Hello, I would like to make a request related to helicopters and joystick with FFB support.
In short:
you put cyclic into position you want it to be trimmed to
you press Force Trim button and FFB makes cyclic stay in that place when you take your hands off
you can fine tune cyclic position with trim beep trim (hat switch); it is different from typical trim as it MOVES the centering forces with FFB as you press corresponding beep trim buttons (so you press left on hat switch and joystick’s centering forces move slightly to the left etc.)
you can reset trim FFB forces to be neutral again (cyclic would return to center position with hands off) with Trim Reset button
Of course having FFB options for cyclic would be likely necessary too. Damping, friction, centering forces strength etc.
SimFFB tool does that already, but it seems to have problems on Win11 (at least it gives me problems as it crashes when trim button is pressed), plus I think having that feature incorporated into MSFS now when helicopters got introduced is in order.
Thanks
while i support this, FFB users makes up the smallest percent of users even less than VR users. There’s also still a lot to work on with the helicopters itself that’d i’d like to see cleaned up, passed over and prettied up before we start adding features for the more hardcore niche users.
But i’m not against FFB support even if i don’t own a FFB joystick.
Hi! I completely understand your POV (and I agree with it), I wanted to just mention one thing-
MSFS is a sim, and so it is expected it will allow you to fly helicopters the same way you do IRL. People spend a lot of money to make that happen. So when you see people coming from DCS or XP and they complain about MSFS not being “there” yet you can just ignore it, or you can try to hear their voices.
DCS has that feature. Why? Because it is a sim, and so if you want to fly helicopters in the most realistic way possible in a sim, you choose DCS. Helicopters simmers are also smaller in number than fixed wing yet both me and you (based on your post where you- rightfully- point out that there are biggest issues with helicopters atm) agree that we want this to be sorted out.
So I just hope having actual helicopter Force Trim system simulated will be added when the most important things (like physics- the most important feature) are fixed.
Thanks!
This is a hand grenade that you just threw without the pin in it. Without sparking a wider discussion, I’m just going to point out that MSFS been officially described as a platform and there’s no real wrong way to play it. You can fly like you would IRL or you can fly like a 6 year old with epilepsy. No one will fault you for doing either because whats important is you’re having fun doing it.
You’re trying to compare Apples to Baked Alaska. You even said it it in the next sentence: play DCS if you want to fly helicopters in realistic fashion. DCS is a far higher learning curve and is a higher buy in than MSFS. DCS is extremely niche to begin with and you already have to be into high fidelity aircraft to begin with. A lot of people i talk to that are interested in DCS (fixed and rotor alike) say “its intimidating theres just so much to learn.” Yes, but you didn’t seem that scared learning the Fenix or PMDG or CRJ or MD11 or whatever…i digress. If the flight model is not up to your expectations in MSFS, there’s absolutely no shame in waiting for updates and playing another sim in the mean time.
I do ignore them. That is their opinion and they are welcome to it. I am having fun with the sim as is. I don’t own a FFB joystick but would love to see people have more fun with their set up, but i’m not going to demand the developers drop everything they’re doing to fix just a small part of what is a very very technically complex game (excuse me, platform). It’s never as simple as “just adding it in.” If it were, then every game ever would be the most popular game ever because developers can “just add in” requested features.
Wow, I didn’t mean to start this kind of discussion really, but I guess it’s happening.
Hence I said “expected to allow you to (…)” Playing with a gamepad? Sure. Nothing wrong with having such option too. Having an option to fly with full size dedicated helicopters controls? If it is a sim- yes, nothing wrong with that either, I would expect to have this option too.
The difference in overall civilian flight sim vs military simulation apart- MSFS is easier to get started with by design , sure- DCS doesn’t seem to care about things like UI for example: it is not very user friendly.
By the way I think it is a great thing that MSFS is not as hard to get into as DCS, I said it already in another topic when talking about cyclic mapping being more oriented towards short/ standard joysticks and not fully sized controls. What I am saying is I would expect MSFS to give me an OPTION to make it as realistic as DCS (or more) in those areas mentioned. Tldr; yes, those are different products, but there are similarities and saying that MSFS is not DCS is not an argument for “DCS is niche, so MSFS can’t be compared to it”. It would be if I said I want MSFS to model AA / AG radars for example. Different sims doesn’t mean different expectations in basic areas like FM, or Force Trim functioning IMHO.
Maybe I should have made it really clear I come from both those sims (DCS mostly) and save your time you spent not ignoring me.
That’s great! Can people- who would be ignored by you- give their feedback, or if you had any power to do so- would you close Wishlist section to us? I mean you could also participate in discussion so MSFS can improve in areas discussed here, but hey, you do you.
Misrepresenting my argument won’t make me defend it as if I made it. Game development doesn’t work like that. Even if this feature would get a green light it’s not like the whole team drops everything and works on it. And even if they did- you seem to be fine with the sim as it is.
Misrepresenting my argument won’t make me defend it as if I made it. I never said what you quoted. Please don’t do that, thank you.
Same as above.
Hey, I can do that too by the way.
