Seriously bugged CEM

Right, not to be too negative....I think its addition is one of the 'highlights' *cough* of the release. However, the key inputs, axes or indeed anything I use respond extremely erratically, if at all. This can be seen in the P/T/M/R bar 'spiking', they do not respond to the actual inputs correctly at times....at all.

Its strange and I was wondering if anyone else has encountered this. No matter what key combinations, buttons or axes I use it is the same. I can confirm that the setup I am using is in perfect working order and calibrated. For the throttle, I had to 'fix' it by changing the '100%' menu input value initially also, it was registering full input on 25% throttle movement. Additionally, it does not always inform you when there are 'conflicts' either, though most of the time it does. The setup is truly awful and bug ridden.

BTW, this applies to 'inflight' adjustments too, as well as start up procedures which I now know how to do. The problem lies not with me, and nor is it the 'anthropomorphic' feature either, it happens with it turned off and no other inputs too. Its like inputs are 'lagging' if they even work at all sometimes. Atrocious.

I have also made some screenies of faulty Hurricane artificial horizon too, as well as other anomalies. Is it possible to post a track here, and can someone tell me how to do it? I have a funny one of a Hurricane merrily taxiing round the circuit into Tangmere airbase heavily damaged and without a working engine. Another crazy 'Hurri-happening' was a landing I made in a field, but I kept the throttle on 'for the lulz' to see what would happen. The plane just continued bouncing around the landscape as if on a pogo stick and refused to crash (yep full real for sure). Crazy. Though I've had some fun and some aspects are jaw droppingly good, the negatives are far outweighing the positives atm. Has any one else noticed that the G50 instruments do not even work properly?

I'm an optimist and will bear with it, but you really cannot blame people for being extremely disappointed (thus far). I know I am.

I do have some issues with axis assignment as well. It seems the game is too sensitive at times and will try to change the position of the throttle/trim/mixture/pitch even for just "1" difference.

Even good joysticks will shift a little, I think this is the cause of issues with anthropomorphic realism option as the game thinks I'm trying to do 30 things at once when an axis shifts between 54 and 55 for a split second. I had to turn the option off for now while I try to find a temp solution.

Seems like you've tried that though.

I just wonder if it's related somehow in how the game reads these inputs.

**Edit

I just want to make sure this is set up correctly on your end.



Just make sure your 100% position is set for like 80 - 90% of your control input
Add deadzone to the 0, 100% or Max throttle settings if you want there to be some travel before it actually pushes through.

I've had this issue as well and found I had to set things similar to ManfromX, but I have my throttle set to 100% and saved it. Though each time I start the game I have to load that saved file or things are all screwed up. Thankfully I'm busy with another game at the moment otherwise I'd probably be more upset with this than I am. Definitely not ready for prime time in this condition.

+1 to all the above. Controls fubar.

exactly the same here. i ruined my first day with the game totaly till i recognized it was this 'tow hand' option....

Works fine for me! I only have a cheap Saitek AV8R Joystick and use it for sick and throttle. Additionally I use a Saitek throttle qudrant for engine management, I have mapped the radiator, prop pitch and mixture. No spikes, only smooth input. Be aware that some planes do not have a fully adjustable Prop or mixture! For example the early Spit has only a "fine" and a "coarse" setting for prop pitch, so your axis will jump from full to zero. Same goes for the mixture in some planes which had an early automatisation, so there is only "auto-rich" or "auto-lean". Your problem with the artificial horizont seems to me like a nice little feature, In real life instrument flying you have to watch not to pull too hard maneuvers or your gyros may hit their limits and thus your horizont will not show you any good anymore. I could imagine that those early instrument were quite sensitive to this. I actually noticed this today when doing some night flying in the spit. The horizont worked as it should on my way out but after a little dogfighting I had to find my way home without it.

