sbsmac
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Everything posted by sbsmac
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Manual startup procedure ?
sbsmac replied to OMAC's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
Out of interest, why _do_ helicopter (and, presumably, aircraft) startup sequences involve so much manual intervention? Surely a lot of the sequencing could be automated, leaving the pilot with a only a big red button labelled 'start' ? ;) -
Some points from a pilot.
sbsmac replied to Chris CDN's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
Sensitivity on all axes is 100% and there's still a deadzone. TBF, RiE did post recently that the devs were aware of this. -
Some points from a pilot.
sbsmac replied to Chris CDN's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
Yes, I'm finding it a frustration as well. I can fly well enough at speed and can generally land ok but the huge deadzone in the middle of my X52 means that there's no chance of flying 'low and slow' with any accuracy. Just to confirm that it was a game problem I checked the Saitek control center which very clearly shows that the drivers are reading even small movements of the joystick whereas the game seems to filter out anything less than an inch in any direction. -
Assuming you actually meant TrackIR then yes, I can confirm it works.
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Community Feedback Thread - TOH:CP
sbsmac replied to OChristie's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
I can confirm this (and that it was also present on the earlier revision). I'm using X52 with no external profile set and maximum sensitivity on all axes set in ToH. The correspondence between the x52 joystick and the games response is easy to check by looking down at the in-game joystick held by the avatar. I can move the X52 over an inch to the left or forward before the in-game representation moves at all. Interestingly the effect is NOT symmetrical - moving the x52 backwards (nose-up) results in an immediate movement of the in-game joystick. Moving the x52 to the right by about half an inch results in the in-game joystick moving. -
"Once you understand what you are doing" brain surgery isn't a problem either. The original point was that the current system is not very user-friendly and that people therefore weren't using it. This is undeniably true (admittedly, based on large amounts of anecdotal evidence). Even if you understand what you are doing the current system has a number of serious problems - no addon versioning, inconsistencies due to load-ordering, and the requirement to restart the game to change the loaded mods. I really can't understand why anyone would think this is still a good system in 2011 when virtually every application on my PC is able to self-update and self-configure itself?
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Arma 3: Interview with Ivan Buchta, Creative Director of Bohemia Interactive
sbsmac replied to Butulino's topic in ARMA 3 - GENERAL
Aren't you the guy who said in another of these tiresome threads that he only played on a locked and private server? If so, then perhaps you really are unaware of ArmA's MP numbers relative to other successful games. On the other hand, perhaps you're just trolling again... Great attitude. No wonder the Arma "community" has a reputation for being elitist and up its own *rse. Nice. Ever wonder why the original author of Domination isn't maintaining it any more ? Really? Check my signature or do a bit of research on the contributions PvpScene (kju) has made to this game before spouting your ill-informed twaddle. Lol. Can you really not see the circularity in this argument ? -
New Video: Real life flying Part 2
sbsmac replied to nightsta1ker's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
Great video again. The new camera angle really helps demonstrate the control usage. A couple of questions... 1) What's the calculator-like object you have sitting on the map ? :) 2) There seems to be quite a bit of yaw around your heading once you get to altitude (from about 1:45 onwards). Is this turbulence ? Over-control on the pedals ? -
Even better, why can't we just drag the edges/corners of the shape to resize, just like you can in any other application?
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Great explanation, thanks :) Now I just have to break my habit of using pedal in the turns....
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Video: Real life flying.
sbsmac replied to nightsta1ker's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
Very nice video - especially in HD! It would be quite useful to get a bit more commentary or annotation to help us beginners pick up the points you want to demonstrate. I definitely wouldn't have noticed the change in sound due to TFL unless you had explicitly pointed it out for example :) -
Problems when trying to fly with Auto Trim Off
sbsmac replied to habnor's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
I think you are confusing _throttle_ with _collective_. The engine _should_ be at full-throttle (ie, producing maximum power) at take off. However. collective should most definitely applied smoothly. You may be confused because if you have a HOTAS, the controller which normally is the 'throttle' for aircraft is actually used to control the collective on helicopters. -
Can someone explaint Manual Trim and Setup
sbsmac replied to habnor's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
Yes. One thing I have noticed is that there is a little contradictory 'kick' in the wrong direction as the trim takes affect which may be why so many people are confused about the way this works :) What you tend to see is... 1) Take off slowly and hover. Hold left pedal or twist joystick left to stop yaw. 2) Press 'manual-trim' but _don't_ release pedal/twist. The aircraft will 'kick' to the right for a second before starting to yaw left since the left-pedal/twist is now offset from the new zero position. 3) Release pedal/joystick to neutral position. At this point you should be hovering without any appreciable yaw. Obviously you'll still need to apply small amounts of pedal/twist as you take the collective up and down. -
See http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=121672
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Hmm - about 4 pages ago this thread was pretty interesting. Anyway, in an attempt to get it somewhere in the vicinity of on-topic, perhaps one of the real-life pilots could explain the following phenomenon.... I've noticed that when flying fast (~100knots) and level with high collective, the anti-torque pedals start off by inducing a small amount of yaw but this very quickly turns into a steep bank in the direction of the pedal. This is so pronounced that it's almost possible to fly along twisting roads using just pedals and a bit of cyclic to increase pitch in the turns. At first I thought I'd inadvertently mapped the pedals to bank or turn but this isn't the case so I'm assuming it's an actual aerodynamic effect. If so, what causes it ?
