would expect to be able to in the real thing - it just doesn't do it like a drunken donkey the way ArmA does (the MI17 at least). Hovering is not the piece of cake in OFP - in my experience - that people are saying either - it requires practice and concentration to do skillfully and it's very challenging and rewarding to land on a precise spot and to carry out maneouvers like Chopper Assault type landings.

I keep coming back to the fact that to me the OFP FM behaves pretty much like my theoretical understanding and personal hands on experience lead me to expect it should. Murderous's comments only serve to strengthen that conviction - and these other descriptions I keep reading are simply not my experience in OFP - so all I can suggest is that there must be control config issues - in the case of the cyclic and terrain following behaviour I know it for a FACT.

Perhaps the FM does default to some arcade mode when non joystick controls are assigned???

[Rune 0]

About the "I never implied that mouse / keyboard was incorrect", I think you sortof did because for someone not owning a joystick and keeping in mind that a joystick is not required for OFP, how would you 'correct' their control setup without them getting and using a joystick?...if they only have mouse and keyboard the use of keyboard cyclic(EDIT: was supposed to be collective) ensures the terrain following behaviour...or did I miss something? But I was just joking anyway, I didn't understand your post to mean that you seriously believed using any particular setup was wrong so just ignore my stupid comments  

Anyway, Radic, I see what you are talking about I think, and you definitely have a point. Tell me, did you actually fly with joystick throttle and mouse, that setup possibility never occured to me until just now. I didn't do a lot af flying in OFP with a joystick, but I do remember now that you mention it, that the Kiowa in particular was less likely to flip over when flying with joystick. And the same was actually true of all planes, they would be VERY dangerous to go inverted in if you were flying with mouse and keyboard. So I guess it could well be that a lot of the difference I am feeling and that others are feeling is mainly due to a problem with the mouse controls in OFP

...So one major advantage to helicopters in ArmA could then be said to be the fact that mouse and joystick flyers now fly the same flight model. I personally like that I can change the controls to have pure bank in the sideways motion of the mouse, this enables me to fly sideways properly, something I could never do in OFP

[Control 0]

What I cannot understand is how sometimes the same people who wants more and more realism for the infantry part of the simulation (sometimes at the cost of playability) at the same time wants an even easier than today, flightmodel...

I'd love to have a FM in this sim that made it just about impossible to fly choppers without stick/throttle and collective

Regarding:

Inantry, we have... CS...BF2...ArmA

CHP, we have... Arma...LB2........... nothing

[Radic 0]

rune: "...So one major advantage to helicopters in ArmA could then be said to be the fact that mouse and joystick flyers now fly the same flight model. I personally like that I can change the controls to have pure bank in the sideways motion of the mouse, this enables me to fly sideways properly, something I could never do in OFP "

Hmmm - that makes a lot of sense and I agree that it could well be that the mouse cyclic behaves very differently in OFP - I'll have to try it .... - ok, just got back from trying to fly the Apache in single mission: Ground Attack using mouse and keyboard for cyclic and tailrotor and joythrottle for collective - and it all works as it should! I had no dramas with flipping behaviour etc. The default control setup I found my OFP to have is: Mouse forward / back is cyclic forward / back, mouse left / right is tailrotor left / right and keyboard A / D is cyclic left / right. Also W and S on the keyboard respectively double as cyclic forward / back.

I had no drama flying sideways using A and D - the only peculiarity I've found is that with the Ah-64, A and D don't work with zero fwd speed - whereas with the joystick it can fly sideways. All the other choppers fly the same as with joystick - tho of course the experience isn't the same - you've gotta use a joystick to really enjoy it

[Rune 0]

Sorry but I actually meant to say 'collective' keyboard input, like I said I never tried flying with mouse and a joystick throttle, but I'll try that in ArmA next time I'd test it myself also in OFP now that I am getting myself confused about it lol, but I unstalled OFP about a week ago to make space. And I suppose it is not impossible, if the instablility I am talking about is not reproducable for you, that I could have simply not flown anywhere near the 'danger zone' for a while in OFP and that the issue was fixed in a patch by OFP 1.96...

