Do FFB sticks troll your aim?

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

I can imagine myself having the perfect shot lined up, then having the stick jerk my hand away messing it up. Has anyone with a FFB stick noticed any impact positive or negative on their aim while using it?

[Panzerlang]

9 hours ago, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

I can imagine myself having the perfect shot lined up, then having the stick jerk my hand away messing it up. Has anyone with a FFB stick noticed any impact positive or negative on their aim while using it?

Not once you've become used to it, it's like riding a bike on rough terrain.

[dgiatr]

On 7/10/2024 at 3:25 PM, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

I can imagine myself having the perfect shot lined up, then having the stick jerk my hand away messing it up. Has anyone with a FFB stick noticed any impact positive or negative on their aim while using it?

 

On 7/11/2024 at 12:50 AM, Panzerlang said:

Not once you've become used to it, it's like riding a bike on rough terrain.

I doubt that you can be competitive or at least very competitive in Multiplayer servers if you use FFB joystick especially during the minimum of the time you have at your disposal to fire at the plane of an experienced player.

 

Does anybody who flies in MP servers uses FFB joystick at the same time....or its too early to ask?

Edited August 26, 2024 by dgiatr

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

I was surprised I couldn't find any information on this question before I asked it, seems like a very important question if your gonna drop that kind of money on a stick.

[SCG_motoadve]

On 7/10/2024 at 5:25 AM, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

I can imagine myself having the perfect shot lined up, then having the stick jerk my hand away messing it up. Has anyone with a FFB stick noticed any impact positive or negative on their aim while using it?

Not at all

[dgiatr]

1 hour ago, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

I was surprised I couldn't find any information on this question before I asked it, seems like a very important question if your gonna drop that kind of money on a stick.

 

1 hour ago, SCG_motoadve said:

Not at all

To be honest i don't know many people flying regularly MP and using at the same time FFB joystick.

[=MERCS=JenkemJunkie]

Thats ok, I wasn't planning on getting one of these for at least a year or 2, if at all, but its interesting to watch it develop.

[IckyATLAS]

Having flown a real airplanes that had the typical stick (without the button to fire guns) I had the real force feedback as control surfaces and the stick were cable linked. I would not consider it impacted the aiming. Here a picture of it:

First think to say forces are very smooth and gradual. Often sims sticks are very short and light with little inertia and react to fast and too brutal. The perimeter of motion of a real stick is at low-medium speed much larger than the one of a table gaming joystick. It means that your arm will move much more than the few centimeters of the real joystick. (Angles maybe similar but perimeter is not) And you move all your arm (and even help with body torso if you need a lot of force and be quick) when on the joystick you move not much more that your wrist and forearm. The faster you go more force is needed and the amplitude of motion on the stick is less.

We use to do for fun an attack maneuver with aiming at a specific point, and if you were good at controlling your aircraft the forces in your arm did not interfere with say aiming and or firing if the button was on the stick. If your plane is well trimmed then before firing you are generally in a stabilized situation at lest for a few seconds and forces are not great, Now if you are aiming to a constantly moving target with tight and multiple maneuvers and that you try to follow then sure you have continuous force variations, but except for strong turbulence that would make your plane shake randomly, I still do not see an interference with aiming. Aiming is more difficult but not because of the force feedback. 

The only reason that would explain the Joystick jerking when you are aligned and aiming is strong atmospheric turbulence.

For me exception made of the two cases below stick jerking is bad FFB simulation, just to give the player the feeling that he is in contact with the simulated plane.

 

1) The stick jerking may happen at high speed tight turns you can encounter dynamic stall situation on the surfaces like the ailerons and that may create jerks but the whole wing my stall then and you end up doing an unvoluntary snap roll which does generate a lot of mechanical stress if the plane is not made for it.

 

2) The other possibility is to have fluttering say if the control surfaces where hit and damaged and that would make jerks in the stick. You can also have flutter if you exceed maximum speeds on the control surfaces, but again that may spell doom for you. There can be also other situations to flutter, but here forget aiming you need to immediately take action in general slow down or you will loose your control surface and much more.

