sthompson

The change from DCS openalpha 2.0.5 to 2.1.0 included changes to the callsigns used to sort the Nevada towers on the static ATC mod. As a result, the VAICOM profile commands needed to select Nevada towers needed to be changed. I've made those changes in the attached file. Otherwise, instructions are the same as below, except that you need to find the updated static ATC mod files that I posted for version 2.1. You can find them here: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3155965&postcount=46 EDIT as of 7/18/2017. Fixed bug causing recipient to be incorrect when the command included more than just the callsign. Attachment now includes the bug fix. VAICOM Towers for DCS 2.1.0 Nevada-Profile.vap.zip

O.J. I was using it last night on both Nevada and Normandy after the 2.1 Update 1 installed without any problems so I'm not sure why you are having a different experience. I will be traveling for a while and so cannot help out immediately. But if you report some specifics about your installation and experience I can try to offer some help when I return. The "still broken" feedback is too vague for me to take any action.

It might be possible, but since I primarily fly aerobatics and A2A missions I haven't gotten familiar with the JTAC menus. For AWACs, tankers, ships and FARPs a complication is that the set of possible units (and their names) with which you might communicate is dependent on mission design and can even change dynamically within the mission. I don't know if this is an issue for JTAC as well. After messing with these menus and with VAICOM for a few months I think that we are going to have to wait for 2.5 before there is significant further improvement. The ideal approach would be to establish a plugin for VAICOM that communicates directly with LUA code running in the sim so that the menu system could be bypassed completely. The Simple Radio Standalone (SRS) package interacts with DCS this way so I think it is doable. But developing this would involve significant code development, and possibly 2.5 would break that code. However we can hope that Hollywood has something similar in mind for VAICOM!

Update to static ATC menu mod compatible with 2.1 Normandy and Nevada now available The title says it all. See post https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3155965&postcount=46 for details and the updated files. sthompson (I go by "Softball in MP). :smilewink:

Static ATC menu mod updated for DCS open alpha 2.1.0 Normandy and Nevada I have updated the files from Whartsell's original to work in versions 2.1.0 and 1.5.6, including all currently available maps (Normandy, Nevada, Caucusus). Use the attached files to replace the files of the same name in Whartsell's original distribution. Note that because there are 31 Airbases with ATC frequencies on the Normandy map I had to create additional slots in the static menus. There are now four pages of static ATC choices (corresponding to F2, F3, F4, and F5). As a consequence the menus for Ships and FARPS are now associated with new function keys F6 and F7. This may require updates to VAICOM profiles that use the FARPS or Ships menus. I do not know if there are any! Thanks again to Whartsell for the original! sthompson (I go by "Softball" in MP). Vote me some reputation if you like this! :smilewink: RadioCommandDialogsPanel.lua ATC.lua

I assume you are referring to the update to DCS 2.1.0 since that is the update that was just released. I can confirm that the static ATC mod is not working in DCS 2.1 Nevada, and that it completely kills the AI menu system. (It does work properly in 2.1 Normandy, however.) I'll look into this when I get a chance.

VAICOM is just a tool for manipulating the comms menu system that is used to interact with the AI. If you are getting "Kholki, hawg11, inbound" back when you specified Batumi instead, then it means that VAICOM is "pushing" the wrong function keys. The default is to always call the closest field unless a different one has been specifically set using the "select" command. This is true even if you specify an airfield name in the command. So a call "Batumi, hawg11, inbound" will still be converted to a call to Kholki if Kholki is closer and you have not successfully run the "Batumi, select" command. So your symptoms are consistent with the "select" command not working. I have two pieces of advice: (1) Make sure that you have a significant pause between the name of the airfield and the command. You want it to be long enough so that they do NOT appear on the same line of the log file. This is needed to make sure that the "Batumi" part of the command gets processed before the "Select" or "Inbound" part. Two or three second pause is more than enough in my experience. So make it "Batumi . . . . . Select." And the inbound command should be "Batumi . . . . . Hawg11, Inbound." (2) Make sure you keep the PTT key pressed until you hear the confirmation beep. Letting it up too soon will cancel all pending commands! If you don't hear the beep then the command didn't work, even if there are no errors in the log. As for tuning the radio. If your radio is not tuned correctly or you use the wrong radio then the symptom is that you get no reply. That is a different problem from calling the wrong airport in the first place, which is what you are experiencing. If you have easy comms turned on then DCS (not VAICOM) will tune the radio. VAICOM never tunes the radio. It doesn't know how!

