dakuth

If you've seen my other post, you may think I have given up and don't need help. If anyone is willing if give me suggestions here, I'm willing to try and work it out. Of course, if we're out of ideas I'll just wait for my reformat and try again then.

Speed-of-heat mentions "plug and play" and that's really what it's about. It's NOT plug and play, but it'd be amazing if it was. It's frankly pretty impressive how well it DOES work, but that doesn't matter so much to the end-user when they can't work it out (e.g. svsmokey's examples.) These QoL suggestions won't be simple ... the difference with planes' designers and modern software is the different roles they play in society. It's much more practical to retrain the small pool of already highly-trained pilots, than it is to correct a usability issue (that may include extremely expensive software AND hardware.) Modern software has no such restrictions, and preferrably aims for that seamless UX. Not that I'm saying ignore the technical challenges - but to try and come up with solutions that are seamless, but also as easy to build and maintain as possible. Now I've said that, I'll ignore it all and throw out my pie-in-the-sky wishlist. It really just boils down to: 1. single-click installation 2. hands-off maintenance 3. natural voice recognition (a la Google Assistant.) None of those would be easy to pull of, but imagine if they existed! Implied in all this is to de-couple from Voice Attack. NLP (natural language processing) can be done with cloud services and I'm pretty sure lightweight off-line solutions as well (I'm thinking here that most users would be fine with connecting to cloud for NLP, but some would prefer to take a bit less robust NLP so they can be totally offline. Stuff like that :) You know, simple stuff! (lol) As a final comment - I *love* the theme of the configuration tool ... all plane switches and dials and such, but it really is quite hard to drive sometimes, especially with so many options that are pretty confusing to first-timers.

It is. I've been thinking all the above, while researching my problems which have varied for months now. I figured I'd ask for help - i've paid for it, i might as well use it. But, the more time that passes, the more I think it may not be for me. When I first started on this journey, though ... I *did* think it would be right up my alley. Hence my warning so others can be informed / Hollywood or anyone that cares could think about QoL improvements that are a real barrier. I'd seriously consider trying to change tack to a standalone, natural-speech solution ... but, you know, that's no small task.

First and foremost: VAICOM is very clever, and most users seem to LOVE it. So I am NOT saying it's garbage, and you shouldn't get it. I do only really see two flavours of comments on VAICOM though: 1. "It's amazing! I couldn't imagine flying without it! Don't hesitate, just get it!" and 2. "I don't get it, this is absolute garbage, I'm asking for a refund." The truth, as in most things in life, is somewhere in the middle. When working, VAICOM is pretty cool. Use a radio just as you would in real life, and then talk to AI just as you would in real life, and they respond. The problem is, the application is deceptively complex. It's hard to set up, it frequently breaks, it's built on top of several layers of technology outside of VAICOM's control, and it takes a significant investment of time to learn how to use it. If you're imagining an application you can install, will pop itself seamlessly into DCS, and then allow you to control the comms menu in VR ... then reset your expectations. There are so many moving parts: - Voice attack, itself a complex piece of software that leverages Microsoft Speech Engine which is itself it's own bit of complexity - especially if you're not American. - DCS, which is prone to different versions, modules, and updates any and all of which can interact differently and break the integrations - Other DCS plugins, such as SRS which is like the multi-player version of VAICOM so a natural thing to have alongside, and Tacview and whatever else is out there. - Other voice software, like TeamSpeak or Discord that may be competing for your PTT buttons and mic - Windows sound devices and drivers. If you only ever use your headset, then bully for you. But if you use speakers, until you switch to gaming them you use a headset... unless your using VR, then you use the VR Headset's built in hardware then... enjoy fumbling with changing sound devices. You can TRY updating the Windows Default device, but it's really hit and miss which applications notice and which ones don't. Should you get everything set up smoothly enough, you jump into a module and give a command. It doesn't work. Is this because Voice Attack didn't recognise your voice? Was VAICOM's PTT configuration set correctly? Are you in Multiplayer? Easy comms? Or, do you just not know the magic combination of words to say? Sure, you can update the words, but like everything in this space, that's not as straight forward as you'd think. It's usually just easier to learn what you need to say... which means forget natural speech, we're back to memorising the correct key words. "Kutasi...." nothing "Kutasi...." nothing. Sigh. "ATC...*click* Turn on Air Supply" nothing. That's right! "ATC... *click* Connect Air Supply" As you can see, NONE of this is insurmountable. You may not have MOST of these complications in your setup. But I liken it to those survival games. No individual mechanic in those games is complex - hunger, thirst, heat, cold, roaming monsters, crafting shelter - but all combined they become a challenge of endless juggling that makes them some of the hardest games out there. They're *designed to kill you*, primarily by 1000 cuts. That's what VAICOM is like. It's a solvable problem, but *be prepared* to put the work in. For my money, I have been slowly reducing the complexity. I had VAICOM+AIRIO+Chatter. Chatter's pretty straightforward, but just fluff, so when I start having problems, it was first to go. AIRIO's removal of the Jester menu, especially when I was learning the F14, meant I had no idea how to control Jester, let alone what to say. What I really wanted was to use my Jester Menu binding so I can see what my options were, and how the menu was nested and over time "short cut" straight to things I wanted by saying what I remember seeing there. Can't do that though, and if I have to choose between trying to memorise Jester commands vs picking them from a list I'll go with the list. Not to mention learning when certain options are available to say to Jester at all. So I disabled AIRIO. I tried to use "natural" commands for general menu options. But I found that all I ever used was the couple I used every time - ground and air, rearm refuel, maybe bogey dope. What do I say to form up with a Tanker? Can't remember. Approach for landing? Not sure. I know there's a couple steps to both those processes.... so... "Options > Take 1/2/3". Considering I can just click the menu options, I could just limit to "Options" and then click... and if I'm doing that I have all this complication for a glorified comms hotkey? I could acheive all this with a single DCS binding on my joystick. So VAICOM itself is slowly migrating out of my DCS "workflow" as well. I realise the mission goal of VAICOM is to replace the menu with an immersive experience. You'd think as a dedicated VR user I'd be keen for that. In truth, I came across VAICOM when looking for a solution to navigate the dynamic menu system in VR, without a keyboard, without needing to bind over a dozen keys to my HOTAS. Now I've been on this journey, I think I would never have gone on this journey if I had have realised I could click on the settings as I use the virtual hands for cockpit clicking ... they can click the comms menu so ... I just didn't know that worked! All I needed all along was a comms menu binding. So that's my word of warning: Be aware of what VAICOM is. It's an immersion upgrade, and requires effort to get that. If all you're looking for is a better way to use the comms menu, that's not really the best use of VAICOM, in my opinion.

