Helicopters are too unrealistic

[Robert1983nl]

Hi all,

first of all let me tell and thank you guys for making the best mod for BF2!!! I didn't really play BF2 anymore, but since I've found out about the Project Reality mod I totally enjoy playing it again.

Ofcourse the mod is always being developed, it's an ongoing process and I have little complaints. There's only one really big thing that's bugging me.

HELICOPTERS.

Their handling is absolutely ridiculous. I think they are WAY more realistic in BF, and that's not even near realistic. Here are some items that are way too unrealistic concerning helicopters:

-The airspeeds. A fast helicopter has a top speed of 320kmph, I've flown a Huey with 800kmph+ in the game. A Huey won't go a lot faster than 200kmph in reality. Also they accelerate way too fast. Totally out of proportion, it's a shame.
-Vertical movement. Why is it so hard to gain altitude quickly in a helicopter? They fly like they only wanna go forward instead of climbing. It's not a fixed wing aircraft, it's a helicopter, it should go up vertically way WAY easier.
-Rolling over. Why do you roll over so often when you try to take off before you are full started up? It does not make any sense. I understand you guys want a start-up time to delay the immediate use of a helicopter, but please, don't make it roll over if you try to pull pitch before the startup is complete because it's weird and annoying, also because you can't really know when the start-up has been completed.
Also, when landing on lateral slopes, it'll be virtually impossible to take off vertically. Either you'll roll over, or you'll sweep sideways really fast as you lift off the ground.
-Decelerating also sucks. When you're flying fast and you want to decelerate you'll often decelerate so freaking quickly, you'll be going 400kmph backwards in no time! Or, when you're descending/decelerating using the thrust down button (S) you'll lose all directional control ability. Imagine a nose up deceleration and descent, pressing the S key to get down to the ground: The arrow keys will be ineffective. This is also very unrealistic.

So, you guys have made a magnificient mod with a lot of realism, except for the helicopters, which have become way more unrealistic. I'd like to help out with the following suggestions:

-Lower the max airspeed to more realistic values.
-Don't have the choppers roll over when you try to lift while the start-up isn't completed yet.
-Try to give an indication somehow to let the pilot know start-up has been completed.
-Give the choppers more vertical authority. After all, that's what choppers do... They go straight up. Not virtually only straight forward like in PR.
-Try to solve the takeoff from slopes, which almost always result in a crash or a rollover.
-Make it so that even though you lower thrust (S-key), you still have control with the arrow keys.
-Try to make the choppers fly more consequent. If you slow down from 800kmph, you shouldn't be going backwards with 400kmph just because you held the back arrow key for half a second too long.

I hope you guys can use my suggestions and implement them in a future update. It'll make the helicopters a lot more realistic! I've also read that you guys are working on the Chinook. That's awesome. I know all about that machine, so if you guys got ANY questions about it, ask me. Also I'll be able to answer general questions about helicopters.

Keep up the good work and thanks for reading my suggestions!

[Rudd]

I've been told that POE2 has better helicopter air physics, but never tried that myself

But would you happen to have any references or personal experience flying helicopters?

I never have myself, but I know there are community members who have and have presumably informed the DEVs of how these things handle.

-Try to solve the takeoff from slopes, which almost always result in a crash or a rollover.

surely thats realistic? e.g. when a chinook wants to pick up from a slope it holds horizontal and uses its rear hatch door?

[Robert1983nl]

Yes I have experience with flying helicopters irl. I fly the CH-47D Chinook myself and have flown other aircraft.
I don't know if community members have already informed the devs about how choppers handle, but the way they do now, is totally unrealistic.

I'm not familiar with POE2 either.

What I meant about the slopes: In reality, when you're on a slope you'll first get the helicopter horizontal, then you lift. This is however impossible in PR. You'll never get it horizontal in PR, so you'll takeoff sideways, often flying into trees etc.

[KP]

The airspeed shown in the HUD isn't your actual airspeed. It's in BF2 speed units which have nothing to do with real speed units. The helicopters move at realistic speed, though.

[Rudd]

well cool mate its good to know that we can trust your comments, welcome to the forum (forgot to say that in my previous post, soz mate)

[LudacrisKill]

I dont think that the speed shown in the chopper is the actual speed the helicopter is going at.

Maybe a BF2 metre is smaller than it should be, or somthing, or jet/heli speeds were made in Vanilla and then just 'labelled' as the speed they would be going in RL?

In other words, the creators of BF2 made the helis go a certain speed to adjust to gameplay, then they looked at how fast those helis could go in RL and put that number on the screen of the person flying that aircraft.

I think speed of helicopters are correct just not the speed shown on the HUD.

Correct me if im wrong

*=LP=* LudacrisKill

[AnRK]

Gotta bare in mind the restraints of the BF2 engine too, I'm sure the DEVs would rather they handle a little more realistically if they could make it so, they have done alot of tweaking to make it better though through PRs development. A good example of the limits of BF2 in terms of flying is the lack of gliding for fixed wing, when you reach a certain speed and level of throttle your plane will pretty much nose dive to the floor and won't glide whatsoever, I assume that's an engine issue anyway.

At least it's reasonably hard to fly helicopters well...

[Conman51]

-Try to solve the takeoff from slopes, which almost always result in a crash or a rollover.

that might be a problem the devs might not be able to fix....i thimk its just the engine...rember in bf2 no one ever landed they just ditched and parachuted out...so i dont think EA ever really thought about situations about this (landing ona slope)

and teh air speed is accurate..just the speedometer isnt

[daranz]

My chief complaint about choppers in PR was always how little inertia there is. In real life, choppers don't stop on a dime, and don't accelerate to maximum safe speed in miliseconds. If you watch a real chopper fly, the pilot needs to anticipate decelerations, and put a bit of effort into stopping the heli. However, in PR, as soon as you pitch up for .3 seconds, your aircraft is going backwards.

