Fly-By-Wire 0.9 Discussion

[Driver8]

Hello

Trying Fly-by-Wire 0.9 for the first time, and seem to be having a similar problem as yagni01 had earlier, but with ALL axis'. I am using a CH FlightSim Yoke and Rudder Pedals (both USB). Basically, i can assign all the controls fine and they seem to work when i assign them, but once i save the settings and go back in all the axis' seem to be frozen. Nothing is working in-game.

Had throttle set to keyboard only orignally in Orbiter's joystick tab, then tried disabling the controller altogether, but neither worked.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

 

[yagni01]

Hello

Trying Fly-by-Wire 0.9 for the first time, and seem to be having a similar problem as yagni01 had earlier, but with ALL axis'. I am using a CH FlightSim Yoke and Rudder Pedals (both USB). Basically, i can assign all the controls fine and they seem to work when i assign them, but once i save the settings and go back in all the axis' seem to be frozen. Nothing is working in-game.

Had throttle set to keyboard only orignally in Orbiter's joystick tab, then tried disabling the controller altogether, but neither worked.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!

PM me your email and I'll let you try the patch he sent me. Apparently the CH products have trailing spaces in their names.

Earth to Redburne: It's time to come inside, now. :lol:

 

[Redburne]

Earth to Redburne: It's time to come inside, now. :lol:

Alas, no space walk for me. Just a little vacation in Denmark. Some EVA was involved, though.

Apparently the CH products have trailing spaces in their names.

Looks very much like it.

Here's the link to the version I've whipped up for yagni01:

http://oliverpieper.de/orbiter/FlyByWireCore.zip

Unzip the file to your <Orbiter>\Modules\FlyByWire folder and try again, please. You'll have to re-configure the throttle, as I had to change the ini format slightly. Device names are now enclosed in square brackets to preserve blanks.

Hope this helps!

 

[Driver8]

Thanks guys!

Redburne,
I tried the version that yagni01 sent me - it only fixed the throttle. Not sure if that is the exact same one you posted or not...

However, i read what you said about the brackets, so i went into the ini file manually. Sure enough, only the throttle had the brackets (i did completely re-assign those in the config screen). So i manually added the brackets around all the other instances of my controllers, including the space at the end, and now all is well!

Now i just gotta get all the "reverse inputs" fixed up and i'll be set

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Hello. I've encountered what may be a bug in Fly-By-Wire. I was getting extreme rotation with high time acceleration, which I have dubbed the "spin of doom".

I've used AbsoluteKillRot version 1.2, and after that failed to fix the problem, I used the built in scenario editor to kill my rotation in the manner described here. Neither worked to prevent the "spin of doom" from occurring again. They certainly worked to kill my rotation once time acceleration was normal, but as soon as I would accelerate past 100x or so, the spin began again.

What I also noticed was that I gradually lost fuel. In the case of the Delta Glider I lost RCS fuel, and with vessels like Deepstar I just lost normal fuel, since that's all there is. This led me to believe that perhaps something was firing slightly, even though I had switched off RCS and all throttles were at zero.

Then I tried deactivating the Fly-By-Wire module (version 0.9 beta). It's got the most excellent configuration system I've ever seen for a joystick/controller, allowing for great customization. I had been using it with my XBox controller (original, not 360). As much as I enjoyed Fly-By-Wire, deactivating it has apparently fixed the "spin of doom" problem. No more unexplained fuel loss either.

Has anyone else found this problem and can they confirm whether Fly-By-Wire was the cause? Deactivating the module seems to have worked for me, but to be scientific about it, it helps if the results can be duplicated. For all I know, it could have been the controller or its 3rd-party driver.

 

[yagni01]

What I also noticed was that I gradually lost fuel. In the case of the Delta Glider I lost RCS fuel, and with vessels like Deepstar I just lost normal fuel, since that's all there is. This led me to believe that perhaps something was firing slightly, even though I had switched off RCS and all throttles were at zero.

Then I tried deactivating the Fly-By-Wire module (version 0.9 beta). It's got the most excellent configuration system I've ever seen for a joystick/controller, allowing for great customization. I had been using it with my XBox controller (original, not 360). As much as I enjoyed Fly-By-Wire, deactivating it has apparently fixed the "spin of doom" problem. No more unexplained fuel loss either.

Has anyone else found this problem and can they confirm whether Fly-By-Wire was the cause? Deactivating the module seems to have worked for me, but to be scientific about it, it helps if the results can be duplicated. For all I know, it could have been the controller or its 3rd-party driver.

Did you try increasing the deadzone?

 

[Spike Spiegel]

I did try increasing the deadzones (in Fly-By-Wire and in the controller driver's config program), but the sticks were only used for control surfaces, and the triggers only used for throttles. RCS was set up to use the buttons and while some of them are analog, configuring their deadzones in Fly-By-Wire didn't fix the problem.

Just to test if it was the controller itself, I disabled Fly-By-Wire and set up controls using a combination of Keybinder Wizard 1.0 ([ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2848"]Keybinder Wizard 1.0[/ame]) and a little program called JoyToKey (http://www.electracode.com/4/joy2key/JoyToKey English Version.htm). With just that stuff running, the spin of doom did not seem to occur. So right now I'm thinking the problem does lie with Fly-By-Wire. More accurately, it could be some disagreement between Fly-By-Wire and my XBox controller.

