Greetings, pilots!
Many of us fly using Winwing hardware (Ursa Minor sidesticks, Orion bases, throttle panels). The devices are great, but there’s a long-standing issue: War Thunder does not natively support tactile haptic feedback (Rumble/vibration) on these devices, leaving us flying with a completely “dead” stick.
I am developing an open-source utility called Aurora Vibra. Originally created for MSFS, I expanded it to parse War Thunder telemetry (via local port 8111) and translate flight physics into full-fledged haptic feedback on stick and throttle motors.
A major update is out! All presets and parameters were tuned and calibrated on physical hardware.
🚀 Eight Haptic Effects Breakdown
1. Gunfire (Weapon #1 — Machine Guns)
Not just a flat rumble during a burst, but a shot texture generator: software PWM with a 6.5 Hz carrier frequency, 33% duty cycle, 12% cycle-to-cycle amplitude jitter, and a 41 ms attack time on the leading edge of the burst. Jitter is essential — without it, a firing burst feels like a flat motor hum rather than mechanical gunfire.
2. Gunfire (Weapon #2 — Autocannons)
A separate preset with a distinct character: 4.3 Hz carrier, 40% duty cycle, 3% jitter, and a raised floor of 100. Heavier and more measured — tuned specifically for autocannons, whereas the first preset is tailored for machine guns.
- Key Feature: The two weapons are routed to separate hands. Weapon #1 goes to the joystick, and Weapon #2 goes to both throttle motors. Feeling two distinct calibers in different palms creates an immersive experience without blending into mud.
3. Stall Buffet
Driven by real-time Angle of Attack (AoA) telemetry rather than a simple boolean flag. Vibration starts early in a ~4.9° AoA pre-stall warning zone, smoothly ramping up as you approach the stall boundary — giving the pilot tactile warning to unload the stick.
- At the exact moment of stall, a distinct pulse (1.5x multiplier) fires for 0.25s.
- Uses a 5 Hz sawtooth wave with an effect ceiling of 80.
- Includes a 3° hysteresis zone to prevent the stall kick from re-triggering repeatedly during boundary turbulence.
4. Vne Overspeed
The speed threshold is pulled from an aircraft speed limit table covering ~1300 roster machines via exact aircraft model matching. Features a smooth ramp-up over a 10 km/h window prior to the limit, holding at peak intensity beyond it.
- Flap Positions Included: The effective limit automatically tightens to the structural destruction speed of the flaps at their current deployment angle (combat, takeoff, landing; boundaries calibrated at 26.5% and 66.5%). With landing flaps extended, the overspeed effect triggers much earlier, exactly as it should.
5. Landing Gear Overspeed (Vlo)
A standalone effect triggering strictly when the gear is deployed, calculated against the structural limit speed of that specific aircraft’s landing gear. Uses a wider ramp-up window (20 km/h instead of 10 km/h) so the tactile feel stands out from regular Vne overspeed.
6. Flaps Movement
An actuator drive hum that operates while surfaces are actively moving — driven by real position changes rather than keypress inputs.
7. Landing Gear Extension/Retraction & Door Thump
Simulates the mechanical rhythm of the gear operating sequence during travel, combined with a distinct thump upon locking into the fully extended or retracted positions.
8. Engine Start and Shutdown
A complete state machine driven by RPM and power telemetry:
- Cranking phase at 1.5–6.5 Hz with amplitude scaling alongside RPM gain.
- A distinct 0.3s “catch/ignition” pulse when the engine fires up.
- Smooth decay as it settles into stable idle.
- Shutdown follows its own dedicated sequence with two distinct pulses.
- Air-spawn protection: A 1-second telemetry stabilization window prevents treating a mid-flight spawn as a cold engine start.
🛠 Features & Functionality
- Flexible Routing: Route any effect to Joystick, Throttle, or both simultaneously (except gunfire, which uses dedicated fixed routing as described above).
- Individual Intensity Sliders: Tune each effect to your preference.
- Per-Aircraft Profiles: Settings auto-save per aircraft model and automatically load when switching aircraft.
- Automatic Game Detection: Simultaneously polls War Thunder, MSFS, and X-Plane 12; active game control is passed automatically to whichever sim is running, updating the UI accordingly. Manual override available if two games are running at once.
- Dual-language UI (English & Russian) with a live telemetry view panel to inspect real-time data incoming from the simulator.
📥 Download & Try It Out
Portable application — no installation required (unzip and run):
👉 GitHub Release: Releases · chegevarko1982/aurora-vibra · GitHub
Feedback, testing on different aircraft models, and suggestions are welcome! ✈️