VAICOM PRO plugin for VoiceAttack

[Phil73805]

Thanks Hollywood_315, I will try to figure out how to do that later.

 

mosqui, I'm not quite sure what you mean by updating the base data when adding a new key.

[mosqui]

Ir you do not update the base data the new word wonna works in Vaicom when you say it

[Phil73805]

Yeah I've had something similar with one of these Black Sea airfields myself too.

You can use the Keywords Editor to add your pronunciation to the speech dictionary or change the keyword into something more phonetic like Baahtoomee *). Manual page 27/30.

 

*) UK spelling.

 

 

I was able to get it to recognise Batumi by pronouncing it Batummy. No attempt at phonetic spelling worked. I don't know how to get it to add my pronounciation.

 

In truth it doesn't really recognise most commands despite training. I haven't spent too much on it. I might just go back to the menu system. I often have to revert to it when the Vaicom doesn't work. You have to overpronounce words and mispronounce words to get it to recognise which is at least as immersion breaking as using a key based menu system.

 

I also changed Hawg to Hog because...I'm British :) ...though it often hears it as 'hoc' and other variations on a theme of what I actually want.

[Phil73805]

Okay, I've added some aliases for Batumi using different phonetic spellings and now it's asking me to update the Voice Attack profile with instructions that do not make sense. Does it mean that I should pick a random command, delete its 'when I say' and then paste all the commands into that one? Counterintuitive to say the least. Won't that delete the command I clicked on? Edit: No it won't. I just updated as requested.

 

Does all this help? A little. The success rate has increased from zero to 3/10.

 

Edited November 7, 2018 by Phil73805

[Hollywood_315]

NOTES:

In VA make sure multipart commands are consolidated.

The When I Say field may look empty but this can be ignored.

 

 

EDIT:

 

I don't know how to get it to add my pronounciation.

As said: Manual page 27/30.

Also in VA options try increasing your command weight to 90-100 range.

Edited November 7, 2018 by Hollywood_315

[Phil73805]

 

EDIT:

 

As said: Manual page 27/30.

Also in VA options try increasing your command weight to 90-100 range.

 

My Vaicom Pro manual has 52 pages, the Voice Attack Pro manual has 190ish. Which manual? Are you sure about the page? :)

 

I will try the other suggestions when I get home.

[Phil73805]

Okay, I tried training it as explained by the manual. Unfortunately, some of the words in the keywords list are also Windows commands or get confused with Windows commands, like 'Copy'. I said one word from the list that it heard as 'delete' which caused Vaicom and VA to crash.

 

I restarted VA and Vaicom and tried to say Batumi (which I trained and have three other aliases for) and it failed 3/5 times. Which means that when it crashed it must have deleted the training? In training mode, it recognised my aliases with 96%+ confidence but in actual use was useless. Edit: I then deleted my aliases and tried it in training mode. It recognised it most of the time but when I switch off training mode and just tried to transmit it failed to recognise it even once.

 

I think I'm going to put this software to one side for now. Instead of flying I'm mucking around with software (and not getting anywhere) and I need the flying time more. Maybe down the line when I'm proficient with the A10C I'll come back to it.

Edited November 8, 2018 by Phil73805

[Sadist_Cain]

Okay, I tried training it as explained by the manual. Unfortunately, some of the words in the keywords list are also Windows commands or get confused with Windows commands, like 'Copy'. I said one word from the list that it heard as 'delete' which caused Vaicom and VA to crash.

 

I restarted VA and Vaicom and tried to say Batumi (which I trained and have three other aliases for) and it failed 3/5 times. Which means that when it crashed it must have deleted the training? In training mode, it recognised my aliases with 96%+ confidence but in actual use was useless. Edit: I then deleted my aliases and tried it in training mode. It recognised it most of the time but when I switch off training mode and just tried to transmit it failed to recognise it even once.

 

I think I'm going to put this software to one side for now. Instead of flying I'm mucking around with software (and not getting anywhere) and I need the flying time more. Maybe down the line when I'm proficient with the A10C I'll come back to it.

