Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 03:13:24 -0400 Subject: Re: New/Old Terrain! Just some possible helpfull info on AWFW AOL calibration, for those considering coming to AOL eventually. This below is what I found out (& am posting it on the newsgroup). 1) Full realism joystick calibration: Some people have had problems when first going into FR, especially in some planes (ones with a good roll rate), the plane randomly jitters around, doing little rolls from side to side. I beleive the problem is that they calibrated their joystick in something other than "ace" offline realism, and their deadbands are set too low. But, if they set the deadbands too high, the controls get mushy, you have to pull back on the stick for some time till anything happens (I am not talking about the stick realism scaling here). What I did was tweak the deadbands up just a little, take an offline test flight (in an FW, has the best roll rate) under "ace" settings, and see if either the plane jittered, or was mushy. Then, I would go back to "setup controls" to tweak the deadbands up or down some more, then another test flight, and back & forth, till I finally got it to maximum responsiveness without jitter (the least possible deadbands I could get away with). Then, to check, try an online test flight in a full real arena, followed by more carefull tweaking if needed (I don't think it will be needed as long as you make sure your offline test flights are under "ace" realism). My joystick is currently set to about 1/5th or less deadbands, rudders at 1/4th (may need to tweak those), and general deadband set to one notch only. One gut came to FR and had to set it quickly to 1/2, without all this tweaking, which is why I am putting this here. What with the Malta scenerio coming up in FR, and 1/2 of warnights being FR, I thought it might be important for people to know of this possible problem now, rather than have it crop up at the last minute, while in flight in a scenerio. Also, I suspect that the difference some DOS AW types experiance in plane feel & performance, which causes them to not fly as well as usual, may be just this joystick calibration problem. Anybody else notice this problem? 2) Macros in AWFW: Are porked, will be fixed, but meanwhile, this can be done- Start AWFW offline, take a test flight (stay on ground). Press simultaniously cntrl+alt+F9, and pause a second while still holding these, then also press F10 (while still holding the above), then release all, and the fast macro maker should be initialised. Now, press a key you want to start the macro, but not a key already used by AW for something (I have F11 & F12). For now, forget using the alt or cntrl keys in the macro, till the macro engine is fixed. Now, do whatever you want the macro to do (forget as part of it, it does'nt seem to take). To end and record it, simultaniously press alt+cntrl+F9. Pray. Sacrafice to your Moggy statue. If it still does'nt work, best thing is to exit ( e) from test flight, then re-enter, as things get screwy (hitting sometimes works & gets things going again, but don't bet on it). To erase a bad macro, do the above, when it askes you to press the key to start the macro, press the key of the bad macro, then do alt+cntrl+F9 to end it, and it should erase (may take several tries, exiting testflight and re-enter, etc). Online, you can only use a macro once, then it stopes working, but you can hit then and it will work as many times as you want (but with more keystrokes after the first use). Just hit maco key, , after the first use to use that macro again. I have one macro programmed into my throttle complete with and , so I can use it as often as I like. Don't even think of trying to make a macro online, it can screw up your keyboard and ruin your flight. You might also want to save the macro file (whatever it is, I havent tried this) as a copy somewhere else befor you try to mess with it. Worked for me, I have two radio macros working. Will get you a few macros at least, till they fix it (which they are working on). o---)Baddog>------------ (Now, if only I can tweak ME as good.) ---)-Musketeers---------