[SOLVED] TDC Slew as Controller Axis Deadzones

[tech_op2000]

The TDC Slew Horizontal and TDC Slew Vertical Axis assignments are not respecting deadzones when determining whether a slewing event has taken place. 
 

Steps to reproduce. 
1. Assign TDC Slew Horizontal or TDC Slew Vertical to a controller axis. 
2. Set Deadzone in axis tune to something ridiculous. For my tests I set it to 80 percent.
3. observe that in axis tune an input of less than that threshold causes and input but no output.
4. select the DMT in flight and cage it to velocity vector
5. Move the TDC axis less than the deadzone set. Note that the DMT will uncage and begin ground tracking.

- For me, the DMT will uncage instantly due to any input on the axis. Since it is an axis and is not perfect, this means that for me pressing NWS/Cage will move the DMT to my velocity vector, then it will immediately uncage and begin a ground track. 

 

- It can be noted though that with a very high deadzone, the sensor will not slew at all until after that deadzone is reached.

- expected behavior: If a deadzone is set to the axis, the dmt and other sensors should not recognize an input and uncage until the stick has been moved past the player defined deadzone. 

 

 

 

I meant to put this in the bugs section. feel free to move it.

Edited February 15, 2021 by tech_op2000

[Hawkeye_UK]

There is a thread, running nearly 3 years about the Harrier TDC slew problems for the analogue axis.  As yet still outstanding bug.

[Fri13]

1 hour ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

There is a thread, running nearly 3 years about the Harrier TDC slew problems for the analogue axis.  As yet still outstanding bug.

 

Still difficult to understand how it can still exist....

[tech_op2000]

1 hour ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

There is a thread, running nearly 3 years about the Harrier TDC slew problems for the analogue axis.  As yet still outstanding bug.

 

That is unfortunate to hear. I just picked the module up in the last sale. I had done a bit of searching of terms to find tdc related threads but had not come across one specifically for this bug. Is razbam at least relatively active squashing harrier bugs otherwise?

-on a side note. I was able to work around this problem a bit by setting a joystick deadzone through windows. It works but ideally this would be solvable in game. I had a similar problem with the fa18 hornet when they added grid coord entry. any input on the tdc axis in there would reset the grid selection. That one on the other had was fixable through an in game deadzone. now that i have one in windows I need to go back through all my other modules and remove the in game deadzones. 

[Fri13]

8 minutes ago, tech_op2000 said:

 

That is unfortunate to hear. I just picked the module up in the last sale. I had done a bit of searching of terms to find tdc related threads but had not come across one specifically for this bug. Is razbam at least relatively active squashing harrier bugs otherwise?

 

Others knowledge or opinion can differ, but IMHO they are doing something. It is unknown as they do not really talk about their development progress, roadmaps and such (I have not yet listen their interview about new map). There was a outcry last summer/autumn when Razbam moved Harrier out of Early Access. I recommend that You check out that thread about their actions in Harrier in last years.

 

Since that, they have released mainly two patches, anyone can build their opinions about that, but mine is that it has been least they should do, and while it can be a good start, it is not enough for the feature completed product.

 

8 minutes ago, tech_op2000 said:

-on a side note. I was able to work around this problem a bit by setting a joystick deadzone through windows. It works but ideally this would be solvable in game. I had a similar problem with the fa18 hornet when they added grid coord entry. any input on the tdc axis in there would reset the grid selection. That one on the other had was fixable through an in game deadzone. now that i have one in windows I need to go back through all my other modules and remove the in game deadzones. 

 

That is possibly answering for some of problems that the axis programming seems to be for Razbam. As it is clever way to go around the game to do it and I have not done that, regardless I have got the assumption that Harrier doesn't listen the axis inputs properly. I am little confused that how can the DCS input system even transmit the axis raw data to the module, as it should be the gatekeeper to translate the DirectX input to the module code with the user adjusted settings. So what you say is what fixes it, then it is evidence that Razbam has gone around the DCS input system and that is reason why they have problems with it. Last year (IIRC) they blamed the customers from faulty hardware and tried to explain how difficult it is to program the axis system as there is so many sensors.... Like what does it have to do with anything that how many sensors you have, when you just listen the DCS axis output as input? Same way as real Harrier has just one input for one thing, DCS offers one axis binding if so wanted.

