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General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: muckmaw on September 10, 2002, 01:51:27 PM

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: muckmaw on September 10, 2002, 01:51:27 PM

I know this belongs in another board, but they don't get the traffic this one does.

Anyway, real quick question:

Is it possible to program your cougar to change the VOX channel in AH? Maybe using the rotaries on the throttle?

Anyone done this?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Title: Re: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: AKcurly on September 10, 2002, 01:59:00 PM

Quote

Originally posted by muckmaw
I know this belongs in another board, but they don't get the traffic this one does.

Anyway, real quick question:

Is it possible to program your cougar to change the VOX channel in AH? Maybe using the rotaries on the throttle?

Anyone done this?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Most veteran cougar users can't use rotaries - the carpal tunnel syndrome caused by the stick restricts that type of motion. :)

curly

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: AKIron on September 10, 2002, 02:10:53 PM

My wrist is much better now. Turns out it must not have been the cougar causing the soreness. Must have been some other... um... activity. ;)

Yes, you should be able to program anything including the analog pots to pull up a specific radio. Will post again when I get home on how-to.

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: AKIron on September 10, 2002, 02:13:48 PM

uh, after rereading your question I may have misunderstood.  I don't think you can program anything that requires a mouse point and click. So, if you mean pull up the comm box and change radio V to another freq, then no, probably not.

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: LoneStarBuckeye on September 10, 2002, 02:33:49 PM

I'm not quite sure what you're asking, but I'll take a stab at it.  I use a CH Hotas, and I have a number of switches set up to change the tuning of the various radio channels, including the VOX channel.  In particular, I switch between our squad channel and the mission channel for both radio channel 1 and the VOX channel (radio channel 5).

In regard to Cougar's rotaries, you can program them so that they issue digital commands.  For example, if you had three different channels that you might like to use for your VOX channel, you could set up the ANT axis (for example) so that it would tune the first (e.g., channel 100) when in the first third of its rotation, the second (e.g., channel 150) when in the middle third of its rotation, and the third (e.g., channel 200) when in the final third of its rotation.  It's been a while since I've programmed the Cougar, but I think you could use something like this:

ANT 5 3 (0 33 66 100) {/.radio SPC 5 SPC 100 ENT} {/.radio SPC 5 SPC 150 ENT} {/.radio SPC 5 SPC 200 ENT}

I'm not quite sure that syntax is correct, but hopefully it's close enough for you to get the idea.  (In particular, I don't know if you need to insert spaces in the dot-command strings manually, and I'm just guessing as to what the placeholders for the spacebar and carriage return characters are.)

Another thing you could do is to put all of the channels that you would like to tune into a toggle list and assign one key to toggle through the list.  That way, you could tune to any channel using just one key.  That problem with that, though, if you have more than two or three channels, is that you would have to wait for Cougar to send each string before moving to the next one.

If what you want to do is use one of your rotaties to "tune" your VOX like you would tune a radio (i.e., so that you could turn the knob and continuously move through the radio channels), I don't think that Cougar can do that.  Actually, I don't think that AH's radio system is set up to allow that sort of thing, so it's not really a Cougar limitation.  The problem is that (as far as I know) the only way to "tune" a channel is to type "/.radio 5 channel# ".  That takes a not insignificant amount of time, even when sent from a HOTAS with a 60 ms delay between characters, and will prohbit any sort of "smooth" tuning.  Another downside is that while your HOTAS is sending the dot-command string, you are prohibited from sending any other commands to the game that are instigated by keypresses (i.e., changing views, lowering gear or flaps, etc.).

I hope that helps.

- JNOV

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: Flossy on September 10, 2002, 02:35:50 PM

Quote

Originally posted by AKIron
uh, after rereading your question I may have misunderstood.  I don't think you can program anything that requires a mouse point and click. So, if you mean pull up the comm box and change radio V to another freq, then no, probably not.

It should be possible by using the dot command for tuning the radio - .radio number channel - so to tune say 123 would be .radio 5 123.  I don't see any problem in using that method on the Cougar....  :)

[edit]LOL , JNOV posted at virtually the same time with a much more detailed explanation of the method....  :cool: [/edit]

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: muckmaw on September 10, 2002, 02:40:50 PM

Thanks, folks.

I have yet to actually program my cougar. I actually use Flossy's layout. (I forget where I ripped it....uh, borrowed it from:D )

I guess it's time to RTFM, huh?

Iron, if you do figure it out, as I'm sure you'll get it before me, please give me a yell.

Thanks.

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: AKIron on September 10, 2002, 02:47:28 PM

forgot all about the radio dot commands, of course it's possible using these. Feel like a dummy :D

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: Flossy on September 10, 2002, 02:48:04 PM

Quote

Originally posted by muckmaw
I actually use Flossy's layout. (I forget where I ripped it....uh, borrowed it from:D )

Hehe.... probably the Cougar thread in the Hardware forum where I posted it - for anyone who wants to use it!  ;)  Actually, my husband Zeb did all the programming.... I just helped him decide what commands would be useful to have programmed, and helped lay out the graphic....  :D

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: AKIron on September 10, 2002, 06:38:16 PM

Ok, here's one method. It's not practical to use to rotate through all or even a lot of the available channels. Should work well enough for 10 or so predefined channels.