 

[dgiatr]

36 minutes ago, IckyATLAS said:

Having flown a real airplanes that had the typical stick (without the button to fire guns) I had the real force feedback as control surfaces and the stick were cable linked. I would not consider it impacted the aiming. Here a picture of it:

First think to say forces are very smooth and gradual. Often sims sticks are very short and light with little inertia and react to fast and too brutal. The perimeter of motion of a real stick is at low-medium speed much larger than the one of a table gaming joystick. It means that your arm will move much more than the few centimeters of the real joystick. (Angles maybe similar but perimeter is not) And you move all your arm (and even help with body torso if you need a lot of force and be quick) when on the joystick you move not much more that your wrist and forearm. The faster you go more force is needed and the amplitude of motion on the stick is less.

We use to do for fun an attack maneuver with aiming at a specific point, and if you were good at controlling your aircraft the forces in your arm did not interfere with say aiming and or firing if the button was on the stick. If your plane is well trimmed then before firing you are generally in a stabilized situation at lest for a few seconds and forces are not great, Now if you are aiming to a constantly moving target with tight and multiple maneuvers and that you try to follow then sure you have continuous force variations, but except for strong turbulence that would make your plane shake randomly, I still do not see an interference with aiming. Aiming is more difficult but not because of the force feedback. 

The only reason that would explain the Joystick jerking when you are aligned and aiming is strong atmospheric turbulence.

For me exception made of the two cases below stick jerking is bad FFB simulation, just to give the player the feeling that he is in contact with the simulated plane.

 

1) The stick jerking may happen at high speed tight turns you can encounter dynamic stall situation on the surfaces like the ailerons and that may create jerks but the whole wing my stall then and you end up doing an unvoluntary snap roll which does generate a lot of mechanical stress if the plane is not made for it.

 

2) The other possibility is to have fluttering say if the control surfaces where hit and damaged and that would make jerks in the stick. You can also have flutter if you exceed maximum speeds on the control surfaces, but again that may spell doom for you. There can be also other situations to flutter, but here forget aiming you need to immediately take action in general slow down or you will loose your control surface and much more.

 

Due to engine rumble do you get vibrations on the stick on medium or high engine rpm?

[IckyATLAS]

4 hours ago, dgiatr said:

Due to engine rumble do you get vibrations on the stick on medium or high engine rpm?

This may vary with planes but the effect is generally when you are starting the engine, idle on the ground mainly, but then it is also the plane and the control surface that can contribute by amplifying engine vibrations. When you taxi at low speed on uneven ground like grass fields that are not too level, the plane may shake you may then have some jerks. But what I experienced was very mild and cannot be considered shaking, just feeling some vibration.  I did fly concrete and grass fields, but these were very well maintained and cared so it was a pleasure. Did not fly from gravel dirt airfield maybe there you would feel some more. When flying medium or high rpm this is filtered out, and do not forget that contrary to when you are on the ground, the high speed airflow on the surfaces will keep them pretty fixed to the trimmed neutral. So no there is no shake or either you have a badly designed airplane or there is a mechanical issue.

 

Now if you are hit and the engine has some imbalance due to pistons damaged or the propeller being damaged then sure the whole plane will shake strongly and can fall apart but we are not in normal flight conditions.

[SR-F_Winger]

On 7/10/2024 at 2:25 PM, =MERCS=JenkemJunkie said:

I can imagine myself having the perfect shot lined up, then having the stick jerk my hand away messing it up. Has anyone with a FFB stick noticed any impact positive or negative on their aim while using it?

IMHO - not at all.
At lest me it doesnt bother the slightest.
On the contrary. Aiming and flying gets more steady the higher the stickforces are.
I.e. when flying with 500 kph in a 109 the plane is supposed to have increasing/very high stick forces and therefor be much more stable platform. You cant simulate that with an "oldscool" standard spring base.
With the "old" bases when diving at maximum speed with a WWII fighter allows you to pull full deflection in an instant.
You cant pull full deflection with a beefy FFB base at those speeds.
Right now this causes a slight disadvantage for the FFB base flyers cause they actually have to work to move the plane at those speeds while "standardbase" flyers can just pull full (coded per speed allowed) deflection in an instant allowing them to react quicker.

