reported Mission 2 - no coms past middle ground between WPN 2 & 3

[Rosly]

I just played mission 2 and while having all freq set up as required I do not hear no narration from IP past somewhere middle between WPN2 & 3.

I do not use easy comm and this seems to be connected with FM radio range and location of the radio transmission as triggered from the script (from unit I guess). It seems when on realistic mode and range and terrain occlusion is simulated, those coms are not played.

As a result I'm flying in silence and just from time to time I'm getting F10 option to be able to ask to repeat last, but nothing in played.

When I'm getting closer to Nelis I start to once again hear the coms.

[schmo78]

It´s the same for me. But I actually had the easy comm checkbox ticked. I flew mission 2 for the second time now to check if I did something wrong, but it was the same both times. Many (but not all) messages from Biff missing (no audio / no subtitles) right after the turn from MOAPA to WP2 and also later on.

I´m on the latest DCS Beta Version. 

The mission worked completely fine for me on earlier versions.

[Rosly]

Ok I reproduced the problem and recorded it on video.
 

 

Seems the root course is the ED update for sensitivity levels of A-10 radios. To put it simply, this defines now much range each radio has with given TX power on the transmiter side. It seems the unit which is transmitting is not our wingman and once we flew out of range (or we mask the transmiter by terrain) we are no longer able to hear it.
I was able to overcome the problem by switching to more sensitive ARC-210 radio, by setting FM freq on it.
I was even able to confirm the FM radio is still able to receive the transmission, though with high level of static. You can switch the squelch and be able to hear something, but it is not pleasant nor well understandable.
Once I got closer to Nelis the problem vanished.

Question to @baltic_dragon what is actually a transmission source for Mission 2.
If you used "RADIO TRANSMISION" action, than it needs to use ZONE bound to unit in order to drag the zone with the unit.
Otherwise the static zone might be masked by terrain or the power will not be high enough, after recent updates to radio loss and power transmission calculations.
Also the zone size does not make any difference, as for this action the zone is used to mark the position, not the range of the reception (this is defined by transmission power). The zone is only used for its center position which defines the position for transmiter.
Or you can use Lua script and make unit to transmit on radio, which is far more handy but requires to code conditions in Lua and not in mission TRIGGERS.

Video is long (and sorry for some Polish curses) so here are some time marks:
@18:00 - there is sudden abrupt in FM coms. I'm switching squelch on FM and able to hear some parts of transmission over heavy static. This confirms  again the transmission is on correct frequency and the problem is the reception level in this specific location. Question is who is transmitting (which unit). My wingman is right next to me, so it cannot be him.
@18:38 - funny enough the transmission go back to normal
@22:43 - again FM transmission problems, same story. By switch squelch I'm able to hear something over heavy static
@28:43 - I decided to switch to ARC-210 radio for FM freq and overcome the problem of able to hear the narration. I'm playing around with squelch, freq or remain part of the video to proof I'm able to hear on both radios, though the FM one seems to have lower RX sensitivity and this seems to be a source of the problem.

Edited January 1 by Rosly

[baltic_dragon]

Hey @Rosly thanks for checking this! 

Yeah this is definitely the new radio system introduced by ED. We've voiced our concern (as 3rd party devs) during development several times during its introduction, but it seems this didn't work and now we have to spend crazy amount of time going back to old missions and changing a lot of stuff that used to work for years. 

I don't use the radio transmission trigger linked to zone, but units (airborne or based on the ground) that transmit all messages on a given freq. So many of them cannot be heard anymore because of the changes introduced. It is an easy fix but quite annoying when you have so many missions out...

[Rosly]

2 hours ago, baltic_dragon said:

but units (airborne or based on the ground) that transmit all messages

Why not use the wingman unit for mission 2. He is actually the one who makes the narration.

[baltic_dragon]

Because that would require me to re-work the whole mission, plus with the new ARC-210 radio is more tricky than it may look. I'll find a way to fix this. 

[Rosly]

1 hour ago, baltic_dragon said:

Because that would require me to re-work the whole mission

Understand, though suggesting to use different design decision for new Campaigns.

Line of sight and range limitations are essential for UHF/VHF. DCS and SRS are designed to reflect reality in this regard.
Using different units than the narration based ones, to emit on those radios will influence on ADF as well.

[baltic_dragon]

I agree and I am planning to use these factors to the advantage of the campaigns in the future I have a few ideas. I have no problem with any system as long as the rules are not changed in the middle of the game, which was the case here and forces me to spend countless hours to update missions which were built with all the legit tools. In any case, I'll have a look at M2 and try to fix this. 

[Highwayman-Ed]

On 1/11/2024 at 4:02 AM, Rosly said:

Understand, though suggesting to use different design decision for new Campaigns.

Line of sight and range limitations are essential for UHF/VHF. DCS and SRS are designed to reflect reality in this regard.
Using different units than the narration based ones, to emit on those radios will influence on ADF as well.

To back up what BD has said here, we've tried and failed to utilize this method many times in the past with the pending radio changes coming.