It’s not a matter of “just ignore feedback and have fun with the sim as it is”. If it were, then every game ever would be the most popular game ever because developers can just “ignore feedback” for requested features (and let’s also miss represent further) and bugs".
See?
So please, stay on topic and let’s have a civilized and productive discussion.
Helicopters sims are a niche within a niche. They always were. DCS is a different product, but that’s not a valid counter argument for requesting a feature that is not important for majority of players just because DCS is just different".
I would encourage you to read my earlier posts again.
Anyway i’m not going to play MSFS expecting it to play like DCS, which is what i’m hearing. They are two different games marketed towards different types of gamers. The only thing that ties them together is the fact you can fly virtual airplanes. They have different flight models, different game and physics engines, different atmospheric models, systems are simulated differently and the biggest difference probably being is you can explode things in DCS. I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty but to me The differences far outnumber the similarities and that’s not even beginning on the available airframes to fly in either sim. Personally, it comes down to “Do i want to explode things” or “do i want to chill?”
Also remember DCS World has been around for 10 years and Eagle Dynamics has been making games for around 30 years. Eagle Dynamics simply has far more experience in flight sim development than Asobo does so it stands to reason that until MSFS is 10 years old, we can reasonably expect impurities on the platform. All it takes is time and it’s a shame that confidence in Asobo is generally low among hardcore simmer
I don’t think gamers who want these hyper realistic options are being denied these outright. That is: I don’t think Jorg is going “what? No they can cope and seethe.” I think it’s simply a byproduct of living in a society with instant gratification. Remember when Helicopters weren’t even planned? Now that we got helicopters its not good enough for some. Give them time and the game will be exactly as you want it to in due time. Right now you’ve literally done all you could: Drop a wishlist item on the forums, put your two cents in and wait for something to happen.
I’m just going to agree to disagree here. DCS is extremely niche require many hours to learn just one airframe and just more than watching a couple youtube videos. Most simmers interested in DCS just want to push a button and watch a bomb drop instead of having to take the time to program the bomb to drop at the desired time and explode the way you need to, let along learn how to do it in the first place. Not that you can’t get that level of fidelity in MSFS, but like VATSIM its often a challenge and intimidating thing to learn. They go play War Thunder because they just want to get up and explode things.
MSFS is designed as a stepping stone in Flight Simulation. That’s why it’s so accessible and considered a platform. I’m not forced to have a full fidelity mindset like IL2 or DCS and i can work my way to that level at my discretion. With this in mind, i think we’re more likely to see realistic force trim with a 3rd party helicopters that may be released in the future than as a feature of a base game helicopter. Historically speaking, FS has never had a full fidelity plane as part of it’s base lineup. We’ll be lucky to see a fidelity mod for the base game heli’s that add a more proper trim function.
I will omit some parts that are not related to this discussion.
You are not hearing it from me. Unless you will- again- misrepresent my statements. Because “DCS simulates this particular area” is not the same as “I am expecting MSFS to play like DCS”. Please don’t argue in bad faith.
Not related at all. The differences do not matter when we are talking about making the same goal with MSFS- simulating set areas of flying. Those products do it using different methods to achieve different goals, but the same methods are also used to achieve common goals. Your argument is like saying that DCS simulates airframe shaking in helicopters (in an exaggerated way btw), but Asobo should not include this in MSFS (and insert any of your arguments so far).
Is airframe shake useful to communicate that helicopter is entering VRS? Yes. Does it happen IRL? Yes. Would you like MSFS to include it? According to your posts so far- no. According to people who’s voices you’d ignore- yes.
From people who spent so much time, money and effort learning how to fly in DCS despite that sim being not user friendly? Sure, feel free to think anything you want. You are implying very strange and ill motives to people you don’t know. Please don’t.
How are those two sentences related and how is that even an argument? We should close Bugs and Wishlist sections for people who don’t remember when helicopters were planned? Or for all? Should real life pilots (not me) stop giving feedback? I don’t get this at all.
Of course, I encouraged you to read my posts again and I will do it yet again- please read my previous posts, especially the second one in this very topic. I have never said- and I told you that already, so I am not sure why you are bringing it up- that I want Asobo to stop working on other areas and give us Force Trim function right now.
Also, OP introduces the missing feature, how it works and problems I see it comes with. Yet you somehow felt like it had to be argued against it in bad faith. Please don’t do this, it is counter productive.
And- once again- that is great. So now that you are happy with the sim as it is, I think it is fair for people you’d rather ignore to give our reasonable feedback to improve MSFS in those areas that make sense for people interested in full fidelity aspect.
And one last thing: Force Trim as a function is not that complicated from a software POV. SimFFB freeware tool does great job at it and it is very basic at first glance (that is meant to be a compliment). Here is how interface looks like:
And here is a GitHub link to repository:
We need a button assignment to make Force Trim functional. By pressing you can move the cyclic freely and the helicopter responds, when you release the helicopter it maintains the attitude. If you don’t press it, you can move the cyclic to a limited extent and the helicopter will always return to the last attitude it had.
HPG 145 has this function and it works perfectly. We need him native of Asobo
