Communications with AI

[csThor]

My first suggestion ... Currently Rise of Flight assignes various key combos to the orders a player can give to his AI wingmen (which the user can adjust as he wishes). IMO this is unnecessarily complicated, it adds even more key combos for the player to memorize (and therefor steepens the learning curve even more) and it may be frustrating to try and remember some key combo in the middle of a dogfight. My suggestion is to utilize the same radio/communication system as Il-2 had - a single key opens the menu which the user can navigate by hitting clearly marked keys. It's simple, it's effective, it's elegant and there is no need to learn fifteen or twenty key combos for ordering your AI wingmen around.

 

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

[Sim]

Of course. The hand system makes sense in WW1 game as there were no radios. I doubt we will see hand communication in BOS

[[LAS]URURolf]

My first suggestion ... Currently Rise of Flight assignes various key combos to the orders a player can give to his AI wingmen (which the user can adjust as he wishes). IMO this is unnecessarily complicated, it adds even more key combos for the player to memorize (and therefor steepens the learning curve even more) and it may be frustrating to try and remember some key combo in the middle of a dogfight. My suggestion is to utilize the same radio/communication system as Il-2 had - a single key opens the menu which the user can navigate by hitting clearly marked keys. It's simple, it's effective, it's elegant and there is no need to learn fifteen or twenty key combos for ordering your AI wingmen around.

 

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

I agree, specially on the "simple" department.

[Ribbs]

I do like seeing the hand signals... any pilot animations is a plus in my book.. maybe for other situations..struggling to get the conopy open as a fire starts. Or for pilot bailout sequence.. but not really for communication.

I do like the IL2 style of communication... but I havent got to play ROF yet so we will check that out also.

Edited December 12, 2012 by 352ndRibbs

[No105_Swoose]

 

My suggestion is to utilize the same radio/communication system as Il-2 had - a single key opens the menu which the user can navigate by hitting clearly marked keys. It's simple, it's effective, it's elegant and there is no need to learn fifteen or twenty key combos for ordering your AI wingmen around.

 

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

I completely agree: keep it simple and logical and use the same radio/communication system IL-2 had.  Of course I hope the AI in IL-2: BOS will actually obey your commands! 

[LukeFF]

ROF actually has an AI command menu that functions in much the same way as IL2.

Edited December 13, 2012 by LukeFF

[JQB]

Actually, may I suggest a more ambitious idea?

I'm thinking of voice comms. I know that you can get third party software to make it possible but if it was integrated into the sim it would be much simpler for lower to medium level simmers to try out. Significantly it would be a big selling point for the marketing department.

I know that it seems like a nightmare to implement but maybe it does not have to be. Team up with a third party to customise suitable software. To improve usability and accuracy encourage the user to teach the sim just a handful of phrases like "Attack", "Rejoin" and "Cover me" at first. That should be done in a very efficient manner, in a simple and quick session. The aim is to get them to learn just how fun it is to use the radio so if they want more involvement they can teach the program more commands. For more advanced sim enthusiasts have an option to use several different phrases for each command, eg. "Help me", "I can't shake him", "taking fire".

Most players these days have microphones so that should not be a problem.

I realise it would be quite a commitment but it would potentially make this sim a trend setter. What do you think?

[Alan_Grey]

Hello
Coordinate AI voice would be perfect. Program worked so Game Commander 2

Edited December 17, 2012 by Alan_Grey

[csThor]

Problem with voice commands - languages. Just making the necessary stuff in the primary languages (i.e. russian, english, german, french, spanish, italian etc) is going to be a heck of a work. Secondly there are countless local dialects which may have a very unfortunate effect on the program's ability to understand. I've seen this with a friend's grandfather, a stout East Prussian, whose accent created all kinds of issues with the emergency call system the red cross had installed in his home.

[ATAG_Snapper]

Actually, may I suggest a more ambitious idea?

I'm thinking of voice comms. I know that you can get third party software to make it possible but if it was integrated into the sim it would be much simpler for lower to medium level simmers to try out. Significantly it would be a big selling point for the marketing department.

I know that it seems like a nightmare to implement but maybe it does not have to be. Team up with a third party to customise suitable software. To improve usability and accuracy encourage the user to teach the sim just a handful of phrases like "Attack", "Rejoin" and "Cover me" at first. That should be done in a very efficient manner, in a simple and quick session. The aim is to get them to learn just how fun it is to use the radio so if they want more involvement they can teach the program more commands. For more advanced sim enthusiasts have an option to use several different phrases for each command, eg. "Help me", "I can't shake him", "taking fire".

Most players these days have microphones so that should not be a problem.

I realise it would be quite a commitment but it would potentially make this sim a trend setter. What do you think?

Definitely possible. I use Voice Activated Commander (VAC) when flying CLOD offline for the very limited commands that the AI actually respond to. Works quite well. What would be fascinating is having a Siri-like utility built in.

Edited December 14, 2012 by ATAG_Snapper

[slm]

Windows has voice recognition APIs built in.

When you teach it how you pronounce words recognition should improve.

Especially when using limited vocabulary like in VAC.

[Don]

+1 for the il2 radio command style

Open it with Tab and then select sections through key numbers. Easy to use and complex in its possibilities.

 

Apart from that I share 352ndRibbs suggestion that every pilot animation is a surplus.

 

And pleeeease hire proper people for the voice localization/synchronisation of the radio commands

Edited December 14, 2012 by Don

[SvAF/F16_Goblin]

There is a slight problem with voice control i windows 7. A lot of language version doesn't have the API built into them and 
thus you cannot use VAC or even MS voice at all . MS has simply shut down the opportunity to that! 

 

There is a way to force the API in to the OS but that means it will be flagged as cracked/illegal and you will have an annoying 
pop-up about it.

 

Don't know why on earth MS wen down this road but they did. For instance myself on a Swedish localized OS can't use voice control.

It p****s me off but i can't use an English version since I'm not alone in the family and I sure as h**l wont buy a second copy just 
for the sake of voice control

[slm]

HaJa: maybe that is so because MS doesn't have voice recogniser that would understand Swedish?

In that case I'd still like  to have English voice recogntion included.

 

AFAIK they support just 8 languages.

[SvAF/F16_Goblin]

Exactly, but what would have been the harm to include the English API?! Then everyone that understands English could have used it 
regardless of the native OS language :D

As it stands, there is a number of very good options out there VAC, shoot to mention two of them and I see no point in the developers 
putting scarce resources to develop an API of their own. But that's my "2 ???