reported Image Capture?

[dporter22]

Anyone know what 'Image Capture' (Left Throttle Button Long) does exactly, and has anyone ever figured out how to easily assign a long press to a HOTAS control if I'd like it to do something other than capture an image?

[dporter22]

Anyone?

[dporter22]

So we have a HOTAS button/function that is not discussed anywhere in the manual, doesn't do anything (that I can tell) in the sim, nobody knows what it's for, and the sim still doesn't allow us to reassign long presses in order to assign it to something useful.

 

Am I missing something or not understanding something correctly?  

 

 

 

 

[AstonMartinDBS]

Obviously nobody knows, what that feature does exactly or when it'll be implemented.

Maybe it's designed to make a screenshot of the L or R MFCD and transmit it via DL. But maybe something other...

[Taco-Taylor]

On 3/22/2021 at 4:11 PM, dporter22 said:

So we have a HOTAS button/function that is not discussed anywhere in the manual, doesn't do anything (that I can tell) in the sim, nobody knows what it's for

Well the phraseology of the keybinding seems to be accurate and as suspected it's an IRL feature that is not implemented in our A-10.
From what i understand it is in fact to do with saving then sending whatever is displaying on the MFDs (aka an image) over Datalink upon a long press of the left throttle button (LAAP Engage). 
Basically goes like this from what i could gather-
Left Throttle Button Long press, it will then by default capture the right MFDs image (or the left if LMFD is SOI), it'll then count down til its saved it and after that it is then stored and can be send across the 'airwaves' aka data link.
So technically the bind is there but just has no use in DCS currently, as for rebinding it i doubt that'll be possible probably best off just using modifiers instead 

Edited March 23, 2021 by Taco-Taylor

[dporter22]

If it's yet to be implemented, why is that not made clear in the manual or with a simple posting on the website?  Just another one of the many errors in the which ED won't address.

Edited March 23, 2021 by dporter22

[Fri13]

It might be same Harrier has before Warthog, that you can send and receive pictures and text over datalink to JTAC. You ball then back and worth, where JTAC can draw to you on the picture you sent that what is target and where are friends etc. 

The Harrier systems as well allows to send TPOD video to ground units that has the L3 Remote Operations Video Enhanced Receiver (Rover).

 

So likely that same feature was added to warthog as well.

 

But DCS doesn't support that. It requires that Combined Arms would get support to that and could link with Harrier and Warthog to see pictures/video and in JTAC case send the 9-line digitally to Harrier pilot that simply accepts or rejects it until both are happy.

 

So if it is coming, it would be cool to be ground unit and get pictures from targets etc.

[Taco-Taylor]

1 hour ago, dporter22 said:

Why is that not made clear in the manual or with a simple posting on the website?  Just another one of the many errors in the which ED won't address.

Why should a feature not in DCS be included in the DCS Manual of the product? Cluttering the manuals with "this exists but you can use it" seems pretty pointless

[Fri13]

14 minutes ago, Taco-Taylor said:

Why should a feature not in DCS be included in the DCS Manual of the product? Cluttering the manuals with "this exists but you can use it" seems pretty pointless

 

Ahem.... KA-50 manual has many "not modeled" parts.

[Northstar98]

19 minutes ago, Taco-Taylor said:

Why should a feature not in DCS be included in the DCS Manual of the product? Cluttering the manuals with "this exists but you can use it" seems pretty pointless

 

The F-14 has numerous notes telling you how it works IRL vs in DCS and whether or not it's implemented.

 

As for the point of it, well you're commenting on a thread which kinda highlights what the point would be...

[Taco-Taylor]

I do agree that if this was some physical panel or switch which was there in the game but not implemented it would make sense to document it but this is a feature that uses a function of an already existing button that has 1 visual cue on the MFDs to go along with it that you won't see in the sim anyways.
Rebinding buttons for long pressed would be cool but i don't exactly see how you'd implement that using the current control assignment mechanics.

