Virtual crew chief
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All,
I have contacted BogeyDope about the possibility of a VCC profile for hotpit refueling, and sent him a modified Hotpit Refueling checklist for BMS. He and another ex-Crew Chief buddy are looking into it. If he makes one, I will post a link to it in this thread.
R/,
TC2 -
I just did my first run-through of the BMS Ground Ops training mission with the Virtual Crew Chief, and it was a lot of fun!
Yesterday evening I watched Bogey Dopeâs YT video (in which he uses VCC in DCS), and took detailed notes of the sequence of actions and the dialogue from the pilot and the crew chief. Then I modified the BMS ramp start procedure a little bit (from the GroundOps training mission) so as to match and incorporate the VCC dialogue and timings.
I used the procedure described above by @Kavelenko (and approved by @SemlerPDX ) to use the VCC VA profile as a âsecondaryâ (my term) profile alongside / at slightly lower priority than AVCS. I made a few edits to the VA profile, such as the ones @Tomcattwo described above.
It took all yesterday evening to modify my stack of index cards (which is my checklist for ramp starts), so that âmyâ dialogue is written in red ink, the crew chiefâs is written in black ink, and the switchology is still written in pencil. But for me, it was worth it! The procedure went pretty smoothly I will get a little better at âplaying alongâ with some of the timings, but overall everything went pretty much according to plan.
When I got to the end and the crew chief told me to âbring 'er back Code 1â, I was well pleased! This will be fun to practice some more and use on a regular basis. Iâm glad that Bogey Dope guy posted his video and his file, and Iâm glad it âplays nicelyâ (with only a little modification) with BMS and AVCS 4. Thanks to everyone who gave advice on this thread, too! I think other BMS users will have fun with this, if they enjoy ramp starts.
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Câmon, Foxster-meisterâŠ
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wish this was possible for foxvox :")
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@Mylonite470 ,
Congratulations! It does add to the âas real as it getsâ aspect, doesnât it? Yesterday I finished updating my Main Checklist, using a kludge of the 4.37, 4.35 F-16 Main checklists, and insertion of VCC dialog into my startup routine. Took me a couple of days, but now my Main Checklist is all set to go from cockpit entry (âcold and darkâ) through startup (with VCC), taxi, takeoff, climb-out, AAR, fence in, IP, attack, egress, fence out, descent, landing, taxi back, shutdown and hotpit refuel. It works great with VCC. 12 pages (6 sheets) in clear plastic document sleeves.
Regards,
Tomcattwo
(VoiceClone) -
@Ricky
I really enjoyed watching and learning so much from your demo
Thx -
@okayasugf I think you could do it right now just based on timed sequences if you wanted, which is what I think theyâre doing currently in VA but the possibilities will open up significantly more very soon by linking control feedback into the command execution⊠I just need a little more time.
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@foxster you are a legend my guy, kudos to you
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@huffer2 The credit is all for Bogey Dope, I just posted his video here. I really enjoyed it too! His channel is great.
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I use the Push To Talk function with @SemlerPDX 's AVCS4, and I like the immersion it brings.
I was doing another ramp start with the Virtual Crew Chief today, and I noticed that the PTT function isnât working when Iâm using the VCC. VA is listening all the time during my ramp start.
Does anyone know if thereâs a way to make the PTT function work with both VA profiles, i.e. with AVCS4 and the VCC profile?
Itâs not a huge deal, just a âwould be nice to haveâ item. Itâs no tragedy if this isnât possible, since most of the time spent in a mission is outside the scope of VCC, and thus most of that time is spent with the immersion of the PTT function.
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@Aragorn Donât get too psyched⊠Those âhumansâ are basically static. There are some animated ones on the carrier (with Supercarrier add-on), but that is limited though improving slowly.
Iâve played Falcon and BMS (and all the other incarnations) since Falcon 3.0 and still love it for dynamic campaign and the sense of being in an actual on-going war. But DCS is not all eye-candy. Especially these days, with thoughtful campaign creators it can be VERY immersive. These platforms do different things and compliment each other. I know, thatâs heresy but send the inquisitionâŠ
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Check out this Youtube. Great to see how a ramp start with the crew chief works, even though they mostly use hand signals.
Huffer out
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@Mylonite470 said in Virtual crew chief:
I use the Push To Talk function with @SemlerPDX 's AVCS4, and I like the immersion it brings.
I was doing another ramp start with the Virtual Crew Chief today, and I noticed that the PTT function isnât working when Iâm using the VCC. VA is listening all the time during my ramp start.
Does anyone know if thereâs a way to make the PTT function work with both VA profiles, i.e. with AVCS4 and the VCC profile?
Itâs not a huge deal, just a âwould be nice to haveâ item. Itâs no tragedy if this isnât possible, since most of the time spent in a mission is outside the scope of VCC, and thus most of that time is spent with the immersion of the PTT function.
Well, it would be a bit of work, but you could add a single condition to every command in VCC, which is how my AVCS4 profile(s) watch for PTT clearance to execute - when the key is not down, they exit. While you cannot directly copy the following text, the actions are quite apparent and you can just copy the names of the variables we are checking (both true/false boolean variables, without the surrounding square brackets mind yoo) from below, and add âBegin Conditionâ actions as shown below with these variables in the condition field:
// Check if set to a PTT only command mode Begin Boolean Compare : [AVCS_RadioButtons_ON] Equals True Begin Boolean Compare : [AVCS_BMS_PTT_KeyDown] Equals False End Condition - Exit when condition met End Condition
âŠin the âEnd Conditionâ action for the inner condition (for KeyDown), you would need to check the box to âExit when condition metâ, as we are checking if this is false, meaning âif the button is not down, exitâ:
âŠfinally, you can select these four action lines in that command, and copy them, then open each command in the VCC profile and just paste them at the top before any other actions.
