WIP DCS A-10C and Teamspeak 3 Integration

[reschke]

I am going to have to add in a group of radio panels now for this game when I get around to building my simpit...more costs and have to find ways to stuff this under the rug so my wife doesn't see it....damn you people! Just when I had her permission to build a nice simpit in my home office as well.

[diveplane]

I am going to have to add in a group of radio panels now for this game when I get around to building my simpit...more costs and have to find ways to stuff this under the rug so my wife doesn't see it....damn you people! Just when I had her permission to build a nice simpit in my home office as well.

 

hehe, if she has italian in her, she will get the rolling pin on your butt when she finds out lmao.

 

Edited January 14, 2011 by diveplane

[WarriorX]

Hi Headspace, just want you to know why you may get a few questions regarding key assignments from some of us with the TM Wartog and a certain set of hardware. We have a few difficulties at the moment with it's programming software called TARGET.

 

The certain set of hardware I am referring to is if you have the Warthog Stick and Throttle and have the legacy USB Simped rudder pedals which have toebrakes, that connect thru the base of the TM HOTAS Cougar, then you have 10 DirectX axis in total, on 3 controllers for DCS A-10 to use.

 

You see right now Warthog users have a choice when running DCS A-10C.

 

We can run without TARGET, and DCS will set up all the axis and buttons for us. DCS A-10C recognizes multiple controllers so the DirectX limit does not come into play. But we cannot easily configure the Warthog's keys to do such things as PTT and the other TARS functions.

 

Or, one can create a profile in TARGET that sends all the same keybinds that DSC has for each button, and include the keybinds for TARS.

 

The downside with this is that when you run the profile, TARGET virtually unplugs the Stick, Throttle, Rudder Pedals and combines them into 1 virtual controller.

 

This has it's drawbacks as the limit for DirectX axis in one controller is 8. If you run the TM Warthog which has 7 axis, then add Simped rudder pedals which have 3 axis, you total 10 axis and exceed the DX limit for the 1 virtual controller.

 

So user's with this hardware config have to pick between a few options.

 

1. Run without TARGET and use programs like Autohotkey http://www.autohotkey.com/ to run separate scripts alongside all the other programs to emulate the joystick buttons as keypresses for TARS. The downside is that Autohotkey is not easy to get set up.

 

2. Run with TARGET, create a profile, and decide which of the 2 axis you want to leave out.

 

(I have read you can unplug your rudder pedals before you run the TARGET profile, then plug them back in after TARGET makes the 1 virtual controller. Then DCS will see 2 controllers, the one virtual and the rudders. I have not tried this so I can not confirm that it works.)

 

I hope Thrustmaster changes TARGET in the future to enable it to create more than 1 virtual controller. This would solve the DX axis limit of 8 per controller.

[Nightmare]

hehe, if she has italian in her, she will get the rolling pin on your butt when she finds out lmao.

 

 

 

Naaaaaaaaaa:lol:

Italian women are the best in the world!

Mothers, Friends, Lovers........... real women:smartass:

 

 

Edited January 14, 2011 by Nightmare

[diveplane]

Naaaaaaaaaa:lol:

Italian women are the best in the world!

Mothers, Friends, Lovers........... real women:smartass:

..............................

 

lol

[VTJS17_Fire]

Thanks for your great work! :clap_2:

 

 

• The other player is in the same game of DCS as you, and his or her radio is turned on.
  
• Your radio is turned on, and tuned to the same frequency as the other player’s radio.
  
• You have line-of-sight to the other player (i.e., the horizon of the Earth is not blocking your transmission). Line of sight increases with altitude and is the primary limiter to the effective range of your aircraft’s communications. Additionally, there is a slight range restriction on FM radio transmission that may present itself within the radio horizon, depending on frequency.
  
• Your intercom panel settings (depending on aircraft and radio type) are configured so that you are able to hear the radio in question.

 

Can't read anything about my question:

Must the players which are in one DCS game, also be on the same Teamspeak server?