 

 

 

[wowbagger]

 

2 hours ago, Hawkeye_UK said:

There is a thread, running nearly 3 years about the Harrier TDC slew problems for the analogue axis.  As yet still outstanding bug.

1 hour ago, Fri13 said:

 

Still difficult to understand how it can still exist....

 

Even more difficult to understand how it can still exist in the Resolved Bugs forum ...

 

[Fri13]

20 minutes ago, wowbagger said:

Even more difficult to understand how it can still exist in the Resolved Bugs forum ...

 

It is not. The Razbam moves bugs to resolved forum when they have acknowledged them. The list doesn't mean anything that is the bug really fixed or not. It can be in the developers unknown scheduled to-do list, or it can be just in the X-files.

 

 

[netizensmith]

Regardless of the problem (I'm just looking for solutions) I've found that not bothering too much with a deadzone and instead setting the Curves to this for both X and Y axis gives me a workable TDC slew, From the top of the AXIS Tune settings and going down the 4 settings:

 

3

100

30

30

 

The A-10 C II comes like this out the box and (during the free to play session I tried it out) I noticed TDC slewing was pretty good so I just copied the settings.

[veenee]

I think this TDC problem has been fixed some time ago, I now came back to Harrier and it is there again....

[SGT Coyle]

23 hours ago, tech_op2000 said:

- For me, the DMT will uncage instantly due to any input on the axis. Since it is an axis and is not perfect, this means that for me pressing NWS/Cage will move the DMT to my velocity vector, then it will immediately uncage and begin a ground track. 

 

- It can be noted though that with a very high deadzone, the sensor will not slew at all until after that deadzone is reached.

- expected behavior: If a deadzone is set to the axis, the dmt and other sensors should not recognize an input and uncage until the stick has been moved past the player defined deadzone. 

 

Have you tried your TDC deadzone settings on the TPOD and Maverics.  I have noticed that there exists issues with the TDC and the DMT that aren't necessarily present in other sensors.

[Fri13]

5 hours ago, netizensmith said:

The A-10 C II comes like this out the box and (during the free to play session I tried it out) I noticed TDC slewing was pretty good so I just copied the settings.

 

All axis should be by default:

0% Deadzone

100% for both saturations

0% curves

 

Checked out on two fresh installations for A-10C II and all are as should, default.

[netizensmith]

Well mine wasn’t. It was as I said and it works great like that. Are you on steam version or standalone?

 

The important part of my post is the values, which I find make the slew control on a thrustmaster warthog throttle useable fir the first time ever. Up till now I’d used the analog thumb stick on my VKB joystick as the throttle one was unusable.

Edited February 16, 2021 by netizensmith

[Fri13]

1 hour ago, netizensmith said:

Well mine wasn’t. It was as I said and it works great like that. Are you on steam version or standalone?

 

Standalone, but it doesn't matter, as you have the difference.

 

1 hour ago, netizensmith said:

The important part of my post is the values, which I find make the slew control on a thrustmaster warthog throttle useable fir the first time ever.

 

That is the difference, as DCS comes with premade profile for the TM Warthog so it gets loaded at first time. So all the bindings are 1:1 with the controller. Regards from the Thrustmaster.

 

1 hour ago, netizensmith said:

Up till now I’d used the analog thumb stick on my VKB joystick as the throttle one was unusable.

 

Well, you can go to adjust those axis in all modules... But the one key thing is that the TM Warthog throttle axis hat requires modding.

 

I have come to dislike all the index finger TDC operations, be it any controller. It feels always just wrong to use the opposite side of the throttle to do such action.

That is what I so like about the Harrier that its TDC makes sense and it is well designed placement.

[tech_op2000]

5 hours ago, SGT Coyle said:

Have you tried your TDC deadzone settings on the TPOD and Maverics.  I have noticed that there exists issues with the TDC and the DMT that aren't necessarily present in other sensors.

So, to test your request; I have just tested this with the TPOD and with Mavericks. The behavior is the same. The harrier honors the deadzone for slewing. BUT, does not honor the deadzone to uncage.

Same method applies. Same result
for TPOD: set TPOD as SOI. 
NWS twice to re-center TPOD
with deadzone set high. move axis less than would be required to pass deadzone.
Note that TPOD begins a ground track instead of being slaved.
Also note that TPOD does not slew until after passing the defined deadzone.

