Released: Multi-Throttle Support for IL-2

[MikkOwl]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

I actually have better simulated differential braking (better than stock) by changing a few lines in my User folder @ C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\IL-2 Sturmovik 1946\Users\wells. When you use rudder pedals and set your brake axis it will become either an X or a Y depending on which toe brake you press (L or R).. what ever it becomes.. just add the other line (If X add Y, if Y add X) and then make it a read only file and it wont change.

Won't that make moving the rudder (no matter the situation) also apply braking? I thought of this back before I had the G940, but thought that taking off (where plenty of rudder deflection is necessary on many planes) this would result in braking, slowing the plane down, as well as braking on the side the rudder is turning toward.

Right now I'm trying to figure out if I can somehow send and recieve UDP packets (the communication method of devicelink) directly, without netcat. That would open up some possibilities with all kinds of things.

[Bearcat]

No... you still have to press the brake.. but now you have brakes in either pedal.. because the brakes are modeled on an axis and rudder pedals have 2 toe axii (L & R) it would only allow one or the other.. so if say you had the left one active.. youd be turning right and pressing with the left.. This way, brakes are modeled in either foot.. so while you have to still turn the rudder to brake.. you can achieve better simulated differential braking because you can pres the toe brake in the pedal you are using in the turn.

[MikkOwl]

Aha, using toe brakes! Then it makes sense.

Mine measures both wheel brakes, checks which one is braking more at the moment and assigns that as 'brake power'. Then it checks the difference between the toe brakes - if they are level (no matter how much pressed) then it sets the rudder to be straight. If one is more pressed than the other, the rudder is manipulated accordingly in the direction of the toe brake being pressed more.

They also exaggerate the rudder movement if one toe brake is not touched at all (so one can turn and not come to a halt even when braking only gently on one brake under low engine power and slow forward movement).

And some success! Managed to read the replies from devicelink. Now I should be able to get the G940 led lights to react to info from IL-2 instead of guesswork!

[MikkOwl]

I've managed to read the responses from DeviceLink with my program now (complicaaaated). I've also managed to control the G940 led lights using info from IL-2. All this I'm going to put out in the next version (possibly labeled 4.0).

What can be read is mostly relevant to G940 users, as it can be used to control the 8 throttle button background lighting. But they can be useful for others too, completely safe to use online as it's not a mod.

If anyone can think of any good use relating to these things available, then post it. Who knows, maybe it's a brilliant idea.

The following systems are allowed to be read (which is relevant to any utility like this one) in multiplayer.

Trim positions. This is useful for G940 owners. I intend to make the G940 buttons be usable as indicators for if a trim is centered or not, just like many real WW2 era aircraft (Try the PE-3 for example to see)). Should be a welcome addition as it is impossible to see or feel that a trim wheel is centered on the G940. And it is realistic too.

Landing Gear. Not a big deal, because all aircraft pretty much have clearly marked gear indicators on the dashboard that work. But hey, why not. This will also come in handy with the toe brakes - if the gears are up, the plane must be airborne and the toe brake rudder manipulation can be completely disabled. In combination with the tail wheel below, the toe brake system will only be manipulating the rudder when the tail is unlocked and the gears are down.

Tail wheel. This one is great, because I hate seeing that 'tail wheel locked/unlocked' on the HUD, and I removed it ages ago. So much more realistic this way.

Arrestor hook. Useful - can get rid of hook helmet mounted display message, and most aircraft don't have any indicator nor sound effect at all regarding the arrestor hook.

Chocks. Not useful. If the plane does not move, it is obvious the chocks must be on.

Flaps position (unknown at this point if it is the position of your axis or the actual flaps. The two can be significantly different so I hope the latter). Could be used for adding that chiming repeating horn in the Bf 110 if flaps are down but gears are not (yes, that's how it works). I know the Bf 109 is like that in the modified versions of IL-2 I use but I don't know about the stock versions. As it's not a mod to do it this way, it is good. I could make flaps that work just like the real Bf 110: two pull switches. Pull one out, and the flaps start moving in that direction until reaching the max position. To have the flaps in a position other than completely up or down, one has to push in the switch a bit, which will make them stop in their tracks. The flap position indicator of the Bf 110 doesn't exist in IL-2's cockpit, but I can make the G940, which has lights, show different colors depending on the position (To understand how this would work, have a go in the Ju 88 and look at your lower left panel while manipulating the flaps. Three lights, same color as G940 leds).

