Control Feelthere ERJ-170 Flight Path Angle from Game Controller

[LecLightning56]

Hi,

I would like to control the adjustment of flight path angle from the Feelthere ERJ-170 MCP in P3D v4 with a moveable control knob on a USB game controller (Thrustmaster TWCS Throttle).

Can anyone advise how best to achieve this, please? I have a registered version of FSUIPC5 installed.

 

[Pete Dowson]

47 minutes ago, LecLightning56 said:

I would like to control the adjustment of flight path angle from the Feelthere ERJ-170 MCP in P3D v4 with a moveable control knob on a USB game controller (Thrustmaster TWCS Throttle).

Flight path angle is controlled by a combination of engine (thrust) control and elevator / elavator trim settings, and is a constant feedback process. Unless your aircraft is actually equipped to do this (and personally I don't know any that are -- autopilots control airspeed or descent speed, but normally not directly the FPA) then you'll need a sophisticated program to do it -- via feedback. Is that what you intend to write?

This is of course irrespective of what input control mechanism you provide for the pilot. That is easier. If your "knob" on your USB game controller is recognised in Windows, and therefore flight sim, as a joystick axis, then you can have a continuous adjuster. If it is a digital encoder with, effectively, two button inputs, then it can operate with small icrements or descrements to adjust the results.

Pete

 

[LecLightning56]

Pete,

Not sure if I explained myself properly. The Feelthere model has an FPA button and a control knob to select either a positive or negative flight path angle. Am I still hamstrung by your original comments?

[Pete Dowson]

1 hour ago, LecLightning56 said:

The Feelthere model has an FPA button and a control knob to select either a positive or negative flight path angle. Am I still hamstrung by your original comments?

No, but the question about what the control knob you intend to use remains. i.e

"If your "knob" on your USB game controller is recognised in Windows, and therefore flight sim, as a joystick axis, then you can have a continuous adjuster. If it is a digital encoder with, effectively, two button inputs, then it can operate with small increments or decrements to adjust the results."

To put it bluntly, I don't know what your knob looks like to the PC, whether it can be seen by FS or FSUIPC. That's the first question now.

But your clarification does raise another question too: do FeelThere provide a way to operate that control knob, or is it only a mouse controlled item?

Pete

 

 

 

[LecLightning56]

Pete,

Firstly, the knob on my USB game controller is recognised by Windows as a joystick axis. The knob itself is seen by both FS and FSUIPC.

The Feelthere control knob in the virtual cockpit is only a mouse-controlled item.

Hope you can direct me from here, if at all.

Many thanks in the meantime.

[Pete Dowson]

2 minutes ago, LecLightning56 said:

Firstly, the knob on my USB game controller is recognised by Windows as a joystick axis. The knob itself is seen by both FS and FSUIPC.

That's good.

2 minutes ago, LecLightning56 said:

The Feelthere control knob in the virtual cockpit is only a mouse-controlled item.

Hope you can direct me from here, if at all.

Well, you probably need FeelThere support rather than FSUIPC support first, as you need to find a way to operate it with keystrokes or other means.

If there are keyboard methods of adjusting it, then you can use those on your "knob".  Or maybe they are using an FS control to control it -- use FSUIPC "event" logging (Logging tab) to see if any is logged when you operate it with the mouse.

The only other possibility is using Local panel Variables ("L:Vars"). You can list all those for the curret panel by using the FSUIPC-assignable list LVar control. There's also a Lua plug-in provided in the Examples which will display them when they change. You can then see exactly what is being used and how, that way.

If it is controllable by L:Var then you will be able to create a small FSUIPC macro to deal with it and assign that to act via your knob.

Of course, since your knob is an axis it would be far tidier and easier if the panel knob was also an axis typre control (i.e. continuous) rather than a simple increment and decrement action.

If there's a support forum covering this aircraft you'd do well to post there. Other users may have looked at this already, or you may even get help from FeelThere.

Pete

 

 

[aua668]

Hi,

The Feelthere E195 can only be programmed via mouse macros. So record a mouse macro for the knobs you want to press. An then assign these macros to your joystick buttons.