 

No need to shelve it my good man, I too had a struggle with Batumi.

 

Have you tried adding it to the actual speech dictionary within windows? That's what did it for me, that way you have a record of your voice in the windows speech library being used for that specific word, you can even listen to it to ensure your own pronunciation is consistent.

 

Right click the windows speech recognition toolbar that pops up when you click training in voice attack and there's a speech dictionary option in there, just follow the steps for adding a word and job's a goodun.

 

Also if you're getting overlapping commands for windows (i.e. copy and delete) that suggests you have windows speech recognition on ALL the time when there's no need to do so.

You only need voice attack to be open.

 

When training you need windows speech (thus the toolbar) but outside of that you can just exit it and VA will continue to work without any windows commands getting in the way.

 

On a side note, wanna get proficient in the A-10C? gimme a shout

[strike277]

Had to reinstall everything on my computer. Updated to Windows 10 finally. I'm having an issue where I'm not sure what PTT to set up for what radio on the F-18. Also, when Viacom pro is running, the coms menu in DCS is turning itself on and off. It pops up on the screen for a second or two, then goes away.

 

Any Ideas?

[Shepherd]

Hi,

In game there does not seem to be any real consistency. Some times the commands work relatively fine and then other times the command dont work at all, its like its locked up. Not sure whats going on but its getting frustrating. It seems like I am wasting to much time on this.

 

Any advise before I can this speech recognition idea.

 

Thanks.

 

Edit: i bought a new mic and it fixed this issue.

Edited November 10, 2018 by Shepherd

[overalien]

My experiences were similar until I ran the Microsoft speech recognition training. I ran both simple and advanced and did it twice through for good measure. This made a dramatic improvement to recognition rates in VoiceAttack. From there you can still train individual words into the dictionary, but the need for this is reduced a lot. It’s really worth the effort and time. I suggest you try it before getting too frustrated. Don’t forget that VoiceAttack uses the Microsoft Speech engine for recognition. So recognition issues are never a VAICOM Problem but more likely down to lack of voice training or microphone issues.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Nickentik]

Hello Hollywood,

 

I think there might be a limit to size of the command database when pasted in the "edit a command" fields of voiceattack. At around the 6400 character limit it just pastes empty fields instead of the commands. This quickly becomes a problem when the extra atc names and mission commands are added to the database.

[dburne]

My experiences were similar until I ran the Microsoft speech recognition training. I ran both simple and advanced and did it twice through for good measure. This made a dramatic improvement to recognition rates in VoiceAttack. From there you can still train individual words into the dictionary, but the need for this is reduced a lot. It’s really worth the effort and time. I suggest you try it before getting too frustrated. Don’t forget that VoiceAttack uses the Microsoft Speech engine for recognition. So recognition issues are never a VAICOM Problem but more likely down to lack of voice training or microphone issues.

 

Yes this, I did the training in Windows several times and it really helped.

[Greyman]

Hello Hollywood,

 

I think there might be a limit to size of the command database when pasted in the "edit a command" fields of voiceattack. At around the 6400 character limit it just pastes empty fields instead of the commands. This quickly becomes a problem when the extra atc names and mission commands are added to the database.

 

This is a known issue with VoiceAttack, that will hopefully be fixed soon, but even though the field might appear to be empty, the contents are still there. Just make sure that you do the Ctrl-a and Del to clear the field, before pasting the new contents.

[mdee]

@mdee You could try if pressing the Reload button on the Keywords Editor tab resets the message.

 

Thanks for suggestion - it didn't do it, unfortunately. I'll try to reset/re import F10 menus.

[Phil73805]

No need to shelve it my good man, I too had a struggle with Batumi.

 

Have you tried adding it to the actual speech dictionary within windows? That's what did it for me, that way you have a record of your voice in the windows speech library being used for that specific word, you can even listen to it to ensure your own pronunciation is consistent.