 

Example:

- Player1 is on TS Server A (only on that server)

- Player2 is on TS Server B (only on that server)

 

kind regards,

Fire

[Zero_Mass]

Keys profile for the HOTAS Warthog

 

Hey Headspace - Any recommendations for how to bind this stuff to the joystick? It seems like we got a bunch of keys to worry about now:

 

In-game UHF menu

In-game VHF AM menu

In-game VHF FM menu

TeamSpeak select radio 1

TeamSpeak select radio 2

TeamSpeak select radio 3

TeamSpeak PTT

 

Any way to combine these functions smartly?

 

Ok guys it was the same thing me and Geskes struggled last night until I came up with a solution.

 

We use a program called JoyToKey. It can assign keyboard keys to your joystick buttons. So if you got a HOTAS Warthog like me and Geskes do the following:

 

1. unassign the mic switch in DCS so that it is completely blank in the throttle section.

 

2. In JoyToKey Create a profile for multiplayer and for single-player. (note: the throttle is joystick 2, please be aware of that!)

 

3. Now in multi-player you want to have set the radio switchers for TARS, so do the following:

 

Multi-player

 

• Button 2 (Mic Switch Press) = Your PTT Button in TeamSpeak. (Scrollock for me).
  
• Button 4 (Mic Switch FWD) = L-Cntrl + 2 (VHF AM);
  
• Button 5 (Mic Switch DWN) = L-cntrl + 1 (UHF);
  
• Button 6 (Mic Switch AFT) = L-Cntrl + 3 (VHF FM).
  

Now in single-player thus in the single-player profile you may want:

Single-player

 

• Button 4 (Mic Switch FWD) = L-Alt + Num+ (VHF AM);
  
• Button 5 (Mic Switch DWN) = L-Alt + Num- (UHF);
  
• Button 6 (Mic Switch AFT) = L-Shift + Num-(VHF FM).
  

Note: You have to be specific on which modifier (l-alt, l-shift, l-cntrl) you set. So in JoyToKey use the Assign Special keys option in the window that pops up when you double-click a button.

Note 2: JoyToKey is not installed, so no folder in the windows menu. If you want to use it like this I recommend you set A Shortcut of JoyToKey in the start-up folder so it will start with Windows.

Note 3: As you may have noticed this requires you to switch profiles between Single-player and multi-player flight.

No biggie but you may forget it sometimes, like that damn TrackIR:D.

[Zero_Mass]

So now that is out of the way:

 

This is an amazing tool Headspace (and others)!! It almost makes me feel ashamed when using it and doing nothing for it:cry:.

It's that good!:D

 

So Geskes and I did some testing last night:

 

VHF FM: will not downgrade in quality. Guess this is not implemented yet?

It makes a great debug channel though!:D

 

UHF and VHF AM: will downgrade with the same pace and same quality.

Don't know if they are equal in RL.

 

Further we came up with some numbers for this beta.

 

UHF and VHF AM will cut off completely at 240 Miles separation.

VHF FM will do that at roughly 260 miles, but there's no cue in that static that in shortly will.

 

Further can you confirm Line-of-Sight works? Because Geskes was flying in the mountains and I could still hear him (also at about 120 miles separation).

We had confirmed we had not established line-of-sight, because we couldn't send or receive each other messages with the data-link in DCS.

 

Amazing Job Guys Well Done!:joystick::smilewink:

[hog_driver111th]

Headspace, After a few tests everything seems to be working as stated by the others. I should mention though that if a pilot ejects and did not have the AM radio set to TX, then he will not be able to transmit on guard while on the ground. The only other bug I've run into aside from what Zero-Mass has stated is turning on and off TARS within Teamspeak. If we have it on, but wish to turn it off, it will crash the program. We are running the latest version of TS. Otherwise, this is totally awesome!

[Zero_Mass]

The only other bug I've run into aside from what Zero-Mass has stated is turning on and off TARS within Teamspeak. If we have it on, but wish to turn it off, it will crash the program. We are running the latest version of TS. Otherwise, this is totally awesome!

