yes..but to clarify how I intended it, it (the stamina bar) would be part of what the speed bar is now, not something that's part of the icon.
I just thought it would be good to model pilot exhaustion, and then you could monitor your own virtual pilot strength and stamina through out a dogfight. There would be a lot to gain by knowing the other pilots stamina, but that would actually take away from the game, and i'm really against cluttering up the screen with little stamina bars for each icon.

I never said 50lbs is what I am looking for.Enough resistance so that I can fly full linear with comfort.I think also that a significant center detent so you know when you have reached center and are now applying opposite movement.

About the stamina bar....I always thought that IL2 needed some sort of indicator for when the virtual stick stopped moving.SO when you pull back full on stick and the sim is only pulling back halfway.What happens in this scenario is that you start porpoising because as you release pressure on stick the sim doesn't register any movement in game and so you overcompensate etc......

An indicator of some sort would work as you pointed out Billswagger.At first I was thinking in terms of sounds of a person straining when your virtual stick stops moving.

Then I wondered about even better way that the sim does some behind the scenes work so that the linearity of the stick changes when you reach this point.SO you pull halfway back...the sim knows already that the virtual stick is about to stop moving and so makes the second half of your real joystick control that last amount of travel.What this would cure is the dilema of having half your sticks movement cause no movement in sim and the related porpoising effectthat stems from this.

I'm too tired to explain it better<<<just in case that made no sense.

Laters ~S~

and just when i thought i was getting ahead of myself.

Bill, a bit before you got here a guy from Greece showed the one he built, seat, pedals, stick and screen
in a frame giving it reasonably limited tilt and roll motorized to game output, when the plane banks the
chair does too also when the nose goes up or down the seat-rig does as well. He had a video showing it in
use. The frame is heavy PVC, looked like 3 or 4" tube, it didn't give or shake in use.

quote:

Originally posted by BillSwagger:
and just when i thought i was getting ahead of myself.

Thats a start.Racing sim equipment is way more advanced than flight sims and we need to catch up.I was thinking of buying racing sim equipment and converting for flight sims.

Cockpit
http://thomas-superwheel.com/t..._id=3&Itemid=1&pop=1

Pedal set with two brakes installed in the gas and clutch positions.The brake pedal is very progressive and you really need to press hard on it to move.....perfect for those precision yaw shots.You could probably talk to Todd at CST pedals for a custom made(two load cell brake device only).
http://www.virtualr.net/wp-con...roduction-pedals.jpg

quote:

Originally posted by wolf-striked:
I never said 50lbs is what I am looking for.Enough resistance so that I can fly full linear with comfort.

What you need for full linear is more sensor precision, not more centering force. And a way to hold the stick without resting the arm's weight on it (between the legs is ideal because there you have an armrest that will automatically support the movements of the arm, subconscious coordination between arm and leg works very well). Then the next priority would be to have a lot of mass on the stick, which gives natural inertia, but still no centering force.

If you add centering force, it will actually lower your precision. That's why light tools are better for precision work than heavy tools. Centering force will help in "feeling" the deflection state of the stick, but even that does not get better when you simply strengthen the force. What you need is a reasonable, clean gradient between zero force in the center and high force at high deflections. This, btw, is a thing the Saitek single spring mechanism is also very poor at and spring-less FFB sticks are very good at (they just don't have a very clean gradient because of the "notchy" nature of electric motors).

quote:

I think also that a significant center detent so you know when you have reached center and are now applying opposite movement.

Totally useless idea. You want the smoothest motion possible around the center. And the "real" center would be wherever you trim it anyway, so the information you could get from the notch would be completely worthless.

quote:

About the stamina bar....I always thought that IL2 needed some sort of indicator for when the virtual stick stopped moving.

There's a perfectly fine virtual stick in all the IL2 cockpits. Before you start thinking about building a physical cockpit you should maybe start flying in a virtual one before

quote:

Originally posted by squareusr:
There's a perfectly fine virtual stick in all the IL2 cockpits. Before you start thinking about building a physical cockpit you should maybe start flying in a virtual one before

You spend time looking at your lap and not at the opponent during a turn-fight?