 

Right click the windows speech recognition toolbar that pops up when you click training in voice attack and there's a speech dictionary option in there, just follow the steps for adding a word and job's a goodun.

 

I have not yet tried this so I will. What's strange is that in training mode my inputs are frequently recognised with a good level of confidence, however, as soon as I try to transmit, all it will hear are variations on a theme of Batumi, 'but to me' etc. Why does it recognise in training mode but fail in actual use? Furthermore, when I start to add other phrases like "Hog 1-1" it almost never recognises the word Hog (I added it as an alias for Hawg) but, again, it seems to get it in training mode.

 

Also if you're getting overlapping commands for windows (i.e. copy and delete) that suggests you have windows speech recognition on ALL the time when there's no need to do so.

You only need voice attack to be open.

 

 

This only happened in training mode working with Windows Speech Recognition training, this would not be an issue in sim.

 

On a side note, wanna get proficient in the A-10C? gimme a shout

 

Done! Really looking forward to flying with you! :)

 

 

My experiences were similar until I ran the Microsoft speech recognition training. I ran both simple and advanced and did it twice through for good measure. This made a dramatic improvement to recognition rates in VoiceAttack. From there you can still train individual words into the dictionary, but the need for this is reduced a lot. It’s really worth the effort and time. I suggest you try it before getting too frustrated. Don’t forget that VoiceAttack uses the Microsoft Speech engine for recognition. So recognition issues are never a VAICOM Problem but more likely down to lack of voice training or microphone issues.

 

I have done the full Windows voice training at least three times so far. It's pretty damn good with regular words but it struggles with the place names and specialist phrases that aren't a part of daily language. Voice Attack seems awesome in training mode but rather poor in actual use.

Edited November 8, 2018 by Phil73805
Punctuation...yes, seriously...I'm getting help.

[mr_mojo97]

Had to reinstall everything on my computer. Updated to Windows 10 finally. I'm having an issue where I'm not sure what PTT to set up for what radio on the F-18. Also, when Viacom pro is running, the coms menu in DCS is turning itself on and off. It pops up on the screen for a second or two, then goes away.

 

Any Ideas?

 

I too have the issue of the comms menu appearing then going away, it’s a persistent 5 seconds on then 5 seconds off. Have you tried deleting the export file? That usually fixes it. It seems to come back for me every DCS update or so.

Edited November 9, 2018 by mr_mojo97

[spike2450]

Hi i have paid for and installed the latest version and it says it is not compatible with my version of voiceattack which i bought from the steam store

[mdee]

Thanks for suggestion - it didn't do it, unfortunately. I'll try to reset/re import F10 menus.

This is about "The keywords database was updated: apply FINISH steps to update the VA profile." reappearing despite "FINISH" steps done multiple times.

 

I did a database reset and that cleared the "database update" message. Loaded "Into The Inferno" with "Import F10 Menus" option on. The message re-appeared, I did FINISH steps, but the message keeps reappearing. I had a look into profile file and it doesn't seem to have new commands included. I have tried to manually replace <CommandString> section, but every time I start VA, the profile gets reset do default keyword list (without F10 imported commands) - not sure if this is relevant though, as I can see "ACTION xxx" commands via VA profile editor.

 

