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Full Version: Advanced Combat Radio Environment - ACRE
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I would love seeing us using this. If not now then maybe in the future. It requires TS3, of course, and maybe ACE2, I'm not sure.
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=110747
YouTube video:
I've used it once in a German coop event. You don't need ACE2 but a Teamspeak 3 plugin and an Arma2 addon pack with a special .dll if I remember correctly.

From what I've seen it is an interesting system which can be fun to use. The stability appeared to be uncertain in some situations; halfway into the event I had to completely restart TS and Arma because some players could not hear me anymore.

So you have to be aware that the installation and configuration has some hurdles which might (or definitely will) burden some players and might make it difficult to get newbies started.
I see. Anyway, considering this will only become valid once we have a significant number of players and we are more likely to play in several teams.
Used it quite alot on "Anrop" and when it works its great, But some times its quite hard to get it working fore all players.(same trubel as zwobot)
The relly great thing is that you can still talk to some one that dont have ACRE.

What you need to run ACRE is
ACRE(of course) http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=11339
JayArma2Lib - Jaynus' ArmA2 Extended Library  http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=10401
CBA http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=6231

ACRE is just as CBA uppdated from time to time, and this far the ACRE team have uppdated wite in 48h after every new TS patch(if needed)
I have used Arma2TS few times in past, which was the predecessor for this, I guess? And now also the ACRE recently in one game session. I got the impression that it's not very reliable. First of all, the installation was way too much unnecessary hassle (getting right versions for the app, libs, configs, etc.) and to get them working on all players.

But ACRE has good sides too. Speaking through the PRC radio works very well, sounds like a proper radio quality, and has even the "squewk" sound effect. I'd imagine the ability to use different radio channels would be great for larger scale battles, and maybe even for splitting into several fireteams, but can't TS3 do that? At least TS2 could...

Absolutely best feature in ACRE is the direct speaking with 3D positional audio. You can hear people's voices from the direction they are in, and their lips move while speaking. Enhances the feeling of really being there with your teammates, and helps recognizing and locating them by just listening. But a little problem here is, that even with a small increase to the speaking person's distance, the sound gets too faded out. The distance/volume-drop ratio appears to be quite realistic, but when speaking in TS, people use the same volume level for all situations - they don't raise their voice when they get further away from the other persons, unlike in reality. So it sometimes get difficult to hear and understand each other. That destroys the TS3's advantage in great sound quality... and using the long-range radio for 50 meter distance would be just silly, or would it?

Maybe I just scratched the surface of this addon, and perhaps there is customizable settings, but I'm not so enthusiastic about it.

By the way, can players use ACRE by their own, or does it always have to be installed on the server side too?
I pretty much agree on everything you said Osku. I've used ACRE twice in Coop events with more than 15 people and both times it was too unreliable. I had to restart TS3 several times  because I could not hear my squadmates in direct speak or vice versa.

As long as this unreliability remains I would not want to use ACRE in CiA despite it's unbeatable immersion effect.

jäger

(01-07-2011, 11:45 AM)Osku link Wrote: [ -> ]The distance/volume-drop ratio appears to be quite realistic, but when speaking in TS, people use the same volume level for all situations - they don't raise their voice when they get further away from the other persons, unlike in reality. So it sometimes get difficult to hear and understand each other. That destroys the TS3's advantage in great sound quality... and using the long-range radio for 50 meter distance would be just silly, or would it?

Those are real life problems in battlefield. It is quite impossible to communicate by speaking/shouting while your are exchanging fire, even at distance below 30 meters. In real life this is fixed by that everyone has to pass every message for the next guy who will pass it again and so on.
As long as every player doesn't have microphone it is doomed idea to implement realistic loudness values for 3d positional audio for direct speak.
(01-07-2011, 06:01 PM)jäger link Wrote: [ -> ][quote author=Osku link=topic=2259.msg13208#msg13208 date=1294393533]
The distance/volume-drop ratio appears to be quite realistic, but when speaking in TS, people use the same volume level for all situations - they don't raise their voice when they get further away from the other persons, unlike in reality. So it sometimes get difficult to hear and understand each other. That destroys the TS3's advantage in great sound quality... and using the long-range radio for 50 meter distance would be just silly, or would it?

