I thought I'd start a thread of interesting (at least to me) observations about the capabilities of the Cougar in Aces High.
1. Toe Brakes. I have recently reconfigured a gameport CH Pro Pedals rig so that it works as an analog rudder and left and right toe brakes. There is a thread entitled "CH Pedals Pro" at the hardware forum at cougar.frugalsworld.com that discusses this and provides the pin-out of Cougar's rudder port.
Before I had analog toe brakes, however, I wanted a way to simulate them. Cougar's ability to digitally map analog axes and to simulate physically absent axes provided an intuitive way to accomplish this. Basically, what I wanted is for the rudder offset to control the toe brakes when the brake key (I chose S4) is pressed. The way I did this was to use the following statement to map regions on my rudder axis to logical variables:
RDDR 5 5 (0 20 40 60 80 100) /H X1 /H X2 ^ /H X3 /H X4
After that, I used those logical variables to "trim" the (nonexistent) toe brake axes in proportion to the rudder offset:
DEF X5 NOT S4
BTN X5 TRIM (TOEBRAKES,0%) REM Brakes not applied
DEF X6 NOT (X1 OR X2 OR X3 OR X4) AND S4 REM Center
BTN X6 TRIM (TOEBRAKES,100%)
DEF X7 X2 AND S4 REM Mid-left brakes
BTN X7 TRIM (LBRK,100%) TRIM (RBRK,50%)
DEF X8 X1 AND S4 REM Full left brakes
BTN X8 TRIM (LBRK,100%) TRIM (RBRK,0%)
DEF X9 X3 AND S4 REM Mid-right brakes
BTN X9 TRIM (LBRK,50%) TRIM (RBRK,100%)
DEF X10 X4 AND S4 REM Full right brakes
BTN X10 TRIM (LBRK,0%) TRIM (RBRK,100%)
I used a scheme similar to the above and it worked great, but I have re-entered the code without checking it, so there may be syntax or logical errors. Note that in order for this scheme to work, you must configure your axes in CCP so that AH can "see" the toe brake axes (check the box above the axis map). Obviously, you can make the toebrake simulation less "granular" by defining more ranges on the RDDR axis, although doing so takes more logical variables.
2. Analog Trim. Cougar's ability to lock physical axes in combination with its ability to digitally map analog axes provides what I find an intuitive way to apply analog trim. Basically, I assign a button (I use S4) to indicate "trim mode." Once S4 is pressed, the joystick and rudder axes are locked in their current position and the control inputs are used to control analog trim. When S4 is released, the axes are unlocked and control returns to normal. I find this to be quite intuitive and it somewhat approximates having trim tabs on the stick. I use something like the following code:
JOYX 5 3 (0 45 55 100) /H X1 ^ /H X2
JOYY 5 3 (0 45 55 100) /H X3 ^ /H X4
RDDR 5 3 (0 45 55 100) /H X5 ^ /H X6
REM -- Lock control axes at current value when S4 is pressed.
REM -- Unlock control axes when S4 is released
BTN S4 /P LOCK(JOYSTICK,LASTVALUE) LOCK(RDDR,LASTVALUE)
/R UNLOCK(JOYSTICK) UNLOCK(RDDR)
REM -- Provide control inputs while S4 is pressed, as indicated
REM by joystick and rudder inputs
DEF X7 S4 AND X1
BTN X7 /H trim:roll_left
DEF X8 S4 AND X2
BTN X8 /H trim:roll_right
DEF X9 S4 AND X3
BTN X9 /H trim:nose_up
DEF X10 S4 AND X4
BTN X10 /H trim:nose_down
DEF X11 S4 AND X5
BTN X11 /H trim:yaw_left
DEF X12 S4 AND X6
BTN X12 /H trim:yaw_right
Note: If AH had analog trim axes like IL-2, when S4 is pressed, you could lock the control axes and SWAP the control axes and trim axes. That would allow the joystick and rudder to control the analog trim axes. When S4 is released, the axes could be SWAP'd back and UNLOCK'd.
3. Axis response. Cougar's CURVE statement allows the user to assign different axis resposne curves. The Cougar profile that I load for AH and the profile within AH use "flat" curves for the joystick and rudder, and I have three different curves that I assign in the sim. When the dogfight switch is in its "up" position, I use the most aggressive curve (dogfighting), and when the dogfight switch is in the lowest position, I use the least agressive curve (for landing). The middle position on the dogfight switch loads, unsurprising, a medium-response curve:
CURVE /U (JOYY,-2) (JOYX,0) (RDDR,-2)
/M (JOYY,-3) (JOYX,-1) (RDDR,-3)
/D (JOYY,-4) (JOYX,-2) (RDDR,-4)
4. Combat scan. I have defined several functions that I call "combat scans" that cycle through the various views quickly with a single keypress. For example, I have a views:level_scan macro that cycles through the eight level views and a views:elevated_scan macro that cycles through the eight elevated views and the full up view. I combine those two into a views:full_scan macro, which cycles through all of the level and elevated views, and a views:back_scan macro, which cycles through only the rear and three-quarters level and elevated views, along with the full up view).
I am interested to see what sorts of ideas you folks have regarding the Cougar and AH!
- JNOV
