Possible improvements to ArmA OA VON

[Stalkermight 10]

I wondered what the biggest difference that makes it more immersive than the ACRE VON ArmA?

Surely that is normally spoken in what the VON called "direct channel" and to speak on the radio must press the button that makes the typical sound of the radio.

Surely these months of use of the VON does not make me feel the lack of ACRE, however, in my opinion the VON would be improved with simple measures.

Basically I would like to propose a small modification of VON BIS so that if you leave the mic turned on (mode voice activation) for example in the direct channel cumin, you can change channels by pressing and holding down (push to talk) buttons pre-assigned ( es. keys on the numeric keypad) and the issue throne in the channel in which it was originally open mic. All with little noise that the radio to make it more immersive.

What I clumsily tried to describe is already in the VON, but only in push to talk, and without the little noise on the radio.

I think this small change would make the VON better in every aspect of ACRE and avoid what usually happens in games occasionally, that to do before everyone is talking about the global channel and in the end you do not understand anything.

I apologize for my bad English Thank you for your attention

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Hmm... What would make VON better?

1) Better direct channel, maybe with whisper/talk/yell modes like early ACRE.

2) Higher volume. Unfortunately about every sound mod fights the volume game. A game that VON direct is bound to loose. In real life you have means to get around noise levels which you can't to ingame. From hand signals to yelling (which in game only produces clipped audio).

3) For radio (not direct), one way communication on the channel and preferably no voice activation support for radio use (only push to talk). Or at least a possibility to enforce one way communications by means of a difficulty setting.

4) Admin (possibly a vote could be thrown as well) should have right to mute a constant key'er (holding push to talk for radio to block the comms).

5) It would be awesome if (using radio, not direct) part of players sound is mixed in with what he says (say only 10% or so), had mike clicks and static, and a radio like narrow band filter applied on the sent waveform. Would be great for immersion hearing a little of what he is hearing. In a chopper or in a fight? Ohh, I get goosebumps just thinking about it :D

6) Also proper radio rucks should be implemented. Without one in the squad, you can't hear side or global radio, only squad radio, auto relaying on the squad channel. And naturally you can't transmit on side or global unless you have a ruck radio. Radio goes silent if the radio operator dies (awaiting respawn). So parts of ACRE would be awesome, but it shouldn't go all the way.

Do I expect this? Not really, but dreaming is allowed :p

[Defunkt 431]

I think the OP is absolutely right, having given up on ACRE because of its many and varied issues I've been using VON a lot more and it's really rather good now with OA. I could implement much of what the OP has suggested (clicks, squeaks and static depending on whether the transmission is incoming or outgoing) if I could just hook the ChatList's OnLoad (I think speaker names are shown on the last line of this). Alas as far as I can tell the chat list appears to be some lower-level display type.

Are people even aware that VON supports voice activation? It works very well and recently prompted me to make a small mod which adds unique colours for all channels, moves the open mic icon to the bottom right (ala ACRE) and causes the channel name to fade-out after 3 seconds. I leave it on Direct by default now and use what was my PTT key to quickly cycle through the other channels when needed.

[frederf 0]

The #1 problem with VON is that it's not channel-based, it's group-based. You can't take 5 arbitrary soldiers and say "Hey, tune to channel 12."

#2 problem is there are no noise/ out of range effects.

#3 problem is that the voice server must be the same as the game server.

Address those 3 and you basically have ACRE using automatically-working built-in voice.

[Lonestar 11]

@Defunkt: is the addon you refer to released?

To use voice activation in game you need to toggle the VON channel first right?

I have given up on ACRE as well because of the many issues we had and the rather chaotic use.

[Defunkt 431]

Will be included in the next update to a set of customisations I maintain for my community but you can get the interface portion as it stands HERE.

---------- Post added at 07:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:47 PM ----------

To use voice activation in game you need to toggle the VON channel first right?

It's the Voice Over Net bind, it toggles the microphone open (whereupon it is voice activated) and closed. You can tell if it is transmitting if your name appears at bottom left (along with others who're talking) except if you are in Direct mode where there is no such telltale.

[Lonestar 11]

Thanks Defunkt, I'll try that. ;)