In real life instrument flying you have to watch not to pull too hard maneuvers or your gyros may hit their limits and thus your horizont will not show you any good anymore. I could imagine that those early instrument were quite sensitive to this. I actually noticed this today when doing some night flying in the spit.

Ah! A great spot RE the AH wannabe, and that did not occur to me. The thing that made me think it may be a bug was that it happened in free flight with no combat damage, but I must say, it did occur after some flying about and not 'straight of the bat'. This makes me think you may be right, and its a feature; if so excellent. Would be good to hear official word on this. I was doing barrel rolls, hammerheads and all sorts actually as I recall, so this would definitely make sense. RE the early spit, yes I was aware of that mate, and ditto on not all planes having the full gamut of adjustability, but the responses on those that I know do, are most definitely out of kilter on my setup....sometimes they will respond and other times not at all, and I still maintain however that there are things wrong with input/response translation (at least with my kit).

@ManfromX yes mate that is what I was getting at in the first post when I mentioned I had already fixed the 25% throttle movement 100% response thing, I did that pretty sharply in the same manner and my config is similar to yours except that I went full right I think. Cheers anyway X.

Don't have the sim running at the moment, but there should be a knob to pull or twist, to cage (lock) the gyro in the artificial horizon. All aerobatics capable planes today have them, at least. This should be done BEFORE you upset the gyros too much .

After some testing I´m quite sure now that the attitude inicator is not bugged. While standing on the ground with your engine off the AI is just hanging around. Then after engine start you´ll notice during the run-up as suction starts to build that the AI is coming to life and finally indicating correct (Quite a cool feature imho). It will inicate as it is suposed to do until you stress it over its limits (Which happens quite fast, there is a good reason why you should only make standard rate turns while flying in instrument conditions). I don´t believe that these early instruments had the possibility to cage them, at least i couldn´t find the button on some old cockpit photos (Even today many smaller IFR equipped planes don´t have one and the technology back in those days was far from advanced). I wonder if they also modeled gyro drift for the gyro compass. At least there is a working adjust button in the cockpit. The more of those details I discover the more I fall in love with this sim!

Yep you were spot on wannabe, good call. I was surprised by how easy they are to bugger though, but its a cool feature and definitely not a bug as I too hastily speculated. I'd like to know the parameters for it, it most definitely happens after high g turns as I did some testing too after you brought that up. Nice one.

They should start advertising this sim with the slogan: "Cliffs of Dover: It´s not a bug, it´s a feature!"

But seriously: I just love those little gimmicks they put into this sim!

Hmm.. I don't quite get CEM ATM.

I just took up a 109 doing a cold start. Let the engine warm up a bit on the ground, then took off. Had my oil- and water-radiators set to half open all the time (status indicator on the left wing = prolly oil, didn't seem to function like the one for water. Wouldn't move instantly when I changed settings. Anyways: I monitored my RPM quite closely and never let the engine run at more than 2300 RPM. Mostly I had it at 2200 - 2250 or so.

Monitored temperatures as well. Oil seemed to be running a bit cold, so I closed the radiator. Temperature still kept falling to around 60°. If the engine on my car is an indication, that's way too low. Should be at least 80° for optimal lubrication. Water OTOH kept rising to about 90/95°, so I openend my radiator fully and picked up some speed to improve airflow. Doing around 400 km/h indicated in level flight didn't seem to have much of an effect. Since I couldn't do anything more, I reduced boost and pitch to let the engine run at around 2000 rpm. Still: After a few minutes, the DB601 started to die on me. Full boost, but RPM were dropping and dropped even more in a climb. Full prop, full boost, RPM kept going down dramatically. Yup.. dead engine I guess.

Also: My FPS were much worse with CEM on. Empty mission, just me over France and the Channel with a flight of 4 Defiants circling somewhere over England, I got bad stutters while just flying straight and level over water at 4.5km.

Quit the mission, went back into realism options and disabled CEM.


S.

