MU-2 progress towards update

[Emalice]

Sooooo, what shall it be ? An XP9 only Moo in a day or two, or an XPX compatible Moo in a day or two ;-) ?

Out of excitement with the anticipation, I spent my whole week-end flying around in the beautiful MU-2.

Using throttle hardware, I couldn't figure out how to set engines to reverse. Thankfully, overheating brake failures are not yet simulated.

One thing I should mention is that using hardware for propeller control is also tricky in its current state : it will not go lower than taxi, and at its lowest setting the engines will yield 20% RPM with throttle at ground idle. I had to move prop levers a notch forward with the mouse to jump to the nominal 70% RPM.

I hope that whatever solution you find for hardware throttles in V1.5 will work for prop control as well, otherwise I may have just delayed release by another week or two. Some fans out there are going to kill me.

Another quick question, as you know one has to spend half of his time trimming the plane on take-off and approaches : is there a way (planemaker, maybe ?) to adjust the sensitivity of roll trims ? Right now, a single press of the trim button will send the plane rocking to one side or the other. I wish I could achieve a much finer control. Any comments on that ?

Thank you Tom for your hard work, I hope you have a pleasant holiday programmed for after the release.

E.

Edited February 6, 2012 by Emalice

[steven winslow]

E, try lightly or quickly tapping the keys when you are trimming the plane. The longer you leave your finger on the key, the more adjustment you get. It doesn't take much to trim the MU-2, but it takes some finesse. To set your hardware to reverse the engines, go to the keyboard and equipment settings and the advanced menu. Go to the engine controls and you can assign either a key stroke or joystick button to reverse the engines. If you have the Saitek throttle quadrants, the reverse detent acts as a button and you can assign it to reverse the engines. I hope I explained that clearly enough.

[Emalice]

Hi.

Thank you Steven.

Indeed, I thought that there had to be a custom toggle to assign to reverse (much like the default . ) but I know from his posts that Tom wants to find a way around that, and I totally agree with the idea.

Unfortunately I do not have a quadrant yet (soon I hope), but I make do with an X52 for now.

As for roll trim, I have it assigned to a hat, and I only press very gently. The moo is not the only plane with very sensitive trim input, so I do have some practice in that domain, but it is the only one that requires so much roll trim around crucial times. With those very sensitive adjustments of trim, you have to devote a larger part of your multitasking brain to it. If the input was not that sensitive, you could actuate the trim with putting less thought into it. Hence my wish for a way to modulate said sensitivity.

E.

[Dozer]

How's it going Tom? (Can you do me a favour and imagine that I had a good enough grasp of written communication to express enthusiasm for v1.5 when it's released without any overtones of a sense of entitlement or nagging? )

[tkyler]

How's it going Tom?

Very good now. I was waiting to test a very specific situation with a tester and we just did this 2 days ago. It was a success and though there was a few naggling things, it wasn't enough to put off the release and I immediately set about continuing on with the "what's new" manual. Soon as I finish that, it's out. I don't know how long it will take because i write, reread / proofread / add more...etc. But no more MU2 work before release, only the docs...so it shouldn't be much longer (I know I keep saying that).

[Emalice]

I don't know how long it will take because i write, reread / proofread / add more...etc.

Hey Tom.

If you need any help with that process, I am an avid reader of manuals, I must say I really enjoy reading the manual from cover to cover of any plane I get before flying it. It's a bit like opening your christmas present, veeeery slowly, neatly folding the unspoiled wrapping before opening the box.

Well, if you need a beta-tester, proof-reader, typo-spotter for the manual, count me in.

E.

[MaidenFan]

(I know I keep saying that).

Lol!

Looking forward to it!

[Dozer]

Likewise - if you want more proofreadership, you know where to find me!

[larjeet]

Manuals ? Real men don't read instructions LOL push button first ask questions later .

