Please, please, please in the name of all that is holy, remap the GV throttle

[lemur]

Better to simply have additional entries for GV controls on the stick mapping page . As long as you allow people to assign a joystick axis to more than one control surface (which you can do now) they can "double map" some controls

i.e. I'd assign the 'x-axis' (L Brake) control on my rudders to both 'left wheel brake' and to 'GV brake' (actually the surfaces would map to the controls, but you know what I mean)

Conflicting controls wouldn't be an issue unless you expect to have a GV that has some of the same controls as a airplane.
(Flying cars? )

As far as default controls go, just leave it the way it is now:
The aircraft pitch and GV throttle would both be mapped to use the Y axis, and people with more elaborate set ups could change it.

In a nutshell: Tons of surfaces mapping to different controls good. Layering the mapping of GV controls on top of the aircraft mappings bad.

Give the GVs their own mappings!

[lemur]

Follow up:

To handle the issue of "what happens when I switch to a gunner / bomber position" (which currently remaps everything) you'll need to add additional 'control surfaces' for these too.

Complete list:
GV Throttle
GV Brakes
GV Steering
Gunner Aim (X&Y)
Gunner Steering
Gunner Throttle
Gunner Brakes

Variants could be to combine the brakes & throttle into one control  and/or add 'gear selector' as a surface.

[Easyscor]

Actually, tracked vehicles don't have steering as such; you stop or slow the track on the inside of the turn so just for discussion...

Most tracked vehicles I know of have a throttle, clutch, gear shift and lever handles or peddles that act as separate right and left brakes and sometime to reverse a track.

The current model in AH doesn't allow you to reverse a track while the other one is moving forward so I guess that's right for the WW2 time period.

For realism I would have to support the separate throttle mapping but also the ability to map the left and right tracks so you could use either the joystick, rudder or rudder peddle brakes as left/right brakes.

Maybe you could even use the brakes and throttle from the commanders cupola the way you can the throttle in a bomber.

Just wishfull thinking.

[qts]

The irony is that the mapping is correct on the PT boat.

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Flossy
I spend very little time in the driver position, only going there long enough to change gear if necessary and to hold the joystick forward long enough to get maximum speed.  Otherwise, I'm in one of the gun positions steering with the rudders and watching for the bad guys.    If I come across a particularly steep hill, I may resort to going in reverse..... but overall I don't have a problem with the current arrangements.  

Yup this is exactly  the way I do it. why anyone would spend anymore time in the drivers position then that is beyond me.

[flakbait]

I'd rather have the GV throttle work like it does in every racing game: like a gas pedal. No more pushing/pulling constantly on the stick to get your speed just so; park the throttle where you want it and leave it. It's already in place for the PT boat, so moving all the GV's over to use that type of throttle wouldn't be a big deal. IIRC, folks have asked for this change before in the AC/V boards.

Add my vote: change it

-----------------------
Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High

[mars01]

I have to agree.  What is the point of having the stick as the throttle anyway?

[B17Skull12]

do like i do.

get to speed you want go to gunner position and drive from there.  much more of a view to.

[Karnak]

Originally posted by B17Skull12
do like i do.

get to speed you want go to gunner position and drive from there.  much more of a view to.

I do that in AH1.  It is only common sense.

In AH2, however, I found the hill and tree frequency caused serious issues with it.

[Shiva]

Originally posted by Easyscor
Actually, tracked vehicles don't have steering as such; you stop or slow the track on the inside of the turn so just for discussion...

Most tracked vehicles I know of have a throttle, clutch, gear shift and lever handles or peddles that act as separate right and left brakes and sometime to reverse a track.

The current model in AH doesn't allow you to reverse a track while the other one is moving forward so I guess that's right for the WW2 time period.

It depends on the WWII tank. The simplest transmission mechanism just brakes the axle on the side the tank is turning towards. A simple regenerative transmission brakes the axle on the side the tan is turning towards, but feeds the power from that side back to the other axle, speeding it up, which reduces power waste. More advanced transmissions -- which I believe were installed in both the PzKpfW IV and PzKpfW VI -- enabled the tracks on each side to be reversed independently, which allows the tank to spin in place.

For specific details, I'd need to go home and refer to my copy of R. M. Ogorkiewicz' Technology of Tanks.

[mars01]

Yeah thats all good about tracked vehicles, but AHI does not model this.  You ever try turning these things, they turn like cars.  If they modled track style control, I could see throttle as one and stick as the other, but until then, please save my wrist and stick and put gas on the throttle.

BTW - when you switch to one of the gun pos you lose some throttle for some reason.  Also when your in tank town your always on the throttle.

[moot]

Mars, we could have a break button, to stop torque from one side of the tracks... or inverse the other if that's what some gv's did.. or three buttons for all three functions.

Hello Hitech?

[moot]

and throttle doesn't have a automatic deadzone to separate braking from throttle.
Then again separate break and gas control might give you some edge when you'd need quick acceleration from a stop. Dunno if a few tons would move that way..

[lemur]

Again, if we had separate mappings for the GV / gunner controls you could specify a different deadzone for the GV throttle even if it was still controlled by the stick.

As for separate track controls... Eiiiiie! That'd mean yet more mappings for wheeled vs. tracked vehicles.

I'd just make it so you could still turn a tracked vehicle at rest. Not as complex, but that's a bonus in my book (heck, I wish GVs had automatic transmissions)

[moot]

just make a I/O button for individual track stop, just like we have for airplaine gear brakes.

Throttle and steering would be the same whether you are gunner or not, with steering going from js in driver position to rudders in gunner position as it is now.
Turret Yaxis wouldn't have to have a remote control from the driver seat, but Xaxis would be a boon.

Static rotation of tracked GVs could be done by just pushing throttle fwd, pushing the break-torque button on the side you want to stop, either that or the invert-torque button, and the GV will have the fwd-going track going fwd at the speed of your throttle, and the other either stopped or going backwards at that same speed.
If some GVs had both inversion and break of track torque, then you need three buttons avail for each.     (left-brake, right-brake, invert.)

Gunner steering with that setup could get a little hairy, but only because it'd improve on a simple setup, and wouldn't be any harder than what we have to coordinate in planes.