Experimental DCS Plugin ready for testing

Ok, nice. Trying shortly. Thanks for your efforts!

Noticed you aren't using the FLT settings for smoothing, washout and gain. Have you tried them? I have a ProSimu P5MP (T1000 5 effectively) and with the normal plugin, liked the results of using those settings.

I think I'm screwed trying to use this plugin, I can never install via plug-in update manager, and if I manually install it (copy dll to plugin dir, export.lua to scripts, and banner to banners directory), I always get a message from GameEngine and GameManager telling me DCSx_GamePlugin.dll - is Not a valid Game Plugin! and then it crashes whichever of the apps I started (either GameEngine or GameManager). Thinking it must be some sort of .NET DLL mismatch, but I have no way to diagnose that.

Out of curiosity, where does the plug-in updater keep the export.lua file before you patch the game, maybe not finding it is crashing things.

I made a little video, just to make sure we're all doing the same steps during the installation.


It's working fine for me as long as I remove the original plugin before installing the experimental plugin.

Latest version is v0.05.

Please, let me know if there are still problems, even if the original plugin is removed before installation.

Dirty

Plan A:
No worries. We'll get this sorted. 100%!
I mean, humans sent a man to the moon 50 years ago. We should be able to get a plugin working
Try Version 0.05

Plan B:
If v0.05 still does not install (see video) --> PM me. I can send you an Export.lua that will work with the original plugin, but still uses angular rates instead of the Euler Angles This way you can try it out and see if you even want to keep using this plugin or prefer the original.

Dirty

Worked! Your video gave me the answer. I was just dragging the downloaded ZIP right into plugin updater. I just did the DLL and it worked perfectly! Now I'm going to go see if I can get my YAW working! Thanks for all the effort!

AND YES! Yaw works too! You are the man! Thanks so much for your efforts. A whole new game, urr, simulation, is afoot now!

After I got the plugin working, I was trying to configure Simtools profiles for different classes of aircraft (e.g. prop vs modern jet). I still had smoothness, and gain on, though I turned off anti-roll. I noticed a lot of oscillation all aircraft.

I'm wondering if the washout and gain are causing issues. I dialed them down and it helps, but not completely, does anyone use washout and gain with this plugin?

If that's not it, maybe I need to manually increase my min/max numbers till things seem better.

1. Can you tell which axis is oscillating?
2. Take a look at the raw numbers in tuning center. Are they oscillating? I mean, they will never be perfectly still, but the question is: Are the raw values the origin of the oscillation or is it a problem in the processing later on.

Dirty

Yeah, I tried to find the offending item with little success. I had tuning center up and nothing looked to be spiking, lots of stuff was moving in small increments up and down. However I think the problem is a harmonic issue. When a jolt happens, it moves my hand which in turn causes another jolt, etc... I have a custom FSSB board in my Thrustmaster stick, it's a force-based sensor vs gimbal mechanism... It is highly sensitive, maybe I can add a bigger dead zone in the config curve.

That sounds like a very plausible explanation! I have an FSSB (R3) too, and I was having concerns about possible harmonic interference before. I kinda pushed it aside, but this might very well be "it". Even when all forces are set to max (I think that's 13 lbs) his thing is still incredibly sensitive and will detect forces in the range of a few Milli-Newtons.

In real life aircraft there are different approaches to this problem that I've heard of: Deadzone and lowpass filtering (F16) or center lock and mechanical dampers of the stick input signals (Airbus).

Could you try to set a ridiculously high dead zone on the stick, to see if that solves the problem?

Dirty

Nice, I knew I liked you right away! Yes, I'll do that when I get home in a few hours.

Also it's been a while since I broke the stick out of storage, so I forget which sensitivity I have set as the default power on. Will work on all that tonight.

Ok, here's the update. I started at a deadzone of 10 for both pitch and roll (Joy_Y, and Joy_X) within DCS in the Axis Tune dialog, much better! Then I upped it to 15 and it was even better. I ran out of time to go higher, but the feedback loop created by the motion on your body and hence stick hand is much diminished now.

BTW, is the P-51 supposed to get very rumbly when you throttle down all the way midflight? I had a keyboard on my lap and it went flying...

Nice work there Dirty!

Are you passing the angular rates through Value1's matrix calculation?

I am assuming you are passing the extras through raw.

Not sure I understood What exactly do you mean by the matrix calculation? Do you mean, converting the Euler Angles into a matrix to represent attitude information? To then extract vehicle angular rates out of them? If that's what you mean, then no

To be honest, when I started out in this hobby, I thought I had to go that route, but DCS allows for the vehicle angular rates to be exported directly out of the physics engine. So, in that sense they are raw data.

The extra slots are passed on as "raw" as I get them. They are...

• OnGround (1 or 0)
• IAS (Indicated Airspeed)
• AoA (Angle of Attack)

OnGround is set to 1 when any of the three gear struts are not fully extended. (see code example above)

IAS gets it's value from a function called LoGetIndicatedAirspeed() which seems to be a leftover of the old Flanker 2.0 era (that's my assumption). It gives correct values only as long as there is no wind present. There are other functions that could provide IAS, but they read cockpit instrument values. It would make the code a bit more complex,... I may implement that at some point.

AoA gets it's value from a function called LoGetAngleOfAttack(). I am not sure if that is outdated, but it seems to work.

And feel free to play around! The plugin allows users to pretty much export any data they want in those three Extra slots.

Dirty

Thank you very much! Is sooooo Cool the Flight with the PlugIn!

Hi there !

What’s the purpose of “angle of attack” in the extra ?

Nothing particular just wanted to activate the three extra slots for users to export anything they want.

AoA is pretty much the most important parameter for flight, so I just added it to be displayed to the user. I am considering using it for a "high alpha" model to tweak the settings of the motion cueing specifically for high alpha flight in my software. There could be a ground model, a flight model and a high alpha model. But that is just an idea for my software,.... not sure it would make a difference.

In SimTools, maybe someone wants to implement a stickshaker or create a buffet effect shortly before stall. Use your imagination

You can also use it to export Machnumber if you like and generate high speed buffed at high Machnumbers.

Dirty

From what google tells me the “high alpha” is a pilot slang to designate a high AoA which occurs is some particular maneuvers.

Do you think we could take benefit to mix it with “pitch rates” which from what I saw you wash out, in order to durably pitch the platform while the aircraft is landing or some other scenarios ?

Is the final approach (low speed with full flaps) a good scenario to take benefit of unwashed-out AoA on the pitch?

Should it be in use on the pitch all the time or only activated with a condition in particular circumstances ?

Thanks

I wouldn't use AoA directly to generate cues, because AoA can change drastically during some manoeuvres even without any angular rate on the vehicle (e.g. tail slide). And most of all: What an occupant feels is already described completely with the acceleration vector and the rotation-rate vector.

I would only use it to change the gains and filter settings to better utilise the available motion for the current phase of flight. I would distinguish three cueing models: a)Ground
b)low alpha flight
c)high alpha flight

...but so far that is just an idea,.... I might give it a try when the time comes.

Dirty

Hi all, I installed the plugin, one file at a time via the plugin package through the simtools pluginupdater. I have the dcsx logo jpg, as well dcs patch installed in the c:\users\XCCX\Appdata\DCS\Saved Games folder.

I checked tuning ctr and the data seems to be coming in, however in dcs when I roll or pitch the joystick - no motion. I've checked the motion in LFS and others, and everything works so it seems to be something with this plugin. HELP! =)