You'll need both a joystick and macro file. First the .tmj:

RNG 2 5 ch1 ch2 ch3 ch4 ch5 - FORCE_MACROS

You can add as many channels as you want. Just replace the 5 with the number of channels you use.

Now the Macro .tmm file:

ch1=. r a d i o spc 5 spc 1 1 0 dly(100) ent alt /
ch2=. r a d i o spc 5 spc 1 2 0 dly(100) ent alt /
ch3=. r a d i o spc 5 spc 1 3 0 dly(100) ent alt /
ch4=. r a d i o spc 5 spc 1 4 0 dly(100) ent alt /
ch5=. r a d i o spc 5 spc 1 5 0 dly(100) ent alt /


Note: the spaces between characters are necessary and the dly() prevents you from bailing if you rotate the switch too fast. While clunky, it does work. You may want to set the rng button to toggle the comm box.

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: weaselsan on September 10, 2002, 08:24:37 PM

I got Cougar for lomac...But I have noticed that my right arm has gained six inches.:D

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: Seeker on September 11, 2002, 09:00:36 AM

AK iron,

You can either use the micro stick as a mouse; or; using the advanced microstick wizard in Foxy, program exact mouse movements and clicks; such as moving the cursor; introduciing a click then inputting a text string.

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: AKIron on September 11, 2002, 01:48:54 PM

Seeker, I haven't studied on moving the mouse programatically. Can you move it to specific xy coordinates on the screen? Without using the micro stick I mean (would be easier to just use the mouse). If so that would be worth taking a look at.

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: LoneStarBuckeye on September 11, 2002, 02:23:05 PM

Yes, you can.  In fact, one of the profiles that TM provides with the Cougar will, at the press of a button, cause the mouse pointer to move in a manner that draws out a silhouette of the Cougar joystick.

- JNOV

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: Seeker on September 11, 2002, 02:38:59 PM

You basicaly define a starting point; and then Foxy records your movements to an end point; along with any clicks on the way.

You can for example; program it to drag the text buffer around then return the cursor to be out of sight with a joystick button press.

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: AKIron on September 11, 2002, 07:28:50 PM

Did a bit of reading on it. You can move the mouse to an absolute screen position based on a defined screen resolution with this:

mousexy(origin,x,y)

However, I don't see any advantage using this over the .radio commands.

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: Seeker on September 12, 2002, 04:45:54 PM

"However, I don't see any advantage using this over the .radio commands."

To be perfectly honest; niether do I.

It might, however; be nice to be able to enlarge or shrink the clipboard at will.

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: AKIron on September 12, 2002, 06:16:44 PM

Yeah, that's an interesting possibility. A limitation would be that the clipboard would always have to be in the same place. I move it around from time to time.

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: muckmaw on September 13, 2002, 09:06:06 AM

I have a function that allows me to bring up the clipboard, and Zoom in and out using the tuning knob of  the throttle.

Is that what your looking for? It's revvin's profile, so I'm not usre how he did it, but you click the knob in to bring up the clipboard, turn it to zoom in and out, and click to close it.

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: AKIron on September 13, 2002, 10:22:19 AM

Zooming is not the same as increasing the size of the clipboard. Zooming is done with the keyboard while increasing the size of the clipboard can only be done with the mouse (I think).

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: Seeker on September 14, 2002, 05:38:06 AM

Hey AK Iron,

   here's something which should be possible with a cougar; although I haven't personaly got it to work yet:

And that's to markedly dampen down stick response when zoomed in. I'd like my stick about half as responsive as normal when zoomed right in.

Any ideas?

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: Revvin on September 14, 2002, 05:46:41 AM

Zooming clipboard/bombsight in and out:

Rem  
Rem Range Rotary zooms the clipboard in and out when the dogfight switch is in the up or middle position and zooms the bombsight in
Rem when the dogfight switch is in the down position
Rem
RNG /U 3 DEL ^  INS    
        /M 3 DEL ^  INS    
        /D 3 [ ^ ]            

Also zoom gunsight in and out:

Rem  
Rem Antenna Rotary zooms the gunsight in and out and the bombsight when in bomber mode (Dogfight switch in the down position)
Rem  
ANT 3 [ ^ ]

You can find my complete profile with graphical layout of the profile here (http://www.no9squadron.com/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=viewdownload&cid=4)

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: AKIron on September 14, 2002, 10:37:36 AM

I used to use the rng knob for zoom but found it to be less responsive than I liked. I now use up and down on hat 2, works much better for me.

Title: Using Cougars in AH
Post by: AKIron on September 14, 2002, 10:42:51 AM

Quote

Originally posted by Seeker
Hey AK Iron,

   here's something which should be possible with a cougar; although I haven't personaly got it to work yet:

And that's to markedly dampen down stick response when zoomed in. I'd like my stick about half as responsive as normal when zoomed right in.

Any ideas?

I haven't tried it either but the command looks simple enough.

use curve(joyx,-2)

The -2 is a value that can range from -32 to 32. Positive numbers increase sensitivity while negative numbers reduce it.

Just need to add that line(s) to the command that turns on the zoom.