Ground Steering Sensitivity

[ark 1,290]

Can the sensitivity of ground steering be adjusted without changing the sensitivity of the rudder flight axis?  If so, it is probably by changing a parameter under [CONTACT_POINTS] in the flight_model.cfg file, but which one for a tricycle gear aircraft?

Al

Edited October 26, 2020 by ark

[Fielder 3,671]

Yes, in the game options you can set it to help straighten the take off roll.

[ark 1,290]

24 minutes ago, Fielder said:

Yes, in the game options you can set it to help straighten the take off roll.

Exactly where, and what is the setting called? I can't seem to find it.

EDIT: OK, found Take-Off Auto-Rudder under Assistance > Piloting which I assume is what you were referring to. I'd still like to find another way to adjust the overall ground handling if possible.

Thanks,

Al

Edited October 26, 2020 by ark

[Adamski_NZ 952]

I have a Saitek X52 Pro and Pro Pedals. I have a twist grip on the stick that I assign to the steering tiller - whilst leaving my main rudder control on the pedals. Not very helpful, I suppose, if you haven't got a spare axis - but worth mentioning.

I find taxiing OK, but anything during take-off roll (and landing) is almost impossible to control. Every aircraft I have twitches about in the yaw axis like a radio-controlled toy. My belief is that it's a totally porked section of the generic flight model that's incorrectly modelling ground effect and/or friction.

Before anyone jumps in: I've tried every combination of dead zones and tweaked calibration - with and without FSUIPC.

[Flyfaster_MTN002 412]

10 minutes ago, Adamski_NZ said:

I have a Saitek X52 Pro and Pro Pedals. I have a twist grip on the stick that I assign to the steering tiller - whilst leaving my main rudder control on the pedals. Not very helpful, I suppose, if you haven't got a spare axis - but worth mentioning.

I find taxiing OK, but anything during take-off roll (and landing) is almost impossible to control. Every aircraft I have twitches about in the yaw axis like a radio-controlled toy. My belief is that it's a totally porked section of the generic flight model that's incorrectly modelling ground effect and/or friction.

Before anyone jumps in: I've tried every combination of dead zones and tweaked calibration - with and without FSUIPC.

Jumping in. Same 🙂

[ark 1,290]

34 minutes ago, Adamski_NZ said:

I have a Saitek X52 Pro and Pro Pedals. I have a twist grip on the stick that I assign to the steering tiller - whilst leaving my main rudder control on the pedals.

Sounds like a reasonable approach to the problem for the few aircraft that have a steering tiller separate from the rudder axis, e.g., airliners.

Al

[ankh21 17]

I did the same, altough i assigned the rudder and the steering tiller both to my pedals via FSUIPC, with different senstitivities and slopes. As far as i can say, settings in FSUIPC affect the behaviour in the sim, so it seems to work. The steering tiller is very dependend on the aircrafts speed, sharp turns are only possible beeing very slow. And the rudder seems to be effective first at 60-80 knots. I dont't know, which way FS calculates steering and rudder depending on aircraft and speeds, but there seem to be several dependencies. By the way, the assisted take off caused very strange behaviour with crosswinds, so the aircraft banked roughly to the side at the moment of lift off. So i set this to off. At the moment, only landings in crosswind conditions can be demanding, as the aircraft moves to one side while delecerating and is hard to controle.

[martinr8 1]

Is there a way to control the rudder/nose wheel steering movement with the keyboard using incremental deflection per key press? I am used to that from FSX/P3D and it gives reasonable sensitivity without pedals or joystick with a rudder axis (I am using a separate key to reset the axis to 0). In the new MSFS, each time I press the respective key, I end up with 100% deflection returning to 0 after release. In cross wind conditions, I go from one side of the runway to the other and back with that technique. Landing works a bit better, but still way too shaky. I know I need to get a proper joystick, but currently it seems impossible to find one that is available...