War Emergency Power (WEP). This one is very cool because practically NO planes at all have indicators for WEP (the ones that do are pretty much all american fighters with auto-wep that lights up if throttle is beyond a certain position). I already added nice support for this for the G940 (and could make it useful for non G940 users as well somehow, sound effect maybe): it currently blinks a button on my throttle red for as long as WEP is activated. I love it! It is impossible not to notice and an urgent reminder to turn it the hell off when you don't absolutely need it anymore. Best of all, being able to ditch that ugly, awful, immersion breaking "NAAAAWZ ENGAGED!!!!!!" constantly glowing in the mid right part of the screen.

Magneto position. This one is truly useless for three big reasons: Have to select the engine in question, to even be able to send a query to IL-2 (it works that way) so IL-2 can send back a reply with the status of that engine's Magnetos. This is a big problem because selecting an engine makes it take on every single setting of the previous engine selected, requiring an update of all it's systems to be re-done. Secondly, messing with the magnetos is dangerous because if it is set to none, and then another engine is selected, it will stop that other engine too (as it's magnetos are set to off as well). Thirdly, magnetos serve no useful purpose even if they worked well.

Level Stabilizer. A minor thing, practically useless. Because anyone likely to use level stabilizer is going to heavly be manipulating the bomb sight, which has no proper graphical interface or interaction other than keypresses and a helmet mounted display projection showing the current settings of the bomb sight. To be able to eliminate a single HUD message in this context is akin to a water drop in the ocean.

Supercharger stage. Maybe not entirely useless. I don't fly any aircraft that have superchargers, but the times I have tried (without HUDLOG) it would have been nice to have some kind of sound effect at the very least to tell me what mode it was just put into, and if it can't move into a higher or lower stage than current.

Propeller feathered or not. Nice to have, as there's no indicators for that in terms of graphical switches or markers in cockpits. Only some aircraft let you see the blade angle being a certain way. Unfortunately it is very difficult to check because the engine being checked must actually be selected in the process, bringing the problems mentioned for magnetos mentioned earlier. Sooo.. have to think of something. Glad to be rid of the Helmet Mounted Display message saying "Engine 1: un-feathered" at least. Can display it in color on the G940.

Air Brake. Not the most useful thing around, few aircraft have air brakes, and it is quite obvious if the air brake is engaged even without any sound effects or instruments. Still, why not, for the man with a bad Junkers addiction. Technically I can manipulate trims or even controls when air brake is deployed, if there's something unrealistic going on in how the game treats air brakes in some aircraft.

Gun pod on/off. This one must be 100% useless. Is there any time, ever, that the gun pod toggle is useful for anything? It doesn't even work most of the time.

Wing fold. Useless? I think so. One can just look out the window to see if they are folded or not.

Canopy (open or not). Mostly useless. Although I could play a loud wind noise effect if it is open and the plane is (probably) airborne. Not that people fly around with it open or would want a loud wind noise effect anyway.

Prop. Pitch. Could possibly be used in some way for multi-prop pitch use before the official 4.10 patch, but I doubt it'll be worth trying. Then it would be checking if the plane prop pitch was in the same position as the controller lever for that engine, and forcing another update if not (the biggest problem for dual prop pitch is making them not move around constantly to match the other engine due to the engine selection problem inherent in IL-2).

Throttle. Useless.

Time of day. Useless.

Plane type. Could be relevant to adjusting some functions to if the plane has them or not, but I don't really see how. I don't think it tells what kind of loadout the plane has either, making it even less useful.

Number of engines. Useless.

________

The list is severely lacking. One cannot even check if an engine is even turned on or not or if the aircraft is airborne or standing still! Can't see anything about fuel mixture, radiators, temperatures, fuel drop tank, ammo counters, dropped bombs, low fuel warning. Can't even check if the plane is airborne. Only check if gears are up and assume it must be flying then. For this reason I cannot even make the G940 button lights show if the engine is turned on or off.[IMG]chrome://dictionarytip/skin/book.png[/IMG]

[MikkOwl]

Multi-Throttle 4.0 is done.

http://hem.bredband.net/mikko.artist...by_MikkOwl.zip

I'm working on writing the updated forum text, edit first post etc (not just this but several forums) but I'm so incredibly exhausted from trying to get it done so it may be a bit slow. But the link is here at least. I thought I would post it here first.