I have read every thread I can on this topic, and nothing is working for me. I see it mentioned all the time and the solution is usually to point to a custom path or delete the export.lua. Things I have tried, restarting VA and DCS after each change: 1. Delete ..\Saved Games\DCS\Scripts\Export.lua and restart DCS and VAICOM This broke my SRS and TacView and did not fix the problem 2. Set custom path: Go to VAICOM configuration and then Config tab, tick Use custom DCS path set it to the DCS root folder (that has Run.exe in it). Do not tick ob (I'm on stable version.) No change, though VA logs mention 6/7 files DCS-side files were updated each time I start VA 3. Reset Lua: Go to VAICOM configuration and then Reset tab, tick Lua code, and click Master Zero. No change. 4. Reset Lua and Profile. As above, but also ticked profile No change. 5. Toggled Easy Comms on and off. The PTT tab consistently shows Easy Communication: ON, even though I have it off. After toggling it, it changes to OFF, but this doesn't change anything. 6. Change PTT Map from SNGL to anything else. No Change. 7. Added in new registry entries:Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\Path This allowed VAICOM to detect DCS without error when I did not set the Config/Custom Path, but menus continued to flicker on and off. Some added info. This was working. I have made a bunch of changes lately to take advantage of the free month, and I don't know which one "broke" this. I have been using the Steam Version. I moved this install to a Standalone directory and changed it to the Standalone version primarily by using Skate Zilla's updater GUI. Move, modify version.txt, run a repair, that sort of thing. So that got DCS working, and I needed to update VAICOM with a custom path, but otherwise I'm pretty sure it was all working. I then got SRS and installed it. Other than tearing my hair out over how to get SRS and VAICOM to work together in a way that I didn't find frustrating, they were both working. Started using OVGME for mod management because I've started to use a couple - the VR shaders mod, and a asset mod for a mission I was building. Also I've started using MOOSE for mission design. To set a "baseline" I used OVGME to take a snapshot of my DCS directory. I'm pretty sure I ran a repair first, then snapshotted it, then installed the VR Shader mod back. The asset mod goes into Saved Games, so NBD. Possibly because of that process, I'm not sure, I suddenly "lost" several modules. Ka-50, A10C were the first two I noticed. Not ALL modules, just some. Skate Zilla's app seemed to think I had them - I couldn't reinstall them via that utility, and trying to install them via DCS would exit DCS but not fire up the updater. So I used the command-line for DCSUpdater.exe to reinstall those modules. It was all very strange. It seems to be *after this*, that VAICOM started giving me the flickering menus. The reinstallation of the mods didn't make sense to me as a cause, so I figure it was whatever corrupted things so I "lost" those modules. I don't have any idea what that was, but COULD have been the repair. I don't think so - I'm pretty sure I was playing in the A10 after that last repair. I THINK I was playing the A10 one night, logged on the next night to work on my mission, and noticed I couldn't add a flyable a10 to the mission ... thought it was a quirk of the mission editor, then later realised DCS didn't think I HAD the a10. ARE YOU STILL WITH ME!? Ok, so what now? As you might be able to tell, I'm desparately trying to avoid big reinstalls. I've frankly found VAICOM quite frustrating and there have been so many little tweaks and changes that I can't remember to make it all work acceptably, I'm loathe to reinstall even the app - let alone Voice Attack, or god-forbid DCS. So if I can't get a fairly easy solution, I'll probably just stop using VAICOM. I have more and more resorted to just using it for "Options > Take 1/2/3" anyway. I disabled AIRRIO because using the Jester menu was so much simpler and I couldn't have both. I also really need to reformat and repartition at some point (a chore I've been delayed....) so if it looks like a massive reinstall is in order, I'll probably just give up and revisit after i wipe my whole computer and start again. So, to summarise .... any silver bullets anyone can see that could get me back on track so I don't have to shelve VAICOM until I reformat some point in the future?

Wow, so specific - but yes, me too. IINet, FTTP customer ... just spent an hour or two trying to work out why JUST the DCS website is blocked for me. Glad I know why now at least... I can get around it with VPNs and Proxies and such, but that is such a pain especially in game