New to MP, Comms questions

[Granny]

I've been trying out multiplayer lately (mostly on TTI), I'm pretty new at it and not very good. I'm trying to figure out radio comms.  I'm using SRS on TTI's servers, seems to work but rarely anyone else on SRS.  I'd love to try new Voice Chat in v2.9, so far haven't found a server using it yet, maybe I need to look harder.  I see the chat box on the left, among the log of events scrolling through it they're also players communicating there.  Its text to me but the verbiage suggests it might be Voice chat. Some have even reached out to me, but I don't know how to respond. I see the text, I don't hear any voice. Is that through Discord voice chat or something else?  I've heard other players mention just use Discord instead of SRS or the in-game voice chat, I have no clue how to use Discord in the game.

[Kang]

DCS basically has three systems in competition there and it's generally a question of the servers you enjoy which one you end up using.

DCS Voice Chat:

Comes built-in with DCS, which makes it somewhat readily available, but as you found a lot of servers do not have it activated. It's completely separate from the text chat box that you see and has no connection. Some people just use the chat but generally write as if speaking, which is the domain of those of us who can type rather quickly, of course. The Voice Chat function is working okay, it comes in two modes, one being more like traditional gaming comms with rooms/channels that are globally connected, and the 'radio mode' that works more akin to DCS in that your voice communication is linked to the in-game radio sets for extra realism.

SRS:

A classic piece of software that the in-built voice chat kind of emulates in radio mode. It makes use of the in-game radio sets for very good realism in the comms system, is easily set up and quite popular. From what I gather one of the points is that it just has been around for long and thus a lot of people are used to it. It also has the option to set up virtual radios for people in commander or observer slots, thus enabling ATC or GCI gameplay. The only downside is that it is another program to set up, update and run.

Discord:

The third option is going all gamer mode and just have a discord server connected to the server, or perhaps if you are a little older as I am, you might prefer Teamspeak here. It works like Voice Chat in channel mode, you can talk to everyone in your channel, no matter where in the game world they are, and the experience might differ greatly from server to server. It basically just runs in the background. This, too, has the downside of requiring another external software, but some server administrators like shoehorning people into their Discord servers anyway.

 

Hope this clears things up a bit for you.