Bug fixes:
- Fixed a bug where the brakes would not release fully when having used the toe brakes.
- Fixed a bug where if both toe brakes were pressed completely the brakes would set to zero.

Changes & Tweaks & New stuff:
- Can now close all windows it creates when exiting (ALT-E).
- Can now detect if user is in an aircraft and at the controls. Does not try to send any commands if escaped, not in control of the aircraft's flight controls, bailed out, main menu (being alt-tabbed does not count).
- Toe brakes no longer manipulate the rudder (for differential braking function) if either the tail-wheel is locked or the landing gear is retracted (no more accidents for some of you and landings should be much be more stable).
- Added ability to detecting button presses for setting up individual engine key controls (start & feather prop).
- Added support for trims (in order to make new trim tweaking possible). Assign any axis to any trim.
- Added ability to limit the range of trims for a much smoother, accurate, realistic and relaxed trim experience (all IL-2 aircraft have an enormous trim range in all directions, but our controllers do not = hypersensitive trimming).
- Added feature to off-set the trims to either side (most aircraft only need to trim the rudder/ailerons in one direction, meaning the other 50% is wasted movement range on our controllers and making trimming twitchier).
- Replaced the dozens of individual config executables with a single, graphical user interface setup program (phew.......). The Setup folder is also gone. G940_tweaks.ini merged into mikkonfig.ini and moved to DATA folder.
- Ability to assign any of the G940 trim wheels to any trims in-game instead of just R1 and R2 to Rudder-Elevator. With reversal bug removal extended to these other trims.
- Radiator support is back (the code is revised but no full setup program support - edit the .ini file if you really want to use it).
- Dual Prop. pitch support.
- Support for G940 throttle button LEDs for IL-2! (Am I the man or what? Logitech owes me a paycheck and you G940 users especially owe me a donation ).
- Bonus: As information from devicelink and IL-2 is limited, wrote program functions to 'guesstimate' certain functions in order to provide more realistic LED behaviour.
- Bonus: One of the extra functions is a flap position indicator light, like the one in the Ju-88 A-4.
- Bonus: Like the real world Pe-2 and Pe-3, a LED button can now light up when the rudder trim is centered. (Knowing when the important rudder trim is centered can be difficult, especially on the G940 and even more with the new trim tweak abilities. Especially important for take-off).

[MaD88]

Originally Posted by MikkOwl

- Support for G940 throttle button LEDs for IL-2! (Am I the man or what? Logitech owes me a paycheck and you G940 users especially owe me a donation ).

You ARE the man
Have to try it this evening... Thanks for your work... donation is on the way!
You made my day!!!


Edit: Really great everything- I'm just missing the option to change behavior of the LEDs.
For Example: Flaps in=LED off, Combatflaps=Green, Takeoff=Orange, Landing=Red

[335th_GRSwaty]

Thanks MikkOwl!

GUI is a great advantage!

[MikkOwl]

I wish there was more info that could be gotten by devicelink to be used to control the G940 leds. Most of what is allowed to be read when in multiplayer is added... but I want to add more. I have some ideas on how to figure out ways to make very accurate guesses on the state of some systems. Like nav-lights for example. There's no way to read if nav-lights are on or off. But I have found ways to check if someone is in control of an aircraft or not (already implemented), but also a check on if the plane type can be read or not. If it cannot be read, it means that the player has not even selected or loaded up a plane. Soo, using a combination of the two above, I could make it, for example, switch nav lights only when allowed to, and reset the guessed state of the navlight system to off each time it is clear the player restarted the flight. I don't know if this makes any sense to anyone, but it does to me, and it can probably add many more systems.

The current wishlist for 4.1 (definitely not adding the whole list!) is:

1. Separate engine-off button for each engine (requested by sokol - I just didn't have the time to do it and get the release out with all the other things I added)

2. Add more systems for the G940 leds, through guesstimation.

3. Make the LED assignments also trigger the function they were assigned to. For example, WEP button triggers WEP, gear triggers gear. Now they only assign the lights inside the buttons, not the function itself. It could save time if people can just assign the function directly through multi-throttle (quick to change between planes, just alt-tab, close M-T, run setup, etc).