Rgds
Reinhard

[LecLightning56]

Thanks, Reinhard.

I think I have reached that conclusion too. Unfortunately mouse macros seem to be dead for me at the moment, even with aircraft they are supposed to operate with!

 

[LecLightning56]

6 hours ago, aua668 said:

Hi,

The Feelthere E195 can only be programmed via mouse macros. So record a mouse macro for the knobs you want to press. An then assign these macros to your joystick buttons.

Rgds
Reinhard

Reinhard,

I have just tried the Feelthere 195 in FSX-SE and cannot use mouse macros in FSUIPC. If you have succeeded with this, then please let me know what you did.

[LecLightning56]

I have now managed to create a mouse macro in FSX-SE for the Feelthere E195 (which also works with the E170). The macro works correctly for these aircraft. Unsurprisingly, the mouse macro also works in P3D v3, but I cannot create mouse macros in P3D v3 itself (why?). Rather obviously the macro will not work in  P3D v4, unless there is some other way of getting the required information from the gauge file.

Forgive me if I am wrong, but are you looking at mouse macros for FSUIPC5, Pete?

[LecLightning56]

One further thing, the control knob in question is not rotatable, you either click one side to increment, the other side to decrement or scroll up and down with the mouse to do both. Where scrolling is concerned, is an axis assignment to a game controller possible, or is it only possible to use buttons/switches/key presses with mouse macros in FSUIPC?

[aua668]

Hi,

For the scroll wheel check the FSUIPC documentation for mouse macros and the parameters, which you can apply.

Rgds
Reinhard

[Pete Dowson]

On 4/11/2018 at 7:40 AM, LecLightning56 said:

Forgive me if I am wrong, but are you looking at mouse macros for FSUIPC5, Pete?

Yes. There are new facilities in 4.2 which I can take advantage of, but at present the facility L-M provided only seems to operate if the gauge/switch/knob concerned is actually on screen at the time.  I'm seeing if I can work around that, but i think it might need more changes from L-M.

Perhaps some folks have the cockpit visible on screen even when using a hardware one, so it will be useful in that case, so I will be implementing it either way. Not sure about timescale at present, but it will be withing weeks, not months.

On 4/11/2018 at 10:12 AM, LecLightning56 said:

Where scrolling is concerned, is an axis assignment to a game controller possible, or is it only possible to use buttons/switches/key presses with mouse macros in FSUIPC?

Mouse macros basically try to emulate what the mouse does, but only simple things.  I'm not sure what you mean by "scrollup or down" though. The clicking on the left or right should be okay as they will be different "mousable zones".

If the scrolling is by using the mousewheel, that might be possible but you need to find the correct mouse parameter to put in the macro manually. I really don't know -- FSUIPC merely calls the function it found with that parameter. It is probably a value derived from the same sort of mouse parameters used in PMDG aircraft "custom controls" and listed in their list of same. And they all appear to be related to Windows programming mouse codes.

There might be one for "wheel up" and another for "wheel down" but I think not -- more likely "wheel has moved" with another parameter giving the amount (positive or negative for direction).  I currently don't know how to get that part into the function.

I think the P3D4 facilities provided are just for mouse button clicking, but i'll know more when I've investigated further.

Pete

 

[LecLightning56]

Pete,

Many thanks for your responses. One thing that I cannot get to work is mouse macros in P3D v3. I am having to use FSX-SE to create the macros and then copy the macro files into P3D v3 whereupon they do work succesfully. Confirm that things should be working similarly in P3D v3 as in  FSX-SE? I don't believe that I am doing anything differently in P3D compared to FSX-SE where the creation of the mouse macro is concerned. Any thoughts/suggestions here greatly appreciated.

[Pete Dowson]

1 hour ago, LecLightning56 said:

One thing that I cannot get to work is mouse macros in P3D v3.

Strange. They should be okay. Which P3D3, the last one, 3.4.something?

I don't think I've got any addon-aircraft to use on that. Is there a default where it should work but doesn't? Mostly default aircraft don't support them.

Pete

 

[aua668]

Hi,

Mouse macro creation in P3D 3.4 works as expected in my configuration. So it must be something locally in your installation.

Rgds
Reinhard