Digital Combat Simulator – DCS Plugin 2.0.0.0

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Digital Combat Simulator – DCS Plugin - Digital Combat Simulator – DCS Plugin

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Finally, I have a platform connected to a computer that also has a full set of flight controls connected. I can now test out DCS and Simtools properly.

I am using my model 6DoF platform with R/C servos and a model plane on top

Some things that I found after capturing min max in the Tuning Center:

1. Roll and Pitch work perfectly.

2. Heave seems to work exactly as Yaw should. When I give left or right rudder input inducing Yaw the Heave slider in virtual axis output testing appears to move exactly like the plane does (yawing left or right) but the yaw slider remains all the way to the right regardless of what the plane's attitude is.

3. Related to #2; I noticed that the tuning center values for yaw correspond exactly to the plane's compass heading. Not sure how this works to give an indicator of yaw for simtools but it does not seem to function. The Tuning Center values for min/max are never more than .08 or so. Input data for Yaw runs from 0-360. Regardless, the Yaw slider remains all the way to the right.

4. Surge does not seem to correspond to acceleration or deceleration although you do get surge in a dive or a climb, it seems to be associated with the climb indicator?

5. Sway also does not seem to correspond with a sideways movement of the plane (Slip). I induced a controlled Slip but sway was random rather than responding Slip.

Sorry to throw all of this out at you. A while back you asked me to check the functions of the plugin but at that time I as not familiar with the use of the Tuning Center nor virtual axis, nor did I have flight controls connected to a platform for testing. I tried on my 2DoF machine but there is no way to really test all the outputs properly with 2DoF and of course I did not have proper flight controls connected to that platform, especially lacking was rudder input.

I have been trying to delve deeper into LUA in order to see how Yaw is extracted but so far I really do not understand it. According to the Export.lua it is returned as a value of "getADIPitchBandkYaw". I have also seen commands to might give a better value reading such as "GetSlipBallPosition" which would help indicate both yaw and sway. Again I am not sure how to use those values in trying to help.

Again, thank you Value1 for working on a DCS plugin for us. I hope this helps and please contact me if I can help further, DCS is one of the most important titles for me. Especially with the upcoming WW2 DCS modules.

I will take care of this and also of the issue with combining extract.lua scripts.

Thank you, I will let Macka know as well.

Hi Guys
Have been spending a bit more time on DCS and loving it. Ran V1.0 all day today . Heres a couple of things I noticed re the plugin in addition to Historiker..
1. Heave menu selection and slider in profile is actually affecting Sway on the seat and game. I had to reverse one of the heave axis in the Axis assignments in Game engine and works quite well in the air/ground as sway.

2. Sway menu selection and profile slider in profile affects Heave in the air (well I think it is...that's what the effect is to me with a 2DOF rig). It gives me the feeling of Gforces when in tight turn or high G manouvre. Pushes seat into my back in G and opens up all loosey goosey on neg G. I am assuming this is correct cue as its what I would expect it to feel like in a 2DOF seat rig, lol....my only experience is in real jets and its the closest G force cue or approximation I have ever felt in a home sim rig. ....or it may be just me, but I like it....lol

The feeling of surge, sway and heave is minimal until you have performed the tuning procedure and saved it as a profile. When you fly again it gives almost too much sway and heave but surge is about right (about half of what you'd have in a driving race sim) . I have dropped down the axis mix percentage for sway and heave and upped the surge for my particular set up. Also I had to reverse Surge mixes for my rig to get it the correct direction.

I must say this is now the best software and plugin I have ever felt on a sim rig and is the closest I have had to real movements that you possibly can have, given our earthly constraints on a 2DOF sim. Short of a 6DOF stewart platform or the real thing I am quite pleased with the progression.
The only problem I have is that pesky export.lua conflict with other export files i.e Helios/tars/tacview ect which I kinda need to fly serious squadron stuff. Value1 I have found a bunch of DCS LUA stuff that may or may not pertain to the LUA conflict if you get any time to pursue it, so if you want the links let me know.

Cheers Guys and thx
Macka

Thx Macka for your testing and good feedback!
I'm very interested in your findings about the lua issue and would like to implement them and improve the plugin.
I'm on the road until Monday so will contact you next week.
T.

