Control-line Combat Simulator

Some time ago, Dalibor Toman (Czech Republic, http://f2d.fortech.cz/clsim/index.html) wrote a control-line computer simulator program called CLsim, mostly for F2D combat, in the Delphi language. This simulator used modified computer mouse gizzards to enable a normal control-line handle to be hooked up to the simulator to improve the realism. However, the mouse needed to be a serial mouse (difficult to find now), was not very robust and some of the 3D graphics/physics were incorrect. Peter Mills (http://alc.net.au, http://mills.hopto.org/Control-line) took this another step further by improving a few of the geometry calculations (Dalibor was happy to provide the source code to someone who might improve the simulator) and experiment with a new, more robust handle input device.

Apart from the code changes to improve some graphics problems and to enable the use of a joystick input, the main addition is the handle input sensor. The new sensor was based on a potentiometer (or 'pot', a variable resistor, available from Dick Smith Electronics) and was wired to mimic one of the axes of a normal joystick on the game-port of the computer. This was set up with some pivots for normal line clips to allow the handle to be connected. The pot was bolted to a long wire (to keep its body angle fixed) and the wire was connected to a set of daisy-chained thick rubber-bands. The end of the rubber chain is attached to something very solid (so that it doesn't let go and end up in your eye) and the handle pulled back away from the anchor point until a realistic tension is felt. Then its all up to the program to interpret the hand movements and simulate where the model will fly on the computer screen.

This design needs the old-style analog joystick port (not a USB port, etc). You also need to connect the potentiometer to the y-axis of the joystick port, between pin 1 and pin 6. A 100kOhm resistor should be put between pin 1 and pin 3 to fake the x-axis position of the joystick. The potentiometer should be a 100kOhm linear type. You may have to experiment with the direction of motion (or the connections) of the potentiometer to help match the reactions of the plane on the screen. More information on the joystick connections can be found at http://www.epanorama.net/documents/joystick/pc_circuits.html . The simulator program is here (CLsim.exe). Note that the physics still don't work well at the very peak of the flying hemisphere, but below that flight is reasonably well represented.

Even without the feel of the model movement on the handle the simulator still works well enough to practice lots of death-defying manoeuvres without the usual amount of model carnage. The handle and simulator have been great for learning everything from how to fly inverted to developing good intuitive reflexes with a fast twitchy model (a must for combat flying).

Other Control-line (combat?) simulators

Dalibor Toman's CLsim
Streamer-Stalkers combat game
Mark Rudner's combat simulator

CategoryComplete