Combat Trim?

[SirLoin]

Combat trim rocks..ur stupid not to use it.

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by SirLoin
Combat trim rocks..ur stupid not to use it.

I agree.  There's a time and a place for everything, of course.  For example, I'll manually trim a 262 when I expect radical speed changes over a short period of time.  Otherwise it's combat trim almost all of the time.  I don't find that manual trim, for the extra work it requires, provides much benefit for the way I normally fly.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[68DevilM]

Originally posted by Ghosth
68devil, set your deadband till you no longer get inputs in that "sloppy" zone.

Do it for both pitch & roll

If you have a twisty stick, set rudder even higher so you have to WANT to kick it in before it happens.

thanks ghosth ill try the rudder thing, i have to do it in my windows joystick setup right?

[Tilt]

CT does not work in the high speed end of the range.........your nose starts to come up.......... (in all ac I have tried so far)

Seems to me that this produces an obvious benefit for manual trimmers..................and why not.


I too now have trim set to my throttle rotaries (and  rudder rocker) on the X45.

I did try combining the trim axis with the control axis and switching the effect on and off with the CT toggle.............. I s'pose if every fight your gonna be in is a low speed stall fight its OK but for getting stuck in a melee its not as good as proficient use of the rotary.

[Seeker]

Any chance of a copy of your X45 profile; Tilt?

[LYNX]

thanks ghosth ill try the rudder thing, i have to do it in my windows joystick setup right?

You can do it in setting / joystick ...look to the top left for PITCH ROLL RUDDER.   Move the dead bands till the stick feels tighter.   You may find 1 axis needs more adjustment than others.  I have made my rudder axis real tight because I tend to, unwillingly, put some twist in when turning.

[Eagler]

Originally posted by Seeker
Any chance of a copy of your X45 profile; Tilt?

elevator trim on thumb rotor - ah axis

aileron trim on rudder rocker - ah axis

rudder trim on front rotor - ah buttons

be sure to calibrate any ah axis rotors you have setup when you calibrate your joystick

X45 profile

[deSelys]

If people like SirLoin and DMF use Combat Trim and feel it helps them to be even more competitive, then there is a flaw in the design.

Combat trim was supposed to help beginners.

I don't care about the MA, but in the Combat Theatre I would like to see:

no Combat Trim, no auto-level, auto-climb, auto-speed, and in-flight adjustable trim only if it was available to the pilot of a given plane ! (i.e. no in-flight adjustable aileron and rudder trim on the 109E)...

[68DevilM]

i adjusted my pitch roll and rudder and things are a little smother now, but still notice a problam with the pony's nose wanting to always pop up at low and high speeds

[Dead Man Flying]

Originally posted by deSelys
If people like SirLoin and DMF use Combat Trim and feel it helps them to be even more competitive, then there is a flaw in the design.

[/B]

I didn't say that Combat Trim made me more competitive.  I stated that I did not notice enough of a benefit to manually trimming to justify the extra workload for me.  Manual trimming does offer advantages over combat trim at very fast and very low speeds, and where it is required in those situations I'll use it.

Combat trim was supposed to help beginners.

[/B]

I'd like to see you dig up a quote from HTC stating this.

-- Todd/Leviathn

[sax]

I only manual trim at slow speed and to help bring the FM2 over the top in a loop.
Odd thing is in AH1 I had to manual trim all the time.

[Kweassa]

I'd like to see you dig up a quote from HTC stating this.

 As do I.

 In fact there's what HT said about this very issue, concerning CT and the necessity of it due to real life conditions which a game cannot replicate - it is a gameplay concession as much as an icon system is.

 Or unless if you are willing to comment icons are supposed to be for n00bs...

[Arlo]

HiTech hisownself wrote:

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The first thing to understand about trim is that there is no way possible to make it work like a real plane.  The joystick interaction with the controls is a completely different mechanical setup.

In a real plane you would be holding the stick back to maintain level flight.  You would then turn the trim knob to relieve any pressure on the stick, without the stick moving.  With a computer joystick, this simply isn't possible.  When you let go of the stick it will always go back to center.  Even force feedback sticks do not have the ability of adjusting stick spring center.

