Flaming Cliffs 2.0

Aviation & Simulation Topics
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Lawndart
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Post by Lawndart » Tue Apr 13, 2010 2:46 pm

Has anyone figured out how to tweak the roll rate in the FM yet? Trying to figure out if at all possible where to do that. The F-16 should have a roll rate of 224 deg/sec, but the "flyable" F-16 FM has a roll rate of ~173 deg/sec making it too sluggish.

The other discrepancy I'm peeved at is the lack of "auto trim". If someone figures out if it's possible to add this to the "flyables", let us know.

These things aside, the F-16 FM actually behaves fairly accurate compared with real world numbers (until you push the plane to the edge of the envelope and the AI FM reveals its ugly and unrealistic characteristics... inherited from the game, but when operated in a Thunderbird flight regime it's very close to the real world parameters - even T/W, power settings and fuel burn are ballpark of where they should be).

I'm hopeful fuel flow is accurate enough for us to begin flying with limited fuel. As there should be, there's a noticeable difference between flying the jet around at MIL and 80-85%... and forget about using AB to fix your setup woes if you plan on having enough gas to last till the end of the show. Definitely forces you to learn proper throttle management and conserving energy. The MTHC alone sucked down ~700 pounds during the 40 seconds or so it takes to complete the maneuver (which coincides with the F-16 info below). A static run-up also showed fuel flow to be close to the real Block 52 as well.

For an AB takeoff, the fuel flow in the real jet is around 60,000 pph which at $2.50 per gallon of jet fuel = $375/min in full afterburner or $6.25 per second. If you left the throttle in full afterburner at 60,000 pph (1000 ppm), 11,900 pounds (with full external tanks) would be burned in 11 to 12 minutes.

So, next time you watch the MTHC by the Thunderbirds remember:
"The sound you're hearing is the sound of freedom... and your tax dollars being sucked through a jet engine".
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SilentEagle
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Post by SilentEagle » Tue Apr 13, 2010 3:28 pm

Yea, I know exactly what parameter and what file it is in, but if you were to modify the FM, you would have to completely add an entry for the F-16 as it is not already in this file. The file basically consists of the F-15, A-10, Su-27, and Yak-40.. that's it. I'm thinking ED left those 4 jets in there as they made modifications to the flight models, but didn't bother hard coding them back in to the game.

So the flight model of the F-16 is hard coded, until you add an entry in the SFM_aerod.lua file in the scripts\aircrafts\_common folder. However, once you add an entry, you have to provide all parameters for the FM at all mach numbers, which is data neither you nor I have access to. What we, the Patriots, have done is continue using the F-15 and tweaking what's there already, as creating a whole new STABLE flight model is a real pain...trust me I tried.

Omxmax is the parameter that controls the roll rate at different mach numbers, but as to how you would go about this without the other data for the F-16 FM is beyond me.
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Teej
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Post by Teej » Tue Apr 13, 2010 3:29 pm

Heh.

I have that file open from this morning trying to make heads or tails of it.
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SilentEagle
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Post by SilentEagle » Tue Apr 13, 2010 3:52 pm

I've spent days testing coefficients and can't come up with reliable conclusions on hardly any of the coefficients. I understand the drag coefficients (mostly) but that's about it.
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Lawndart
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Post by Lawndart » Wed Apr 14, 2010 4:57 am

SilentEagle wrote:So the flight model of the F-16 is hard coded, until you add an entry in the SFM_aerod.lua file in the scripts\aircrafts\_common folder. However, once you add an entry, you have to provide all parameters for the FM at all mach numbers, which is data neither you nor I have access to. What we, the Patriots, have done is continue using the F-15 and tweaking what's there already, as creating a whole new STABLE flight model is a real pain...trust me I tried.

Omxmax is the parameter that controls the roll rate at different mach numbers, but as to how you would go about this without the other data for the F-16 FM is beyond me.
I was able to tweak the (Omxmax) roll rate to better match a real Viper, but as you said it comes at the expense of having to insert all the data in the SFM_aerod.lua, SFM_engine.lua, and F-16C-2.lua from the F-15 entries in each respective file and thereby ending up flying the F-15 flight model again, but with manual trim. That compromise may come a little too steep since the F-16 FM matches the real world data very closely for our mission as is.

If there's a way to "isolate" just the Omxmax values in the SFM_aerod.lua and have it ignore the other columns would be gold. "--" denotes unused code per each line or ";", but is there a way to remark everything but a one value within a single line of the .lua files?

Btw, the fuel burn tests for the F-16 FM seem to match the real team's so far during our demonstration flying... "Ops Check, 1's 63 - Ok".
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Post by Beaker » Mon Apr 19, 2010 1:35 am

Haha I know where you're headed LD. I would love to know the same thing... can we tweak just the values we want at the mach breakpoints we want? Would be a godsend.

I'm hoping at some point when I've got the time, I can do some regression modeling and see if i can get the performance numbers "read backwards" from hard-coded to SFM_Aerod. Essentially, generate numbers that match those of the aircraft when flying in-game, but without guess-work. (Or at least minimal guesswork).


Keep in mind, for anyone interested, it DOES matter which aircraft's SFM numbers you're playing with. They retain a lot of the 'feel' of the original aircraft which leads me to believe the SFM_Aerod file's numbers just "supplement" or "adjust" hard-coded performance data, rather than acting as the only constants.