Take a look at the bf109 manual: *Click*

I try to fly it according to the book and have no problem keeping the engine running. Take note that the oiltemperature gauge showas the intake temperature for the oil, so according to the book the max continuous temperature should be between 30 and 75 degrees. Also watch your rpm´s closely, the 109er has no constant speed prop like the spit, so when changing your speed it happens quite fast that you overev that poor Daimler.
Stick with CEM, after you get used to it you never want to miss the extra fun you have with it!

My extra throttle quadrant came today so I hooked it up and went into the game, to set up CEM on the Ju88.

Puh.

Each engine shows five sliders on the screen. I have four of each identified:

Throttle
Prop pitch
Supercharger
Water radiator

If the 5th one is the oil-rad the buttons won't map for it.

One of the fuel cocks (#2) won't map to a button.

Neither of the magnetos will map to a button.

Using the prop-pitch levers makes the revs and engine-tone fall but there is no apparent effect while on the ground or flying. I would have expected increased pitch to make the revs fall. The slider on the screen shows the correct direction of lever travel, so it's not a case of me having them mapped back to front. Levers back, slider goes down, revs fall. If back = reduced pitch I would expect the revs to rise.

Regardless of the above I managed to get the motors started and took off. Flew around for about half an hour, the temp-gauges showed ok (rads 50% open). The super-charger levers had no apparent effect.

I couldn't get the plane to be Luftwaffe, I had to fly as a Brit with roundels from a UK base. Which felt appropriate, because when the plane was captured it obviously got real beat up and loads of bits stopped working. My co-pilot commented: "This is a bit crap, isn't it sir." I landed the bus in a field, wheels up, and told a farmer he could use it for storing hay or something.

I wish I could wannabe, but my lack of a HOTAS-throttle and, more importantly, the dramatic loss of FPS prolly will mean I'll leave it off for the time being ...

I can't understand why CEM would impact fps, but not a lot will suprise me anymore in regard to this broken mess. I don't think there's a single part of this game that doesn't have at least one bug. Patience with this one is truly going to be a virtue.

Me neither... more calculations going on due to more complex simulation of systems?

I hadn't noticed it either before when I first experimented with CEM, but today it was unmistakable. Started the exact same mission again with CEM off, and all was back to normal.


S.

I've flown the 109 for several hours now, never had a problem with the CEM either.

Geoffrey Wellum mentions caging in First Light - that was on Harvards during training. Poor cockpit drill (not uncaging) resulted in the death of a fellow trainee. Don't know about British machines...

Nice to hear about the features in COD.

Cheers!

You should be able to re-set the AI once it topples. But why would you? Voluntary instrument flying is a symptom of some fairly fundamental character flaw, or worse.

Hey Werner,

after your post I took´the JU 88 out of the hangar and went on a little testflight. The levers from left to right are: prop pitch, throttle, supercharger, radiator and oil cooler. I had to map the fuel cocks to the keybord (Normaly I use the clickable pits for such levers that you don´t need to often) since they are hard to reach in the 88. Have them one strg+1,+2 etc, works fine for me. Also no problems with the prop pitch. Full forward=max rpm, full backward=feather. RPM is increasing/decreasing on the gauge as it should (Nice that the 88 has some markings on the rpm gauge, so you don´t have to remember the limits. Green is max continuous, yellow should be limited to 5 minutes and red is never exceed). The supercharger has little to no effect when at low altidude, but you should notice map increasing when flying at high altitudes.
Actually I start to like the cockpit of the 88, it even has a working stopwatch. I wonder if that Lorenz radio navigation gauge is working, but at least it has a tooltip labeled to it, so I believe it should be usable!

