Why adjusting control sensitivity is not the answer

[cwburnett 1,809]

46 minutes ago, Slides said:

How is it that so many real world pilots fundamentally disagree with your sweeping assessment then? There has to be a fundamental difference in expectation or experience here.

I can only speak for myself, but for me it is about expectation. I simply don't expect a desktop sim to 'feel' like anything, really. And it doesn't bother me that performance specs aren't on book. My real airplane doesn't fly to book either. Flying 'to book' is a myth and if you go spend some time on a site like beechtalk or mooneyspace you'll hear the same thing. Just like in any industry, performance specs for planes are written by the marketing department! The Mooney M20J, or "201" was named that because once the test pilot got it to go 201MPH, and that was the marketing 'book' spec for the airplane. Before the Baron, I owned an M20J with it's original reg number - N201PN. It didn't go 201 mph. Except in a descent.

When I went searching for a good Baron model for P3D it was specifically because I wanted to drill engine failure on takeoff. Not the performance, but the procedure. In a piston twin you have maybe 2 seconds to respond to an engine failure after takeoff before it is game over. You have to be primed to identify the failed engine, verify the failed engine and feather the failed prop with life-dependent accuracy in a timeframe much to short to think about it - so twin piston pilots spend more time drilling this than anything else. And it is something that absolutely can never be tested in real life (though I hear they did it in the 60s...and a lot of people died trying). I will hopefully NEVER know how my Baron performs 20 feet off the ground with 500' of runway left and a dead engine with the gear not yet fully retracted...but in the sim I can make sure that I can quickly identify and verify which engine failed (with only my feet, btw) and then feather that prop in no more than 2 seconds. The Milviz Baron appeared to actually have pretty accurate OEI flight dynamics, but it didn't feel anything like doing OEI and MCA training in the real plane at a safe altitude.

So, point being, it's an expectations game here. To think a $60 or $120 game would accurately replicate the flight dynamics of over a dozen a real airplanes is, in my opinion, folly. Can we try to get close? Sure. Is it worth getting some if it right? Of course. And I think if there are planes that are wildly off, they should be fixed or removed. Now, when it comes to add-on aircraft, yea, I hope that if someone went through the trouble of building and selling an add-on aircraft, they'd do some work to try and reflect the real flight performance and I remain optimistic that Asobo has included the tools to do that better than in FSX/P3D.

Edit: I actually want to amend this slightly...it DOES bother me that the Baron in the sim has MUCH better climb performance than a RW Baron. Where I struggle is, beyond saying it is too high, I don't know what guidance to give Asobo. Climb performance depends on weight, CG, temperature, humidity...and more minute factors like the condition of the engines and prop. Are they just out of overhaul, or at 1,500 hours? So without sitting there for hours testing different atmospheric conditions, weights, CG, etc to really validate the performance and provide useful feedback, I don't know what to say to them. And what we might do in FSX/P3D, reduce the thrust parameter in the aircraft.cfg file, is a sloppy way to try and address a very nuanced question...so I try not to concern myself too much with that stuff...

Edited August 20, 2020 by cwburnett

[norman_99 209]

A couple simple question for those of you who have significantly adjusted your control curves and sensitivities. What figures have you settled on, why do you feel it achieves the best result? And most importantly, why did you feel the need to make the adjustments in the first place?

 

These are genuine questions, not trying to stir the pot. I’m just going over my thought process again from the start.

[cwburnett 1,809]

25 minutes ago, w6kd said:

RealAir B60T Duke

Love that plane! Was a favorite in P3D! Would also LOVE one in real life...if wishing made it so. Such a sexy ramp presence.

[cwburnett 1,809]

4 minutes ago, awf said:

Well there where several also in the beta plus aircraft owners, but we are still under NDA 😉

I was in the beta, but now that I have the real thing, I'm free to discuss the flight models as they exist today without breaking the NDA. So can others!

[Slides 1,552]

4 minutes ago, cwburnett said:

Flying 'to book' is a myth

Good perspective.

Asobo even mentioned that in one of their interviews. They tried to take the average of performance data available to them. Plus input from owners who said in real life the characteristics were X instead of manufacturer specified characteristics of X.

Just from my flight simming experience, the feel of the aircraft resemble other flight sims I have played over 20 plus years.