Same worked for mavericks. Though I don't yet know how to Re-Slave the maverick to boresight other than flying too far off of where the seeker is pointed

So, it appears that across the board for sensors, the harrier detects raw inputs on an axis for determining if a slew has taken place. but does not actually slew said sensors until a user defined output is detected.

I will note here as I did in an earlier post. I solved this problem by setting a deadzone outside of DCS.

Edited February 16, 2021 by tech_op2000

[tech_op2000]

Here is an additional spooky behavior of the TDC Slew. If I begin slewing using a combination of horizontal and or vertical movement then start or stop using one while attempting to maintain the other. the tdc stops. I then have to stop completely and restart slewing. 
By combinations I mean:

vertical only
horizontal only
horizontal and vertical simultaneously

So as an example. I move my axis to the left to begin a horizontal slew.
I then also move in the vertical axis to presumably begin a diagonal slew.
All Slewing stops.
 

[wowbagger]

20 minutes ago, tech_op2000 said:

Here is an additional spooky behavior of the TDC Slew. If I begin slewing using a combination of horizontal and or vertical movement then start or stop using one while attempting to maintain the other. the tdc stops. I then have to stop completely and restart slewing. 
By combinations I mean:

vertical only
horizontal only
horizontal and vertical simultaneously

So as an example. I move my axis to the left to begin a horizontal slew.
I then also move in the vertical axis to presumably begin a diagonal slew.
All Slewing stops.
 

 

Mine behaves in exactly the same way as you describe - frustratingly annoying.

[SGT Coyle]

32 minutes ago, tech_op2000 said:

Here is an additional spooky behavior of the TDC Slew. If I begin slewing using a combination of horizontal and or vertical movement then start or stop using one while attempting to maintain the other. the tdc stops. I then have to stop completely and restart slewing. 
By combinations I mean:

vertical only
horizontal only
horizontal and vertical simultaneously

So as an example. I move my axis to the left to begin a horizontal slew.
I then also move in the vertical axis to presumably begin a diagonal slew.
All Slewing stops.
 

Behavior like that needs to have a trk file uploaded.  
Try upload one please.

[tech_op2000]

4 hours ago, SGT Coyle said:

Behavior like that needs to have a trk file uploaded.  
Try upload one please.

As you wish. During this short flight, I am moving my TDC in circles. As it goes to to diagonals, it stops, and only starts again when I either stop slewing or move to a straight up/down or left/right slew.

tdcslew.trk

[Fri13]

16 hours ago, tech_op2000 said:

As you wish. During this short flight, I am moving my TDC in circles. As it goes to to diagonals, it stops, and only starts again when I either stop slewing or move to a straight up/down or left/right slew.

tdcslew.trk 347.19 kB · 3 downloads

 

It is known bug. The TDC axis stops accepting input from other axis when you cross the axis.

Like moving physical hat from right to left over the up direction of axis.

 

 

You can feel this to happen with the TV mode with small resistance, and see it on the HUD how the TV designator box will blink each time it happens and it doesn't just stop on that axis position so you would need to start it again to opposite side.

 

[tech_op2000]

I have an interesting addition to this. I experience the same tdc stop behavior when trying to go diagonal with the TGP for the A10C 2. Same for the HMCS cursor. But not for the HUD cursor. Very strange, but at least that shows that whatever funny business is going on there is affecting some ED modules as well. Still though, i haven't found any other modules that have my first issue of deadzones not being respected.

[Fri13]

On 2/18/2021 at 10:14 PM, tech_op2000 said:

I have an interesting addition to this. I experience the same tdc stop behavior when trying to go diagonal with the TGP for the A10C 2. Same for the HMCS cursor. But not for the HUD cursor. Very strange, but at least that shows that whatever funny business is going on there is affecting some ED modules as well. Still though, i haven't found any other modules that have my first issue of deadzones not being respected.

 

I don't get it with the A-10C II at all, only the Harrier has this problem.

For some reason it seems that Razbam has ignored the DCS input system and feeds directly from the Windows drivers. That might be the reason why they have had so much problems as they have needed to make every single sensor and system using TDC to obey the Windows side, instead just following the DCS input/output system.

 

But there might be some problems in DCS World in the 14 bit and 16 bit inputs, as the 8 bit hats works a lot better in Harrier than those higher resolution ones.

[veenee]

yep, no such problem with the Hog