Alpha-Kilo

I am back from my trip and have begun testing the limited trial version of VA by creating a few simple commands. First impression: I find VA extremely responsive and editing the profile is very user-friendly. Unfortunately I found a show-stopper: Some keys of my German QWERTZ keyboard won't be triggered by VA even if the command is recognized. The same problem has already been described on the VA support forum by users with a UK keyboard and appearently the issue is being worked on.

Rydygier, another thing about the incognito feature: We are incognito after entering a vehicle. If the vehicle is a car - great. But I noticed that we are also incognito when we ride a quad with a weapon clearly visible on our back. Is this also beyond the scope of scripting? I am not complaining, by the way, as it has saved me in a critical situation! I always like your precise explanations of the features. What exactly are the conditions for losing the incognito state? Pulling a gun blows the cover, that's obvious. But sometimes it seems as if helicopters detect me when I'm in a nice inconspicuous civilian lorry. Or am I making this up? Does playing too much Pilgrimage cause paranoia? ;)

Do you use any other mods besides AGM when you experience the problem? If you do, disable anyting except AGM and CBA and test again. If that works, add your other mods one by one and test again with each newly added mod until you find the culprit. If you have tried that already, I am afraid I cannot help.

Well, I also don't normally go for the challenges, but it's a game, so why not? Somehow I didn't manage to receive the achievement until I watched DarkSideSixOfficial official guide and learned that these red lollipops are the bonus targets. I had taken them for a part of the decoration and never shot at them. So, thanks for the guide!

tpw, have you had time to look into the AI commandeering issue I mentioned in #2729? I know such things can be hard to verify if the report is not precise enough. So please let me know if I can provide any additional information on the subject.

VAC has been around for many years, now. The user interface looks a bit dated and is merely functional. VAC does not support mouse clicks, only keyboard commands. VAC has a lively forum and - as you say - the users are generally willing to share their profiles. For ArmA, there are quite a few available. From what I know so far - after reading the manual and user comments in several gaming forums and watching several Youtube tutorials and demonstrations - VA seems to be much more user-friendly and modern. The quality of the voice recognition seems to be comparable if the speech recognition engine has been sufficiently trained. I have found many enthusiastic comments, only few people seem to have minor issues with it. VA seems to be used mostly in racing simulations and space games. The creator of VA says he doesn't want to have an official exchange of profiles on his forum, so the users have to find ways to organize the distribution of profiles - usually in their gaming forums. As far as the ArmA is concerned, we can use this thread for this purpose if more VA users chime in. I will write something about my own experience with VA when I have time to try the software.

Thank you Gridley. You and Kremator seem to be happy with VA. I found a short Youtube clip where someone used VA in ArmA3 but most people seem to use it for space games. From what you said in this thread and some Youtube tutorials I get the impression that VA is a nice piece of software and I am looking forward to trying it. Does VA have any bugs or other shortcomings? Are there any features which don't work as advertized? How does VA compare to the competition, especially VAC?

alky_lee, thanks for your comment. But I am not talking about the usual clumsiness and reluctance of the AI when it comes to boarding vehicles. In this case the companion simply does not get in even after completing his 50-meter-loop though he acknowledges the command. Usually, if AI doesn't want to hop in, they say something like " No can do!" or they simply dance around the car for ages before they make up their mind - as you described it. Now, in Pilgrimage we can treamswitch into this companion. When I do so and try to board a vehicle, there is simply no option. Standing near a door does not pop up the steering wheel or the passenger seat icon. The car seems to be locked to the companion. When I teamswitch back into Alex I can board any vehicle there is. In other words, it doesn't seem to be the typical AI commanding issue but some other phenomenon.