But IMHO: This will relativize cause FFB is just so AWESOME that everyone will have a FFB base at some point in the future;)

 

Edited September 2, 2024 by SR-F_Winger

[Aapje]

4 hours ago, SR-F_Winger said:

Right now this causes a slight disadvantage for the FFB base flyers cause they actually have to work to move the plane at those planes while "standardbase" flyers can just pull full deflection in an instant allowing them to react quicker.

 

But aren't there advantages as well, by being able to feel more easily what the plane is doing, like when approaching a stall or when reducing drag?

[SCG_motoadve]

FFB will make you fly more realistic, no yank and bank effortless anymore, which is more immersive, might be a disadvantage to the yank and bank kind of pilot. 

[[CPT]Crunch]

How does FFB deal with the game limiting stick range of motion at speeds?  Like a 109 in a dive and the player in a non FFB can pull the stick completely back yet the actual movement in the cockpit is small and being artificially restricted by the game.  Does it do the same in FFB?  Don't reckon they'd allow an actual one for one, that would be cheating against everyone else.  Until that problem is solved is it really worth it? 

[dgiatr]

I guess ffb stick will be like motion platform or bass shakers which stress your body more than a static seat but by the moment you get used to them there is no way to go back.

Probably using ffb stick you could reduce effects a little  in such a way that you can still feel them but at the same time remain competitive. I have done the same thing in my motion platform by reducing max roll angle cause it was too much and made me feel some discomfort. Now I feel the banking without the nasty feeling.

Edited August 31, 2024 by dgiatr

[Comrade_Weng]

I fly multiplayer only with a homemade ffb stick. I honestly can't fly without it. I can tune it to give more or less feedback and different effects. 

 

I can pull closer to a stall, and read the buffeting and have a better sense of aircraft speed and state without looking at the dials. 

 

Trim becomes more important to reduce stick forces but to me is intuitive. 

 

It can get difficult when you succumb to damage but adds to the immersion.

[SR-F_Winger]

On 8/30/2024 at 7:42 PM, Aapje said:

 

But aren't there advantages as well, by being able to feel more easily what the plane is doing, like when approaching a stall or when reducing drag?

Apologies. I should have added that IMHO its actually not a disadvantage but can be perceived as disadvantage bycerttain kind of players.
For me FFB is nothing but pure awesomeness in all aspects.

On 8/30/2024 at 10:31 PM, [CPT]Crunch said:

How does FFB deal with the game limiting stick range of motion at speeds?  Like a 109 in a dive and the player in a non FFB can pull the stick completely back yet the actual movement in the cockpit is small and being artificially restricted by the game.  Does it do the same in FFB?  Don't reckon they'd allow an actual one for one, that would be cheating against everyone else.  Until that problem is solved is it really worth it? 

yes ist does. Surely the "Capability" of the FFB base to influence the stiffness is limited by the motors it uses.
The stronger the motors the more capable the base becomes to simulate stiffnes with risig speeds.
I very well can imagine that 100% accuracy in that regard will most likely not be perceived as great by many players.
AFAiK the 109 for example required 8kg of force to move the stick 1cm from center at an IAS of 400kph
So imagine how much force was required pulling that thing from a dive.
During the BOB the RAF employed maneuvers that 109 pilots couldnt follow due to the rapid speed increase in a dive of the 109 and the corresponding elevator stiffness.
Many sims including IL2 simulate this quite well IMHO.

[Aapje]

Trimming helps to get out of a dive.

[SR-F_Winger]

yep. Its supposed to be getting a "Betonruder" with the 109. I dont mind it. Its properly modeled and adjustable stabilizer can save your life. I agree!🫡