:D
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Lawndart
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Post by Lawndart » Mon Apr 19, 2010 2:07 am

I found a nasty "bug" with the F-16 FM aside from the lack of "auto trim" and sluggish roll rate. The "bug" is that the F-16 FM's HUD doesn't switch to barometric ALT until 5,000ft MSL, which means between 1,000ft RAD ALT and reaching 5,000ft BARO ALT you have no altimeter readout on the HUD tape whatsoever*! The only way to tell your altitude is by the steam gauge on the center pedestal.

(The F-15 FM's HUD still works exactly as it did in FC1 with one RAD ALT scale below 1,000ft AGL and another RAD ALT scale between 1,000-2,500ft AGL before switching completely to BARO readout above 2,500 AGL).

*The exception with the F-16 FM is if you're banked more than ~60 degrees and or a steep enough climb/descent angle for the RAD ALT to function, then the HUD switches to BARO readout. However, as soon as you're within those angle limits again and anytime below 5,000ft AGL you lose the altitude tape on the HUD since its scale immediately goes to 1,000ft and below (even if you're at an altitude between 1,000-5,000ft AGL). That really sucks for rejoins, pitch for landing maneuvers, and for the Boss in particular, but also the Solos!!! (Almost to the point that I'd want to go back and fly the F-15 FM again just because the HUD works).

@Beaker, I'm not sure whether the VBA is using the F/A-18 FM (or planning to), but have you noticed if the F/A-18 FM's HUD has this anomaly too?
Last edited by Lawndart on Mon Apr 19, 2010 2:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Beaker » Mon Apr 19, 2010 1:28 pm

No, I hadn't seen that yet! I spend a lot of time looking down at the BARO steam gauge anyway, but that is an annoyance. Not sure what to make of that.
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Ray
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Post by Ray » Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:25 am

Try this tweak to eliminate 98% of all micro stutters/hanging of the terrain as you're flying past trees/buildings and/or panning around with your TrackIR.

Change this value in your graphics.cfg "MaxFPS=0" to whatever your refresh rate is (if you're using Vsync). It's in the very bottom set of lines in your .cfg. I set this value to 60 (my refresh rate) and all of the stuttering I was experiencing seems to have been eliminated completely.

I really can't believe that this simple tweak (the only thing I've changed in my graphics.cfg) has made such a substantial difference, but it feels so incredibly smooth now while flying over towns/terrain/trees. I used to see the terrain skip/stutter quite a bit - and panning around with TrackIR was often choppy, but it's now very smooth.

I wouldn't say it increased my FPS, but eliminating the terrain/TrackIR panning hang/chop/stutter makes it feel much nicer and more fun to fly around down low, it's very fluid. Also noticed stuttering/chop when looking around at clouds, but that too is gone.

System specs:
Q9550 Quad Core @ 3.61 Ghz
EVGA 780i FTW
4 GB RAM @ 850 mhz linked/sync'd
EVGA GTX 280 SSC w/ 197.13 drivers

Running the game at 1920x1080 Vsync on & triple buffering on, SLI 32xQ AA and 16x AF.

*EDIT* Seems the chop/stutter is still there but only over the extremely dense forest areas in the plains (unless you're looking toward the ground, limiting how many trees are in your view), it's not apparent in the mountains or around other areas of trees - interesting.
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Lawndart
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Post by Lawndart » Wed Apr 21, 2010 4:34 am

Has anyone managed to get all aircraft to spawn lined up on a parking ramp at any of the new airports in FC2?

Placing static objects to occupy spawn points won't work since you cannot place them inside bunkers, which means your client controlled airplanes can still end up inside of one.

I've unsuccessfully tried adding the same number of clients planes as the airbase will hold (total # of parking areas) only to find that when I change the aircraft that spawns where I want it to be to the correct type and tail #, it sometimes spawns in a "non-spawnable" area on the base (such as the grass between a taxiway and the runway) and explodes upon mission start (bug!).

This is incredibly annoying. I've successfully parked the jets only at Anapa and Kobuleti so far (by virtue of the parking ramp being used by default at those locations). While building a mission for Kutaisi or Tshakaya for example, I've yet to be able to place the jets on a ramp together anywhere. Maybe I'm missing something simple here, but has anyone else figured this out yet?

@ED, please add a feature in the ME that let's you choose which spawn point for each jet to use on each airbase!!! This is just ridiculous...
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Post by Sawamura » Wed Apr 21, 2010 11:19 am

The Virtual Blue Impulse have the same problem. For now, they've selected an airbase where they are not lined up. To make it worse, they have to taxi to the main ramp first, where the Blue Impulse hangar is placed, before they can start the display.

Would be great to be able to select the spawn position. Let's hope ED can do something about that.
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Post by Beaker » Wed Apr 21, 2010 5:06 pm

Yeah that's pretty annoying, but recompiling the whole airbase with new spawn points would be a pain.
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Frazer
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Post by Frazer » Wed Apr 21, 2010 5:24 pm

Sawamura wrote:The Virtual Blue Impulse have the same problem. For now, they've selected an airbase where they are not lined up. To make it worse, they have to taxi to the main ramp first, where the Blue Impulse hangar is placed, before they can start the display.

Would be great to be able to select the spawn position. Let's hope ED can do something about that.
Oh well, in the mean time the camera man can get all his F11 views in place :lol:
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Lawndart
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Post by Lawndart » Thu Apr 22, 2010 2:54 pm

This addition to FC2 will be much welcomed! :D
Frazer wrote:Phantom Control was developed for FC1.12 and is not working in FC2. We now have rewritten the program for FC2 and it is working, though still needs to go through some testing phases.
Once finished, we will post it on the forum.
Thanks for all your hard work Frazer!!! I'm guessing Yaroslav is the man behind this?
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Teej
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Post by Teej » Thu Apr 22, 2010 3:19 pm

Awesome!
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