So, if MSFS is fundamentally off than so is every other flight sim. 

 

[Slides 1,552]

11 minutes ago, norman_99 said:

What figures have you settled on, why do you feel it achieves the best result? And most importantly, why did you feel the need to make the adjustments in the first place?

From -40 to -60 depending on the axis.

As to why, it's because I don't have the same range of motion in my VKB Gladiator flight stick as a real yoke would have on a real plane.

My stick is very precise and a small input translates to a much larger input in the sim's aircraft. To allow for more precision, I need to dull the response from my stick.

Also, in a real aircraft, the yoke would give me feedback. I don't have that while sitting in front of my PC and it's much easier to be heavy handed without any feedback. That's why I'm adjusting sensitivities.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Slides

[cwburnett 1,809]

6 minutes ago, norman_99 said:

A couple simple question for those of you who have significantly adjusted your control curves and sensitivities. What figures have you settled on, why do you feel it achieves the best result? And most importantly, why did you feel the need to make the adjustments in the first place?

 

These are genuine questions, not trying to stir the pot. I’m just going over my thought process again from the start.

The general answer is to take the throw or motion of the real controls in the plane and compare them with the throw or motion of the simulator controller. So for my honeycomb yoke, with 180 degrees of roll motion, a 1:1 ratio is fair for most of the pistons, I put it at -10% because I want to offset the lack of force feedback as I explained in my earlier post.

For pitch, my honeycomb has a third of the throw that the real yoke has for elevator control, so I'd steer towards a 1:3 ratio - I ended up settling on -50% I think for pitch control. For rudder, I went -20% based on similar math. My rudder pedals in the real plane have about twice as much throw as my sim pedals, but when I went down to -50% I found ground steering to be too difficult, so I had to balance ground steering performance with rudder effectiveness.

 

[Shayne 3]

Quick background, I have been simming since Sublogic and I have about 30 hours of real fying in 152, 172,Seminole and about 8 hours in Full Level D sims a320, 747-400 and 767-300 so my first impressions not that it matters but I have flown a few things over the years and will be working on my private again shortly are as follows.

Control sensitivity and software programming is way off, I have a honeycomb and then CH pedal and Saitek/logitek Throttles and for Xplane they work great, even for Prepare and FSX I could get something descent but after trying for over 3 hours to get the Kingair, the CJ3 and TBM to even have a rudder that was usable I am simply at a loss.  There is either no movement on the rudder with almost 50% deflection then it goes to full or there is instant deflection.

When it looks like you might have it via the sensitivity setting and graph but after saving and trying it simply doesn't work.

I have tried every combo of sensitivity, curve ect but nothing get a true response that is even re motley flyable or usable.

Has anyone come up with a combo that works???

Great looking sim and so far my performance is good but San Diego looked like it had a bunch of pilons and artifacts all along the shore.

For the record I have fast internet 980 done and 960 up so I don't have any speed problems or bandwith.

I think there is some huge potential but i have never spent 2 days trying to set up cameras and controls and I really haven't flown one complete circuit. 

I hope we can ban together and teach each other how things work if not I am going to stick to Xplane as the flight dynamics are so nice and I heard so much about what microsoft was able to achieve but I certainly haven't seen it yet with my settings..

Shayne

[LHookins 3,103]

I experienced the overly sensitive controls once in the Alpha.  I'd gotten used to flying the C152 with the default sensitivities.  After an update I moved the joystick to bank and suddenly found myself rolled almost 90 degrees along with lots of noise from inside the cockpit.  Got the plane righted but the aileron was just too sensitive to fly.

This is when I dug into the files.  The aileron sensitivity was set to 1.25, no idea what it had been before.  I edited it to 0.65 and it wasn't sensitive enough for my tastes.  I edited it again to 0.85 and got something similar to what I'd had before.  I flew this way for quite a while.  It was against the rules to change the files, but I wasn't going to fly it the way it was and that change wasn't going to affect their telemetry except to show I was still flying the 152.

After another update and my edited file disappearing, aileron sensitivity was still 1.25 but the 152 felt fine.  I wasn't the only one who complained about the overly sensitive ailerons on the Alpha forum.  I have to wonder if they were testing us to see if anyone would discover the sensitivity curves.  As far as I know, no one did.