Did some altitude testing on the JU 88 now. The supercharger works fine! Try a climb and keep rmp and map on max continuous (green marking). As your altitude increases you´ll find that your map needle is slowly falling. That is due to decreasing ambient pressure at altitude. So adjust your throttle to keep map at the green line. At around 3 Km of altitude (depending on actual air pressure and temperature) you´ll notice that the map needle will drop below the green line although your throttle is fully opened. Now engage the supercharger and you´ll see the dramatic effect. the sc is increasing the pressure of the air needed for the engine and thus will allow you to hit the red mark of your map gauge at altitudes of 3000+.

Great stuff Wannabe, thankyou.

Quick question re the Spit I:


Seems to me that on 100% throttle-setting I'm running with increased/WEP-boost (at least the boost-gauge's needle is well above the "redline"-zone). I also noticed that if I keep my throttle open at 100% the engine will suffer for it (after a while, max RPM dropped to around 2000). Am I correct or imagening things? I seem to remember the RL Spits had the option of pushing the throttle beyond 100% for short bursts of power.

If so: Is there any way to set my throttle up for the Spit to avoid overboosting? After all: That's what the WEP-key should be for IMO.

What's even weirder is that I noticed this behaviour *without* CEM. Just flying around with my throttle open I seem to be able to ruin the engine ... not very "un-CEM"-like that..

S.

I think you'd need a throttle with an upper-limit detente for a button-push boost to work. My Saitek quadrants have a lower-limit detente and I was hoping to map prop-feathering to that, but unfortunately 1C haven't provided motor-specific options for it, there's just the one global option.

^ So is my assumption correct that 100% joystick-throttle equals 100 + X% /WEP in-game? Is the redline/redzone on the boost-gauge a reliable source of info (read: will keeping the needle within the redzome give me maximum "safe"-performance?



S.

Hope this will help you:




Please note that there are 2 different values for each boost limit, one for 100 octane fuel and one for 87 octane fuel. Looking at the inganme Spit limitations I´m quite sure that we´ve got only 87 octane fuel, so use the numbers in brackets.
The numbers for the hurricane should be quite similar to the one for the spit, can´t find a manual for it, but flying works fine for me using the Spit´s limits (Afteral it´s also a merlin engine).

Hmm.. Spit Ia is nowhere near those RPM values for me with stick throttle on 100%. Needle bounces up and down pretty badly, but it's always in the region of 2200 rpm. Only in the Spit II did I get RPM-readings of around 3000.

It´s from the Spit II handbook, can´t comment on the Ia, have not flown it now. If anybody here knows where to find the manual for the Spit Ia and the hurricane I would be very interested in that too!

D'oh! The "Merlin XII" should've been a dead giveaway..


From wiki's RR-Merlin-page:





S.

I'm not seeing the props move when I operate the pitch levers.

Very strange... Do you see the small prop-lever icon move?

Yes, that goes up and down ok, and after operating them in flight I have to crash-land because something goes wrong in the engines. But on the ground with engines off, or on the ground/in the air with them on I don't see the props twisting to indicate their pitch is changing.

Ah, now I get it. You shouldn´t see the prop pitch changing while your engines are off. The prop pitch is adjusted with some kind of hydraulics system which is operated with engine oil. So when your engine is off there´s no oil pressure and thus no change in pitch. Thats also the reason why you should feather a dying engine in time, since when it has stopped already you won´t be able anymore to feather it.
When your engines are on and the props are turning you might just not be able to spot the change in pitch. Watch your rpm gauge and listen to your engine sound while playing around with the lever, thats the best indication (You should do that 3-4 times anyway before take off, to ensure the system is working and get fresh, warm oil into the system).

Ah, now I get it... when your engine is off there´s no oil pressure

Ok now we're officially through Phase One and it gets more interesting

Thanks

Ming

What do you mean with we are officially through Phase one?

Getting back to the Gyroscopic instruments talked about earlier in the thread.
With respect the standard AH MKI the parameters listed in AP1257 are:

+-90 degrees pitch, +-60 degrees in roll

For the AH MKII

+-45 degrees in pitch, +- 360 degrees in roll

For the DG
+-60degrees in both pitch and roll.