I'm not trying to blame Razbam for anything, but I do not see the point in keeping the primary radio locked to the current AI frequency when easy comms are enabled. What is the purpose of this? Am I missing something? I do not have this problem in the F-5e, for example, or in other planes with tuneable radios. Why has Razbam coded the Mirage so that I can't switch the frequencies manually when easy comms are turned on? I often fly on Aerobatics Online and it seems that whenever I'm on that server using the Mirage and want to use SRS with a group, they have chosen a frequency that is not currently available in the Mirage in the currently running mission. (Last night I wanted to use 251 for example, and it was NOT available according to the kneeboard.) I realize that the mission designers can change that, but they only seem to update the missions occasionally and the missions go for weeks with no changes.

Aerobatics Online is where I've experienced the problem, and I'm seeing the extra radios already enabled for FC3 and for the Mig15-bis there, but not for the Mirage. I gather the Mirage needs to be enabled separately? Or is this a version issue? I'll try that, but does it completely disable the in-cockpit ones? In other words, does this also disable the ability to communicate with the AI through in cockpit radio settings and the comm menu? Or does it just mean that SRS will not respond to the in-cockpit controls? I'd hate to give up the in cockpit radios globally when flying the Mirage!

Aerobatics Online. It's a real mix of crazies doing low passes with no comms and more serious people trying to do formation flying and more realistic comms. There are many people flying simultaneously and sometimes lots of extraneous chatter or open mics on their teamspeak server, so a real advantage in moving some of the voice comms to another platform. But no problem with listening in on the opposing coalition since there is no weapons use permitted. Many users on that server are inexperienced so it's rational to keep easy comms turned on. And they have enabled the SRS expansion radios for FC3 planes and for at least some others (e.g. the Mig-15b). But I don't see any expansion radio for the Mirage on that server.

Workaround for untunable radio in the Mirage? When easy comms are turned on the M-2000C V/UHF radio can't be tuned manually and the presets are not available. Instead frequency is locked to whatever you last used using the AI communications menu. The UHF radio is available but only with presets. This more or less makes SRS impossible to use on MP servers that have easy comms turned on unless others are willing to use a frequency supported by the UHF presets. Is there a workaround? Any chance of adding a tunable third radio to the M-2000C support similar to what we have for the FC3 jets as a workaround?

Feature request: tunable V/UHF when easy comms are on It would be great if we could tune the V/UFH radio even when a MP server has set easy comms on. I realize that contacting ATC might cause it to reset frequency. Right now there is no way to use SRS on MP when easy comms are turned on, and I don't think that server admins who use easy comms are likely to turn them off. This is a disadvantage of the M-2000C compared to the F-5E, for example.

Feature request: enable radio tuning even with easy comms Very annoying that I can't manually tune the V/UHF radio or even use presets when a server has set easy comms on. This makes it more or less impossible to use SRS on MP since the default frequencies never seem to be what other people are using. I do not have this problem in the F-5E for example. Please give us the ability to tune the radio even if easy comms is turned on.

Those old SEAD and SAM evasion lessons were the best part of Flanker. Thanks so much for the contributions over the years!

Adding Nevada tower call signs to VAICOM Hi. I've created a little profile with just one command that adds the call signs for Nevada ATC towers to VAICOM 2.0. This assumes you are running 2.0.5 of DCS World, and have the updated version of Whartsell's Static ATC Mod that I created to work with 1.5.6 and 2.0.5. To install: 1. Make sure you have the updates to Static ATC Mod by Whartsell that I posted here: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=3094226#post3094226 2. Download attached file, unzip it, and copy the vap file to your VAICOM profile directory. (Subdirectory of VoiceAttack) 3. Fire up VoiceAttack and activate your favorite VAICOM profile. 4. Open the profile editor. 5. Choose "Import Commands" and select the downloaded profile file. 6. Make sure the "Indian Springs ..." command is selected and click "Import." 7. Click "Done" The command associates the call signs for 8 towers currently supporting radio comms in 2.0.5 Nevada map with the respective entries generated by the static ATC mod from the map. This let's you, for example, call "Dreamland, Inbound" for a call to the Groom Lake tower, or "Indian Springs, vector" for a call to Creech. The command supports the call signs for the 8 fields I identified in post http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=3099732#post3099732. Edit as of 2017-05-18: Replaced the attachment to correct a very small bug when the call is "Nellis." VAICOM 2.0 Nevada 2.0.5 Towers-Profile.vap.zip