Debug log

  Unchanged: Export.lua
  Reset: VAICOMPRO.export.lua
  Reset: RadioCommandDialogsPanel.lua
  Reset: speech.lua
  Reset: TabSheetBar.lua
  4/5 DCS-side files were updated.
Checking VA profile.
Updating keywords database...
Success.
Loading keywords database...
Success.
Loading F10 menu items...
Success.
Adding 0 imported ATC aliases.
Adding 23 imported menu commands.
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2G Hard Mission  with actionIndex 0 as command 20001 Action  A2G Hard Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2G Easy Mission  with actionIndex 1 as command 20002 Action  A2G Easy Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2G Helo Mission  with actionIndex 2 as command 20003 Action  A2G Helo Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2G Helo Infantry Assault Mission  with actionIndex 3 as command 20004 Action  A2G Helo Infantry Assault Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  Anti-Ship Mission  with actionIndex 4 as command 20005 Action  Anti-Ship Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2A Easy Mission  with actionIndex 5 as command 20006 Action  A2A Easy Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2A Normal Mission  with actionIndex 6 as command 20007 Action  A2A Normal Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2A Hard Mission  with actionIndex 7 as command 20008 Action  A2A Hard Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2A Random Mission  with actionIndex 8 as command 20009 Action  A2A Random Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  Ground Target Location Intel  with actionIndex 9 as command 20010 Action  Ground Target Location Intel 
Setting menu F10 item Action  Smoke Active Target Areas  with actionIndex 10 as command 20011 Action  Smoke Active Target Areas 
Setting menu F10 item Action  Reset AWACS  with actionIndex 11 as command 20012 Action  Reset AWACS 
Setting menu F10 item Action  Reset Tankers  with actionIndex 12 as command 20013 Action  Reset Tankers 
Setting menu F10 item Action Request Bogey Dope with actionIndex 13 as command 20014 Action Request Bogey Dope
Setting menu F10 item Action Request Friendly Picture with actionIndex 14 as command 20015 Action Request Friendly Picture
Setting menu F10 item Action Set to Bullseye with actionIndex 15 as command 20016 Action Set to Bullseye
Setting menu F10 item Action Set to Self with actionIndex 16 as command 20017 Action Set to Self
Setting menu F10 item Action Set to Imperial (feet, knts) with actionIndex 17 as command 20018 Action Set to Imperial (feet, knts)
Setting menu F10 item Action Set to Metric (meters, km/h) with actionIndex 18 as command 20019 Action Set to Metric (meters, km/h)
Setting menu F10 item Action Request Picture with actionIndex 19 as command 20020 Action Request Picture
Setting menu F10 item Action Message ON with actionIndex 20 as command 20021 Action Message ON
Setting menu F10 item Action Message OFF with actionIndex 21 as command 20022 Action Message OFF
Setting menu F10 item Action JTAC Status with actionIndex 25 as command 20023 Action JTAC Status
Building master keywords table...
Success.
Building master labels table...
Success.
No new DCS modules to import.
The keywords database was updated: apply FINISH steps to update the VA profile.
Adding themepack collections
Chatter theme set to Default
Adding chatter resources.. Default
Resources added. 
Chatter initialized. 
Chatter start.
Startup finished.
Ready for commands.
Exported aliases to keywords.txt, keyword count = 509
File export success.
Updating keywords database...
Success.

Edited November 8, 2018 by mdee

[KidCharlemagne]

Hollywood,

 

Prior to the latest update I was having to reinstall/manage all the plugin files manually as my DCS installation didn't seem to be recognized. Since the latest update, however, it recognizes both normal and beta installations and has become much easier to use! Thanks for the update!

 

KC

[mdee]

This is about "The keywords database was updated: apply FINISH steps to update the VA profile." reappearing despite "FINISH" steps done multiple times.

 

I did a database reset and that cleared the "database update" message. Loaded "Into The Inferno" with "Import F10 Menus" option on. The message re-appeared, I did FINISH steps, but the message keeps reappearing. I had a look into profile file and it doesn't seem to have new commands included. I have tried to manually replace <CommandString> section, but every time I start VA, the profile gets reset do default keyword list (without F10 imported commands) - not sure if this is relevant though, as I can see "ACTION xxx" commands via VA profile editor.

