Hand Crank Turrets

[thewood]

4 hours ago, Volcano said:

The attempt to strong arm some kind of change through a poll (as is common on game forums these days) is rather pointless. 

I would say you're pretty good at trolling your self.  Not sure what you were trying to accomplish beyond saying something just to get someone riled up.  Troll much?

[TankHunter]

Could we please stop with the ad hominems and vitriol? I don't exactly see how that advances anything here except for toxicity.

[Volcano]

15 minutes ago, thewood said:

I would say you're pretty good at trolling your self.  Not sure what you were trying to accomplish beyond saying something just to get someone riled up.  Troll much?

 

No, sorry, you have been trolling this community for long enough to spot it.

 

And besides, if I was actually trolling in my initial reply, then why, in that very same post did I say: 

 

"That said, could there be an option to allow for mouse traverse for all manual traversing turrets one day, possibly, who knows."? 

 

Illogical, but nice try.

[Volcano]

1 hour ago, Mirzayev said:

My apologies if I interpreted your meaning wrongly. I'm human, and I can admit to not being faultless. 

 

Regardless, it is present, and people know about it. They are free to vote on it if they want. I know it likely won't change anything. Just trying to give a method for the community to give input that gives quantifiable data. 

 

OK, now that I can reply...

 

Fair enough. And my apologies for the wording of the initial reply.

 

After re-reading my first reply, I can see that it may have seemed like I was saying that I personally didn't care about the poll or the subject, but that is not the case (I try to never vote in polls anyway, because I don't want to affect the result). 

 

I was attempting to say that some people may have seen the poll and not voted, either because they didn't care about the subject or were too busy, or they weren't even aware of the poll to begin with, and so couldn't be used as anything useful. But in time, with enough votes, I am sure it will help provide useful feedback if it turns out to be lean heavily in either direction, as long as there is not an expectation that a poll will always result in a change.  

 

And again, maybe there could be an options menu selection here that affects it in a universal way to allow for either mouse or arrow keys.

[Lt DeFault]

I like smashing buttons.

[Nike-Ajax]

So ...

My final 2 cents on this:

I am not going to go into a discussion of what has been written.

I would simply state that the solution which accommodates both overall positions, as I read it, would be to have an option of either using a mouse or the button system which is there now.
 

You do not have to agree with other people, to accept that they have a different opinion than yourself. And I believe that there is room for both in this.

[Colebrook]

For me the best option is what Rotar said, keys for fast traverse, mouse for slow precise movement.

That begin said, i think is a big discussion for such a small thing, there are muche more things and more important to improve.

[Hedgehog]

48 minutes ago, Colebrook said:

For me the best option is what Rotar said, keys for fast traverse, mouse for slow precise movement.

That begin said, i think is a big discussion for such a small thing, there are muche more things and more important to improve.

Other way around

 

Mouse for fast, keys for fine.

There's that huge mouse cursor that gets in the way.

[stormrider_sp]

On 1/26/2021 at 10:13 AM, Lt DeFault said:

I like smashing buttons.

I honestly prefer smashing pumpkins.

 

[Lt DeFault]

13 hours ago, stormrider_sp said:

I honestly prefer smashing pumpkins.

 

 

I met Billy Corgan once. At a Camelot Music CD store in the mall. Must've been in the mid '90s. Very nice guy.

[stormrider_sp]

13 minutes ago, Lt DeFault said:

 

I met Billy Corgan once. At a Camelot Music CD store in the mall. Must've been in the mid '90s. Very nice guy.

Those were the good times. I know its of no use for longing the lost times. We were lucky to have lived them and survived, to have stories to share.

[Ssnake]

Man, I remember 1990s CD stores. They were deadly.

[Hedgehog]

How long did a personal CD player last in a tank?

[12Alfa]

2 hours ago, Hedgehog said:

How long did a personal CD player last in a tank?

Walkman's wired to comms....ah those were the days my fren.

[hawes]

On 1/24/2021 at 12:02 PM, Lumituisku said:

In forestmachine that I work with there is this brilliand  finger wheel for steering. 

