CLS2Sim doesn't fully recognize the A2A Comanche in MSFS

[davidkarji]

Sadly it seems like CLS2Sim doesn’t recognize the comanche in the sim. I do have yoke movement in the sim, but the effects don’t seem to work. “current engine thrust” in the effect tab also stays at 0 (with the engine running in the sim ofc).

Would greatly appreciate it if this got fixed. Would be a shame if we can’t use our Brunner in this amazingly simulated aircraft! 🙂

[leonpo2]

please comment here https://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=151&t=74793

[medtner]

Yeah, this requires cooperation between A2A and Brunner. I heard from Scott Gentile at A2A that they have been in contact with Brunner and will get a unit to experiment with.

My take on this, given the fact that A2A has its own physics engine in Accusim running outside of the simulator, is that they need to send a “dud” of information to MSFS for the CLS2Sim software to read – a package of info to read, but not for the plane to act upon. This means that the Brunner software has the data to provide all the simulation that it does. However, this will only happen if this can be sent to MSFS without it messing up the physics of the lovely Accusim-plane(s).

An other option is for Brunner to supply an option inside of CLS2Sim for users to assign where the data comes from (and also what sort of “range” this data has, as I’m sure it’s standardized in the sim, which is why we must switch the software between MSFS and XP for example). This could be handy with many other planes too, btw, as other complex planes have different ways of controlling the engine physics and/or the control surfaces. The trouble with the AirfoilLabs planes was caused by them doing “stuff” outside the XP-standard, trying to improve upon it, but at the same time making it difficult to have Brunner hardware be compatible. This was recently solved by an option in CLS2Sim to ignore various axis.

The latter is more interesting to me, as I also have problems with the brakes on the A2A Comanche using my CLS Mk2 Rudder. Same problem, I guess – data coming from outside the regular MSFS datarefs.

It can be solved, I’m absolutely confident about this. It’s only a matter of all parties being open to trying some weird stuff to make it click into place.

I’ll help with any testing, whenever needed.

Yours,

Erik H. Aasland

[gandalf17]

Hopefully Brunner can answer this question before their vacation starts tomorrow?

Meanwhile this question is answered by Scott at the A2A forum.

Regards,
Martin

[David G]

I think some have found a way to make the Brunner yoke “almost” work with the A2A Comanche. From what I’ve read (and possibly recall), it involves using Hardware Trim and the yoke buttons for trim while setting another control for software trim for the AP in the sim (or through SimConnect). Does that sound right? If someone does have it working to any degree that they’re satisfied, it would be great if you could share some of the CLS2Sim profile info, especially the trim section (like a screen shot). Thank you!

[aurel42]

In case you don’t follow the discussion on the A2A forum, Scott Gentile posted this:

“It turns out we need to take another path for Force Feedback to work, through Asobo likely. We haven’t yet made this request as we’re deep into other things but we will and keep in mind they are busy too so it will likely take a while before, if, anything is done. We do want FF to work. It is important to us so we won’t be completely dropping this ball.”

As I wrote on the A2A forum, there are more people with VR headsets than people with force-feedback hardware. VR hasn’t seen any TLC by Asobo since SU5, when MSFS arrived on the Xbox. I find it hard to believe that they would divert developer resources to FF. Especially when there is no FF device officially supported by the sim (afaik). Especially at this point in time, when the deadline for MSFS2024 is inching closer day by day.

I think I understand Scott’s approach. He probably wants FF to feel right, and to get that, the sim has to supply some raw data like forces acting on control surfaces and what have you.

On the other hand, at this point, I would be happy if I could just use the Comanche incl. AP with CLS2Sim’s usual speed and rpm based approximations of forces. (Or the PC-12, or the DA-62 and 42, or the cool legacy AP in the Wilga.)

The number of MSFS planes that don’t work “out of the box” with Brunner hardware appears to be growing.

I believe, we either need Brunner to step up and make CLS2Sim more flexible, maybe by letting us configure which variables to read from and write to the sim, or we need some (open source) tool that replaces CLS2Sim or puts itself between CLS2Sim and MSFS.

tbh, I don’t have much hope. We are few: not many people use Brunner hardware, only a subset use MSFS, even fewer fly the Comanche (or the other aircraft I listed), and only some of them are not happy with workarounds like “use Vjoy and never touch the AP”. So the Comanche sits in my hangar as a reminder never to buy an aircraft unless other Brunner users confirm that it works as intended with my yoke.

[gandalf17]

And in this thread there is a new post where User Arturo made a FFB himself and said, that all values in MSFS are there:

“However, the necessary variables are really there, in the form of custom vars -> Lvars
And actually the one who has it easiest is brunner, who would only have to read them.
But Brunner would have to support each of the advanced addons that come out. Does Brunner want to do this? it’s up to them.

Lvars for this:
rpm “L:Eng1_PropRPM”
torque “L:Eng1_Torque”
do you want AP functions and following? “L:ApMode”
etc”

You can read the full post here:
https://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=580574#p580574

I hope Brunner will support this special option, that the A2A Comanche will work in MSFS with the Brunner Yoke.

[aurel42]

Instead of a special option, I’d prefer a more generic solution, so we don’t run into the same problem with the future aircraft releases (and so we can “fix” all the existing aircraft that don’t really work out-of-the-box with CLS2Sim). Give us a way to control which sim variables are used and make this part of the aircraft profile — then only one of us needs to be smart enough to figure out which variables to use and everybody else can get the profile from the profile cloud (which would make the cloud so much more meaningful).

I don’t know what the best solution would look like, whether we should be able to pick variables from a list, or use RPN notation, or write LUA scripts, but I’m sure Brunner could take some inspiration from tools like FSUIPC, MobiFlight, Spad.next, or Axis and Ohs.

[medtner]

Yes, I think it’s about time that they support the users changing variables – allowing more careful integration with the various planes that we use. As the simulators expand their physics, we need the Brunner software to keep up.

As much as I love the A2A Comanche, I can’t really bring myself to fly it much. I just don’t have a “feel” for the plane. In general X-Plane seems to work much much better with Brunner, but it’s really noticeable in the Comanche.

[leonpo2]

A2A just posted Comanche updated and mentioned in release note that they added some variables for FFB support:
“Added additional telemetry variables for force-feedback hardware”
https://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=75207

[gandalf17]

Correct, but with this update 1.5.0 in CLS2Sim the throttle value doesn’t work and so the propwash effect isn’t available.

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