Dslyecxi

One thing to remember about the various whisper-to-channel keys is that it will be EXTREMELY confusing if you do not utilize 100% spot-on comms 100% of the time.

There are no audible indicators that you are being whispered to, no audible indicators for command channel, etc. Thus, if people do not use fantastic radio discipline, you'll not know if someone's talking to you cross-channel or in your channel or whatever.

This is one reason why ShackTac does not use a whisper setup like that.

I'm pinning my hopes on the ArmA VOIP along with TS.. I think I have a nice setup ready to go for that, but only time will tell if it actually works.

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Buccaneer

Whisper Channels are all new to me Dslyecxi. I mean, I know they exist. But so far I have never had to use them for a game.

Not sure how the UK Army/Air Force deal with Comms for their deployed detachments. In regards to their individual Sqd leaders keeping in touch with HQ.

Navy warships though. Ops room and bridge crew, all have specific jobs to do - Above Water, Under Water, Air (fixed wing), Helo Controller, Tactical and so on. Specific Radio circuits are patched through to the various users that co-ordinate (with the other ships) over them.

Here in lies the trouble with a Sim like ArmA. Unfortunately we are all, a one man band, all trying to communicate with one another via one channel. We don't have the luxury of detailing one person off to monitor each separate channel (Air, Armour, Command, etc.) We are trying to communicate, play the game, and stay alive by ourselves, which makes it so much harder.

Real world scenario. Naval Gunfire Support (NGS). Falklands conflict 1982 (the last time I was ever involved in "real" live Naval bombardment).

Spotters ashore (using Clansman HF radio) initially established contact with the Ship using CW (Carrier Wave - Morse Code). Frequencies (TS Channels) were various HF 2Mhz up to 30Mhz (depending on ionospheric conditions) - Cryptographic Authentication (one time pads) were used to, well, authenticate each other, before proceeding further....!

Once a good working frequency was established, Commandos ashore and the ship moved to J3E (SSB, Suppressed Carrier, Voice) (don't forget to offset your ships receivers from the frequency assigned by 2Khz (Clansman radio automatically added a 2Khz offset to the dialled on frequency) and not the standard 1.5Khz – Many a ships Comms department fell over on that one!) otherwise the guys ashore calling in NGS (normally 148 Commando Battery) would sound like Mickey Duck! Anyway, I digress.....

Once on voice, (but still sounding like we were using two bean tins, and a piece of string) the ships Gunnery Officer, would take his seat by the plot in the Ops Room. The Spotters would then communicate the Map Grid Ref, the weather, and finally any diverse wind that could affect the shoot, followed by a description of the target.

Gunnery Officer (using the ships computer) would work out, gun trajectory, direction the barrel was going, and (once fired) how long the (4.5") shell would take to reach the area.

Ship would give a:

"Shot" (Spotters ashore would know the ships gun had just fired)

(countdown mentally in seconds the figure the Gunnery Officer had given)

"Splash" (Heads up to the Green Berets ashore that the shell has now landed. (Somewhere) Spotters ashore scan for a sign of where the shell hit)

"Out". (No further Comms from the ship - awaiting further instructions)

Spotters ashore, when the impact of the first shell has been located would then radio in giving adjustments Left/Right, North/South until the shell was "walked" on to the target area. Once this was achieved, a "Fire for Effect" order was given (how many shells they wanted on the Target – Governed by what the target actually was (given in the initial Fire Mission request).

Doubtful we are going to see that amount of realism in a Sim - The point of this (rather long winded) story is; We are over complicating the Comms.

In the example above, the other "departments" were still monitoring/actioning their own reports off their own individual radio circuits (AAWWC, TG REP, TG TAC and any other circuit that was up and required).

In this Sim, there is only one of us! Will we ever really be able to make it work the way we want?

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Evil Koala

Maybe I'm just more comfortable using whispers because I've been using them a while.. We use them in Falcon 4:AF over on Multivipers. Things would get really confusing without having separate flight channels when flying with a package of 3 flights of 4 ships each. Its really not that hard to get use to using standard radio discipline.

Who you're calling (callsign or squad number), who you are (callsign or squad number), what you have to say

Dslyecxi

Channel commander is great. I love channel commander, and we use it in most coop missions when we've split the platoon into squads and the command element. Oh, and air/armor if applicable.

My point is that it works fine if you have a single "whisper" channel and use great radio procedures (meaning, command chat to all chan commanders), but if you start complicating things by having multiple whispers possible (ie 1st to 2nd squad, command to air, etc), it gets very confusing for people, very quickly. People will start talking over each other (with no way to know that they're doing it), people will forget to give their callsigns, and things will just plain get messy.

I think that ArmA's VOIP + the default ShackTac TS setup is going to be pretty much perfect. I don't think that using an over-complicated whisper setup is going to pan out in the long run, and certainly not for large groups in which everyone is at a different level of experience with voice comms.