 

In the TARS Control Panel you can switch TARS OFF by selecting Standby.

This option is found when you click on the game icon.

[Distiler]

http://www.excessiveheadspace.com/tars/user-manual/advanced/

 

"In the Advanced Settings panel of your game dialog box, set the IP address of the computer that is running Teamspeak 3"

 

Do you mean Teamspeak 3 server, right?

 

 

"On your gaming machine’s TARS control panel, click on “Network” in the main window and then set the IP address that will listen for DCS."

 

And here you mean DCS / TS3 client, right?

Edited January 14, 2011 by Distiler

[Zero_Mass]

http://www.excessiveheadspace.com/tars/user-manual/advanced/

 

"In the Advanced Settings panel of your game dialog box, set the IP address of the computer that is running Teamspeak 3"

 

Do you mean Teamspeak 3 server, right?

 

 

"On your gaming machine’s TARS control panel, click on “Network” in the main window and then set the IP address that will listen for DCS."

 

And here you mean DCS / TS3 client, right?

 

No this is if you have Teamspeak3 running on another machine so TARS can communicate with it. If you have TARS and TeamSpeak on one machine you can leave it at default.

[Distiler]

Please, are you talking about TS3 client or server?

 

If you are talking about the client, it means we don't need to put the ts3 server ip in any plance in TARS, right?

[Zero_Mass]

Please, are you talking about TS3 client or server?

 

If you are talking about the client, it means we don't need to put the ts3 server ip in any plance in TARS, right?

 

TS client that is yes and No not anywhere!:D

[Headspace]

UHF and VHF AM will cut off completely at 240 Miles separation.

VHF FM will do that at roughly 260 miles, but there's no cue in that static that in shortly will.

You were beyond radio horizon. TARS doesn't do LOS for terrain, just for the horizon of the Earth. LOS in mountains and so on would be another can of worms since there's no native (correct me if I'm wrong) command hooked to get that. You'd have to do it through scripting (one person already send me a way to do that) but unfortunately the performance hit from this would scale pretty badly as you increased player count.

Further can you confirm Line-of-Sight works? Because Geskes was flying in the mountains and I could still hear him (also at about 120 miles separation).

See above.

VHF FM: will not downgrade in quality. Guess this is not implemented yet?

It makes a great debug channel though!:D

It will, but it cuts out quicker depending on how far away you get. Path loss numbers are different for lower frequencies.

I should mention though that if a pilot ejects and did not have the AM radio set to TX, then he will not be able to transmit on guard while on the ground.

Ejecting got tested pretty thoroughly before I released this. How far away were you? There's an issue with line of sight and client location that's proven a bit difficult to get around (technical limitations of the DCS netcode). The pilot object doesn't appear to be synced across clients, so other clients using TARS have to rely on where your plane last was when you ejected--that means if you are near the edge of the radio horizon then you may end up hearing but not being able to be heard after eject.

 

If you can get this to reproduce consistently, write a set of repro steps and submit it through the debug form. Make sure to include the logs that TARS made of when it happened in a .zip and I'll get on that. :thumbup:

The only other bug I've run into aside from what Zero-Mass has stated is turning on and off TARS within Teamspeak. If we have it on, but wish to turn it off, it will crash the program. We are running the latest version of TS. Otherwise, this is totally awesome!

Known issue. Disconnect from the Teamspeak server before you turn off TARS.

Edited January 14, 2011 by Headspace

[Murdoc]

Thanks for your great work! :clap_2:

 

 

Can't read anything about my question:

Must the players which are in one DCS game, also be on the same Teamspeak server?

 

Example:

- Player1 is on TS Server A (only on that server)

- Player2 is on TS Server B (only on that server)

 

kind regards,

Fire

 

Yes they have to be on the same TS Server to make it work.

TARS mutes players that are not in range/same channel/out of pit. In order to do that you'll have to be on the same TS Server and of course in the same channel. :)

[Zero_Mass]

It will, but it cuts out quicker depending on how far away you get. Path loss numbers are different for lower frequencies.

