Bosun

I can also get results like that, but then, at times, I also get results like this:

Yes, there is a modding section. The creations you make from this kind of modularization could go there, for sure. **Side note** Got a response on the original thread reply - modularizing Jester's voice for easier modification is something HB has considered. No promises, but it has pinged their radar already.

"And you wonder why I always eject on you?!" - Jester

1. I won't hold you to any promises - but awesome if you are able! 2. Naked Gun, Spies Like Us, Police Academy......Airplane.....I mean - these are classics that are cornerstones of my humor lol. Also - when's the last time you rocked a work montage sequence to a modern pop song? Honestly? The 80s will always be the staple culture of our society. The proof? Journey. Show me any song more universally known or sung in a bar from the last 10 years. You can't. Because modern music is under-written and over-performed, and its a sad reach to say any of the modern popular music in the last 10 years can reach across an audience and strike a chord in the souls of such a diverse group of people, as Journey or MJ, or any of the classics of that era. Mike, blast those 80s man. We all do, and those who don't are only denying themselves their own humanity.

I wanted to start this as a separate proposal topic since it was buried in the F-4 forum under a different thread. The Background: Jester was created from 11,500 voice calls that constitute his personality based on actual character study of pilots from the 80s. The character that is revealed in Jester play is a comedic, younger RIO who can be irrevent and light, and also jabby at times. The immersive qualities of the recorded clips are truly next-level in their implementation, and HeatBlur has set a very high bar for two-crew aircraft simulation. The Situation: Jester's calls are authetically immersive in their dynamically scripted (to coin a phrase) recordings. During missions you can truly get the sense of a real person with a personality back there. This is highly immersive in scripted single-player campaigns, were added dialogue also enhances that underlying personality research that was done to 'create' Jester. However - during multi player missions, and even extensive single player hours being logged, the calls that are endearing and individually entertaining through a scripted campaign, become repetitive and grating over time. This is normal effect of any repeated content that has high-inflection. This can cause the initial positive responses to his scripts, to change over time. This, again, is entirely natural in human experience. This happens in work, personal and other types of relationships when you get to know someone, and is a trackable, measurable effect of repetition in mannerisms and perception. Also, many pilots in the virtual world are in a generation that sees them more matured and in a different stage/place in life, than a young naval fighter pilot. In flying with someone, they are looking to have their RIO experience match their own personality to some extent, and maturity level. In the same way that drinking a cocktail or beer in your later years is nice, but you cannot handle an all-night binger anymore - so to do we experience our perception of the energy of younger, more irreverent personalities. They're fun to be around - for a short while - but if we had to live with them, or fly with them regularly, our experience of that personality would change. This is what is happening within the subset of playerbase that is calling for different Jester interactions. Heatblur has defended their creation of Jester as is, with no plans to alter his personality, with the idea of creating a true-to-life recreation of an actual RIO. This is a commendable goal and principle, and one that cannot be faulted to them. The issue remains, however, of how to positively reach the playerbase you're creating the program for, and how to keep them engaged as customers, regardless your stated goals in the intitial creation. The Solution: The technology exists to synthesize test-to-speech with every inflection of a real person. The technology also exists (Elevenlabs as an example) to take audio sound files of speech, and have an AI algorithm process and mimic a voice almost flawlessly, with that text-to-speech format. That means that it is entirely possible for any DCS player to mimic Jester's voice using such technology and individually re-record the Jester calls they find irritating, repetitive or undesirable for any reason. The fact that the Jester program has the file structure that allows this is a huge, untapped potential for endless customizability by individual players, which is further credit to the wonderful work Heatblur put in to making this module timeless and approachable to many different demographics. What is needed to properly do this easily are three things: 1. Sample files of the Jester voice that do not have the radio effect distortion, for proper synthesizing into an AI program, and authentic reproductions therein. 2. A macro of the radio distortion applied to each call, to match existing files once re-recorded ones are made. 3. A simple program to combine new recorded calls, and the macro distortion, without the need for complex audio programs. I'd like to propose that Heatblur look into building a "Jester Call Package" that would include those three things, so that any individual may alter the calls they deem necessary to increase or enhance their immersion. An alternative would be to release this package as a single editor program, similar to a mission editor or module manager. This kind of ability would create the longevity in the Jester program that would extend across modules from Heatblur, time eras, generational differences and culture/language differences. (*ElevenLab can synthesize a voice in multiple languages and accents, making Jester able to speak several different languages*) All that is needed for this amount of immersion and adaptability, are the three items mentioned above in either a ZIP file distributable, or singular ad-hoc program. Thank you, Heatblur, for your amazing work on Jester. He continues to be one of the most immersive and interesting aspects of your simulations, and I hope to have him in the backseat in many different variations, for years to come. Thank you for coming to my Jester talk.