Thanks

Edited October 26, 2020 by martinr8

[LRBS 947]

10 hours ago, ark said:

Can the sensitivity of ground steering be adjusted without changing the sensitivity of the rudder flight axis?  If so, it is probably by changing a parameter under [CONTACT_POINTS] in the flight_model.cfg file, but which one for a tricycle gear aircraft?

Al

Make sure that under General>Flight Model is selected Modern.

Under Controls>Rudder you have Sensitivity at -50% with a 1% dead zone.

Backup flight_model.cfg (save it as flight_model.cfg.original) and change

[CONTACT_POINTS]

max_speed_full_steering =5

max_speed_decreasing_steering = 40

min_available_steering_angle_pct = 0.01

max_speed_full_steering_castering = 5

max_speed_decreasing_steering_castering = 40

and under 

[FLIGHT_TUNING]

change

rudder_effectiveness =0.7

yaw_stability =1.0

 

This will fix your problem and t.o. roll and landing will be controllable.

 

[Steve E 8]

If this works, I thank you.  I have found the ground handling characteristics terrible and totally unrealistic (real world pilot).  Thanks again.

[ark 1,290]

John Dowson pointed out to me (and as ankh21 said above) in FSUIPC under the Axis Aassignments tab you can assign more than one axis to a control. And I now realize that even for aircraft that do not actually have a separate steering tiller, you can still assign your rudder peddles to both rudder and  'steering tiller' axes. You can then go to the FSUIPC Joystick Calibration tab and set a slope value (e.g., +8) for the Tiller Axis to desensitize it separately from the rudder axis which can have a different slope value.

As I understand it, the steering tiller axis is a clever FSUIPC creation that essentially allows you to set different parameters for the 'real' rudder axis based on ground speed. Under the [JoystickCalibration] section of the FSUIPC.ini file there is a parameter called MaxSteerSpeed that you can reset if necessary (it defaults to 60). Below this speed the rudder axis is called the steering tiller axis and responds to the FSUIPC steering tiller parameters, and above this speed the steering tiller has no effect and the FSUIPC rudder control parameters take over. So you may want to lower this value for 'slower' aircraft. If necessary, you can actually set up speed ranges for further defining the transition from tiller steering to rudder control. If interested in this look for the MaxSteerSpeed and RudderBlendLowest parameters in the FSUIPC Advanced User guide.

Al

Edited October 26, 2020 by ark

[DMullert 216]

14 hours ago, Adamski_NZ said:

I have a Saitek X52 Pro and Pro Pedals. I have a twist grip on the stick that I assign to the steering tiller - whilst leaving my main rudder control on the pedals. Not very helpful, I suppose, if you haven't got a spare axis - but worth mentioning.

I find taxiing OK, but anything during take-off roll (and landing) is almost impossible to control. Every aircraft I have twitches about in the yaw axis like a radio-controlled toy. My belief is that it's a totally porked section of the generic flight model that's incorrectly modelling ground effect and/or friction.

Before anyone jumps in: I've tried every combination of dead zones and tweaked calibration - with and without FSUIPC.

aaaannnnnddd how exactly did you accomplish this?  To the best of my knowledge, MSFS does not yet offer a nose wheel tiller assignment option.  I have been asking for this since the simulator's release and I have been told it's in the roadmap. If you have had success assigning a nose wheel tiller option to your twist axis, please share cause that would be a game changer.

Thanks.  Dennis

[ark 1,290]

34 minutes ago, DMullert said:

aaaannnnnddd how exactly did you accomplish this? 

I think the answer will be  "with FSUIPC7".

Al

[DMullert 216]

5 minutes ago, ark said:

I think the answer will be  "with FSUIPC7".

Al

Hmm OK.  I see.  I have not yet tinkered with FSUIPC7.

[ark 1,290]

3 minutes ago, DMullert said:

Hmm OK.  I see.  I have not yet tinkered with FSUIPC7.

You may find it helpful to see my post above on how FSUIPC creates a steering tiller axis.

Al

Edited October 26, 2020 by ark