Wow BillSwagger, that's quite a setup, where did you find it?

quote:

Originally posted by TheGrunch:

quote:

Originally posted by squareusr:
There's a perfectly fine virtual stick in all the IL2 cockpits. Before you start thinking about building a physical cockpit you should maybe start flying in a virtual one before

You spend time looking at your lap and not at the opponent during a turn-fight?

Thanks Grunch.

Sensor precision is mandatory yes.Your mistaken about high centering force.If you make a high centering force stick it better dam well have no stiction.Stiction will be its biggest detriment.

Now yrs back I was pushing this high brake pedal idea and got the same negative feedback.Guys claiming it was stupid and all you needed was better pots lada lada lad.Sound familiar?

What was happening was people started putting cut in half raqcuet balls in their pedals.They were all liking it.Then I was pushing the "more harder" idea and they did a quick 360deg about face.

The reason was this....a pot turns its full rotation and the game reads that.When you stick a hard piece of rubber you restrict the movement of the pot to 1/4 of its full rotation.Well what do you think this causes??

It causes a terrible resolution since game is reading a huge amount of info from a small area of the potentiometer.This is when the idea to add gearing came into effect.So now you only press pedal 1/2inch instead of 2inches and the gears will turn the pot thru its full motion(with just 1/2 inch of pedal travel).

This stick needs to be designed from ground up for this.Very smooth bearings and a superb mechanism to apply smooth tension with a very progressive feel to it(not like Sidewinder where its harder and gets easier as you pull on it).Does this need gearing....I don't know but it does need a very SMOOTHLY PROGRESSIVE resistance.I think a hard piece of rubber would work.

For the center detent being retarded.Back to my modified steering wheel for a sec....Very important to know is the exact angle the front wheels are turned and a center detent that is very hard to move past is the perfect tool for this.

The steering wheel I modded with the HEAVY DUTY tension had it and it was amazing.There was a car on my PC with it.The most amazing thing was braking while turning.I would slam the brakes down and instinctivly and easily release steering lock(happened just by me letting go of steering wheel)until I hit the center detent.At this point I knew that if I kept on braking with that amount of force I would need to start adding in counter steering......and the magic was that this HIGH tension wheel was giving me all the feedback I needed to do this comfortably.I could tell how much counter steer I was applying just by the miniscule changes in force and could either add more in or release brake slightly.

Another beautiful area of feedback was powering out of corners.With this high tension and power was applied I could feel EXACTLY to the mm when I would start counter steering.So I would slam the gas pedal and release the wheel.If the car on the pc started to oversteer and i had completely released wheel(now sitting at dead center)I knew anymore gas and the car would increase its oversteer and so I would adjust by easing off gas.

A plane remains to be seen but IMO strong SMOOTH PRGRESSIVE feel with high tension from the first milimeter of movement will in plain English ....ROCK!!!

Post by Nixim of his revelation of using a hard piece of rubber for progressive resistance "feel".

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have to say SB, I think that is the best post in this thread so far, you have it in a nutshell my friend, - though I have to say that I do have engineering qualifications - which would go some way towards explaining how I came up with the Converter as a solution to a percieved problem.

and that problem was, - "how to make a realistic feeling brake".

The answer turned out to be a series of steps in the build up of the Converter, as I completed each stage I analysed the feel by driving for a month or so, before moving on to make an alteration which would lead to an improvement in feel. - a very long and discerning process.

Let me say at this point, that it took about four years to complete the Converter, - but also what we have in the Converter is something that looks nothing like my original idea.
After three years I decided that all the work I had done up to that point, though it worked fairly well - I realised that I was never going to acheive perfection with that particular idea - so very reluctantly it literally went in the bin.

However, I had gained a lot of usefull knowledge in those three years, and I put it to good use in the present form of the Converter. - And all the development work was done with Grand Tourismo on PS2.

Did you know? if you use a wheel and pedals to drive GT3 - then there is about 33% deadzone in the brake before braking had any effect on the car, no? - neither did I - until the Converter pointed this out to me, I shall explain.