So yes, the overly sensitive controls some experience are definitely real.  It may have been possible for Asobo to adjust how it reads controls (or whatever the problem is) so that everyone's controls feel about the same, but you'd still probably want to have some adjustment to sensitivity.  It probably could have been done better.

Or, you can do like I did and edit the aileron/elevator/rudder sensitivity. 🙂 Control sensitivity is probably your best choice though.

Hook

PS. Microsoft, please do not cancel my account and take away my access to Microsoft Flight.  Microsoft??  Darn, too late, they preemptively canceled that years ago.

H.

[norman_99 209]

CWBurnett, that makes some sense. I’ll think about it some more. Doesn’t fully explain everything, but at least there’s a repeatable calculation that can be used over again.

 

My concern really comes from the fact almost everyone adjusts their values until they are “happy” with how it feels, based on some preconceived assumption they have about a particular aircrafts handling. My self included, I’m not saying my assumptions of aircraft handling are completely correct. Just that arbitrarily changing control settings based on feel alone seems incredibly vague and imprecise. How is any developer meant to design an accurate, consistent and repeatable handling experience when users take this approach?

Edited August 20, 2020 by norman_99

[cwburnett 1,809]

1 minute ago, norman_99 said:

My concern really comes from the fact almost everyone adjusts their values until they are “happy” with how it feels, based on some preconceived assumption they have about a particular aircrafts handling. My self included, I’m not saying my assumptions of aircraft handling are completely correct. Just that arbitrarily changing control settings based on feel alone seems incredibly vague and imprecise. How is any developer meant to design an accurate, consistent and repeatable handling experience when users take this approach?

Totally understand. But remember, by adjusting the control sensitivity, you're not changing the flight dynamics of the model, you're only changing how much your control is moving the virtual yoke/stick/pedal. So even if I have to move my yoke 2" to get the same 20% deflection it takes you 3" to get because we have different sensitivity, we're still both getting the same performance based on a 20% control surface deflection.

I think what Robert and others are talking about is whether that 20% deflection produces the change in lift on each wing that occurs on the real plane, and whether that produces the same roll acceleration and rate as it would in the real plane. I love simming and flying as much as the next guy, but I don't have the patience to figure that out, nor do I care that much as long as it is plausible. To be clear, I'm pretty detail oriented when I'm flying and I have NO IDEA what roll rate my Baron is capable of, nor is that a figure published anywhere in my POH (technically an AFM since my plane was manufactured in 1967). I would also NEVER test the roll rate in my plane because I am not a test pilot and my aircraft is not certified for aerobatics. It is entirely irrelevant to the kind of flying I do with my family and friends, and also to the kind of flying I do in the sim.

[LHookins 3,103]

7 minutes ago, norman_99 said:

My concern really comes from the fact almost everyone adjusts their values until they are “happy” with how it feels,

This may be the best way to do it.  If you aren't "happy" with how it feels, how much will you enjoy flying it?

A2A designs its aircraft to work with the controllers they use.  If you use a different controller, yours will feel and probably act different anyway.  I will assume that the A2A Comanche is probably the most finely tuned aircraft in their hangar, since Scott owns a Comanche and you can bet they'll make it fly exactly like his.  I've found the Comanche to be one of their best aircraft.

Hook

[sd_flyer 6,042]

2 hours ago, kapitan said:

rudders is the Z Axis.

What do you mean by "others" some people use other keys? keys???

my advise to those, If a jostick doesnt have Z axis, dont even install the sim, get one first

My first time in alpha I  bind my CH rudder to "yaw left" and "yaw right" (if I recall it correctly ) instead of axis. It was impossible to fly until someone pointed out about correct axis setup

[Slides 1,552]

4 minutes ago, cwburnett said:

as long as it is plausible

Not being a real world pilot, I take the same approach. So far most of the planes have been plausible in how they fly within the normal flight envelope. There are issues when you get into stalls and especially spins that seem off.

[High_Alpha 42]

Somewhat related to the original post, if you can alter the flight model of aircraft does that mean people doing the landing challenges can give their aircraft advantageous performance figures? How exactly does altering the parameters work in the multiplayer aspect of the sim?

Edited August 20, 2020 by High_Alpha