There is also a note that after a complete gyro topple the erection cycle is 10mins.
There was no capability to cage the Horizon.

In addition further info in the AP2095 Pilots Notes General.
Refers to acceleration errors and turning induced errors that the old and bold amongst will relate to,
Remember that extra Bar width you had to allow on on Instrument take off till it all settled down

From the AP2095




In general I think AH and DG gyro precession is a little over modelled. Nice to see it there but it needs toning down just a little imo.

Turning and acceleration errors on the Magnetic compass is also modelled and also a little savage imo. Sadly Magnetic variation is not modelled.

Thanks for the detailed information regarding the gyros!

I agree that the gyro drift seems a little overmodeled, but it´s nice to have it in the sim at least!

How would you know if Magnetic variation was modelled or not? Have you taken bearings off an accurate grid Chart, flown them and decided that MAG Var was like 2 Degrees or something? In 1940 Var might have been 0 for the South East Coast - anyway for the sake of 2 or 3 degrees it makes no odds, as there is not a human exists that can fly that accurately. Besides who needs Mag Var in a sim, unless you are using map, compass and stopwatch to navigate by?

Believe it or not I've done exactly that in IL2.. Low visibility, following compass heading having worked out how long it took me at cruising speed in the Hurri to cover a grid square, and it was suprisingly accurate..

I know darkmouse because I have it first hand from the Sim's coders. And many will be flying COD navigating by Heading Time and Airspeed. Variation in 1940 in this part of the Uk was 10 degrees West (the 10W isogonal going pretty much straight through central London) with a mean annual drift of 10.5 seconds Easterly and thats a pretty significant value. On another point any pilot worth his salt can fly a heading +-1degree most real ones do every single day they go to work

Oh, its perfectly possible to use MDR if you want in IL2, but modelling magnetic variation would be pointless as it only becomes a factor with real flying when you navigate using printed charts - its the difference between Grid North on the Map and Magnetic North as indicated by your compass/HSI. If Variation is 2 degrees West for example, you measure your heading from the Grid Chart, then add 2 degrees to get the magnetic heading that you would have to fly to achieve the same result.

Likewise if you take a bearing off a compass, before plotting it on your Grid Map you would take the magentic variation away from the heading ie. Subtract 2 degrees.

Its pretty pointless modelling it in IL2, and I'd be interested to know how you would figure out if it had been modelled or not.

Ok, IvanK, so its not modelled. But even then, my point still stands, why would it be necessary in the sim when you are not using printed charts to navigate by?

ps. http://334theaglesquadron.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=430

I fly for a living - I can hold a heading, but as far as I'm concerned 2-3 degrees is neither here nor there, especially when leading a pair at low level, maintaining a thorough lookout, ect.

A lot of players use printed charts for navigating in the the sim so if it was modelled it would be relevant. I fly for a living too and have lead many pairs and bigger pushes of fast movers in the weeds at speed dodging the foe ah but a while ago

A couple of images of the last big push I lead ... slow movers this time though

Still pointless.

Getting back to the real magnitude of gyro precession. A great reference is the ITVV DVD "Hurricane R4118 the extraordinary story of a Battle of Britain survivor" .. a restored MKI.

http://www.itvv.com/product/R4118

At the end of the DVD is 10minute segment of a solo display. Throughout the display there is both inset and full screen cockpit views. Most of the instrument panel is clearly visible. As can be seen that throughout and after the display the AH is still quite usable. This confirms the AH precession we are seeing in COD is grossly excessive.

Sadly the DG has been caged throughout the display.

Also noteworthy in the DVD is the bounce or jiggle in the ASI. At worst its about +-5MPH. On a side line there are no Merlin coughs or stutters ... though I guess it might have a later model carby setup.

Edit: just discovered that this airframe is fitted with SU AVT32 carby which I believe is the original type with no anti g devices/restrictors fitted.