Also, it seems that all aircraft in BF2/PR, including fixed wing aircraft, lose hydraulics when you lower the throttle. In fixed wing aircraft, you can't cut engines and glide cause you lose all control over the aircraft.

As to the speeds, I treat them as HUD decoration left over from Vanilla. They don't really have any meaning beyond "you are actually moving." Hell, minimal shuffling in place sends you supersonic on the readout.

[Rhino]

thanks for your feedback, here are some responses to the issues you have razed.

Their handling is absolutely ridiculous. I think they are WAY more realistic in BF, and that's not even near realistic. Here are some items that are way too unrealistic concerning helicopters:

I personally would consider PR's chopper physics on some of our choppers to be much more realistic than thous in vBF2, thou dont even think about classing the Huey into chopper's with good physics we are well aware that thing handles like elephant on roller-skates.

-The airspeeds. A fast helicopter has a top speed of 320kmph, I've flown a Huey with 800kmph+ in the game. A Huey won't go a lot faster than 200kmph in reality. Also they accelerate way too fast. Totally out of proportion, it's a shame.

Are you going off the ingame speed monitor? please dont, that thing is a pile of turd and the values on that are not kmph or mph or anything, if you want to find the speed of something you have to set up a distance ingame, time the distance it takes to travel though it with a stop watch, then do the maths. Are chopper speeds for the most part are quite realistic, thou the huey, dont even look at that we know that thing handels like **** like ive said before.

-Vertical movement. Why is it so hard to gain altitude quickly in a helicopter? They fly like they only wanna go forward instead of climbing. It's not a fixed wing aircraft, it's a helicopter, it should go up vertically way WAY easier.

is the huey the only chopper your talking about? most choppers are fine in this area thou could do a little important. The huey is the one that's really bad.

-Rolling over. Why do you roll over so often when you try to take off before you are full started up? It does not make any sense. I understand you guys want a start-up time to delay the immediate use of a helicopter, but please, don't make it roll over if you try to pull pitch before the startup is complete because it's weird and annoying, also because you can't really know when the start-up has been completed.
Also, when landing on lateral slopes, it'll be virtually impossible to take off vertically. Either you'll roll over, or you'll sweep sideways really fast as you lift off the ground.

vbf2 issue, just dont have your throttle in the negative when you are warming up your engines. there may be a way to fix it but we have bigger fish to fry.

-Decelerating also sucks. When you're flying fast and you want to decelerate you'll often decelerate so freaking quickly, you'll be going 400kmph backwards in no time! Or, when you're descending/decelerating using the thrust down button (S) you'll lose all directional control ability. Imagine a nose up deceleration and descent, pressing the S key to get down to the ground: The arrow keys will be ineffective. This is also very unrealistic.

most choppers are in fact very good, the down thing is quite a bit ott yes but we hope to fix that at some point.



The hardest bit with any of these tweaks is dealing with the BF2 engine's physics with any vehicle, its pretty impossible to get what you want. Please if you have the time and feel up to it, try and install the editor and play around with the engine and other settings to try and get better results as of right now we have no coders really working on this area so would be a grate help if some one could improve them for us.

I would also recommend you try other choppers rather than just the huey...

[unrealalex]

So is the Huey generally regarded to handle terribly or what? Because I find the Huey one of the easiest choppers to fly.

Yea same here. I guess we're a minority

Judging by the points razed, it seems to be the most realistic helicopter:
- It's harder to stop when it's going fast. Feels like it has more inertia.
- Cant use your rudders at fast speeds
- It doesn't flip or roll over


It does gain altitude a bit slow.

[[uBp]Irish]

I find the huey atleast somewhat easier to fly as well. For me it handles a bit better than the Blackhawk which just feels jerky.

For the most part, its easiest to deccelerate if you flair it at the right moment and then set it down. Dont try landing on slops.. and if you do, you have to fight it to keep it atleast somewhat level.

I find the blackhawk more awkward to fly.. can barely keep it from going left and right its so twitchy.

[gazzthompson]

PLA chopper is worst heli in PR to fly

[Nickbond592]

which one? the trans, mini scout thing or the attack

i think the attack chopper is one of the better helicopters to fly in PR, the trans is just a slow boheamoth and the scout always seems to pull up which is a bit frustrating lol

[gazzthompson]

noooooob alert.

yea i meant scout my bad...

it constantly fights you, no rudder action ,always pulls up , fights you in turns... cant be realistic ??

[Rhino]

there is nothing wrong with the big PLA transport chopper, its one of the better to fly in fact.

[Tirak]

Merlin flies best

Anyway, there is an indicator when your heli is warmed up. Listen to the rotors, when they maintain a constant pitch, they're warmed up. The Huey had a bug in .75, don't know if it's still there, where the rotors would sound warmed up before they could actually fly. Rule of thumb is to wait an extra ten seconds or so before upping the throttle.

[Psyko]

-Try to solve the takeoff from slopes, which almost always result in a crash or a rollover.

You can save choppers when taking off on slopes. It requires patience.

Simply wait for the warm-up time of 30-40 seconds and tap the down button. Face the nose of the chopper towards to top of the slope so that it is more horizontally inclined in the direction of the elevation. then when the warmup time is finished, nose faward delicatly and throttle up.

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