[Fri13]

1 hour ago, Taco-Taylor said:

Rebinding buttons for long pressed would be cool but i don't exactly see how you'd implement that using the current control assignment mechanics.

 

Little off-topic but:

That would be so cool to have, as many joystick firmware's supports such functionality to separate a short and long press as different Input ID (games see a different button). 

 

I don't see a problem to make it for the DCS World as well, where the game registers DirectInput as now but it will register it separately as Short or Long, as well it could even support such features like "On Release".  We already have modifier and shift functions, and those should as well be used for various systems as Button + Shift. In a way that if just the button is pressed then it is a button, but if a button + another button is pressed then modifier is used. 

 

The current control assignment would be added with a tic box to set the binded button mode. So you do it just like right now but then there is a tick box for "double press" or "long press" or "on release". Just like with axis we can tic a box for "Inverted" or "Slider" etc, and game reads the input from DirectInput and then outputs it at configured manner to the module. 

There could even be a small value box with 0.1-1.0 second value in 0.1 second steps to set the time when long press is registered or inside what the double press need to happen. 

 

 

 

[dporter22]

2 hours ago, Taco-Taylor said:

Why should a feature not in DCS be included in the DCS Manual of the product? Cluttering the manuals with "this exists but you can use it" seems pretty pointless

Seems pretty obvious, you include information in the manual so users know how to operate the controls and fly the sim properly, and so they know whether something is supposed to work or not.  There are multiple instances in the manual where it is indicated that some function or another is not modeled in the sim. 

 

When the manual labels a HOTAS function which doesn't work, and then ED fails to provide any further information, the user is left wondering if they're doing something wrong, if their controls are malfunctioning, if there is a problem with their installation, spending time on these and other forums trying to figure it out, etc.

 

This is just another example of ED's failure to simply keep the manual updated and/or otherwise provide current information for customers.  

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, dporter22 said:

This is just another example of ED's failure to simply keep the manual updated and/or otherwise provide current information for customers.  

 

Yeah, ED is such a bad company .. it should be more like Microsoft, with is great new flight simulator that doesn't even bother with providing a manual.

[Charly_Owl]

5 hours ago, dporter22 said:

This is just another example of ED's failure to simply keep the manual updated and/or otherwise provide current information for customers.  

 

I don't know how many 600-page technical manuals you have written in your life, but please, do realize that it's not a difficult job to do... it's an INSANELY difficult job to do, even for professionals. Most of the information in the A-10 manual is correct, but there could be a few mistakes here and there. Flagging them is the best we can do.

Edited March 24, 2021 by Charly_Owl

[dporter22]

I'd have to respectfully disagree; it's not that difficult to run a spell check, have a few proofreaders look over things, correct errors when they're found, and when you release new versions or new capabilites you simply make the changes.  It's just a pdf file, very easy to keep updated. 

 

Like my question regarding image capture, someone put that on the HOTAS list knowing that it wasn't discussed anywhere in the manual and knowing that they didn't include any explanation.  It would have taken them 5 seconds to type, "Not currently functional" and hit save.

 

There are lots of users including myself who would be happy to help with the manual. 

[Charly_Owl]

Oh, I've seen my share of people who are convinced that they know better because they can run a few procedures and find typos. More often than not, their tune changes once they actually have to write the whole thing... from scratch... on a product that is still in development... where not every system is fully completed yet... on data (or lack thereof) that might be subject to interpretation... within a tight deadline... and not necessarily in their mother tongue.

 

Feel free to reach out to ED staff members if you want to "show them how it's done", by all means. However, I'm not quite sure how far this attitude will get you.

 

Respectfully, I think you mean well, but dismissing the task of documenting a complex simulation product as something that's just "easy" appears to me as ill-informed at best.

Edited March 24, 2021 by Charly_Owl

[Fri13]

5 hours ago, Charly_Owl said:

I don't know how many 600-page technical manuals you have written in your life, but please, do realize that it's not a difficult job to do... it's an INSANELY difficult job to do, even for professionals. Most of the information in the A-10 manual is correct, but there could be a few mistakes here and there. Flagging them is the best we can do.