4. I would like to have separate trim tweak profiles for different planes available. This is planned for Storm of War, but I already have some neat trim tweaks implemented - just need to add the (quite large and complicated) infrastructure for loading them in multi-throttle, the setup program, and editing them, and saving them. I think that limiting the amount of profiles and all the variants of the planes can be done by reading keywords of the aircraft's name. Like one profile can be 'spitfire', and includes all spitfire models. Another is 109, another is 110, another B-17, another P-51, P-47, P-38, LAGG, Pe-2, Fw-190, Ju-88 and so on. That will allow us to have our trims tweaked just right for different planes.

5. If I add profiles for aircraft, then maybe also be able to add LED button assignments saved in the profiles. Means the buttons could change their LED light display, as well as their function, depending on the type of aircraft.

6. Perhaps integrate some of my previous work. For example:

I made a music player that allows you to play pre-defined tunes for what is going on around you (to match the setting) by the use of one top hat. I tried this myself, thinking it would be cool. It was cool. But I am already too nervous online and this made it crazy nervous. Need all my concentration just on flying.

A smooth fov switcher that can use a single button to zoom in and out between wide and realistic fov, and if held for just a moment it zooms in maximum (and also makes TrackIR go into super smoothing mode, making the view very stable). This function was quite useful, as it takes up only my S4 (middle left) thumb button on the G940 and controls all my viewing and does it in a logical, fast and easy to control way. I had many different versions for viewing in the past until I arrived at this configuration. Before I had smooth fov switching, I would lose sight of enemy aircraft when zooming in maximum, because the zoom is the 'middle' of the screen and sometimes I was not centering the enemy aircraft in the middle properly. Zoom being instant, I saw an empty sky and could not determine where the enemy was. With smooth zooming it was easy to see where I was looking.

Made a stay-in-cockpit-view-when-bailing-out, with a sound effect of trying to jettison the canopy and loud wind noise. In fact, I also flew online with this and added the feature of muting teamspeak completely as soon as I bailed out. This meant no one could hear me after I bailed, and I could not hear them either.

Safety switch for weapons. Can be a master-arm button for all weapons, or individual (it's not complicated). In this way, a single joystick button (the trigger) can be made to fire MGs or cannons, or both, by arming and disarming the weapon systems individually.

Scroll in-game map by using a top-hat. I made it and it works, but only on my monitor display resolution. Uses mouse emulation to click drag the map around. And I don't think it was practical. Reaching for the mouse was much faster and better, sadly.

Function not yet made, but possible to do: Read the log file generated by IL-2 (in real time when flying). And using that data, I can make the rear gunner in planes like the Bf 110 and bombers speak a little bit in multiplayer. Only some of the things they can say in single player.. But even that is better than complete silence. They can scream if wounded or killed, and they can comment on when targets are destroyed or aircraft was shot down "Target destroyed, great hit!". And only if they are still alive. Not really anything else. I most of all wish that they could speak if they see an enemy plane but that's not possible to do.

[Qpassa]

I have tested it ,it's great also is easier to configure.
I would like that you show(in the throttle) when you have the acrobatic gas,the prop pitch of all the engines,manual pitch.
Thanks!

[MikkOwl]

Originally Posted by Qpassa

I have tested it ,it's great also is easier to configure.
I would like that you show(in the throttle) when you have the acrobatic gas,the prop pitch of all the engines,manual pitch.
Thanks!

Good to hear!

I am not 100% sure I understand what you are asking for. "Acrobatic gas"... funny. Do you mean 100% throttle? If so, what is the use of that? I think we can already see and feel easily on the G940 dual throttle handles (and the RPM gauge, manifold gauge and the throttle levers, in the game cockpit).

The prop pitch of all engines.. This you can also see on the RPM gauge in the aircraft. But yes, many of us don't have the extra levers to watch. If using the G940 trim wheels to set prop pitch for different engines, it is not as easy.

Button to show if we have manual or auto pitch? There is no such function in IL-2 to find out if it is automatic or manual. Buuut, I might be able to make the program look at what plane we are flying, if the plane is just starting fresh (refly etc) and then make a button show if we have manual pitch or not (and make it toggle manual/auto). I already had this idea on my to-do list for future versions, because I think it would be useful.