Also I am wondering, and perhaps hoping that AFV sim would  see this as great opportunity.  

 

 

The finger wheel looks great, but there could be a few issues:

1. The encoders (£2 each) would need to be connected to a COTS joystick circuit board (£15) and SB only permits one main joystick.
2. £2 encoders are low resolution and have a limited range of pulses per revolution, usually 8-24.  This could be worse than than using the arrow keys.
3. The encoders we use in our Scimitar and Warrior desktop trainers effectively have 512 pulses per revolution, but these are £50 each and require a special purpose circuit board. These boards are not plug and play, so eSim have to integrate them into SB.
4. If we priced the finger wheels at more than £5 a set (1 x traverse and 1 x elevation), I doubt if we would sell more than 3 sets here, so it's a non-starter for us. 🙁 Maybe we'd have more success with another genre game community, but I have no interest in building devices for aircrafts, F1 racing cars, trains etc.

The Scimitar and Warrior hand cranks have coarse and fine, high/low gear positions in traverse. I think it would be simpler if the left and right arrow keys simulated the coarse position and the arrow keys '+ some other key' simulated the fine position. I'm not sure what other systems have this coarse/fine arrangement. If they have just one speed, then the '+ some other key' would have no effect.

 

Just my 2 pence worth.

[Lumituisku]

1 hour ago, hawes said:

 

 

The finger wheel looks great, but there could be a few issues...

 

Great and well though out answer. Thank you very much hawes. 

[Toxzic]

any updates on this 'key smashing thingy'?. any one tried to diy  these hand wheel cranks? any one used the afv cranks? well i diy a hand crank using bodnar encoder setup to 1:2 gear ratio which is playable but it seems a bit unrealistic to the sense that if you speed up the cranking, the movement jumps ( not fluid). The turret movement seems to have a limit even how fast i turn the crank. In shooting range I tried it playing the warrior & bmp atgm (harder to track target moving horizontally). Well i do not know if the bmp turret movement is same with atgm movement. I am referencing my hand crank to Bradley mils settings.

[Lumituisku]

I happen to have AFV sim hand cranks. And i do love those. Thought honestly often i prefer just smashing keyboard because AFV sim ones feel like being on a gym 😂   also.. those sadly only work on some vehicles. More than half those aren't working.

 

Those are really accurate and smooth compared to arrow keys, but seem to be little bit slower on long term use (because i get fatigue on extensive use)

 

Also i still need to use arrow keys lot of the time because hand cranks aren't supported and I am okay with that. It feels... Immersive perhaps even more so now when i have used hand cranks. I just wish there would be some way to have arrow keys more smooth / accurate and to be able to elevate and traverse same time. 

 

- 

 

And unless I really need to. Even with hand cranks i wouldn't traverse turrets more than absolutely need to. On scimitar for example as Gunner i have binoculars and am scanning with those around to spot targets. When one is spotted.. we turn vehicle towards that direction and then crank like mad. Not before. if i need to turn turret 180 in emergency... Eeer... Just no. Next to pointless. I rather tap arrow keys and drink coffee. 

Edited January 14, 2022 by Lumituisku

[Mirzayev]

We still move the turret using the arrow keys.

 

And it is still as not fun as it was 11 months ago. 

[Apocalypse 31]

6 hours ago, Lumituisku said:

It feels... Immersive

 

Speak for yourself. For me there's no immersion by smashing keys repeatedly.

 

6 hours ago, Mirzayev said:

And it is still as not fun as it was 11 months ago. 

Yes, and I refuse to include any of these vehicles in my scenarios.

 

It's not fun, realistic, or immersive. I really wish the developers would reconsider, just letting players use the mouse (like a normal vehicle) with a slower traverse speed.

[Lumituisku]

16 hours ago, Apocalypse 31 said:

 

Speak for yourself. For me there's no immersion by smashing keys repeatedly.

 

Yes, and I refuse to include any of these vehicles in my scenarios.

 

It's not fun, realistic, or immersive. I really wish the developers would reconsider, just letting players use the mouse (like a normal vehicle) with a slower traverse speed.