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Can someone explaint Manual Trim and Setup
sbsmac replied to habnor's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
Manual trim allows you to compensate for the 'offset' you need to apply to controls. You already know that due to the torque of the rotor, you need to apply quite a bit of left pedal just to stop the aircraft starting to rotate (yaw) to the right. If you press the 'manual trim set' button at the point you have the left pedal down enough to stop this rotation, you can then move the pedals back to 'neutral' without inducing huge amounts of right yaw and the same amount of left pedal you previously used to prevent any yaw at all should now cause a left yaw as you would expect. If you set manual trim a second time the effect is cumulative(1). It's quite easy to build up massive amounts of trim by accident through a succession of manual sets so the 'release' button is useful to zero the offsets and return the controls to the settings they were when you got in the aircraft. Bottom line is this.... if you take off slowly and carefully add enough left pedal so you aren't spinning before pressing manual-trim-set you should be able to get away with a lot less left pedal from that point onwards. (1) I'm assuming that in real aircraft the system works a bit differently and just changes the position of the centering springs on the control so that rather than having to move the control back to neutral, it just _feels_ as if the control is at neutral. Perhaps someone who knows a bit more can confirm this? -
Problems when trying to fly with Auto Trim Off
sbsmac replied to habnor's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
It would be worth checking your controller sensitivity (particularly rudder/pedals). Go to Options/Controls/Controller then choose the pedals and choose Customize. Then set the sensitivity on all axes to maximum. -
Community Feedback Thread - TOH:CP
sbsmac replied to OChristie's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
I think there's a few more changes than are listed in the changelog :) Handling seems much easier now - deadzone on x52 is either gone or very much reduced, ground effect 'bounce' when trying to land seems to be virtually gone, much less 'pendulum' effect when flying, much less requirement to apply rudder when changing collective etc. I have no idea whether these changes make things more or less realistic but it's certainly a lot easier to fly now. I even managed to fly inside a hangar, land, take off and fly back out again without crashing and there's no way I could have managed that in the earlier build :) -
X52 joystick, throttle and pedals. All axis sensitivity set to 100% in ToH controllers section. No other special profiles set up outside game. This seems to give pretty good responsiveness except for a slight deadzone at the joystick center. Autotrim not needed with this setup although I tend to end up with the left pedal quite depressed. I've tried using manual-trim but it doesn't seem to make enough of a difference to continue with.
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Adopt Valhalla or other C&H as the basic PvP form and set up some Official servers
sbsmac replied to walker's topic in ARMA 3 - GENERAL
I just logged on and checked the online figures for TVT. Top 9 TvT games as of 21:56 BST... * CTI: 51 players * CTI: 46 players * Valhalla: 36 players * TvT (?) Zargabad Life: 16 players * TVT Domination: 16 players * CTF: 15 players * CTI: 13 players Now, you might want to claim on the basis of those randomly sampled numbers that CTI is the most popular followed by Valhalla to which I would respond that having 50% of f**k-all is hardly a measure of success. The real challenge for BIS is to grow those online numbers by a couple of orders of magnitude (at least) across the board. Strangely enough OFP _did_ have very good online numbers for PvP back before the advent of complicated mission objectives, VON, or JIP so somehow I don't think that it's simply a matter of marketing the right gametype to the legions of sophisticated and discerning gamers who are sitting on the sidelines waiting for their particular niche to be supported. It's pointless addressing Walker's misconceptions about other gametypes since I think he has missed the fundamental point that there is nothing inherently 'superior' about games that claim to require teamwork or that utilise all features of ArmA. As long as they pull in players, you will end up with a healthy online experience. The nice thing about ArmA is that it is capable of addressing many different gameplay niches. So my own view is that a more effective strategy would be for BIS to provide a range of basic gametypes 'out of the box' to allow new players to get as broad a view of what the game can offer as possible. The more people that try the game and find a few things they like, the better. You never know, some of those people might even go on to try other game types as well.... -
Community Feedback Thread - TOH:CP
sbsmac replied to OChristie's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
I hooked up my X52 tonight. After going to Controls/Controllers/Customize and maxing out the sliders on sensitivity for all axes I found things a lot more responsive but there still seemed to be a little deadzone at the center of the joystick. Regardless, I'm enjoying this a lot. If you head 90degrees from your initial heading in the example scenario you can hop over the mountains to the airport which is a great place to practice hovering and landings :) -
Community Feedback Thread - TOH:CP
sbsmac replied to OChristie's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
Very nice - interesting to contrast his flying with my 'drunken bumblebee' style :) -
This is pretty impressive ... bC2XIGMI2kM
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What does it look like?
sbsmac replied to -97thRR-ANGEL's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/n.macmullen/takeonhpreview%202011-06-25%2015-33-39-02.bmp A bit larger than 100k <cough>. I managed to land on this roof and just as I was thinking of taking off again my fuel ran out so I got out and took a picture instead ! -
Community Feedback Thread - TOH:CP
sbsmac replied to OChristie's topic in TAKE ON HELICOPTERS - COMMUNITY PREVIEW