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Vic

I'll be hopping on Dslyecxi's bandwagon on this one, the ShackTac TS setup is brilliantly simple and logic for up to medium scale operations. Think BF2's comm system with intersquad communication: everyone hops into the squad subchannels at the beginning of a round, squad leaders assign themselves as channel commanders, inside-squad chat is done with the normal TS functionality, inter-squads chat is done with another key (Whisper to channel commanders) which sends your voice to all the SLs (+ CO)

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The most dangerous thing on a battlefield is an officer with a map.

Evil Koala

Even ArmA VOIP still has its limitations.. What if we're playing a mission with no respawns and a squad member come back in another AI squad. It'd be a lot easier to just have squads in separate TS channels.

It could still compliment the 9 channel setup we have now, so vehicle crews can talk amongst themselves in ArmA vehicle VOIP, and use the Air Element TS channel for comms between separate aircraft.

But anyway.. The tools are there, they're fairly straight forward to use if one were to care enough to use them. Maybe I just have a lot more faith in those I play with to be able to get their brains around 9 separate channels and to have the discipline to leave inter-channel comms to the squad leader.

I've seen it done. I've seen it work. I think it could work here.. But if no one is willing, then I guess we'll have to stick to something much more simplified.

Vic

Koala, there is one thing I don't understand: why would you want to whisper to an entire squad?

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The most dangerous thing on a battlefield is an officer with a map.

BHack

Guys, I've created a new sticky on this subject. Check it out and post any questions you have there.

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Evil Koala

Because there are times when one would need to speak directly to someone within a squad. Perhaps for a helo pilot in Air Element to speak to a stranded squad member in 1st Squad directly for directions, rather than having to pass that info through squad leaders.

Such use of direct comms would be limited of course, but there are sitations where it would be useful.

The only other option to accomplish that, which would work much better as you'd be talking directly to who you need to talk to, is a direct whisper using presets.. And if 9 channels is too complicated, then I'd say that's definately out of the question.

But anyway.. Looks like its a moot point now. I'll download BHacks/Strags keybinds and give em a try.

Strag

Thanks, BHack!

A note about using external keybinds files in Teamspeak -- make sure you save (export) your existing keybinds to a file before importing a new keybinds file. This will ensure that you have your default keybinds available and can import them whenever you want them.

We'll also make available a printable list of these keybinds so folks can have a hardcopy handy for reference, if desired.

BHack

Updated post with a printout sheet of the keybinds:

http://www.tacticalsites.com/~bhack/...dsPrintout.rtf

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Evil Koala

Here's my updated keybinds. If an admin could please replace my first post of the thread with this, it would be greatly appreciated.

http://drakk0r.homedns.org/images/tgarma-leaders.kbn

The keybinds are as follows (numbers using numpad):

Whisper to
1 = 1st Squad
2 = 2nd Squad
3 = 3rd Squad
4 = 4th Squad
5 = Air Element
6 = Armor Element
7 = Command Element
8 = Whisper to all channel commanders only
9 = All Comms/Broadcast

Change Channel
Shift + Alt + 1 = Squad 1
Shift + Alt + 2 = Squad 2
Shift + Alt + 3 = Squad 3
Shift + Alt + 4 = Squad 4
Shift + Alt + 5 = Air Element
Shift + Alt + 6 = Armor Element
Shift + Alt + 7 = Command Element
Shift + Alt + E = East
Shift + Alt + W = West
Shift + Alt + 0 = Armed Assault - Co-op
Shift + Alt + . = Armed Assault - Evolution
Shift + Alt + Pluskey = Change channel one up
Shift + Alt + Minuskey = Change channel one down
Shift + Alt + 8 = Toggle Channel Commander

LEADER FUNCTIONS ONLY

Bind whispers
Shift + 1 = Preset 1
Shift + 2 = Preset 2
Shift + 3 = Preset 3
Shift + 4 = Preset 4
Shift + 5 = Preset 5
Shift + 6 = Preset 6
Shift + 7 = Preset 7

Whisper to binds
NumPad Enter + 1 = Whisper to preset 1
NumPad Enter + 2 = Whisper to preset 2
NumPad Enter + 3 = Whisper to preset 3
NumPad Enter + 4 = Whisper to preset 4
NumPad Enter + 5 = Whisper to preset 5
NumPad Enter + 6 = Whisper to preset 6
NumPad Enter + 7 = Whisper to preset 7

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TG Regular
TGU Staff
ShackTac FNG

chaka

Is the link for the key bindings broken?

Evil Koala

No, it's working.. But I had a country filter enabled to block wanna-be hackers from overseas. My site was getting hammered daily before. I've added an exception to the UK so you should have access now.

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TG Regular
TGU Staff
ShackTac FNG

Inkompetent

And well, as for using VoIP. How about us that can't use it since the game doesn't recognize the soundcard where I have my microphone? Channel Commander all the way