[RogueRunner 0]

I would like to see more inertia. The turning on rails thing is kinda bothering me

[RogueRunner 0]

echo deleted

[murderous 0]

A H-60 will turn on a dime w/ no problems. (that means full aft cyclic at 90 degree bank. The rotors won't fall off...even at full airspeed.) What I want to see here is a stable hover with hands off the controls for all aircraft. (Yes, we do not need to have a hi fidelity FM!! But my earlier stated corrections are absolutely necessary to encourage semi-realistic air support.

[vaaf_rup 0]

I thought I'd throw in my $0.02 as a 400+hr pilot with most of that on UH-60, UH-1H, OH-58 and AS350BA:

Firstly, the FM is bad. Better than any other FPS I have played, but still bad. The developers either a) don't have anyone involved who's ever been in a helo, let alone flown one, or b) have deliberately dumbed down the FM. I suspect the latter.

Specific faults:

- It is still stuck in the world of stick=lateral translation, throttle=up/down, pedals=turn. This is wrong. The stick (cyclic) tilts the lift vector. The collective increases rotor thrust. The pedals increase or decrease tail rotor thrust. If you point your nose at the ground in a real helo and pull an armpit of collective, you will NOT GO UP. Helos at speed with a set collective pitch fly just like aeroplanes, in that the cyclic input will cause RAPID zoom climbs and RAPID descents without collective input.

- As mentioned above (and I've read the whole thread) collective input is ridiculously underpowered. An empty blackhawk, even one with full fuel, absolutely leaps into the air. Conversely, a light helo will jump into the air when empty, but will struggle a bit with a full weapon load and/or full passengers.

- the helicopters feel like they want to fly, and you have to wrestle them to crash. Real helicopters feel like they want to crash, and you have to wrestle them to fly. This is to my mind the thing that makes the FM feel the most wrong. Stability augmentation in the blackhawk will smooth that out to some extent, but in the little bird you're on your own - just you and a machine that wants to crash, burn and die.

- The whole issue of rotation about the CoG is missing the mark. The rotor disc is the thing that flies, the fuselage is just along for the ride. The CoG is below the rotor, so it is a pendulum. The rotation point will in effect move up and down on a line from the rotor hub to the CoG. Though this is probably too complex for a game FM. e.g. In a high-altitude hover, pushing forward on the cyclic will cause rotation about the CoG as the fuselage lags the rotor system. In a cruise, pulling aft cyclic will cause rotation about the jesus nut as the fuselage continues on its merry way while the rotor system slows.

- Tail rotor effectiveness does need to be tweaked, but it's nice to see that you can't pedal turn at 150 knots.

- Controls need to be more sensitive. I'm whacking my X52 stick around like I'm stirring pancakes, whereas I should only need an inch or two of movement in all but the most abrupt manoevres. Maybe this is a setting that can be changed in the setup, but I haven't found it yet.

- To those that say that this is a game so FMs don't matter, I say to you that the publisher is advertising ArmA as a combat simulation. If your grunts could do rocket jumps and felt like they were wading through mud whenever they moved you'd be bitching too. The helo FMs feel like an afterthought.

- devs: get yourself a copy of MS Flight Sim and the Hovercontrol 412 and make the Blackhawk and Cobra fly like that. Make the little bird more agile and unstable. MSFS is not perfect, but it's close enough to satisfy your claim that this is a combat sim, not a game. Right now (at least as far as the helos are concerned) it's a game.

Oh, and we need multi-controller support for rudder pedals.

[max power 21]

Nice post!

I think they dumbed it down for us mortals too. I've flown small, piston, fixed wing craft (meaning little, old cesna), and I like to fly simulators. I find the helis challenging yet pleasant to fly, but difficult to maneover precisely. I would like to try out a simulator with the details that you mentioned... but have you seen the piloting on the JIP servers There are some really good pilots and good guys out there, but oh my God, what you propose would almost necessarily result in piles of burning support vehicles and clusters of dead troops surrounding piles of torched, upside down helicopters. I support the points you make, but the initial effect of it would make playing online quite frustrating to say the least!

