Not sure if there's a better section for this but I thought some people here would appreciate this...
Any sim racer is going to tell you that there's no point buying a steering wheel without it having Force Feedback, but that hasn't been an option in the flight sim space for some time (I THINK this is because of some patents)
Regardless, the open source community has been working on this for a LONG time, and slowly but surely there's been a bunch of dedicated people that have finally put it all together.
One of the standout players in this space has been a guy that goes by Walmis. He's finally put it all together in the form of an open source design with some freely available software that he then funds by selling kits, and fully built units via his discord: https://vpforcecontrols.com/
I received my unit before Christmas and finally got an opportunity to use it over the break - and it's a bit of a game changer!
Think Microsoft FFB Joystick on steroids
From left to right...
VP Force Rhino
Winwing Super Libra
Microsoft Force Feedback
This thing is a beast - I've not been paying attention a couple of times and this thing just rips right out of my grip if you crank it to 11
Moving away from my original MS FFB joystick to a "good" joystick base that was the Winwing Super Libra always had compromises. Yes, I could use it with nice grips, yes it worked better in my ramshackle wooden cockpit, but it always lacked that tactile feedback.
The Rhino solves that. One of the best features for me has got to be the "dynamic centre". This works great for trimming aircraft like the F14 or Apache where the centre of the joystick position can move. The feeling of adding trim to ACTUALLY remove tension from the joystick is exactly as it works in the real world and it works great with this joystick - just like it does with the MS FFB but I can add my specific grip.
On top of that you've then got all your "effects" via VP Force Telemetry. This is a custom piece of software that runs alongside your game that can pick up certain actions/situations and add rumbles and effects that the game might not have natively in it's own FFB implementation. It's a nice touch in DCS because the FFB is done "per aircraft" - so the F14 works great out the box without this, but the F18 for example really benefits from it.
So yeah, current wait times for the motors and circuit boards he's created are about a month I think... full kits are 12months lead time
And if you can't wait... go build your own!
Any sim racer is going to tell you that there's no point buying a steering wheel without it having Force Feedback, but that hasn't been an option in the flight sim space for some time (I THINK this is because of some patents)
Regardless, the open source community has been working on this for a LONG time, and slowly but surely there's been a bunch of dedicated people that have finally put it all together.
One of the standout players in this space has been a guy that goes by Walmis. He's finally put it all together in the form of an open source design with some freely available software that he then funds by selling kits, and fully built units via his discord: https://vpforcecontrols.com/
I received my unit before Christmas and finally got an opportunity to use it over the break - and it's a bit of a game changer!
Think Microsoft FFB Joystick on steroids
From left to right...
VP Force Rhino
Winwing Super Libra
Microsoft Force Feedback
This thing is a beast - I've not been paying attention a couple of times and this thing just rips right out of my grip if you crank it to 11
Moving away from my original MS FFB joystick to a "good" joystick base that was the Winwing Super Libra always had compromises. Yes, I could use it with nice grips, yes it worked better in my ramshackle wooden cockpit, but it always lacked that tactile feedback.
The Rhino solves that. One of the best features for me has got to be the "dynamic centre". This works great for trimming aircraft like the F14 or Apache where the centre of the joystick position can move. The feeling of adding trim to ACTUALLY remove tension from the joystick is exactly as it works in the real world and it works great with this joystick - just like it does with the MS FFB but I can add my specific grip.
On top of that you've then got all your "effects" via VP Force Telemetry. This is a custom piece of software that runs alongside your game that can pick up certain actions/situations and add rumbles and effects that the game might not have natively in it's own FFB implementation. It's a nice touch in DCS because the FFB is done "per aircraft" - so the F14 works great out the box without this, but the F18 for example really benefits from it.
So yeah, current wait times for the motors and circuit boards he's created are about a month I think... full kits are 12months lead time
And if you can't wait... go build your own!
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so crunch time before they send me an invoice