Thanks for all your help at least.

 

[Hielor]

I'm having an issue with FBW that I don't believe I was having before (or else I wasn't noticing). I have two sticks, a Saitek X45 and a Logitech Wingman Extreme. I use the throttle on the Saitek for throttle control, and the Logitech for everything else. I have the joystick disabled in the Orbiter launchpad.

The first time I start a scenario from the launch pad, the engines start at 50% even though the throttle is all the way back. Sometimes it will catch it and turn them off within a few frames, but usually they just stay on until I move the throttle, at which point it detects and goes to the correct level. This doesn't happen if I exit Orbiter and start another scenario from the launch pad (without restarting the launchpad).

I'm using the 0.9 beta, with the patch to FlyByWireCore.dll that you posted above.

Thanks for making this, btw--excellent addon that really makes joystick control a joy.:speakcool:

 

[Redburne]

Hi Hielor,

there definitely is an issue with the thrust settings at program start. It's not always 50%, but I sometimes get settings of about 2 to 5 percent. Not much of a problem when I'm on the ground (where I usually start my test runs), but very annoying on orbit.

I hope it goes away when (if?) I implement a safeguard preventing large throttle jumps in one timestep.

I will also (eventually) take a look at the "spin-of-doom" issue (which I have noticed, but never linked with FBW).

There won't be any progress in the next two weeks, though, as I intend to spend them in National Parks in Arizona and Utah ... :lol:

 

[Hielor]

There won't be any progress in the next two weeks, though, as I intend to spend them in National Parks in Arizona and Utah ... :lol:

...Are you on like a permanent vacation or something? LOL

 

[Redburne]

...Are you on like a permanent vacation or something? LOL

It's an expensive way to shirk my responsibilities as an add-on developer, but it works nicely ...

 

[bimmo]

patch for CH joystick and pedals

Here's the link to the version I've whipped up for yagni01:

http://oliverpieper.de/orbiter/FlyByWireCore.zip

First of all, thank you so much for developing this, I've been waiting for a module like this since 2001 Absolutely can't wait to start trying this out so I started reading this post to get more details in advance... I also have both usb rudder pedals and joystick from CH and read the post about the trailing spaces... I downloaded the new core dll from the link above. Do I still need to overwrite the dll that came with the latest version I just downloaded from orbithangar? If so, is there any way you can upload an updated / patched version of flybywire that has the updated dll? Again, thanks for making this in the first place!!!
:speakcool:
Bimmo

 

[Hielor]

http://oliverpieper.de/orbiter/FlyByWireCore.zip

As was pointed out earlier in this thread, this appears to only fix the main/retro engines, not the other axes. I have a "Saitek X45 Flight Control Stick " (note the trailing space) that I'd like to use for throttle/hover/elevator trim.

For now, I've had to go back to using FlyByWireMFD, since that used numbers for the devices and didn't have this problem...

 

[Redburne]

Hi guys! Sorry for the long radio blackout. My interest in Orbiter is currently close to zero, and this is unlikely to change in the forseeable future.

But I do consider the "trailing space issue" a serious problem and will take a look at it, this weekend!

 

[Hielor]

Hi guys! Sorry for the long radio blackout. My interest in Orbiter is currently close to zero, and this is unlikely to change in the forseeable future.

But I do consider the "trailing space issue" a serious problem and will take a look at it, this weekend!

Thanks!

---------- Post added at 01:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:30 PM ----------

Another thing I was thinking about that would be cool would be for FlyByWire to respect the RCS/air surface control settings. Currently, if you have an axis mapped to, say, elevators in FBW, when you use it it will set the air control surfaces to off and override their controls always, with no way to just use RCS instead. In the XR2 this is very annoying as it's constantly complaining about the af control surfaces being off...

 

[Redburne]

Guess I should have read Driver8's message of 2009-02-11 more carefully, as it already describes the problem quite accurately.

If someone would be so kind and test the new core dll (it goes in the <Orbiter>\Modules\FlyByWire folder):
http://oliverpieper.de/orbiter/FlyByWireCore090725.zip

I everything is OK, I'll post an update at OH, as well.

Another thing I was thinking about that would be cool would be for FlyByWire to respect the RCS/air surface control settings. Currently, if you have an axis mapped to, say, elevators in FBW, when you use it it will set the air control surfaces to off and override their controls always, with no way to just use RCS instead. In the XR2 this is very annoying as it's constantly complaining about the af control surfaces being off...

I'll have to check that. Can't currently say how easy or difficult that may be.

 

[Hielor]

All of the air surface axes work with my stick with this, looks good, thanks!

 

[Robb Bates]

If you don't plan on Orbiting much any more, what are the odds of releasing your source code so someone else can pick it up and develop it more?

I know this is a touchy subject with some developers, so I completely understand if you'd rather not.

Robb

 

[HiPotOk1978]

I figure that I should post a link to an issue I am having dealing with the Saitek Rudder Pedals

http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=10010

 

[DarkWanderer]

Redburne, did you think about adding an "electronic" flight controller to your addon? This may add some interesting features, like angular speed RCS controlling (instead of angular acceleration) and real "artifical stability" for aircrafts difficult to control.