A real car brake feels solid and precise in use, That was easily achieved by the use of steel components, and in the first stages thats all that the Converter had, - a good solid pedal returned to rest by a strong spring, now don't get me wrong this was already a vast improvement over the standard logi peds and for a short while I thought that I had cracked it - I thought I had made for myself, the perfect brake, - but!, after a while I started to have doubts,
Being self critical, I began to feel that it still was'nt quite right.

What was it? I asked myself, - and then I realised that real brakes have a dead zone and once you are through that dead zone the brake return pressure increases at an increasingly rapid rate as you further depress the pedal.
My pedal did not feel like this, and no matter how stiff the spring I fitted, I could always press to the full distance of the pedal throw, - not really realistic.
Also about then, I became aware of the 33% deadzone in GT3.

I then had to figure a way of telling me by "feel", - exactly when the car actually started to be effected by the brakes, and it was then that I hit on the idea of the "Dynamic stops" or "D"stops.

Now not only by placing the D stop(s) in the right position behind the brake pedal lever, - can you feel the exact point at which the brakes start to effect the car, it also gives a back pressure which is identical to a hydraulic system.
I also found that now, with a D stop in place I could use a much lighter return spring, which again further improved the feel.

Further refinements, - included using different shape, sizes, density, and number of D stops, along with an infinite adjustment capability, not to mention also changing or altering the tension of the preload springs.

I realised that I had far surpassed what I had originally expected to acheive, and when I felt the effect of this in GT3, where I felt at the time I had stumbled almost on the perfect answer to FF (sorry Roger) for a brake, - I swear I was so happy I had tears in my eyes.

I could feel the precise point of pad/disc contact, and a perfectly natural feeling brake after that, and it could be tailored to anyones taste, or to any driving game - and on any platform (providing the game supported a wheel and pedal set).

quote:

Originally posted by wolf-striked:
What was happening was people started putting cut in half raqcuet balls in their pedals.

That's still not so much about having more total force than it is about having a good gradient (big difference between lowest and highest force, smooth transition). Traditional cheap brake pedal controllers will give nearly the same counterforce fully depressed as they give when depressed only a little.

quote:

I don't know but it does need a very SMOOTHLY PROGRESSIVE resistance.

in short: a good force gradient. guess we found a point in which we agree.

quote:

A plane remains to be seen but IMO strong SMOOTH PRGRESSIVE feel with high tension from the first milimeter of movement will in plain English ....ROCK!!!

Try it. Then try a real plane. Then try a stick with progressive force but with virtually no centering force around the center, not only on the first millimeters but even on the first centimeters. You will forget everything you imagined to be good about a "centering detent". Planes are not cars. Brakes really don't need precision on the first % of travel because the threshold is never that low. Planes on the other hand need all the precision you can get around the trim point (wherever that may be), but if the outer regions are crude it's not so much of a problem. You either want to roll just a little or you want to roll as much as you can.

I have tried quite a few different spring gradients on my stick. Some with very strong centering right from the middle position. But the one i liked by far the most is so light around the center that i can actually move the stick by blowing air at it, while still building up to a force equivalent of around two kg on each axis. Control will by the way still not be "nervous" around the center, because the stick (the moving part) has enough mass

quote:

Originally posted by wolf-striked:
The reason was this....a pot turns its full rotation and the game reads that.When you stick a hard piece of rubber you restrict the movement of the pot to 1/4 of its full rotation.Well what do you think this causes??

Confusion in people who have little or no understanding about pots and even when given the information STILL
can't figure it out, obviously.

I can getcha pots that give the full range in 1/10th of a turn or less and tolja-so back early in this thread.
I even showed you one source and gave another, both at prices way below Radio Shack. And yet STILL you persist
with your same old song and dance saying you've had it right since long ago and the others are wrong. If you
understood such a simple thing as the first sentence in this paragraph then you'd know there need be no problem.

Anyone here fly a war bird before, I'm pretty sure someone handled a p-51 before, but I cant remember who. Maybe one of them could share some insight on what it felt like flying a war bird.

quote:

Originally posted by M_Gunz:

quote:

Originally posted by wolf-striked:
The reason was this....a pot turns its full rotation and the game reads that.When you stick a hard piece of rubber you restrict the movement of the pot to 1/4 of its full rotation.Well what do you think this causes??

Confusion in people who have little or no understanding about pots and even when given the information STILL
can't figure it out, obviously.