I think what you're seeing here is also a changing of dynamic for what a pilot wants to see in a RIO. Perhaps in the younger generations, or in the earlier eras of that age group, pilots would act that way. Given that many of us are a smidge older than the average jockey in real life, a lot of folks want someone that reflects their maturity level. In the same way we dont' want to hang out at ravers with 18 year olds, we also don't want to constantly deal with one in our back seat. Were this a single play-through, such as an RPG game like Half Life or something, we may find it more endearing and fun. I love the personality, honestly. When it gets into repetitive play, however, the charm wears off due to the repetition inherent in the system. This isn't avoidable, unfortunately. That is something to factor in when creating the character. A good middle ground would be to have Jester's personality be more evident in the scripted campaigns, with the generic calls used in regular flying being a little more...vanilla. Still use inflection and varying calls - the stutters and surprised catches of his voice in instances is actually awesomely immersive, but tone down the colorful comments so it is more generic. Having the scripted campaigns really reveal his personality with the regular calls being more tone-neutral will give that personality even in the generic flying, on multiplayer, if someone has done the campaigns, due to the association and projection of the pilot as he is familiar with jester. If we were actual pilots, we'd be training our RIOs on how we wanted them to interact with us, having debriefing with them to go over what kinds of communication is best for us both to acheive our goals up there, and that kind of teamwork isn't possible with a computer. But - I have potential solution for that below. The only thing I request of Jester, is to somehow mediate his calls when you are 'close' to the basket trap on AAR. If I've hovering right 'in' the basket but not full contact yet, the Jester voice cue que gets 'stack overflow' essentially, such that after I make contact, for the next 30 seconds, I'm hearing him tell me how close I am - despite already taking fuel. Any way to mediate the number of calls he can do when you're within 5 ft of the basket for extended periods of time as you nudge forward? Also - For folks that want a less-funny Jester, it is actually fairly easy. Check out Bring-the-Reign's tutorial. Try submitting a new voice for synthesis in Elevenlabs by uploading Jester's original audio files (some of the longer calls.) Once his voice is mimiced, you can go back through the call list, find the calls you want to replace, and one by one, re-record them with the mimic'd voice. Just a thought. Actually - @IronMike Would it be possible to get clips of the original, un-FX'd audio sample of the Jester voice to synthesize? That way folks could mimic it better than the distored version, and then apply the FX again to get the radio distortion - thereby making individual Jester call file replacement much easier, for those that want it. After doing a few of these calls with a new voice I'm putting in - it's actually very simple to replace a handful of calls, and takes no time at all. Or - even better - Release a special "Jester Package" that includes sample audio files non-distorted to synthesize in a program like ElevenLabs, the distortion macro, and instructions. Or - A 'Jester Editor', like a Mission Editor, that would include a Jester Voice that can text-to-speech in a single tool, so that anyone could type anything in it and reproduce the calls they want. The Editor would then automatically re-save the file you wanted to replace. That would fit the future-proofing you're doing for the deeper level fidelity of modules.

Would that alleviate blacking out on launch?

Did you all have your CAS on? Because auto start doesn't turn that on automatically.

Yes, I was at or below 25,000 (for the run mentioned, I was at 23.)

I'm not sure if this is a bug, or if I'm missing a step. Scenario: 1. Approaching a target, around 23,000 ft. I 2. I have it 'DESIGNATED' on TPOD. 3. Laser ARMED indicator light is ON 4. Follow the DIL, Drop first bomb. 5. First Bomb hits. Turn Plane around 6. Slew cursor. Designate 2nd target. 7. Follow steps - Bomb hits. Turn Plane around 8. Slew Cursor. 9. Designate Target 10. Laser ARMED light remains off (no settings or buttons have been pressed) 11. Bomb does not track. 12. Laser ARMED light will not light up again until I respawn. Am I missing a step? Or is this a bug? So far, I'v enot been able to reliably deliver laser ordnance despite following the steps properly. I can always drop 2 bombs. The 3rd bombs will sometimes miss depending on whether the ARM light for the laser stays on, which I'v enot figured out why it goes off. **Note** Yes, I DID check in the back seat and confirmed the switch was on. I cycled it. No change up front. Is there a timer function where the laser must cool down after X amount of time?