WOOT!!! I finally got the Combined Helios/SimTools Export.lua file working together. Now have full motion and Instruments/controls on separate touch monitor. I took the Combined A10+KA50+UH1+FC Helios profile authored by Loophole and modded it with the ports and relevant lines for SimTools. This is similar to Fernando's recommendation for his logycal E69 software. Might I suggest as a workaround for Helios users we have an alternate plugin with the Helios/SimTools combined LUA to patch. Or they could just use the one I have attached here and manually copy to relevant folder C:\Users\usersname\Saved Games\DCS\Scripts
There might be cleaner ways to do this combining ie the dofile command but I couldn't get it to work with SimTools....although the command itself worked but simtools all deaded.
Cheers
Macka

Might have found the culprit :
-- reduce forces on ground
if altRad < 3 then
accel.x = accel.x * 0.25
accel.y = accel.y * 0.25
accel.z = accel.z * 0.25

I will try the dofile command without these lines and see what happens. Yet its fine by itself in the single Simtools LUA, but wont combine....go figure?

Just caught up with this. Thanks Historiker and Macca for the info about transposed Heave and Sway. I had tinkered with DCS a couple of weeks ago and could not make much sense of the Heave output and I left it to do other things. Today swapped Heave and Sway and, whoopee! it all works a treat. It would be great if Airspeed was added now...

Not sure I understand what you would use airspeed for, unless your referring to surge from acceleration and deceleration so you can feel it when you hit the throttle to max AB or hit the air-brakes. That is in there as surge but you wont feel it much until you do a tune of your system...then it may even need to be turned down .

Just been flying DCS some more and I realise that Heave (through Sway) is delivering the Heave information inverted. I can correct this by reversing it in Axis Assignments, but it means the position of the servo arm at 1g (at rest) is wrong compared to the other flight sims. This is not a massive problem, but does mean I have to refit the servo arm at a different position when I swap from DCS to another flight sim. Still tickled to bits with being able to fly my motion platform with different flight sims. Thanks so much to you amazing guys for your fantastic work.

Sorry Macka, I did not see your post. Airspeed is really good to have because I use it to stiffen my control column with increasing speed and also to disable the roll motion at very low speed. The roll motion I use comes directly from the movement of the control column, because using the Roll from SimTools does not feel right as there is a delay before movement and when going upside down over the top of a roll the motion goes bananas. I have flown a light aircraft several times and the motions I have feel very believable.

Ok....now I get it....i missed that you had a 4DOF sim. I think airspeed could be easily included in the export.lua file but I am not very versed in Lua......the guy to do it would be Leonpo over at the DCS forums....he is extremely proficient with motion sims and lua. I dont think he is a member here unfortunately. If you are a member over there, a polite PM to him requesting assistance may yeild the results you desire.....unless there is someone here that can help.

I have AirSpeed working in mine but @hugso could not get it to run. Not sure why.
Lua is not hard to modify just need to know the names of the values , they are a bit hard to work out , documentation all over the place.

Hi eaorobbie. Yes, the original DCS plugin works fine except for the inverted Heave, but the plugin you kindly modified does not work at all. Strange. Still, I am a very happy bunny because I now have IL-2 Sturmovic and Cliffs of Dover working perfectly and DCS too, apart from no Airspeed. Only a month or two ago I never thought I would have my rig working with these sims. Thanks again for all your help.

I must first say sorry been consumed by work and dashboards to look at the LUA code, there might be a simple solution as in copying the code, I need to find 1/2hr to look at the plugin again.Sorry man its still features on my list.

You are a very busy bloke, and I thank you for your help in getting me going. If you are ever in UK come and have a fly.

Just been flying the P-51 around in DCS World, nice to feel the bumps and sway etc. The Heave info (which comes out of Sway, thanks Historiker and Macka for clearing that up) is still a little odd. It is reversed so I have to reverse the Axis assignment. This is a bit of a nuisance because as the centre position of the servo is at zero g, so when flying straight and level (1g) the servo arm is offset. This should be a one-off set-up for all the flight sims, but as DCS is reversed I have to off set the arm the other way. In fact is is stranger still, as the position of the servo is about 40 degrees different between flying straight and level (1g) and sitting on the runway (1g). Hmmm...

I wonder if its possible to have a manual centre/offset control adjustment programmed into it for each axis in the editing menu, in a future version?

All plugin use 0 (zero) as the centre.
For Hugso sim he can change the Ard code to represent a centre change easily.