[LeftSkidLow 1]

Thats kinda what I was thinking Plaintiff, for me ArmA is an online game, and though I would like to be only one of a select few to tame the beast that is a helicopter, I know from experience in online games that such a concept would never benefit teamwork or the completion of missions. The fact is, that whoever clicks on the pilot slot first in those coop missions is your pilot, and more than half the time they have no clue what they are doing, thats online gaming for you. Whether it is your so called "combat simulation" or not. Now give them LTE, mast bumping , settling with power, vortex ring state, dynamic rollover, or even half the skill that is required to hover a non SAS helicopter, they would never get 50 yards without crashing. Sorry folks, compromises need to be made in some areas for the benefit of the masses. Some guys weren't meant to fly, but they are gonna try anyway and you are along for the ride.

[vaaf_rup 0]

... and we end up with yet another "combat simulation" that's dumbed down for the timmies. Yay, let's all just pack it in and get a Wii.

It would be nice, just once, for a publisher to say "hell, if you don't want to spend the time to learn to fly it, then sit in the back".

Or even have a timmy FM for the missions on the easy setting, and the real FM for the veteran missions.

*shakes head*

[frederf 0]

Quote[/b] ]- It is still stuck in the world of stick=lateral translation, throttle=up/down, pedals=turn. This is wrong. The stick (cyclic) tilts the lift vector. The collective increases rotor thrust. The pedals increase or decrease tail rotor thrust. If you point your nose at the ground in a real helo and pull an armpit of collective, you will NOT GO UP. Helos at speed with a set collective pitch fly just like aeroplanes, in that the cyclic input will cause RAPID zoom climbs and RAPID descents without collective input.

Again, this is one of my major complaints with the helo FM: helos in game don't fly similar to fixed-wing aircraft. In real life they should. A gyrocopter is basically a helicopter in fast forward flight and it flies very similar to an airplane in the pull-up = climb kinda way.

The reason the helos in ArmA don't leap off the ground is not due to the flight model. It is due to the way the engine handles flying objects. There is actually a net lift required to "snap" free of the ground. I guess this prevents some ugly things when jeeps go over a hill too fast or something. In ArmA you have to beat the weight of the aircraft **plus a little more** to break free of the ground. This is why smoothly applying lift in a helo will result in a sudden departure from the ground after exceeding a threshold.

The collective should probably be faster and more potent. I have to defer to more knowlegable people when it comes to power-to-weight ratios of a UH-60, but I do imagine that collective inputs affect lift in an awful hurry in real life where they act very slowly in ArmA. Perhaps the ArmA devs thought that turbine lag needed to be accounted for? In a Uh-60 the collective is a rapid change in AoA of the blades, requiring no RPM change of the turbine engine.

Yaw authority is just awful on all the aircraft, helos, Av-8B, even the bloody Camel! Geez the Camel should wag it's nose like crazy when I stomp on the pedals, but nothing.

You might say that making the FM more realistic is going to make it harder on (esp. MP) pilots. But right now the FM is both difficult and completely UFO-like. A newbie pilot is going to crash because it's hard and an experienced pilot is going to crash because it doesn't behave like a helicopter.

[vaaf_rup 0]

You might say that making the FM more realistic is going to make it harder on (esp. MP) pilots. But right now the FM is both difficult and completely UFO-like. A newbie pilot is going to crash because it's hard and an experienced pilot is going to crash because it doesn't behave like a helicopter.

Exactly.

[Rune 0]

- The whole issue of rotation about the CoG is missing the mark. The rotor disc is the thing that flies, the fuselage is just along for the ride.  The CoG is below the rotor, so it is a pendulum.

