PSA: INS alignment solution for OB 2.5.5.31917

A lot of people have been experiencing a situation where despite the INS showing 0.5 OK during alignment, they don't get the Moving Map, their current coordinates and the distance to waypoints shows as 4000+ miles. This is due to insufficient/incomplete INS alignment.

Solution: Instead of turning the INS knob to NAV immediately after 0.5 OK is displayed, let it keep aligning for a little more (I counted 1 extra minute, but it might vary from case to case, I don't know), until you get the Moving Map, with you current position and your current coordinates displayed. After that, turn the dial to NAV and :pilotfly:.

As i wrote in the bugs section. Just leave INS in OFF and wait. Everything will appear after some time and you can then switch to NAV and fly.

Does this mean that INS alignment is (partially?) implemented now?

What is INS alignment?

What is INS alignment?

The necessary alignment of the INS (Inertial Navigation System) to the actual, physical location your plane is located at. The system in the Hornet so far has been a placeholder and the team is starting to implement the correct procedure now, so that's why we are seeing changes.

Interestingly I tried this method, and twice now I have fallen through the map.

I just noticed my count down was much faster than it should be, like maybe it counts 2 seconds every 1 real second.

EDIT: However I still can't get INS to work, still thinks I am at N 0*00.0000' e 0*00.0000' regardless of how long I wait in off and/or GND align. With and without mods.

I just noticed my count down was much faster than it should be, like maybe it counts 2 seconds every 1 real second.

 

 

EDIT: However I still can't get INS to work, still thinks I am at N 0*00.0000' e 0*00.0000' regardless of how long I wait in off and/or GND align. With and without mods.

So you're all started up, you put the dial to GND and nothing happens? I only tried to align on the carrier, with CV and noticed that I needed to wait about 1 minute more after it showed 0.5 OK, before I got the correct alignment. I only tried it on the PG map.

Yeah, in the past as soon as the AMPCD came up with HSI the map was immediately there.

Now There is no map as per the pic attached.

I did find that after removing all mods it will work eventually, I wasn't patient enough before.

So i'm slowly going through enabling mods one at a time to see where it falls over.

Frustrating thing about this is my friend is being a douche about it cause he has no such problem :huh:

EDIT: Found the mod that was causing my problems. I had modified the kneeboard position as per this reddit post https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/az3i7q/kneeboard_position_on_multiple_monitors_which/

Don't understand why that would cause my problems, but in single player i fast forward for some 20 minutes in game time and INS would never get right when that mod was enabled...

Yeah, in the past as soon as the AMPCD came up with HSI the map was immediately there.

That's normal. Alignment wasn't implemented before, you could immediately flip the knob to NAV and you'd be good to go. Now they finally started developing the INS/GPS system and we're getting something that actually needs to align.

Think about it, how would you get the map at the start of alignment IRL? The system has no idea where it is, so it's more likely to default to N0/E0 coordinates (Null Island) and start from there, as we see now. Or to another default reference point. And in all likelihood, you don't have the map corresponding to N0/E0 loaded in your system, hence you don't get a map, until the system has already more or less aligned. Imagine opening Google Maps on your phone, but in Airplane mode.

That's normal. Alignment wasn't implemented before, you could immediately flip the knob to NAV and you'd be good to go. Now they finally started developing the INS/GPS system and we're getting something that actually needs to align.

 

Think about it, how would you get the map at the start of alignment IRL? The system has no idea where it is, so it's more likely to default to N0/E0 coordinates (Null Island) and start from there, as we see now. Or to another default reference point. And in all likelihood, you don't have the map corresponding to N0/E0 loaded in your system, hence you don't get a map, until the system has already more or less aligned. Imagine opening Google Maps on your phone, but in Airplane mode.

The coordinates of WP0 have to be in the system for it to align to, hence it should know where it is.... its job is to get the INS to agree.

Yep, I fell into bad habits!

Regardless of my poor start up procedures that kneeboard mod definitely caused the INS not to align at all.

More research found that the latest update changed some things in the device_init.lua for the F18. Fixing that mod for OvGME made things a LOT better!

The coordinates of WP0 have to be in the system for it to align to, hence it should know where it is.... its job is to get the INS to agree.

I don't know how it goes IRL, but it makes sense to me that the system would need some alignment before it shows your current position.

Well my understanding is the HSI shows your position (horizontal situation), and INS can be a source for that. So can other sources.

You asked 'how would you get the map to start of alignment IRL', as I said the presumption in the navigation system, as I recall it, is that waypoint zero is your start point, thus it knows where you are, and where the map should be.

INS isn't a system that can work out where you are, like GPS... it can only tell you how far you've gone and in which direction, from where you started.

Not sure how it’s coded in the game...but WPs are WPs...and that is not really PP (present position). With straight INS, you need to input PP manually into the system. IRL, the INUs have a battery that retains the info. With the way the new stuff works, it is GPS assisted so the GPS pulls in the coords and hands off to the INU.

INS is not really just about your location on the map, it is also used to know how the aicraft is oriented in 3D space.

Still very frustrated. INS is not working for me. We are talking for a clean installation without any mod installed. I start the A/C manually, I auto start it, I tried all the above mentioned tips waiting for the map to appear in GND before switching it to NAV. It doesn't work even if I set up the aircraft parking hot.

What about ED? Did they mentioned anything about this issue? When do they plan to fix it?

