The latest rendition of the Buttkicker is imminent, if not already available, and I have to say I’m tempted. I have a Jetseat Pad that worked great…but I found it to be simply uncomfortable to sit on for any length of time…so it sits in a closet. Also, having all the motors working independently sounds cool, but in reality, vibrations that reach a pilot affect the whole seat rather than just a part of it…so a Buttkicker might actually be a more realistic experience.
my main concern will be how I mount it. I have a Secret Labs Titan chair which sits at it’s lowest height…I’m not sure how I wouldl attach it to the central pillar of the chair without raising it.
while i waited the jetseat i set up 2 bass shaker!
in the end i’m using both, jetseat and bass shaker and diverting different effects on the 2…
for example jet rumble is terrible on the jetseat and great on bass shaker, while feeling the kick ok the left forst and on the right after when you retreat your undercarriage is awesome on the jetseat!
my 2 coins… go for the butkiker bit give the jetseat another chanche!
So I just ordered one…. It isn’t due to arrive until early May, but I’m maxed out at work right now anyway, so I won’t have time to play with it until then anyway.
I made a seat cushion for my simpit out of two layers of 1" foam with a nylon and faux fur cover, and sandwiched the Jetseat in between. You still get all of the tactile feedback, but it’s very comfortable and dampens the sound of the motors a bit. I bought all the materials at my local craft store.
I never bought the Jet Seat (JS) due to that concern. And while building my “Bass Shaker” setup research show that there were issues with some of the individual motors going out (Jet Seat guy/people may have improved this by now).
I didn’t get into this exact thing in my article (cus I’m not a pilot and wouldn’t know - just a hunch) but this to me has proven true. And you can get smaller “pucks” (transducers) and put them other places, depending on your physical ‘cockpit’; one for a while sat under the mount where my throttle & stick were - I felt “something” not only in my arse but my hands. Not possible with the JS.
In that article I alluded to “issues” with a pre-built system: it was with the Butt-Kicker. I kicked myself (no pun intended) because I was so hyped to try this I didn’t research that unit and the tech behind it:
The amp’s PWR output is 2ohms - most are 4 or 8 so when…
The amp overheats, smokes and catches fire you need to find another 2 ohm amp. And there aren’t many (any?)
I wasn’t alone in this experience. Of course there are enough people that never have this issue, but I found enough that did, including me. The idea as great: one-stop shopping, pre-built, kit assuming it fits your chair. On that: I think I took my [caster] wheels off the chair to make it all work out. Until the thing went up in smoke…
The transducer looks great however. As I mentioned in the article the larger (more massive) ones produce what I feel like are better effects during stall or high-G.
In VR this thing, my home-grown version, is mandatory. Not sure it has the same effect, immersion-wise, in 2D.
IIRC you’re a VR person too so get ready to Rumble!
FWIW: the SimShaker for Aviators (SSA) software is the glue that makes this all stick. The downside, you might say, is it adds another layer of tinkering.
As my senses have become attuned to it over time I’m actually using lower settings than in the beginning.
Note it will reduce your FPS slightly: SSA ‘polls’ DCS (not sure about XPlane, etc) via a Lua interface and I think that’s the cause. On my previous box (i6700K @ 4.4 GHZ, nVidia 1080, G2) the Lua code exerted about 3%-4% on DCS [1] (on the new box about 2%); no way around it as DCS currently exists. If you reduce the rate you likely add more latency into the system. Bad for G/Stall effects, not as much for others.
This is why I’ve asked ED to put support for this into DCS - eliminate the middleware. I have another post in here somewhere about that…
[1] It’s similar to creating a mission with a Repeat Trigger that fires every 0.1 seconds I guess, and performs a somewhat complex operation.
I guess, if that causes a problem I can revert to just using sound inputs rather than telemetry. I am mostly going to be using this with MSFS and X-Plane…although I am looking forward to trying it with the helicopters in DCS. Oh, and yes, I mostly fly in VR .
My system, via SSA, supports XP-11 (I don’t do MSFS) . Works well, at least for G and Stall. Less fiddling with XP too, which was nice, but it’s been a long while since I even ran XP. Things might have changed. Not sure about how it [SSA or something else] will support XP12.
Based on my two systems, on a newer, faster, box will have very little reduction. It’s worth it to me. The audio only output wasn’t as appealing to me, but it is better than nothing. You will likely of course ‘feel’ any voice audio that is output of course too, among other non-physics things. Enjoy!
I’d really love to have the new Buttkicker, but unfortunately my gaming room is partially over the master BR and twins’ BR. So, there would be hell to pay if I start rattling their ceilings
I’m going to test this: my man-closet, with hardwood flooring, is right over the garage; you can hear things pretty well below (creaking flooring and such). With the padding I used (from the article) I don’t believe it’s very loud at all. But I’ll test it and get back. Put a sack of potatoes in my chair for weight
I am not sure how open or hackable this Simshaker software is, but it sounds like an event (pub-sub) based interface could me made by using DCS gRPC instead of LUA: DCS gRPC · GitHub
If DCS-gRPC itself still does heavy polling, this won’t fix anything of course, but might be worth having a look.
Given the workload on Eagle Dynamics and the fact that currently It Works™, it is unlikely that they will work on integrating it.
That appears to be, at least currently, my take on it as well.
I think (but don’t quote me), based on a cursory glance at the script [for SSA] a couple of years ago, that it is based on the timer.scheduleFunction() API (the server appears to be down so I can’t link it at the moment), which is such. I use this fxn a lot to gain more control versus the simplified/resolution-limited ME Trigger(s).
I’ve not needed such, yet (the context is along the lines of short-term, strategic decision making) as I don’t require the higher resolution timing of something like a haptic feedback system. Thanks for the link as I’m always looking for another tool in the box.
. We will see. I’m very close to pulling the trigger.
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