[tkyler]

I will give all you guys a heads up here on the throttle issue for joystick users. I have always had, in the back of my mind, a desire to be able to tie my work into hardware. This usually means going above and beyond what x-plane provides for datarefs for some controls because well....x-plane just doesn't simulate garrett engines and/or beta range properly. I don't really fault Austin for this because the fact of the matter is that a simulator and gaming hardware just isn't the real thing and there are practical limitations when "approximating" a cockpit. The end result is compromise of some sort. Either something isn't exactly right or something isn't convenient....so which is it gonna be? Well of course that will be different for each of us...and might even change on a different day as it did for me.....but none the less, some path has to be chosen.

So regarding the throttle, here's what is going down for joystick users. The first thing you'll need to do is go to the joystick setup screen and set your throttle to "none". THEN, you will reload the MU2 (or load it if another plane was loaded) and simply cycle your throttle full up, then full down. What will happen is the 3D throttle will begin to animate with the joystick as expected. After that, you'll need to set some button, either keyboard or joystick to a custom "toggle_reverse" command. This will then allow your joystick throttle to work as you are used to BUT this time, using my own custom datarefs. I simply have to use custom for now. I believe I can revert this later, when I rewrite the engine model, but the task is too time consuming to deal with now. If nothing else, this is a good foray into customization and perhaps I'll learn something useful for the future. I am building a quadrant also to use with the MU2 and all of this is a bit new. I will say that once you get used to it, it's not too bad. Set throttle to none, load MU2, cycle throttle, fly. I have provided a "reverse indicator light" on the panel in your line of sight also so you'll know if you're in reverse or not. Being that the throttle quadrant is below the camera view usually...you'll want to be nice and sure you're in reverse when you land. I hope that in the future, I can provide configuration customization so folks can have it both ways....convenience OR accuracy. Without custom made hardware, you really can't have both.

This joystick throttle will probably be the biggest change and I do apologize beforehand that users have to set the throttle "back and forth" when switching aircraft (forgetting to set it to none results in some bad behavior). My thoughts on this are that x-plane has not really been the paragon of custom hardware "hosting" and is only just now beginning to explore that area as more competent users come in with hardware programming experience; however, I have always wanted to have my stuff have maximum flexibility and I am certainly not going to NOT pursue features simply because it is inconvenient at times. A great line from a movie I heard recently is: "....First one through the wall gets bloodied up". I'm sorry I'm so messy..I'll try and get cleaned up as fast as I can.

Tom

Edited February 14, 2012 by tkyler

[ksgy]

Tom!

Can you please explain it to us, developers, a little bit more "behind the scenes" about the throttle issue? Is this only a throttle animation related problem, or x-plane can't handle throttle override very well?

I'm asking because I'm working on a custom engine model too and a voice in my mind says: "This can be a huuuge suck if Tom have to make workarounds...."

Thanks!

[tkyler]

The problem starts with the fact that I use Austin's FADEC to limit engine RPM. This setup goes way back to well before I even had the option to override I believe so it just kind of stuck. If I were to override the throttles and use "throttle_ratio" and "throttle_ratio_use", then I would not be having this problem BUT I would also have to write my own "fuel controller" and also my own prop governor. This isn't insurmountable but it is time consuming...and since I didn't really get to this issue till I was almost ready for release, I just decided to do a workaround.

As you know, x-plane will not let you assign custom datarefs to a joystick with it's hardware interface. You can only use the ones in the pull down menu. The standard throttle datarefs have all sorts of intrinsic behavior with the mixture_ratio and prop mode...which clashes heavily with the MU-2s rather specialized behavior. So the only way to take standard joystick input (the throttle_ratio) dataref and do something custom with it is to override the throttles and use "throttle_ratio_use" to actually send fuel to the engine. This de-couples the joystick lever from what goes into x-plane...which is my desire, but as I said, when you do that, you lose Austin's FADEC. So if you completely roll your own engine model...you probably won't see what I am seeing.

My next step will be to do exactly this. I'll override throttles and by doing so can read the standard joystick lever position and write my own custom behavior. I suspect I'll probably have to do a bit more than this because there are 2 different ways you can interact with xplane's throttle as it applies to the MU2. The conventional way of course is to use a command to toggle between reverse and forward...but once I have built my MU2 hardware with real detents, then the behavior of the lever will be different. I hope to be able to have a configuration whereby users can do either eventually.

is there a way (planemaker, maybe ?) to adjust the sensitivity of roll trims ? Right now, a single press of the trim button will send the plane rocking to one side or the other. I wish I could achieve a much finer control. Any comments on that ?