 

That I do.  It is my honest opinion. That said.  I have been thinking about all this. 

 

See...  to me I really like how it feels to change from main system to manual in emergency (mouse to arrow keys).  This was really nice thing in my opinion on Leopard2a4  and M1.

 

That said...     it made me wonder...  is it justified to force people use inferior accuracy and annoying clicking as main system   for example  Scimitar.   Arrow keys have some really annoying features.  And if mouse would be considered as main system.  Then it would make Scimitar and Fennec more enjoyable  even if those would still be slow like you suggested. 

 

But I totally want to keep arrow keys for manual modes when main power is down.  

[ben]

2 hours ago, Lumituisku said:

But I totally want to keep arrow keys for manual modes when main power is down.

I can understand that..
 

As I’ve said before, I advocate keeping everything working as it does, AND adding slow mouse traversing as well, so you can use whichever you prefer.

[Poofydoodle]

Hi guys just wanted to add my two cents here.

 

I used a third party binding management program that lets you switch bindings on the fly with a keyboard command and have different joystick/keyboard setups for different vehicles which is very useful. This program lets you assign "turbo" functionality to a key.

 

As a big fan of the Scimitar and how fun it is to use it makes me sad when people dislike it. I decided to bind the tapping of the arrow keys to the dpad on my PS3 controller.

 

The result was a turret that took awhile to get up to speed and a fair amount of time to stop  it required careful application of the opposite direction if you wanted to move and stop the turret on target as quick as possible. Countering the recoil was fun and exciting to get maximum rof. Transverse speed was reasonable but still much less than a powered turret.

 

The end result was an experience that felt much different than a powered turret and made it obvious and apparant this vehicle operated differently while still being fun but also still feeling realistic.

 

If anyone wants to try this program it is quite cheap and i made a thread about it with a link to a free trial and instructions.

 

In my opinion I think the best thing would be an option to enable full or reduced realism on the manual turrets. After playing with a turbo function I found the vehicle a lot more fun to play and dealing with its shortcomings felt more like a fun technique to master. This would make everyone happy for minimal game dev work.

 

My other idea was something inspired from an old n64 racing game that had you rotating a joystick to dismount and mount wheels in a pit stop.

 

You could rotate a gamepad thumbstick counter or clockwise to rotate the turret. This would require more dev work but I think could give a good balance of realism and playability for people looking for a more demanding experience.

 

I am a big fan of the Scimitar and hauling ass from hull.down to hull down nailing bursts perfectly adjusting from the recoil and think it is one of the most fun vehicles. I would love to see this resolved as I want to make more scenarios involving it. Please let me know if I can help in any way. 😄

[Gibsonm]

2 hours ago, Poofydoodle said:

I used a third party binding management program that lets you switch bindings on the fly with a keyboard command and have different joystick/keyboard setups for different vehicles which is very useful. This program lets you assign "turbo" functionality to a key.

 

Can I just confirm that this "turbo" mode only reduces the effort required (i.e. the turret still traverses at the same speed but with less key pressing)?

 

I suspect there might be concerns if say a Scimitar crewed by a person using the "normal" approach encountered one with your setup during say a TGIF and the traverse speeds were markedly different.

 

Edited January 27, 2022 by Gibsonm

[Poofydoodle]

3 hours ago, Gibsonm said:

 

Can I just confirm that this "turbo" mode only reduces the effort required (i.e. the turret still traverses at the same speed but with less key pressing)?

 

I suspect there might be concerns if say a Scimitar crewed by a person using the "normal" approach encountered one with your setup during say a TGIF and the traverse speeds were markedly different.

 

It is simply automating the keypresses at a fixed speed you define. It cant make the turret move any faster than the ingame limits for that vehicle. The name turbo refers more to the option of the same name on some third party video game controllers back in the day that would do the same thing.

 

The turret still behaves the same as hammering the keys its just much easier to do. I still would probably make sure the scenario wasnt designed around the scimitar being at a disadvantage due to this before jumping into a pvp game online and that people were cool with it.