Operating VAICOM from the keyboard: I gather you are using the A-10C module. That module by default uses Num0, Num1, Num2 and Num3 as PTT keys, depending on which radio you want to use. (Num0 tries to send on all three radios at once.) After a clean install and before making any customization changes to the VAICOM commands you should be able to interact with VAICOM using these keyboard keys. A clean install in my mind means uninstalling VA and deleting its folder. Then reinstall VA, reinstall VAICOM from original files, then import the appropriate VAICOM profile. Fixing your slew issue: You haven't been very specific about what you did or how it is supposed to work. As a start on diagnosis I would (a) uninstall VA and delete the VA folders completely. See if that fixes the slew. If it does then (b) reinstall VA but not VAICOM, run VA, and see if the slew still works. If it does, © reinstall a clean copy of VAICOM and import the A10C module but don't make any other changes. Does slew still work? The answers will be informative about where the problem is coming from. It would also be helpful to know how the slew function is programmed in your stick. I don't have a TM but my CH stick can output key codes (or sequences of keycodes), DirectX button codes, or DirectX axis data. What does yours output when you use the slew function? Is DCS seeing the appropriate slew commands in the DCS Controls menu? BTW, while there probably could be valuable updates made to the documentation I don't think there will ever be a "one size fits all" instruction manual or video. There are too many system and software variables potentially in play.

I haven't seen one for F-5. Ideally in the long run VAICOM would be made more modular so that it would be easier to add new aircraft than at present. I use VAICOM and Teamspeak and SRS all at once on MP. Works fine once you work out the various PTT settings. (I use a different PTT for each.) And you have to remember that VAICOM is for talking to the AI, while the others are talking to other humans.

Sorry to hear about the frustrations. Your description seems a bit inconsistent to me in that you say that VoiceAttack (VA) is recognizing your voice without problems but you are getting less than 50% recognition of the two phrases and it is not recognizing common commands. If VA is not getting good recognition of phrases then VAICOM will not work properly, so you should tackle that problem first. A key thing to remember is that neither VoiceAttack, nor VAICOM actually listen to your voice. Instead, Windows voice recognition does the listening and tries to convert what it hears to text. This text is passed to VA along with a "confidence level." Then VA tries to match the text to profile rules (which is when VAICOM takes over). So if Windows is doing a bad job of converting speech to text then neither VA nor VAICOM can work properly. The best way to work on better voice recognition is to use VA to show you the text that Windows is putting out when you speak. To do this, create an empty profile in VA with no commands and then click the icon to start listening. VA will then start echoing back to the log everything that Windows voice recognition thinks you are saying. If this is not very reliable then VAICOM does not have a chance. Start by tweaking the VA options, especially the "minimum confidence level." I found a value around 90% works well for me. If you cannot get VA recognizing words with that confidence level you should work on that. The things that helped me get the confidence level up were (1) getting a better microphone. My first attempts used the mic from my web cam and it just wasn't good enough to get reliable voice recognition. (2) Make sure the room is quiet. In particular, I use headphones for audio so that Windows is not listening to anything except me, and in particular is not listening to all of the other noises that DCS is sending out to audio. (3) Train Windows to recognize the way you say the specific words needed to operate VAICOM. It helps enormously to spend some time adding words that VA is not confidently recognizing to the Windows voice recognition dictionary and (importantly) recording how you say those words when you add them. This is especially true for foreign words such as airfield names that Windows is never going to recognize without help. To add words to the speech recognition dictionary in Windows 10 do the following: Open Control Panel and select Speech Recognition. Run through initial setup if you haven't done so already. Eventually the speech recognition app will run. Right click on the microphone icon and select "open the speech dictionary." Click on "add a word" and follow the prompts. When it's time to record your pronunciation you will need to click on the microphone icon so that speech recognition is listening to you. The microphone does not turn on automatically unless you leave it running all the time (which I wouldn't recommend). BTW, assuming you get VA itself working better at recognizing your voice you probably should try a clean install of VAICOM and then test it using the default keys. Do not try mapping to HOTAS until you get it working from the keyboard. The only tweaks to VAICOM that I made to get it working on HOTAS were to change the two push-to-talk commands so that they use a dedicated HOTAS button) and also to disable the default NUM0 keybinding to these same commands. But take it one step at a time and don't try any of that until you have it working from the keyboard.

