Highly disappointed with demo

[henrique_rp]

Hello guys,

I love rotary wing and have been flying Black Shark since day 01. I got a few hundred hours in the Shark and I simply love it.

When I heard ToH had a demo version released I downloaded it immediately because I've been thinking of buying this game for a long time.

I own an X52 PRO, a set of Saitek Pro Pedals and TrackIR 5 bundled with Track Clip Pro. My system is an i5 2500k @ 4,6GHz, 8GB Ram and a GTX 580.

I wasn't expecting performance problems and these were definitely not the issue at hand.

My disappointment came from the helicopter handling implemented in the game. I have been flying it for the last 4 or 5 hours and I have been having a terrible time while trying to trim the helo and maintain a nice and stable flight.

The handling is extremely twitchy for me and it seems that the more I trim the worse it gets.

While flying Black Shark, if the aircraft is properly trimmed, you can even disable the Auto Pilot channels or even Flight Director and you'll still maintain a nice and stable flight. In Take on Helicopters, the aircraft wants to go everywhere and trimming seems to be a herculean task.

So, is there any configuration options that I am missing here? I've kept it default in terms of joystick response curves, the same way I have Armed Assault set up.

I'd very much like to purchase the game, but this demo was a major let down compared to what I was expecting.

Thanks for any help.

[hon0]

Hello Henrique.

EDIT ; To trim the chopper. Use the "TrimSet" command. Again and again. If you press "TrimRelease" you'll reset your change. I don't know how real pilot trim they're chopper (with this kind of button "TrimSet" or with a hat or something else) but in toh it works great.

Please instal the 3rd community patch and try the light chopper again.

This patch is made to fly ON THE LIGHT in EXPERT mode. I remember in my first hours I was always trimming my chopper... Trimset.. trimSet.. Then when I decelerate trim release so it was verry hard..

NOW I don't feel the need to trim it anymore. My joystick is well calibrate. I CAN change my sensitivity on the fly. It's.. just AWESOME and as they're upgrading the flight model it's better and better ! Here is a fly with this patch, I never use any trim.

Oh and please instal this little awesome mod

This mod allows you to look below the helicopters by being able to move more your head on Translation Axe. Witch always need to be fixed by the way. To much sensitive by default.

Well if you have any other problem tell us !

[Banshee]

Hi Henrique,

there's a major problem with TKOH. At the moment the fligth model is not perfectly tuned to the chopper you can fly in the demo. That'll get resolved in the next patches.

But however, you can't expect a coaxial chopper that is way more heavy to behave like an MD500. That's an itchi little chopper. If you learn to handle it, you'll love it as you love the BlackShark.

Single rotor choppers need to be trimmed a lot more (or cyclic force applied a lot more) than coaxial ones. In addition to that you're also missing the help from the flight director. So it's two factors here. Once the flight model wich will get tweaked soon, and simply the design of the chopper.

It'll get more easy to handle it, but still it's not a coaxial chopper with computed flight assistances.

[hon0]

The community patch don't work on the demo?

[henrique_rp]

Hello guys and thanks a lot for all the suggestions.

Unfortunately, the community patch does not work with the demo. It gives me a message telling me that Take on Helicopter was not found in my system.

I'll have to pass on this game, though.

Maybe some time later during a nice sales period and after it's been fully patched I might buy it.

Flight dynamics are indeed a little strange. If an MD-500 is that twitchy and difficult to manage in flight, then being an MD-500 pilot is by far the most dangerous job in the face of this planet.

Like I said, I don't want to compare, but it's possible to fly Black Shark with all Auto Pilot channels disabled and still maintain a nicely stable flight. You won't be efficient combat-wise, since the maneuvering necessary while under fire definitely requires the embedded auto pilot automation and dampening systems, but you can still manage to fly it nicely without jerking and going everywhere.

Trimming the light and medium helicopters is close to impossible in this demo version. Maintaining a nice and stable flight is incredibly difficult too.

Maybe after all these flight dynamic patches come out, things will get sorted out.

Thanks again for all the help.

[hon0]

I think your problem come from your joystick setup.. Sensitivity.

At the moment i'm not using a pro setup as these one..

I'm playing with a old X45 Throttle and a T16000m as Cyclic.

Here it was on the default flight model.. As you can see it's doable.. It took me sometime to fix the sensitivity but when you can practice a nice hover, then you got it !

[henrique_rp]

Thank you for the post, hon0.

My chopper is nowhere as stable as yours in flight. I fly DCS Black Shark and DCS A10 all the time and the joystick and pedals are in mint condition.

If you don't mind my asking, what are the sensitivity settings you are using in-game?

Also, I've never been able to use 6DOF in any of the Arma games. I use it perfectly with any other simulation that supports it, but for Arma it's simply terrible.

Do you have your trackIR profile on default?

Did you change any of the trackIR bindings in-game to get such a smooth response, such as the pilot looking out of the cockpit?

Thanks again for the help.

[hon0]

Yes my Track IR profile is custum. You can get it here. Of course your head transmitter must be at the same "Altitude^^" than the track ir receptor.
For looking outside of the Cockpit it's here.

All my curve in Take On or Arma are set to default. And on my joystick setup it's linear too.

Edit : Turn to 0, or close to 0 your cyclic and collective Dead zone

[jeremymtc]

But however, you can't expect a coaxial chopper that is way more heavy to behave like an MD500.

This is indeed a very important point, especially in consideration to how often Black Shark is used as a basis of comparison to TOH. Coaxes have a very high degree of stability compared to a single-rotor system: nearly complete torque cancelling by design vs. a head speed, air speed and aspect-dependent tail rotor. TOH does certainly have its FM issues, but even if perfectly modeled you'll still find vast differences in handling when comparing to the Shark.

Single rotor choppers need to be trimmed a lot more (or cyclic force applied a lot more) than coaxial ones.

^ This too. By "a lot more", we're talking frequency of control input rather than magnitude of input (Coaxes actually require the higher magnitude). Or more plainly, a single-rotor bird will generally keep you busier at the controls than in a coaxial.

[Max Power]

If we take a moment to consider the differences in the flight characteristics of both, let us consider the 'anti-torque' system. In a coaxial rotor scheme, the antitorque rotor, if you can consider it as such, is on the same axis as the main rotor, turning in the opposite direction, and applying thrust through the same axis. Yaw movement is controlled by varying the amount of torque to either rotor, which applies a torque moment at the axis of the main rotor, which happens to be the centre of gravity of the helicopter as well. In a single rotor system with a tail rotor, the anti torque rotor is usually located out of the main rotor sweep, and also high on the helicopter to reduce the tail rotor hazard. Controlling torque is done by controlling lateral thrust, but this thrust is not in line with the centre of gravity of the helicopter in the rolling axis. Every increase or decrease in tail rotor thrust will create variations in not only yaw but also rolling forces, which must be compensated for with cyclic control inputs.