I fly Hotas with stick, throttle, pedals, trackIR, and voice activated
commands. Analog control of helo cyclic with my fighterstick is only
possible when autohover is activated in the Learn/VR Trainer (so far).
When using Learn/VR Training, the helicopter reacts like a real
helicopter in an analog way (the helicopter attitude stays in a
position analogous to the position of the cyclic stick).
I don't know if it is related or not, but while flying helos in editor
mode since the DLC, my mouse freelook didn’t work while flying.
However, one of the forum members suggested disabling freelook from
vehicles and freelook worked again. It was not crucial to me because I
use TrackIR.
In the forums, there seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about game
response to controllers, even among seasoned players. I believe that
Bistudio should provide some specific guidance to clear up the
misunderstandings instead of leaving users to bicker back and forth. In
my opinion, there are two categories of misunderstanding. One is the
difference between analog controllers and analog response in the game.
The second is the difference between relative mouse control and
absolute mouse control with a joystick (please note that the terms
absolute and relative with regard to mouse control is industry
accepted). I do not mean to be condescending; I am not qualified.
please bear with me.
1. Relative Mouse Control of Cyclic vs Absolute Mouse Control of
Cyclic with a joystick
a. Relative Mouse Control of Cyclic with a joystick
1) Relative mouse control means that in the game if you
move the stick 45 degrees to the left, the helicopter will continue to
move counterclockwise around its longitudinal axis until you move the
stick back to vertical. This method mimics keyboard controls.
2) Many gamers grew up on keyboard controls and know
intuitively that brining the stick back to center equates to releasing
a key. But releasing a key is a lot quicker than moving a joystick back
to center. So I can see that keyboard players would want to stay with
the keyboard.
3) Relative mouse control is what you get in Arma3 when
you assign cyclic axes to an analog stick. It means constantly
returning to center after every twitch of the stick. Clearly, the time
difference between the duration of a key release and that of returning
a joystick back to center may not be trivial.
b. Absolute Mouse Control of Cyclic with a Joystick
1) After assigning mouse controls to a HOTAS/HOCAS
stick, the attitude of the helicopter is an analog of the attitude of
the stick. This means that if I move the stick 45 degrees to the left
and hold it there, the helicopter attitude will tend to mimic 45
degrees and stay there as long as I keep the stick at 45 degrees. To
bring the helicopter attitude back to vertical, I move the attitude of
the stick back to vertical.
2) According to posts, this is how real helicopters are
flown.
2. Analog Controllers and Analog Response
a. Just because you are using an analog controller does not
mean you get an analog response. For example, in Arma3, when I map my
cyclic controls to my fighterstick analog controller, the in-game
response is like relative mouse control; that is, it will mimic
keyboard controls. I suppose you could also call this a "digital"
response.
b. However, If I use the mouse for cyclic, I get absolute mouse
control-like response. This I would call "analog" response. This is
more like real helicopters are flown.
c. I want analog responses to my joystick.
My impression about the bickering about cyclic control is that users
are talking past each other. I believe it is the responsibility of
Bistudio to clear this up. I even have detected some disagreements
within your development branch. I recall one post in which a "digital
player" was telling a real helicopter pilot (they fly analog) why
digital is preferred. I couldn't believe it! In the posts there are
countless references to DCS and FSX and how they handle cyclic. I don’t
believe that many users do know that these two games offer both analog
(called axis commands in DCS)and digital control (as I have defined
them above). I believe the chief reason why DCS and FSX flight controls
are preferred over those in ARMA/TKOH by many players is their analog
modes. As for Arma3 (and TKOH for that matter), you would blow DCS and
FSX out of the water if you provide analog cyclic mapping. The fact
that some of the coding is already there (during autohover and with the
mouse for two examples) indicates to me that analog control is possible
in other helicopter flying modes. While trying to get analog control in
TKOH, someone at Bistudio suggested that I go through all of the mouse
functions and substitute joystick axis positions for all instances of
mouse axis positions. That did not work. In both Arma3 (except in
autohover) and TKOH (not sure about autohover), the games translate
analog joystick input to digital (keyboard input).
Moreover, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. I recall Dslyecxi
saying that he uses the mouse for precise control and the joystick for
flying. Keeping all hands on the HOTAS/HOCAS controls, one could also
get precise control if one uses a controller hat mapped to digital
controls, while, using the joystick in analog/absolute mode for flying
generally.
In looking through this great feedback database, I don't see the issue
I raised mentioned. Every now and then it is raised in the forums.
There is however a long history of users wanting analog control of one
control or another. Clearly your job is complicated by the many kinds
of devices used to control the game. But, the fact that analog response
exists in autohover in VR training gives me hope that we can have
DCS/FSX-like analog control over helicopters in the near future (not to
mention, blow DCS out of the water).
Please give my thoughts favorable consideration.