I tend to fly planes where I don't have to select the radio and so have not experienced this exactly. (But I just picked up the Mirage and so will probably encounter it soon!) I have had similar issues with "invalid recipient" messages and also traced them to a race condition between two commands running simultaneously. I have found that the solution is to pause between the parts of a command, e.g. "Flight [pause] cover me." Without the pause then both the "flight" and "cover me" commands will run simultaneously since both match the phrase that VA sees. In this case the "cover me" command may look for a recipient before the "Flight" command has set a valid recipient. If you check the VA log you will see that the pause breaks the command into two parts that then run sequentially. I found I could solve the problem by editing the "cover me" command so that it pauses .25 seconds before checking for a valid recipient. But there are many commands that would need this editing to fix this comprehensively, so for now I've just taught myself to add that pause.

I gather that your issue is with Windows voice recognition not recognizing what you are saying rather than with Voiceattack or VAICOM. You can verify this by clicking on the mic icon in Voiceattack and giving some commands while DCS is not running. Best if you also do this with an empty profile. Voiceattack will echo back what it is getting from Windows voice recognition. Here are some thoughts if that is the problem. 1. Use headphones for audio so that your mic isn't picking up background noise from the sim. 2. I found that getting a better microphone really made a huge difference. I've never tried the Oculus so can't comment on how well it works. I use a logitech USB headset/mic and it seems to work well. 3. Try adding words that are misinterpreted to the Windows voice recognition dictionary. I added the names of all of the airfields, for example. When you add a word you can record how you pronounce that word, which helps a lot on recognition. If voice recognition is working properly but VAICOM isn't sending commands appropriately then I've found it helps a lot to pause between the "target" part of a command and the "action" part. So, for example, if you say "Flight cover me" then this matches two different rules (1) "Flight" and (2) "Cover me." But the "cover me" action will not work unless a recipient has been given already, and since the two commands run simultaneously it is possible that "cover me" will not be able to tell who is the recipient and the command will fail. You can prevent this by saying "Flight" then pause, then "cover me." This will ensure that the commands execute in the correct order.

I accidentally posted this in the bugs forum, but since I got no replies there am reposting here. Like the subject line says. I've been trying the "Relic" campaign and can't seem to wipe out the speedboats in Mission 2. It isn't clear to me how I'm supposed to use the gunsight against a ground target, let alone a moving one. Any advice would be appreciated. Also, I've noticed that sometimes when I fly this mission the mission log at the end reports zero hits on the speedboats, and yet when I analyze the flight in Tacview it shows multiple hits being made, including multiple hits with the 37mm cannon, which should be enough to stop those things. I've even gone back to Sukumi to reload multiple times and still do not seem to be able to cause enough damage to get through the mission. :(

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. With one exception, you can click on all of those airfields in the mission editor and learn that none of them have tower comms except for the ones I identified as active for ATC in DCS 2.0.5. The exception is Mellan Airstrip, which does not appear on the map with a clickable icon. It's an abandoned strip a bit southeast of Tonopah Test Range Airfield. (Look at the map for the inverted "V" in sector 71S, a few miles southeast of TTRA). The coordinates of Mellan do not match the data you provided above, however, and I can't find anything but desert at those coordinates.

Like the subject line says. I've been trying the "Relic" campaign and can't seem to wipe out the speedboats in Mission 2. It isn't clear to me how I'm supposed to use the gunsight against a ground target, let alone a moving one. Any advice would be appreciated. Also, I've noticed that sometimes when I fly this mission the mission log at the end reports zero hits on the speedboats, and yet when I analyze the flight in Tracview it shows multiple hits being made, including multiple hits with the 37mm cannon, which should be enough to stop those things. I've even gone back to Sukumi to reload multiple times and still do not seem to be able to cause enough damage to get through the mission.

SRS 1.3.0.0 won't save Favorites Previous update (1.2.9.7-Overlay-hotfix-included) killed my Favorites list and after the update it would not save Favorites any longer. I just updated again to 1.3.0.0 and it's still broken. The installer itself fails unless I run it as admin. And I have to run SRS as admin or it fails also. I hope at least the Favorites part gets fixed soon. BTW is there a list of servers somewhere? If I had that I could cut and paste as a temporary workaround.

Nevada airfields with ATC Hollywood: I found in 2.0.5 Nevada map that there are only 8 airfields that have a tower you can call. It's true that there are many other airfields, but they cannot be called on the radio. The set of airfields you can call (with call sign in parentheses) is as follows: Creech AFB (IndianSprings) Henderson Executive Airport (Henderson) McCarran International Airport (LasVegas) Laughlin Airport (Bullhead) North Las Vegas (NorthLasVegas) Tonopah Test Range Airfield (Silverbow) Groom Lake AFB (Dreamland) Nellis AFB (NellisControl)