I think it's worth stopping for a moment and appreciating that you're arguing about whether the modelled radar technology is strobe or not... ...in a virtual simulation. Let's all just appreciate how far we've come in technology, that we're having an honest-to-goodness discussion about which methodology of electromagnetic propogation in radar technology is modelled. Not that it's being modelled at all, but which one. Not that we have the fidelity to recreate propogation and the physical limitations and dimensions thereof as standard base of in-game fidelity, but which one. I'm just over here like that guy at the world's fair in 1929 who saw a lightbulb switch for the first time. I don't care what bulb is in that light - the fact you could turn it on and off again with a switch is enough to override the squabbling of which one.

DM me your info. I have a proposal. They release 3 years from now, I'll buy your copy. They release inside a year from now, you buy mine. They release outside a year from now, but not 3, draw. *Not joking - one time offer, I could really use a free module.

Is this LANTIRN pod the same as the 14's pod, or is it a different model? I've noticed a significant difference in it's ability to stay put on one spot, even in designate. Turning at all, designate or no, shifts it quite a bit. I've also noticed it 'masks' well earlier in pivot than the 14s. Not from the airframe, but from the physical limits of the pod, itself. If stores or ordnance were masking it, I'd actually understand more, but this appears to be the pod itself hitting it's physical rotational limit sooner. If it is the same pod as the 14, what is the reason it has less traverse and rotational range?

I honestly couldn't tell you that I saw them pre-MT update though. That was an impression I had early on from flying in this game, and maybe my system was bugged before, but I never recall seeing ground disturbance from flying low.

One thing that's always bothered me is the lack of any surface disturbance from any aircraft flying low over any terrain or water, in game. I feel like perhaps this was an oversight that was simply never 'big' enough of a gameplay disturbance, to fix. It's purely cosmetic, so it never made the register, so to speak.

The 2000s reboot was great. Plus with a little creative work, you can get a hotshot viper jock in your backseat for the F14. Let's Start.mp3

This oughta be fun. Gotta hand it to that synthesizer - I got pretty close to authenticity on this one. Points if you know who my new RIO is (once i finish programming all the calls sometime in the next 5 years. Gosh there has to be a faster way lol) Who is this.mp3 Samsamsam.mp3

Did you have to re-record all 11,500 Jester calls for the Jesther mod? Or did you re-modulate them and then choose specifc ones to re-record via 11labs? Considering a ratio of re-recording 50 calls a day and processing them, that's 230 days worth of work. Wow. Dedication.

I've also noticed that my unguided ordnance, spawning on a single player with 0 wind, 0 direction at all altitudes, will not reliably strike within a mile of target until I get below 10,000ft on Auto. I think the Auto-mode may need some work.

I fly both of them, and as mentioned from others, each has it's role on the battlefield. I fly the F-14 for fighting CAP missions. I fly the F-15 if I want to wreck stuff. I will say that I'm finding that the F-15e has a steeper learning curve than the F-14 due to the more complex avionics and weapons programming available. My only complaint on it so far is how much of my 'play' time is sitting on the tarmac programming things. There are a few easy ways that RAZBAM could lessen that load a little with some options, and perhaps they will. But over all, I've been enjoying it as a different kind of aircraft than the Tomcat or F-16, in that it is the heavy-weight hitter for ground targets that those two aircraft were never designed to be.

There is no road map. There is a flight plan. This thing has wings. The wheels are only used by quitters.

I don't think anyone implied AI could write a game. My apologies, though. I thought you were implying that because AI is not necessary for human civilization, than to hypothesize on what it can do in game was a waste of time. I must have misunderstood you. Sorry bout that. To your other argument, that AI cannot understand context - true. However, context can be whatever a programmer creates for the AI. If your sunset idea was a co-pilot, perhaps there is a way for programmers, during the training of that AI and initial set up, to give the AI examples of the flight terminology, and examples of the regular terms being used so that the AI can track the words and situations around which both are being used (the context, if you will), then it just might be able to have a modicum (it will never be fully dymamic, mind you) of ability to judge those situations and place them within the terminology's use accordingly. Again, this is somewhat more advanced than what we would have from ChatGPT, but that is why I mentioned that it would be the next iteration. It is not the current one, certainly. It would be in the future.

None of this game or anything related to recreational computing is necessary for the human civilization - so - I see your point, but it's pretty moot here.

"...that can't land on a boat." "...that can't land on a boat." "...that can't land on a boat." The challenge has been put forth. All submissions to be placed in reply to this thread. Winning submissions get bragging rights.

+ 1 Could also have SPECIAL option that will auto-load ordnance into the computer when you re-arm? This is done for A/A. While A/G may be realistic - for multiplayer servers with respawning/rearming often, it could be a toggle option.