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@SPoehlmann said in Virtual crew chief:
@Aragorn Donât get too psyched⊠Those âhumansâ are basically static. There are some animated ones on the carrier (with Supercarrier add-on), but that is limited though improving slowly.
Iâve played Falcon and BMS (and all the other incarnations) since Falcon 3.0 and still love it for dynamic campaign and the sense of being in an actual on-going war. But DCS is not all eye-candy. Especially these days, with thoughtful campaign creators it can be VERY immersive. These platforms do different things and compliment each other. I know, thatâs heresy but send the inquisitionâŠ
âApples are better than orangesâ
âWhat do you mean? Oranges are far better. There is literally zero orange juice in apples. How can you say they are better?!â
âI like bothâŠâ
âŠ
âGET HIM!!â
"GET HIM!! -
I like turtles.
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Iâve been playing around with getting VoiceAttack to read BMSâs shared memory, so that we can have our crew chief respond to actual events, instead of relying on timing and delays. Hereâs the steps Iâve taken for a proof of concept:
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Recompile F4SharedMem.dll from Lightningâs tools (https://github.com/lightningviper/lightningstools/) for 64-bit instead of 32-bit, because recent versions of VoiceAttack have become 64-bit applications.
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Place the new dll in VoiceAttackâs folder under Shared/Assemblies. Another location is fine too, but then you have to specify the whole path when we reference the dll from VoiceAttack.
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Copy the sound files 10SpeedBreaksOpen.mp3 and 11SpeedBreaksClosed.mp3 from the original Virtual Crew Chief profile to VoiceAttackâs Sound folder.
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Create a new command. Use âspeed brakes clearâ as the voice command. Create the following sequence:
These steps set a variable SpeedBrakesOpen to False at the start. A loop is then started, checking the status of the speed brakes until they open. The loop is then ended and the sound of the crew chief saying the brakes are open is played. This process is then repeated, but waiting for the brakes to close and playing the corresponding sound.
The inline C# function is what allows us to use F4SharedMem to get current values from the sim:
using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.Linq; using System.Text; using System.Threading.Tasks; using System.Windows.Forms; using F4SharedMem; public class VAInline { private Reader sharedMemReader = new Reader(); private FlightData currentFlightData; public void main() { currentFlightData = sharedMemReader.GetCurrentData(); float speedBrake = currentFlightData.speedBrake; VA.SetBoolean("speedBrakesOpen", Convert.ToBoolean(speedBrake)); } }
To make this work, the F4SharedMem.dll must be added to the Referenced Assemblies at the top:
And done!
I think this principle should work for any data thatâs available in the shared memory. Instead of booleans, the loops could also check for when a value passes a certain level, such as for the nozzle position.
To improve usability, I guess the loops need a way to cancel the command and stuff like that, but I just wanted to test the idea out first.
What do you all think? Shall I try building this for all the checks and commands? Or should anything be improved in the method first?
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@Ricky said in Virtual crew chief:
To improve usability, I guess the loops need a way to cancel the command and stuff like that, but I just wanted to test the idea out first.
What do you all think? Shall I try building this for all the checks and commands? Or should anything be improved in the method first?
@Ricky , this is freakinâ brilliant! Yes, you will need a way to ensure that program does not get stuck in an endless loop. Hell yes please try to build this for all checks and commands as feasible. I canât speak to any recommended improvements, but please let me know if there is anything I can help to do to further this effort.
Copy the sound files 10SpeedBreaksOpen.mp3 and 11SpeedBreaksClosed.mp3 from the original Virtual Crew Chief profile to VoiceAttackâs Sound folder.
Create a new command. Use âspeed brakes clearâ as the voice command. Create the following sequence:
I donât understand why these two steps are needed.
VCC already has a folder in the VA\Sounds folder - can that just be referenced in the code?
Within the VCC VA.profile, seems that the call to your new C# sequence can just be embedded in the current command rather than having to create a new voice command.Feel free to PM me to discuss as you desire.
Regards,
Tomcattwo
(VoiceClone) -
@Tomcattwo said in Virtual crew chief:
I donât understand why these two steps are needed.
VCC already has a folder in the VA\Sounds folder - can that just be referenced in the code?
Within the VCC VA.profile, seems that the call to your new C# sequence can just be embedded in the current command rather than having to create a new voice command.Because I wanted this demo to work independently of the original VCC profile. But youâre right, maybe the best way forward would be to integrate my checks into the existing VCC profile.
Thanks for the compliment! Give me a few days and Iâll try to get the rest working too.
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@Ricky ,
Rgr. If thereâs anything I can do to help, just let me know.
R/,
TC2 -
Quick update for tonight. Iâve made a lot of progress. Most commands now work with feedback from the sim.
Even better news: Iâve been in touch with Bogey Dope. He graciously gave me permission to modify and republish his profile for use with BMS. What a great guy! In fact, weâre now talking about hopefully adding some new recordings to the profile to respond to bad situations, like a hot start. Iâll keep you all posted!