There is a setting in planemaker for the "roll trim rate". It's relatively subjective...but obviously higher times gives finer control. It's easy enough to set yourself in PM. V10 seems to have different rates than V9..but I haven't looked into this thoroughly.

-Tom

Edited February 14, 2012 by tkyler

[ksgy]

Phew, I'm writing my own prop governor and fuel controller, including IELU (a simplest FADEC)

Thank you!

[Dozer]

It seems the safest way to approach X-Plane is to discard as much as possible and write everything yourself

I used the throttle override for the first time this week, when making a plugin which applies reverse thrust only to engines 1 and 4, not 2 and 3. (The same code could be adapted for a 727 or similar.) It's quite satisfying seeing the inboard engine gauges staying at idle while the outboards spool up for reverse thrust on touchdown!

On a similar note I'm about to build my own ADF receiver code from scratch. Did you ever find that two ADF receivers is just not enough...

Edited February 15, 2012 by Dozer

[Emalice]

OMG, this waiting is just killing me. I think I refresh this page 154 times a day on average.

[tkyler]

well let me tell you what's up. You see..I'm involved in about 4 committments at the moment. So when I work on the MU2 and don't reach a goal.....I usually have to wait a couple of days or more before I can get back to it since each committment has imminent needs. So a I generally rotate on the work....and let me tell you, some work pays a lot better than the MU2 sales and well....gotta feed the family still! Well tomorrow is MU2 day and with the MU2 pretty much ready to go (minus some niggling annoyances) tomorrow is pretty much "write docs day". ...and if all goes well, I'll ship it all off to XA for packaging and prepping of screenshots and newspages, etc, which will take a couple of days probably. What can I say...it's getting closer

[Emalice]

Hi Tom.

I had no idea you had so many projects on at the same time. I thought you were making a whole saga out of the Moo's manual :-)

Just out of curiosity, what are the other projects ? If they are also XPlane related, that's a promise of great add-ons to come, right ?

E.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Emalice

[tkyler]

well I like to stay mum nowadays on projects that I'm involved in as I never know where they're going to go..but one of the committments is laminar and another the MU2. The other 2 committments are xplane related yes and will hopefully see light of day by end of summer. They both will be top of the line / state of the art works. I am definitely putting my laminar experience to use. Where I go from there depends a lot on the outcome of those two projects. A lot of developers get a plane or two out as a hobby whereas we are trying to build a business and production machine and given the quality bar we shoot for, that requires lots of experience and infrastructure, which is a lot of what we're doing now. In the end, we hope to produce more top quality works faster. TBH, the MU2 is becoming a bit of an anchor, but one I'm fond of and won't stop improving until it's darn near perfect....but it's not a prime income generator and thus has to be "gotten to" as I can get to it.

We have some great ideas here beyond scenery aircraft and TBH, I can't move fast enough. I think x-plane's best days are still yet to come.

Edited February 18, 2012 by tkyler

[larjeet]

Im dreaming of your RV6 My dad built and owns one and so few have ever tackled a good build but from what I seen of yours Tom . It would be worth waiting along time

[tkyler]

According to Tom, it's very very very close

You mean. very very very very close?

Seriously. writing (and rewriting) the docs is exactly what I'm doing. I'm going through the POH making sure as much of the information is current as I can....and also rewriting the autopilot section to include more info and some examples of operations. Tedious work this document writing stuff. Spent half the day doing it yesterday (other half with greasy fingers tryingn to fix a motorcycle)..and will probably work on them all day today. Too close to stop now.

[larjeet]

Whats this Tom you have plans on releasing a motorcycle for Xplane10?

[Zach Decou]

I personally can't wait for the update. I have been flying the mu2 lately in an attempt to rediscover what ability I once had to properly fly it. I'm giddy.

[tkyler]

awesome! let's remind everybody' what's coming.

[MaidenFan]

Great pics, Tom! I look forward to flying her for myself!

[anders1982]

awesome! let's remind everybody' what's coming.

Truly amazing stuff - can't wait to try it out :-)