 

Debug log

  Unchanged: Export.lua
  Reset: VAICOMPRO.export.lua
  Reset: RadioCommandDialogsPanel.lua
  Reset: speech.lua
  Reset: TabSheetBar.lua
  4/5 DCS-side files were updated.
Checking VA profile.
Updating keywords database...
Success.
Loading keywords database...
Success.
Loading F10 menu items...
Success.
Adding 0 imported ATC aliases.
Adding 23 imported menu commands.
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2G Hard Mission  with actionIndex 0 as command 20001 Action  A2G Hard Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2G Easy Mission  with actionIndex 1 as command 20002 Action  A2G Easy Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2G Helo Mission  with actionIndex 2 as command 20003 Action  A2G Helo Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2G Helo Infantry Assault Mission  with actionIndex 3 as command 20004 Action  A2G Helo Infantry Assault Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  Anti-Ship Mission  with actionIndex 4 as command 20005 Action  Anti-Ship Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2A Easy Mission  with actionIndex 5 as command 20006 Action  A2A Easy Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2A Normal Mission  with actionIndex 6 as command 20007 Action  A2A Normal Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2A Hard Mission  with actionIndex 7 as command 20008 Action  A2A Hard Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  A2A Random Mission  with actionIndex 8 as command 20009 Action  A2A Random Mission 
Setting menu F10 item Action  Ground Target Location Intel  with actionIndex 9 as command 20010 Action  Ground Target Location Intel 
Setting menu F10 item Action  Smoke Active Target Areas  with actionIndex 10 as command 20011 Action  Smoke Active Target Areas 
Setting menu F10 item Action  Reset AWACS  with actionIndex 11 as command 20012 Action  Reset AWACS 
Setting menu F10 item Action  Reset Tankers  with actionIndex 12 as command 20013 Action  Reset Tankers 
Setting menu F10 item Action Request Bogey Dope with actionIndex 13 as command 20014 Action Request Bogey Dope
Setting menu F10 item Action Request Friendly Picture with actionIndex 14 as command 20015 Action Request Friendly Picture
Setting menu F10 item Action Set to Bullseye with actionIndex 15 as command 20016 Action Set to Bullseye
Setting menu F10 item Action Set to Self with actionIndex 16 as command 20017 Action Set to Self
Setting menu F10 item Action Set to Imperial (feet, knts) with actionIndex 17 as command 20018 Action Set to Imperial (feet, knts)
Setting menu F10 item Action Set to Metric (meters, km/h) with actionIndex 18 as command 20019 Action Set to Metric (meters, km/h)
Setting menu F10 item Action Request Picture with actionIndex 19 as command 20020 Action Request Picture
Setting menu F10 item Action Message ON with actionIndex 20 as command 20021 Action Message ON
Setting menu F10 item Action Message OFF with actionIndex 21 as command 20022 Action Message OFF
Setting menu F10 item Action JTAC Status with actionIndex 25 as command 20023 Action JTAC Status
Building master keywords table...
Success.
Building master labels table...
Success.
No new DCS modules to import.
The keywords database was updated: apply FINISH steps to update the VA profile.
Adding themepack collections
Chatter theme set to Default
Adding chatter resources.. Default
Resources added. 
Chatter initialized. 
Chatter start.
Startup finished.
Ready for commands.
Exported aliases to keywords.txt, keyword count = 509
File export success.
Updating keywords database...
Success.

 

Ok, I didn't understand how VA profiles work.

 

So, I redid the profile by hand by adding the actions to the file, re-imported the profile and "database updated" is gone. Nonetheless, despite trying pretty much anything I couldn't get rid of it by using the method described in the manual.

[Hollywood_315]

Thanks for the update. All normal.

I'll have a look, if your db is up to date simply ignore the message.

[Greyman]

Hi i have paid for and installed the latest version and it says it is not compatible with my version of voiceattack which i bought from the steam store

 

Maybe posts #1133 and #1140 of this thread might be of some use

[Shepherd]

I do not seem to be able to get the communication menus to poop up so i can see the COMs tree. I have Disable Menus deselected and Allow options selected.

 

Thanks.

[Rangoon]

I am using VAICOM PRO 2.5.5 with the latest DCS beta version. In the VAICOM options, I have the PTT Dial Selector set to Manual (MAN). In the Huey, with Easy Comms off, and everything correctly registering in the VAICOM options, the selector dial in the aircraft still moves on its own. Does that sound like something wrong with my install or settings?