SG, I will be afk from early March until the second half of April, so there's no point in downloading and testing VA, right now. But I intend to do so when I'm back. Since you seem to be the only person with first hand experience, would you be willing to test the mouse click and mouse wheel features? Could you comment on how intuitive and straightforward the software is? Do you have to be a computer nerd to get it to work or can anybody set it up easily? By the way, if you're interested, I made a VAC profile which is different from Jojo's. He concentrates on commanding the AI and he does it extremely well. I normally don't play with AI, so my profile deals with controlling the game itself, some addons (TFAR, AGM, etc) and external software such as TrackIR. It is linked in the spoiler in my signature. There's also a spreadsheet I made to organize and structure the keyboard and voice commands. You may not find the German activation phrases useful but if you replace them with your own you'll get a good reference of which phrase does what in the game. If you don't mind I'd like to take the opportunity and mention another voice recognition software which is pretty popular in the flight simming scene at the moment. The developer, Livrot, is trying to introduce his tool to the ArmA community. He is actively listening to users and very willing to implement changes to make it even more useful. His thread is here: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?185400-Livrot-Mic-Command-speech-recognizer-and-macro-tool

I am playing Rydygier's Pilgrimage with TPW enabled. This is an SP mission where you have an AI companion you can order araound and you can also teamswitch into. One feature of TPW is civilian traffic and commandeering cars. In this mission I noticed that the main character can drive all vehicles without a problem but the companion cannot enter vehicles. He can stop and commandeer them but once the orignial driver gets out the companion does not board the vehicle. If the main character instructs him to board, the companion acknowledges the order but he simply stands close to the door. If the player teamswitches into this companion and approaches a vehicle the driver or passenger symbols do not appear and it is impossible to get in. Is TPW designed this way or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks, I'll ask in the TPW thread, then.

Due to my various tests I started several Pilgrimages in rapid succession and I did see paratroopers, last night. They were dropped extremely close to my position and I wasn't prepared for so many enemies. I shot at them as they were decending but those who survived didn't take long to hunt me down. It was a very intense firefight and a nice adddition to the gameplay. Thanks to all who replied and offered their advice to solve my issue. I did indeed disable Skirmish with the help of Gliptal's TPW configuration device. This was the solution because now there is no confusion about the origin of a particular soldier and I can reliably sell loot from the bodies. Another thing I noticed: Normally I don't use the companion in the mission. I just keep him waiting in the boat in case I need a water-taxi. During my tests I played with the companion and often teamswitched into his role. I realized that he cannot enter vehicles. He can stop and commandeer them but once the driver gets out the companion does not have the option to board the vehicle. If Alex instructs him to board, the companion acknowledges the order but he simply stands close to the door. I hope this is by design and not another thing I'm doing wrong.

I am interested in the subject of voice recognition for ArmA and have read about Voice Attack but I haven't used it, yet. According to the manual Voice Attack allows you to issue mouse clicks with voice commands. This could be useful for mods like AGM where the earplugs and other features are accessed by mouse clicks. Does this really work reliably in VA? Gridley, choosing Jojo-the-Slayer's profile as a basis for your VA-profile was an excellent choice. It is one of the most elabvorate VAC profiles I know. Jojo-the Slayer also published a mission specifically designed for testing his profile in battle. The briefing provides valuable info about the commands. Probably you can use the same mission to test your VA profile. Here's a link: http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=22709 The mission is also available on Steam.

I have started a new Pilgrimage, this time purely vanilla. I fought against a group of AAF who were patrolling through a village, one of them was hiding in a building, and another one surrendered. I could sell loot directly from various corpses including my companion regardless of who killed them. The rifles of the dead and stuff dropped by the soldier who surrendered could not be sold directly but that's normal, isn't it? And I haven't seen any friendly BluFor troops, this time. I think it's safe to say that vanilla works as expected. Nothing strange happened. Now I could start over and use mods. I'd like to start with a package of addons which are not likely to cause any trouble: CBA, DragonFyre, RYD_BT, RYD_Incognito, Tao Foldmap, tort Dynamic Weather, Unlocked Uniforms. If these work, I intend to add AGM and play again. Finally I'd add TPW without ebs unless the experts sugggest otherwise.

I followed the development of Articulate very closely but when the development stopped I reverted to VAC. I find VAC very reliable and not too complicated. I have tried to install GlovePie but I couldn't get it to work. This shouldn't stop you from trying, though. VAC and GlovePie are most popular voice utilities in the ArmA community and you'll find many profiles you can try out. I don't play racing games but I sometimes post in a multigaming forum and from what I read there Voice Attack seems to be popular among racers. If you want to use a voice utility online make sure you operate it with a different push-to-talk button than Teamspeak.

You're looking for a feature called "set additional channel". It allows you to listen to two different channels on one radio. In order to speak you will have to switch to the channel you want to use.