You're saying that it will be implemented or that it already is. Cuz Geskes and I were more than 200 miles out and FM radio did not degrade in quality (maybe a little bit) freq. 10.000 FM

[Headspace]

You're saying that it will be implemented or that it already is. Cuz Geskes and I were more than 200 miles out and FM radio did not degrade in quality (maybe a little bit) freq. 10.000 FM

It's in there, some factors (such as for lower frequencies) just need to be adjusted.

[Zero_Mass]

It's in there, some factors (such as for lower frequencies) just need to be adjusted.

 

Oké, we did not test any other frequencies, will try it later this evening.

Many thanks Headspace!

[TRoe13]

I don't think this is a problem with TARS, but for some reason my TeamSpeak 3 is reading that I am playing DCS BlackShark instead of DCS A-10C Warthog. I don't even have BlackShark installed on my PC so I'm really confused about this. I think this is causing a problem for TARS because it won't work in A-10. Maybe it is having a problem detecting A-10 for TS3 because it's showing up as blackshark instead? I have all the correct versions of everything.... DCS A-10C Warthog Beta 4, TS3 3.0.0-beta36 [build: 12815] on Windows 7 32bit, TARS shows that it is installed correctly in DCS A-10 and it shows correctly that it can't even find the Blackshark sim on my PC, because it's not installed. Anyone have any ideas?

[Headspace]

Part of this has to do with the fact that TS3's sound system is changing and that puts a big unknown on how the radio effects are going to happen in newer versions of Teamspeak 3. As a result, I put a very minimal amount of time into messing with those aspects of it. Radio Horizon is accurate, but voice quality will need to be tuned once the TS3 issue resolves itself.

I don't think this is a problem with TARS, but for some reason my TeamSpeak 3 is reading that I am playing DCS BlackShark instead of DCS A-10C Warthog. I don't even have BlackShark installed on my PC so I'm really confused about this.

Did you install TARS manually? It may be that the tarscore_ka50.luac file is in your TARS directory and not the A-10 file. Needless to say, that is not a supported config. Make sure that in your program file for A-10 there's a folder called TARS and only the following:

tarscore_a10.luac
tarsexporter.luac

are in there.

 

If necessary go into your control panel, make sure it says Black shark doesn't have TARS installed, and then point A-10 (not blackshark) to your proper A-10 folder and make sure it installs there. That will ensure that you are running in the configuration for A-10.

Edited January 14, 2011 by Headspace

[VTJS17_Fire]

We have the following TS3 server address: vjs-161.de (no direct ip) and it's red marked in the ip line.

Will TARS work with non-number ip addresses?

 

 

kind regards,

Fire

[Headspace]

We have the following TS3 server address: vjs-161.de (no direct ip) and it's red marked in the ip line.

Will TARS work with non-number ip addresses?

 

 

kind regards,

Fire

Network settings are client side only. They accept LAN IP addresses and are for cases where you want to run the Teamspeak 3 client on another computer (for instance, a laptop) and play DCS on a different PC. It has nothing to do with the server you connect Teamspeak to. In most cases you will never need to touch those; that's why they're documented in the Advanced section.

[Distiler]

We have the following TS3 server address: vjs-161.de (no direct ip) and it's red marked in the ip line.

Will TARS work with non-number ip addresses?

 

 

kind regards,

Fire

 

Check my question/answers before. You don't need to put the server ip anywhere in TARS. It's a bit counter-intuitive, but you have to leave the default settings for the 99% of cases, because ips needed for TARS are only related to your TS3 client, not server.

[TRoe13]

I am did a re-install of TS3 and TARS and for some reason it was still picking me up as playing DCS Black Shark, but I found out what the problem was. TS3's App Scanner utility was picking up the game as Blackshark, but TARS was working and picking me up in DCS A-10. I disabled the App Scanner and TARS works flawlessly. Might be a good thing to tell people to disable just in case they get the same issues as I do. If that is already mentioned some where in the PDF or something then I must have missed it and apologize for me being stupid lol. Thanks for this awesome MOD.