NoLimits Rollercoaster Simulation Plugin 2.0.1.17

Telemetry in NLS only works with the full version.

It does not. you have to add --telemetry to the startup command. But no the demo doesnt output telemetry.

Yesterday I tried NoLimits2 again after a long time (and after upgrading to SimTools 2.1), and I find the Surge DOF very snappy and sometimes delayed. And it often goes forth and back very hard where it should make a smooth movement.
Even turning the "Smoothing" sliders in Game Engine to 100% does not make any difference.

First I thought of a configuration problem and I checked the following:

• My PID settings in the JRK config utility are rather smooth, because I am focused on flight rather than racing simulations. The motors make have a microscopically tiny overdrive movement in one direction, even when I am inducing a large abrupt position change.
• I checked the Pitch force in NoLimits2, and this one is exactly as I would expect it. It follows the track very precisely.

Did anybody else make similar experiences with the current version?

Or would you recommend other values, like the new Extra1 to 3? (I noticed that they have changed, because previously Extra1 was filled with the speed value which I used for driving my fans. Now I am using GameDash for this. Works perfect.)

Thanks a lot for any hint,
Markus

Thanks for your hints, @yobuddy.
About the current delay: When the roller coaster enters the chain lift, the Surge value changes abruptly, but only after several seconds on the lift.
With the smoothing I would expect a delay, but also a smoother movement.
And I only increased the smoothing value after experiencing the snapping changes with lower smoothing.

The thing is that I did not have this behavior with the former plugin version, and that Pitch is working as expected.

About Game Manager / Profile Editor: No, I did not do anything there. Thanks for the tip. I will try it tonight.

@yobuddy: I finally managed to follow your hint regarding the Main slider in the Game Manager.
It really removed most of the jittering of my Surge flaps, which is great. I just did one test run with just the Surge flaps activated, and the result is quite promising. Will re-configure the remaining forces and angles and make some test runs asap.

So thanks a lot!!!

I still think that the 'surge' force in No Limits 2 is kind of mixed with the pitch angle, because it increases when the coaster enters the chain lift at the beginning of a track. I will post a video soon.

A minute ago I tried several coasters with the Game Manager's "Main" slider set to 50%, and the difference is amazing: The movements are not so unnaturally abrupt anymore like before, and the coaster is smoothly following the track. Brilliant!

Thank you so much for this tipp, @yobuddy!

Well, I think they are rather good, although I did not spend much time with this up to now. I just did the capturing with two coasters, one wooden and one steel track, but I did not go into fine tuning by altering values manually. I think it would be good to manually increase the pitch movement, while roll seems good already.
Now that the jittering is eliminated, I will see what I can do here.

guys looking for a little help with this plug in... it seems to work fine. but im getting limited movement. i would imagine when going up and down the hills i would get some pretty impressive movements. Im running a 3dof wiper type setup. the kit from dofreality.com

I have posted this somewhere else - but for future searchers - To get a good profile for No limits 2 you need to monitor a complete ride via the Game Engine/Output Testing/Virtual Axis (handy to do this for any simulation) and ensure the system is not clipping - this will give you a good smooth ride. Then set the Axis percentages to suit your rig. As an example here's my setup (6DOF).

- Heave = 20%, Surge = 20%, sway = 20%, Roll = 40% and Pitch = 40%. Do not use Yaw - unless you own a 360 degree capable sim it will just mess things up. Also Sway and Surge have 10% smoothing.
Tuning Center as follows:

Main Slider - 100%

As I'm using the standard Pitch and Roll, this obviously is no good for the 360 capable Roller Coasters. Looking into a profile using possibly the current Extra1,2 and 3 for that.



And a video of the rig with this setup.

Tried playing around with the roll speed, pitch speed etc but unfortunately not much use for my rig. Really need to modify the plug-in to suit and remove the issues with -180 to +180 (360 to 0) transfers. Maybe in the future - need to be patient .

Totally agree with you there, problem is with the telemetry output I cant figure out how to create the acceleration values like it use to be. @value1 is the man to do it he is the plugin genius

I think you could manage it with just some math in the plug-in to negate the roll/pitch 360/0 angle transition issues, current acceleration data - sway/surge/heave should be fine as they are, but I would need to play with the plugin to be sure.

Eg break the roll/pitch 0 to -180 and 0 to + 180 degree (or whatever) data into quadrants and apply maths to the data modifying it depending on what quadrant it transition to or from.

This is all we have to work with,

* float32 (speed)
* float32 (Position x)
* float32 (Position y)
* float32 (Position z)
* float32 (Rotation quaternion x)
* float32 (Rotation quaternion y)
* float32 (Rotation quaternion z)
* float32 (Rotation quaternion w)
* float32 (G-Force x)
* float32 (G-Force y)
* float32 (G-Force z)

@value1 has tried in the plugin to stop it going past the 180 using Extra 1,2 and 3 but for me it does not work very well at all.

Ok, but I'm not talking about extra raw data from the game, It would just be further post processing of the existing roll and pitch data. I could likely even do it with a Arduino Due, as a post process, will look into the viability of the whole thing when I get back from my trip .

Found some spare time before I go away to build a test plug-in for running 360 degree roller coasters. Still need to do some more tweaking and a bit more testing, but the concept has worked and most importantly feels great - video below: Note: for testing I have set the Profile Editor at 50%.

More testing with my new plug-in on other 360 roller coasters has highlighted limitations with the base motion calculations - when the roller coaster is doing a straight 'loop', on top of the loop the roll data is also outputting a hard roll , this was likely not seen as a issue before. I will see if I can fix it . This was not so obvious on the 'Kumba' roller coaster that I used for initial testing, but was very obvious on the 'Double Loop Double Corkscrew'.