I didn't use any addons to deliberately spawn BluFor in, except TPW including Skirmish. So this must be the source of my friends. This also means that most of the results I posted above where achieved with addons, one of them being TPW. But my next result will be vanilla.

Thanks for the quick reply, Rydygier. Frankly speaking, I don't remember precisely which result was achieved with vanilla and which result was achieved with addons. That's why my message was so unclear. I had hoped that using only recommended addons would be just as good as vanilla and when I found out I could loot a corpse in a vanilla game I quickly moved on to test with some addons and then with some more. But I understand that this was not thorough enough to produce useful results. I'll test again, strictly vanilla this time, and post the result. Regarding friendly units: I am referring to US troops. I called them friendly because they always ignore me, even when I poke them with a gun. In TPW's tactical glasses they appear in blue and don't change to orange (which indicates hostility.) Re companion: Just to avoid a possible mis-understanding: In my tests, both vanilla and with recommended addons, I could indeed sell loot from my companion's corpse.

I have to come back to the subject of my missing option to sell loot directly from the body. I experimented with vanilla and with a choice of addons recommended in this thread. I did not use any AI enhancers, AGM and the MGI hud. I found out that I can sell loot from some bodies, but not from all. Here are things I tried: I attacked a hideout with the companion. I could sell loot from one of the dead AAF soldiers but not from a second one. So I thought, maybe my companion killed one of the guys and the option is given only for personal kills. To verify this I killed my poor companion and could sell items from his corpse. I attacked a frendly fireteam to get some easy kills. (They angrily said "hold your fire" but didn't shoot back. Maybe I was too quick or they willingly gave their virtual lives to assist my testing.) I could not sell loot from their bodies. I also attacked CSAT and I also could not sell loot from their bodies. Finally I checked dead bodies I found lying around (AC victims) and I also couldn't sell from their bodies. Several tests with different addon combinations all showed that I could reliably sell loot from my companion's corpse. In the other cases the mousewheel menu appeared quickly and showed all expected options such as rearm, inventory, prepare an empty box etc. Just the sell content option was missing. Some questions: - Can addons possibly cause trouble if I can sell items from my companion's body? - Should I be able to sell loot from all corpses regardless of who killed them or are there any limitations? - Is there anything else I can do to help you to help me?

Unfortunately not. It worked briefly when I made a quick test. After work I played again and the option to sell directly from a body was unavailable again. I really concentrated on looting and took all the time in the world to approach the bodies carefully, and move the mouse slowly in all directions to find the right spot but no luck. All the other options which require careful positioning such as openng a corpse's inventory, etc. worked well. It is probably irrelevant but I also noticed severe lags, especially when driving a car. Switching back to TPW's hud from MGI tactical glasses helped but there was no effect on the looting of corpses. So it seems I'll have to investigate further.

Thanks for your replies! I followed the advice of Pvt. Partz and disabled TPW_EBS because it might conflict with AGM. I started a fresh Pilgrimage and made sure to stand at the feet of a dead unit and moved the mouse slowly and carefully as Law-Giver suggested. The result is: Selling loot directly from the bodies works again. So thanks for the help, guys.

Law-Giver, Thanks for your reply. So I'll disable the mods and I'll report back if I find the culprit. In case someone has the same problem, here's my list of addons: AGM, CBA, DragonFyre, MGI HUD tactical glasses, RYD_BT, RYD_Incognito, Tao folding map, Tort_DynamicWeather (delay set to -1800), TPW_Mods (TPW hud disabled), Unlocked_Uniforms Rydygier, I know that some actions are hard to trigger and you have to dance around corpses to find the sweet spot. I will try more an see if this could be a solution. Thanks for pointing it out.

Rydygier, I am trying the latest version 1.90 SP and I cannot sell Loot directly from corpses. have you removed this very welcome feature or do I have to look for conflicting addons?

Are you sure you haven't accidently deactivated an axis in your TrackIR profile or in the game? I have used TrackIR with AGM and wasn't aware of any restrictions of head movement on foot or in vehicles.

The Strider (google for Fennek to get real world info) is an armed recon vehicle equipped with a periscope so that it can observe from a concealed position. The lense of the periscope shines bluish and looks like a pill.