Absolutely true and it will work that way in a flight model automatically if the right forces, corresponding to the real ones, and the right center of gravity position is used to compose the fligh model

About the difficulty level, I really don't see why you can't have a 'real' simulation of helicopter flight and make it easy for the guys who are not sim geeks or real life pilots. There is no need to compromise between the two in my opinion...all you have to do is add the 'easy mode' on as a sort of control limiter system... Falcon 4: Allied Force has something like that for aerial refuelling, where they 'filter' the control input from the player before applying it to the simulated plane to gain maximum realism while also making it possible for more than a handfull of people, who practice it every other day, to do aerial refuelling - and it works beautifully

For ArmA helicopters this might be done by adding a series of small 'limiters' not unlike what you have in some aircraft using fly-by-wire control systems. You could prevent bad pilots from loosing altitude unexpectedly and crashing by filtering out control inputs that lead to getting the rotor at an angle where it cannot support the weight of the helicopter. Or you could prevent people from crashing due to retreating blade stall by filtering out control input that will lead to too high speeds. Same principle applies to other strangenesses of helicopter flight, you could assist the pilot in cancelling them out or staying within parameters where they do not occur when applicable. You could even introduce the automatic terrain following cyclic behaviour if that is deemed helpful for players without the skills to fly the realistic mode.

The benefit of doing it this way are several, for one you only have one flight model to tweak to perfection, the easy mode would work on top of it without much attention, if the limits are built with enough margin in them - that is, if they are 'limiting enough' to keep you well out of trouble even after a flight model tweak. There would be no silly discussions about which flight model to put in this or that addon or use on a particular server because everyone would fly with the most realistic one, but some would just choose to fly in the safe subset of control possibilities. This would mean that the truely skilled pilots could fly faster and make rougher maneuvers and such things, making their skill truely useful without taking away the option for everyone else to fly the helicopters.

[max power 21]

Rune, I think there's an important distinction between what we are discussing and a 'real' simulation. The changes that are being suggested by these pilots wouldn't make arma a real simulation, just more realistic in terms of some control response and behaviour.

I wonder how these helicopters behave in comparison with their fully loaded counterparts. Since they are so sluggish and slidey, I think a more charitable comparison would be to a helicopter that has a full war load. It seems to make more sense to have them always behave like they're loaded up than always behave like they're empty- at least to me.

Frederf, I don't know if it's fair to say that these experienced pilots are 'always crashing' because the helis don't act like helis. I'm no 'real pilot', but I don't always crash. Even when I started I rarely crashed- but I was certainly not in any position to think about NoE flying or landing on a rooftop. Initially, I think, that if you're crashing a lot that you're trying to do things that exceed your skill level. Lately I've been crashing trying to do things that exceed the performance envelope of the helicopter (like trying to split S into a canyon.. after about 90 degrees of pitch, the ah6 seems to stall, and full back cyclic and full 'thrust' yields what seems to be a linear sinking 60 degrees off of where the nose is point.. and splash). In a handful of more 'flight' hours I think I will crash almost exclusively due to damage... which brings us to the issue of autorotation....

[frederf 0]

Quote[/b] ]Frederf, I don't know if it's fair to say that these experienced pilots are 'always crashing' because the helis don't act like helis. I'm no 'real pilot', but I don't always crash. Even when I started I rarely crashed- but I was certainly not in any position to think about NoE flying or landing on a rooftop. Initially, I think, that if you're crashing a lot that you're trying to do things that exceed your skill level.

It's actually not fair to say what I said. It was just for dramatic effect. More accurately I should say "newbies are going to crash no matter what you give them, pro pilots will appreciate a helicopter that flies like a helicopter." I didn't mean to give the idea that I'm always crashing, in fact I rarely crash. I have a pilot's license (admittedly in fixed wing) and take things pretty gingerly, especially when in a MP environment. I fly like *gasp!* the quality of my performance affects the enjoyment of others!

NoE is more prone to crashing than landing on a roof top in my experience. And you're 100% correct about the outside-your-skill-level flying. Crashing usually results for me in doing something that I thought before hand was slightly risky, be it trying to come in low inside 1500m of a Shilka or NoE fast through a canyon.

That being said, I have had some crashes and near misses due to flaws in the FM. Being unable to "pull up" like a fixed wing aircraft with plenty of forward airspeed in the face of a rapid approaching mountainside is one of them. I also despise the difficulty in getting a FFAR shot off after exceeding the magic speed where yaw authority goes to nil. The day I can do a triple standard rate turn (360 degrees in 2/3rds of a minute) with a gentle 30 degrees of bank and maintain forward airspeed and altitude in a AH-1 repeatably, the FM will be more on track.