Those are real life problems in battlefield. It is quite impossible to communicate by speaking/shouting while your are exchanging fire, even at distance below 30 meters. In real life this is fixed by that everyone has to pass every message for the next guy who will pass it again and so on.
As long as every player doesn't have microphone it is doomed idea to implement realistic loudness values for 3d positional audio for direct speak.
[/quote]

Hi jäger. I don't know how much have you played ArmA 2, but these times basically all serious or less serious casual coop players use microphones (for instance, all current CiA players do). Voice comms are very popular. That's not the problem. Biggest problem in ACRE is its reliability, like mentioned before. 3D audio is not doomed idea at all, my point was that for gameplay's sake; the volume fading distance should be much more milder than it is now.

Comparing a game to real life is complicated. Things cannot be and not even should be done 1:1 realistic in games, there must be compromises, even in military simulators.

Also note, that voice comms and game sounds (weapons,etc.) can be adjusted separatedly. In example, one person could have his TS maxed up while game sounds dumped down - or vice versa. Plus that people use different kind of sound systems: headphones, speakers, all those could be anything from low to high quality. All these things affect how the sound effects reach ones ears, and in this case, a person's ability to distinguish human voices from other battlefield sounds.

Related questions:

1. Is there any risk of alerting nearby AI using these comms? (simulated local vocal communication: to nearby teammates or into a radio)

2. Are hand signals implemented in Arma2?

jäger

Anguis:
1. Haven't used in-game voice chat. Those what you speak for 3rd party software wont affect ingame.
2. I think there is at least some which are linked for those replicks which AI use all the time (engage that soldier, target that, contact,....). At general level problem with hand sings are that those are hard to follow while in line formation those are hard to follow without trackir. And there aren't global standard for handsigns.

Osku:
My personal opinion is idea of direct speak is nice, but making good in-game implemention is quite challenging. Most of problems comes with how to add voice to ingame sound landscape. It is pretty to hard to be understood when there is tank's engine is running next to you and while you are aboard in helicopter, or at least within Mi-8 Wink But the group radio is quite good since it will assure that everyone can hear squad leader and vice versa. Without it gameplay would suffer if people wouldn't use relay mechanism I explained for previous post. And for sure it would be at least more confusing than group chat.
@Anguis
I think the hand signals sort of correspond with KB commads (I've noticed it a few times) but I'm not sure if it's ment to be that way (just very buggy) or if it's just something happend randomly. One thing for sure, you don't have any command for it and no way regular players can, only leader (if it's not only for AI)
I wonder if the new release lives up to its stability promise:

Quote:Whats new in 1.2?
* Complete re-write of the entire TS3 engine utilizing the new TS3 sound engine. We have worked closely with the TS3 team on this new engine, and it is not only faster and more stable, but specially tailored to the needs of ACRE.
* ACRE is now 99.9% crash free
* A new radio, the handheld AN/PRC-152
* New distortion engine
* New API features
* Read the changelog for full details
(04-18-2011, 07:53 PM)Zwobot link Wrote: [ -> ]I wonder if the new release lives up to its stability promise:

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=11338 Wrote:Whats new in 1.2?
* Complete re-write of the entire TS3 engine utilizing the new TS3 sound engine. We have worked closely with the TS3 team on this new engine, and it is not only faster and more stable, but specially tailored to the needs of ACRE.
* ACRE is now 99.9% crash free
* A new radio, the handheld AN/PRC-152
* New distortion engine
* New API features
* Read the changelog for full details

What do you think of trying it?
Quote:Special note:
This version of ACRE uses the pre-beta versions of TS3. This is not standard versions of TS3. You must either use the "beta channel" or the standalone TS3 ACRE provides!
Which means we cannot use the standard client, or worse, server?
The included installer solves the problem OL, just dubbeltap the special ACRE icon and you are god to go Wink.
Stability is still not 99.9 we have arund 25players on anrop and usully we have 3-6 TS related incident a session(ca 3h) but if this is Acre related or client related i cant relly tell.
But since we started using it we dont want to play wite out it.
Tried it in I44 and Unsung to and it works great even when you need a designated radioman.
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