Digital Combat Simulator (DCS) - Experimental plug-in v0.10

Dirty submitted a new resource:

Digital Combat Simulator (DCS) - Experimental plug-in - This plug-in exports vehicle accelerations and vehicle angular rates.

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ñnice，i will try

Impressive commentary to the content... as usual ;-)

Could you please explain a tiny bit more in details what’s your idea about WHERE to map your extras (AoA, IAS and Air/ground info) on a 6-dof rig ?

Best - I.

Hey,

There is a discussion thread for the plugin. I will link it up in the post.

In short: I am not recommending anything in particular to be done with those values. I just put them in there because these slots were unused and network traffic is cheap. You can export any value you like out of DCS by modifying the Export.lua file. I just chose IAS, AoA and Air/Ground as examples.
Maybe someone wants to drive a fan to feel the airstream when the cockpit is open,... maybe someone wants to make the chair vibrate when the gun is fired,... maybe someone wants to activate the stick shaker when AoA exceeds a certain threshold,... be creative!

As the famous poem goes: "A plugin is a plugin is a plugin is a plugin."

It is what it is: It only exports the data. What the user wants to do with it is beyond my control.

Cheers

Dirty updated Digital Combat Simulator (DCS) - Experimental plug-in with a new update entry:

Version 0.06 available. All unit conversions exposed to user

Read the rest of this update entry...

@hexpod - I’m still learning but I don’t think the Extra1-3 values can be exported out of SimTools except as motion axes. (@yobuddy?) It’s like where some plugins export both angles and rates and you get to use whichever one is most appropriate for your sim. What Dirty’s plugin does is demonstrate the possibilities of other data available. There’s much more we aren’t using that could add to our experiences.

I’m trying to experiment with “windiness” and differential wind using the SimTools Tuning Center and Dirty’s hole for extra variables to learn more about the lua to get the data to SimTools. Dirty’s modification to value1’s lua and dll makes that easy. Ultimately the data needs to be sent to Game Dash for me to be able to use it. But for example, if wind gets combined with rpm, canopy position, and slip angle, we can have wind come in when you start the engine and vary with engine speed and prop pitch during a runup, decrease way down when you close a canopy, and shift from side to side if you are slipping or crapping, or just in a badly coordinated turn.

I’m sure you’re on this but for others, in the case of DCS it’s the lua that sends data through a network port to the dll that is the interface to SimTools. (Other sims use other techniques to grab the telemetry.) The lua pitches and the dll catches. Worst case is I could just write my own program to grab that data instead of modifying the dll but that adds another layer of complexity I’d rather not add. But definitely easier for me than modifying the example plugin. But I’m still sorting getting the data I need in the lua from DCS. Some functions aren’t returning data that they are supposed to. Others do. It’s puzzling.

Why the extras couldn’t accept any kind of data ??

Unlike P3d or X-Plane, dcs accelerations are full of effects (rpm, ground rumble, eng torque, canons shakes etc.) you really don’t need to exaggerate any of those. Quiet the opposite, you have to filter it in order to reduce effects embedded in accels.

The only thing which is cheesy is the weather. Even in “storm” conditions there is almost nothing coming in.

So for your wind, I don’t know what to expect there.

I think that's just how SimTools is built. Dustin would have to explain more. In reality you can get all sorts of data into Extra1-3 but I think the limitation isn't getting data into them now with Dirty's mod. It's getting data out. That seems to require a dll that is expecting what you are sending and then sends it to the right place. Right now that place is SimTools with Dirty's mod. Dirty's modification grabs whatever you send it in those three variables and makes them available to SimTools but since I'm not using them as axes, I need to sort what to do with them in the dll.

But in looking at the data I do have access to and functions that do work, rpm, prop pitch, slip angle, canopy position, etc, should (emphasis on should since I don't yet know for certain) work fine for windiness. But we aren't exaggerating them. Just trying to use them. The current DCS plugin doesn't support wind. P3D's does - but not "windiness". I'm trying to get the variables I need exported to Game Dash because there it is trivial to send commands to a wind setup that understands right and left wind channels. I already modified the Arduino code to accept the current S commands but added R and L equivalents that control two fans individually.