This issue comes down once again to the AI and the way it interprets multiple nested Advanced actions used as AI push tasks. To put it as simply as I can, the more actions you have in the list, the more likely it is for the Ai to just give up and go home, and god forbid you to try to edit that list and remove an action or add one into the flow because something needs to be updated or tweaked, you effectively have to rebuild that entire AI unit and all of its actions again from scratch and then all of the associated triggers. This is why we chose to keep the comms separate from the actual AI tasks, such as follow, engage, weapons safe, etc.

[Spike88]

Well, I am glad to see it’s not just me who’s having this issue. Just restarted the mission the first time it happened. I guess I’ll mess around with the Qualification campaigns until this is resolved. 
 

I don’t know if it’s a related issue but I was having audio issues in M1 where the first part of Biff’s audio was cut out, however it resolved itself once we switched radios.

[Rosly]

The temporal solution which should work to some extend till fix will be provided is to use the ARC-210 with given freq and FM modulation instead of dedicated FM radio.

[Spike88]

On 1/17/2024 at 5:42 PM, Rosly said:

The temporal solution which should work to some extend till fix will be provided is to use the ARC-210 with given freq and FM modulation instead of dedicated FM radio.

Is this something we can do with the radio? Tried to check the manual on the ARC-210 but all of the ones I find online aren’t updated with the ARC-210 yet.

[Rosly]

17 hours ago, Spike88 said:

Is this something we can do with the radio? Tried to check the manual on the ARC-210 but all of the ones I find online aren’t updated with the ARC-210 yet.

Not sure what you asking?
Just punch in the freq and switch to FM modulation.

[baltic_dragon]

I will have to check this mission (there are so many things that were changed in DCS and forces me to go back to old missions that worked for years that it drives me crazy), but from the top of my head two reasons:

A) you are using the ARC-210 radio in FM modulation instead of AM, which will mean you won't hear anything (a VERY common issue - don't know why this radio defaults to FM..)
B) after the change in core DCS radio system, the radio signal is much weaker and some transmissions cannot be heard clearly. This is an easy fix to move the transmitter closer to player if possible, but requires us to fly the mission and check everything. Will get there. Apologies, I am currently swamped with updating older missions as all campaigns were affected...

[TripleTapper]

Really appreciate all the hard work.  This campaign got me out of my slump and back into playing DCS.  Great job!

 

 

[hillel]

I stop playing this campaign at mission 3, just not worth it with all the voice over issues, will try to resume once issue is fixed. @baltic_dragon thanks for the hard work, let us know when this campaign is working again. 

[baltic_dragon]

Will do. I knew this new radio system will bring nothing but problems... working hard to get it working again. 

[TripleTapper]

Not saying I don't want it fixed, but It really doesn't make the mission unplayable.  As long as you tune BIFF into the ARC210 and also ARC186, it worked just fine for me.  No need to tune the ARC210 to BIFF until waypoint 2.  The mission is still very playable for me.

Edited February 22 by TripleTapper

[baltic_dragon]

Yeah, my impression is that with ARC210 a lot of people are getting very confused with frequencies. As a rule of the tumb always use the middle UHF radio for comms with BIFF, and the front one mainly for VHF transmissions, that should help a lot. We're still looking into problems brought with the new radio transmission system recently implemented by ED, which does cause problems with campaigns and require massive work sometimes from us as devs to adjust older missions. We'll get there!

[Viking 1-1]

So can somebody conclude what I should do here?

Just got the campaign today, played through mission 1 and at mission 2 the radio stops when passing WP2.

I have my ARC210 on Blackjack in AM, the UHF on 251.000 and the last radio on 32.500 AM

Which frequency should I punch in where? 

[baltic_dragon]

What was the last thing you heard? Looks like your radios are set up correctly. Perhaps somethig with missed zones. I am wondering as I recently spoke with someone who had no trouble with any of the missions and all worked well in M02. Will try to fix whatever causes trouble.

[Viking 1-1]

1 hour ago, baltic_dragon said:

What was the last thing you heard? Looks like your radios are set up correctly. Perhaps somethig with missed zones. I am wondering as I recently spoke with someone who had no trouble with any of the missions and all worked well in M02. Will try to fix whatever causes trouble.

I was on the way out from Takeoff to WP 1.

 

Then Biff says that he forgot to report us to blackjack while turning towards WP 2.

After tuning in Blackjack frequency and pressing Space, he checkes in with Blackjack and from there on the radio is dead.

[baltic_dragon]

@Viking 1-1 thanks, will check it.

[Viking 1-1]

[Viking 1-1]

@baltic_dragon

 

I flew the mission again today, to check for the missing radio comms.

The first time the comms go missing is after the turn towards WP2. It still gives you the choice to have Biff repeat the message, and after I did this twice, the radio comes back to life.

While going towards WP3 the radio goes silent again after he explained the right knob of the CDU. The explanation of the left knob is without voices... After a while when going towards WP 4 the radio is up again.

After the landing and taxing back to Thunder I get the message from Biff and ground to line up at RW 03L, so I guess there is a trigger set twice.

The attached screenshot show you when the radio is back after the turn towards WP2 (screen 1), as well as where he goes silent durning explaining (screen 2)

 

Still had a lot of fun and I hope the next missions will work smoother.

Edited March 29 by Viking 1-1
spelling