Can't test it atm, but have you checked the A/C Data page on the HSI before starting the alignment? It has to give you your current location as this data will be transfered from the mission computer to the INS for a GND alignment. If Not, you have to input your coords manually. At least that's what the NATOPS says.

Can't test it atm, but have you checked the A/C Data page on the HSI before starting the alignment? It has to give you your current location as this data will be transfered from the mission computer to the INS for a GND alignment. If Not, you have to input your coords manually. At least that's what the NATOPS says.

It's a bit tricky on a moving carrier with no SINS :)

I couldn't manage to align INS on the carrier so far.

It's for GND only. On a CV the System will hook up to the SINS and get the data from it. But there is a way to do this manually on a CV. It's also described in the NATOPS. I don't have my PC avaiable atm, so this is more a guess then a solution for the sim.

Can't test it atm, but have you checked the A/C Data page on the HSI before starting the alignment? It has to give you your current location as this data will be transfered from the mission computer to the INS for a GND alignment. If Not, you have to input your coords manually. At least that's what the NATOPS says.

The initial position in data page is ok. As I mentioned, I have tested several times, even with the aircraft in parking hot.

Here is my diagnosis.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3940404&postcount=6

Nice Joke!!!

Still very frustrated. INS is not working for me. We are talking for a clean installation without any mod installed. I start the A/C manually, I auto start it, I tried all the above mentioned tips waiting for the map to appear in GND before switching it to NAV. It doesn't work even if I set up the aircraft parking hot.

 

What about ED? Did they mentioned anything about this issue? When do they plan to fix it?

Yesterday i struggled all day with the INS not aligning dispite all the workarounds i found in the forum...there are atleast 3 threads talking about it.

I was working on a campaign set in 1987...then i tryed to create a completely new mission. I simply put a Hornet at a parking hot. I started the mission and the INS was properly aligned. At first i started thinking that the problem was in my scripts that were somehow interferring and not compatible with the new patch. So i started to delete one by one evry scripted stuff to understand what was wrong. At the end i was in the situation where there was just a hornet sitting at parking hot in the map....nothing else...no other units, no scripts, no triggers. So i realized that the only difference between my mission e the one i created from scratch after the patch was the date...1987 vs 2019.

So i edited all the my scripted mission changing the date to something after 2000 and finally the INS alignement worked as intendended !!

So not a joke..at least for me worked.

Yesterday i struggled all day with the INS not aligning dispite all the workarounds i found in the forum...there are atleast 3 threads talking about it.

I was working on a campaign set in 1987...then i tryed to create a completely new mission. I simply put a Hornet at a parking hot. I started the mission and the INS was properly aligned. At first i started thinking that the problem was in my scripts that were somehow interferring and not compatible with the new patch. So i started to delete one by one evry scripted stuff to understand what was wrong. At the end i was in the situation where there was just a hornet sitting at parking hot in the map....nothing else...no other units, no scripts, no triggers. So i realized that the only difference between my mission e the one i created from scratch after the patch was the date...1987 vs 2019.

So i edited all the my scripted mission changing the date to something after 2000 and finally the INS alignement worked as intendended !!

 

So not a joke..at least for me worked.

Many thanks Mate!!! Unfortunately, we haven't found any solution yet.

Yesterday i struggled all day with the INS not aligning dispite all the workarounds i found in the forum...there are atleast 3 threads talking about it.

I was working on a campaign set in 1987...then i tryed to create a completely new mission. I simply put a Hornet at a parking hot. I started the mission and the INS was properly aligned. At first i started thinking that the problem was in my scripts that were somehow interferring and not compatible with the new patch. So i started to delete one by one evry scripted stuff to understand what was wrong. At the end i was in the situation where there was just a hornet sitting at parking hot in the map....nothing else...no other units, no scripts, no triggers. So i realized that the only difference between my mission e the one i created from scratch after the patch was the date...1987 vs 2019.

So i edited all the my scripted mission changing the date to something after 2000 and finally the INS alignement worked as intendended !!

 

So not a joke..at least for me worked.

Thank you very much for this. Your suggestion fixed my problems. I'll update my bug report, hopefully this info leads to ED figuring this out quicker. Some additional info:

I noticed my mission was already in year 2011. I edited it to 1988. Saved. Fly. It's still not working.

Re-edited the mission, changed date to 2019. Saved. Fly. Fixed!

Hot start is fixed right off.

Cold start in the hornet takes +54 seconds after you get 0.5 OK before the coordinates update, map shows up, and waypoints have proper distances. At that point you can move to NAV.

Interestingly, I haven't had to edit any other mission after doing this. Now all missions I have tried, even those with the default date of Jun 1 2011, work fine.

I did some more narrowing down and it appears the magic date and time is 3/28/1994 at 00:00:00. Anything AFTER this date and time and INS works fine (once you fix it with the above steps). Anything before and including this time and it doesn't work. Yes, 3/28/94 at 00:00:00 doesn't work, but a mission time of 00:00:01 does work. If you start at 00:00:00 it does NOT start working once you hit 00:00:01. This was tested on PG and Caucasus, and the date/time is the same on both to trigger and fix the issue.

In summary to fix the INS alignment, it appears you have to edit a single mission to have a start date pre-1994, save it. Fly. Re-edit to have a start date after Mar 28 1994 at 0:0:01, save. Fly. And your problem is fixed - as long as your mission doesn't have a start date before 3/28/94 0:0:01.