I can getcha pots that give the full range in 1/10th of a turn or less and tolja-so back early in this thread.
I even showed you one source and gave another, both at prices way below Radio Shack. And yet STILL you persist
with your same old song and dance saying you've had it right since long ago and the others are wrong. If you
understood such a simple thing as the first sentence in this paragraph then you'd know there need be no problem.

so what you're saying Gunz is that i could buy a pot that only requires 1/10th the turn, and also gives me 20 times the resolution of my original pot?

thats how i took your earlier post to mean.



Bill

EDIT: Never mind, I'm completely wrong as usual.

M_gunz,I think you know what your talking about but some things don't add up.When you said that a capacitor is used in the pot setup of a brake pedal I was getting suspicious.Now you write about this pot that turns 1/10 a normal pot.I could be wrong here but I must ask...does it give the same resolution as standard pot?

But the fact that you weretelling me that all I need is this pot also makes me wonder.How can a pot give feedback as to how much pressure you are applying?

No. Try reading that again. The Standard Analog to Digital (A/D) Converter uses a capacitor and times the discharge. That was part of explaining the ohms range that the Standard Port expects.

Bill, unless the pot is really cheap or worn or dirty it is able to adjust fine enough for any 12-bit digitizer
and that's 16x as fine as the 8-bit standard gameport.

If I have a pot that gives 0 to 100,000 ohms linear over a 90 degree range then I would have 1111 ohms per degree
of turn, a full 10k ohms in only 9 degrees of turn. You pick the range to match the values you want to get back.

If you're trying to shift emphasis of controls from position to pressure then why no use pressure sensors instead
of position sensors just as Bill posted earlier?

Pressure sensors would work.Depends on the type though.We will see what the new Saitek brings to the table with its no movement setup.I think 1in of movement in each direction would be best for a prop sim.1in with very progressive and hard at end feel.

The CST brake pedal uses a load cell.The tension of that brake is made by actually bending this load cell.Works really well from what I hear on net.

The spring you see here is not the tension of brake but just for a bit more give in whole system.The load cell bends up and registers movement to game in brake pressure applied.Two of these placed in gas/clutch positions would be sweet for a rudder setup.....IMO.

http://www.cannonsimulationtec...e-Pedal-Assembly.JPG

quote:

If I have a pot that gives 0 to 100,000 ohms linear over a 90 degree range then I would have 1111 ohms per degree
of turn, a full 10k ohms in only 9 degrees of turn. You pick the range to match the values you want to get back.

M_Gunz, if you use only 9 degrees of pot (100k ohms) that have 90 degrees of travel that will give you only 1/10 ADC resolution. ADC measure voltage, not resistance! So at 10k ohms (9 degrees)you have 1/10 of voltage applied to that pot. If you have ADC with 10 bit resolution (1024 discrete values) then ADC will return 102 at 9 degree... and 1024 at 90 degree (full applied voltage).
In joys you have pots with only middle 60 degree usable, but you can turn them usually 270 degrees - from 0 to 105 degree you have 0 ohms, than from 105 to 165 degree you have linear rise of resistance, for example from 0 to 100k ohms, and after 165 to 270 you have maximum resistance - 100k ohms.

ADC's measure current, Otherwise a pot would be useless in a stick as would a Hall sensor or light sensor.

Voltage and Current are intrinsic whenever there is flow and the relation is Current = Voltage/Resistance.
If I put 5 volts across a 1k resistor then I measure 5V across the resistor.
However that resistor limits current flow to .005 Amps = 5mA. Without higher voltage that is the most
current that will get through that resistor.

Same goes for LEDs. LED by its own internal resistance can handle 1.5V with all the current it can drive.
Same LED with a resistor can happily run at 12V and even be choked dimmer if desired. I can even buy LEDs
with such a resistor built-in sold to run on 12V for right around $0.50 depending on color.

I know that an ADC only measures values within a certain range. That was the point; instead of building a
mechanical solution to have the original pot turn fully when the pedal moves less, use a pot that gives the
full ADC range in the shorter pedal movement. Since the pedal movement is restricted it makes no difference
what the pot and circuit would do outside of shorter that range, would it?