The second problem is stick feel.  When Pyro and I originally did some early models for CK we tried setting real settings for elevator deflection.  For example, the spit's stick setup is capable of generating about 38 degress AOA, and the plane stalls at around 17 degs AOA.  This would equate to pulling the stick less than halfway back and that would stall the plane.

Now from a purely mathematical realistic point of view, that’s the way the plane was set up so it should be the same in the sim.  But if you step back and look at things another way, what did the plane feel like to fly and does it "FEEL" realistic when things change?  When flying a real aircraft I sense very little stick movement.  I perceive much more on how hard I'm pulling, how much I'm grunting, how much the stick is vibrating, than how much I’m moving the stick.

To accomplish some of this we use the stall horn, now the stall horn is NOT realistic by any means, but some method is needed to give you the same realistic feed back from the plane that you get in real life.  Therefore, you are forced to choose a method that works and gives the perception of reality.  We chose to setup controls that will let you stall with full stick deflection unless you are limited by control force.

Now comes the trim problem.  At slower speeds, where do you scale the stick movement from and how do you add in trim?

The method we have been using was to always give you x degrees of elevator travel than just add that degree to the current trim degree.  This leads to problems if you are slow with nose down trim, you could no longer pull the plane to the edge of stall.  This isn't how real planes fly in the slower flight envelope.  Very few planes could you not generate enough stick force to pull into stall at slower speeds.  This oversight is why people use trim in a slower turn fight and hence get an advantage by giving more up trim at slower speeds.

Under 1.04 we have changed the control setup slightly.  We now scale the elevator/stick deflection to the same ending angle no matter where the trim tab is positioned.

There is another misconception that trimming your plane perfectly gives you a flight advantage.  Trimming your plane or just holding controls and pressing rudder to center the ball is exactly the same thing, and the plane will fly the same under both methods.

Now on to how the combat trim works.  The best way to describe how it works is to take your plane and trim it constantly in a dive from slow speed to high speed.  Now make a table of trim positions at all speeds.  All the combat trim system does is use this table to set the trims based on your speed.  Everything else still functions the same;  you pull back on the stick you still get adverse yaw, you turn you still will need to add in rudder.  You change throttle settings the plane still rolls due to torque.  Add flaps trim settings will be completely different and the system won't account for it.  Drop gear you will again be out of trim.  If you’re climbing or diving your plane is still out of trim.  In the end, all the combat trim system does is keep you in a trim envelope that you can override with normal controls.

Use Ctrl-X to toggle the combat trim on and off.  Touching manual trim will always turn it off.  Under the Flight button in Setup you can set whether you want combat trim to always be on or off when coming out of existing auto pilot mode.

Now as to are we loosing sight of pleasing the realism crowd?  That is for you to judge.

At the same time we are adding combat trim, we are also adding things like icons now disappear if an enemy plane is behind a canopy rail, under wings, on your low 6, behind hills or under the nose, etc.

We have spent alot of time researching and changing pieces of the flight model that were not hitting real world numbers.  Now these changes really won't affect the "GAME" much, they will change tactics used.  Things like horizontal to vertical transitions will be much more effective.  Things like lead turns will be more effective because after a 180-deg turn you will have more speed left to take the shot on the b&z bogie.  But in the end, neither combat trim nor the flight model affects the game play in any way.  It's still who can fly the plane to the edge, knows ACM best, who knows his planes abilities vs. his opponents, who can shoot well, who can choose his fights or which plane to shoot first.  All these things still make the best pilots what they are.
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[Tilt]

Originally posted by Eagler
elevator trim on thumb rotor - ah axis

aileron trim on rudder rocker - ah axis

rudder trim on front rotor - ah buttons

be sure to calibrate any ah axis rotors you have setup when you calibrate your joystick

 

I used to do this too........I now have aileron trim on the rocker and  rudder trim (reversed) on the front rotary.

I will try to find the file in AH that holds this data.........

[Eagler]

Originally posted by Tilt
I used to do this too........I now have aileron trim on the rocker and  rudder trim (reversed) on the front rotary.

I will try to find the file in AH that holds this data.........

just pick what axis you want to control trim in ah2.

the ah2 setting overrides the saitek profile command