 

I disagree it being insanely difficult, as comparing to people who does actual manual writing. Example those that does technical manuals and translations from a French and German to English, and those who does write nuclear plants technical manuals for operators and emergency rescuers, and has done for nuclear submarines as well, not to forget people who does translations from the legislations between nations legal agreements and drafts etc.

 

Compared to such a work, maintaining a A-10C manual for a DCS World is easier as you already have work to done for you in military and manufacturer corresponding department.

 

Sure it is not so easy that anyone could do a such manual and maintain it, but it is not insanely difficult either.

 

Like talk as well alone programmers task to comment a code they write.

 

Everyone does mistakes, and some are acceptable more than less.

And IIRC ED lost a year (or two) ago a person who was responsible for their manual writing, and they needed to get a new one. Or something like that for one project.... 

It can be a full day job.

[LeCuvier]

Writing a manual for a system that complex, with a feature set that's in flux,is a challenge no doubt. But that's not the point.

If a feature is not implemented then there is no point providing a binding for it that does strictly nothing. Plus, there is no point mentioning the command in the chart on page 93 of the manual. Just not doing something that's totally useless is neither complex nor demanding too much. But if the plan is to add the feature later then a little note like "not implemented (yet?)" is the least we can expect.

[Taco-Taylor]

14 hours ago, dporter22 said:

When the manual labels a HOTAS function which doesn't work, and then ED fails to provide any further information, the user is left wondering if they're doing something wrong

Which is exactly why the LAAP Engage Long depress column should have been left out of the manual imo
But it's pretty easy to see what happened someone got told to replicate the real -1s control function definitions and left it at that without marking or removing the inop function, easy fix once flagged.
 

[Fri13]

 

 

Edited March 24, 2021 by Fri13

[SmirkingGerbil]

9 hours ago, Charly_Owl said:

 

I don't know how many 600-page technical manuals you have written in your life, but please, do realize that it's not a difficult job to do... it's an INSANELY difficult job to do, even for professionals. Most of the information in the A-10 manual is correct, but there could be a few mistakes here and there. Flagging them is the best we can do.

 

I have sir.

It is very difficult, and then you rely on the good graces of friends, co-workers and volunteers to wade through your monstrosity and find all the punctuation, spelling and syntax errors.

Even after all that, when they finally go to print, you still find mistakes.

Wanna be tech writers waxing on about how they could do it better . . . is just mental masturbation, and a boring descent into another monologue about how it should be done.

Fine, you have an idea how it should be done, make sure to line up and volunteer to read the damn thing 3 times over before I release it. Then you can critique it.

[dporter22]

I have volunteered, several times. 

 

All I said was there are errors in the manual which could easily be fixed and ED has not done so.  That is a factual statement.

 

Why is there so much animosity towards me when all I've done is point out an ongoing area which needs improvement and which would help the user?

 

It's irrelevent whether I've written technical manuals (I have), it's irreleveant how long the manual is (you don't have to rewrite the entire manual, just make corrections and add updates), it's irrelevant whether someone's opinion is that it is difficult to make corrections (it's not), and it's irrelevent that the module is complex and evolving (it takes a few seconds to add "Not currently functional").

Edited March 24, 2021 by dporter22

[Yurgon]

10 minutes ago, dporter22 said:

All I said was there are errors in the manual which could easily be fixed and ED has not done so.

 

File a bug report.

 

My experience is that ED will implement corrections at some point, once they've been made aware.

Edited March 24, 2021 by Yurgon

[Rudel_chw]

39 minutes ago, dporter22 said:

Why is there so much animosity towards me when all I've done is point out an ongoing area which needs improvement and which would help the user?

 

 

Perhaps your tone, using expressions like " just another example of ED's failure ", can explain the animosity ... you just didnt seem intrerested on genuinely helping to correct a bug on a manual, just wanted to rant about how bad is the quality of ED's work. I'm not interested on that kind of attitude, so I will just add you to the ignore list in order to save myself the grief of reading your critics.