I believe it eats everything what you put there.
Maybe the filter‘s options are different for extras, I can’t remember.
Variable is a variable. Simtools can’t make a difference if it’s angular speed, rpm or Air speed or whatever...

From the plugin side, you can route there what you want. It seems it’s modular enough.

That’s my guess, @Dirty or @yobuddy will explain it better for sure.

The dll isn’t modifying Extra1-3 that I can see now. Dirty did have a factor of 1.9 in the dll to convert IAS to knots, but the new experimental plugin moves that into the .lua which I can modify easily on my own. Extra1 and 3 were unmodified before though and would transmit whatever I put in them (numbers) into SimTools and Tuning Center. That was my window into the lua without having to code in a routine to output the data some other way.

The point is that Dirty’s modified SimTools plugin is useful for Extra1-3 to see the results of my own lua mods as I try to implement differential windiness. I can do math in there to implement everything I want to do. I’ve tested it and it works. Others may want to do other things. I haven’t found a way to export Extra1-3 from SimTools without modifying the dll. I’m still coming up to speed on that but I can export whatever I want from the lua into my own program if I decide to go that route. I don’t want to do that so it can stay with the SimTools/Game Dash paradigm but controlling hardware was my career and it’s easy for me. I’ve already been coding in the lua and modifying the demo dll to work with SimTools and except for some oddness in the DCS functions the lua is working fine. Haven’t compiled the dll yet. Still learning how that works.

I looked into exporting the data directly from SimTools because I could do everything I needed in the lua but SimTools seems to treat all data destined for it proper as axis data meant for motion control. What I am missing are getting all the DCS functions I need to work (the documentation is terrible) and getting data from the dll to Game Dash. The Arduino wind PWM routine would be no trick to modify to accept data from SimTools like the SMC3 code does but I didn’t see how to output it direct from SimTools except as an axis and it’s not. Maybe it can export without affecting the other axes but I didn’t find how.

That’s it exactly, Dustin! Exporting Extra1-3 variables using Dirty’s modified version of value1’s plugin are only good for checking the values in Tuning Center - at least the ones I want to use. I wasn’t able to find a way to get them out of SimTools as anything but motion, though, which interferes with the actual motion if I do that. But great for making sure the .lua code works. Game Dash is the ticket for accessories but I have to modify the dll for that to work. Not there yet. That comes once I get the .lua working and doing what I need it to do.

Still working on this. Had life interruptions that have slowed it down, but it’s far from dead.

I will try to add GameDash or GameVibe support. Is there some example code out there somewhere? TBH, I don't even know exactly what GD and GV do. I will have to do a little reading I guess

I can't get axis data from network UDP but in tuning center work fine

Can you help me?

@Dirty - there is example code in the demo plugin for Dirt Rally (IIRC) but I can’t help any until this weekend.

It looks like just setting a boolean to turn those on but you need to output values to GD and GV. The problem for GV is it wants a specific set of variables for RPM, afterburner, and such to be able to output appropriate sounds for shakers.

For GD, even placeholders are fine and you can just redirect Extra1-3 if you want since we can give those whatever values we come up with in the .lua whenever we sort how to get the game draw values or other variables out of DCS using the .lua.

Thanks if you can!

If you see the numbers show up in Tuning Center, then afaik the plugin has done it's job.

I am not familiar at all with how to set up SimTool from there on out. The only thing that comes to mind would be to check if the Max and Min values are set properly. If those are set to zero, it would lead to an output of zero.

Let me know if that helped...

Thxs for your reply, output is send out but I don't know why it work now.

But I have a problem about roll , pitch motion is very little move, but for other games like LFS, Pcar is work perfectly. I use same axis setting to all game

Now already tried Capture Max/Min data again but seem to be not so much different. So I edited profile editor Roll, Pitch to Max 50. Feel motion better