Second crewmember AI and voice acting

[keen portal]

As of .27, the only useful second crewmember is the Chicane's gunner, while in the Cricket, Compass, Medusa and Darkreach, they're nothing but dead weight. So why not make them useful to act as a second pair of eyes and communicate their findings?

I'm not talking levels of chattiness as the RIO/WSO in the old Jane's simulations (e.g. US NAvy Fighters), but something that may actually help increase situational awareness when things get stressful.

Voice samples could be recorded with text to speech samples or by community members and dynamically assembled. Maybe create a pool of five or six actors and pick one at random on every spawn in a multiseat aircraft.

Callouts would be roughly like real ones, but maybe with a bit of leeway to suit NO's "not quite reality" style.

Visual spotting:

• Enemy aircraft within 2 km and in the rear hemisphere: "Bandit close in, break and defend!"
• Enemy aircraft within 2 km and firing guns: "SHELLS IN THE AIR! BREAK NOW!"

Defensive callouts:

• Picked up by radar for the first time: "Spike, [air/ground/ship], [HLT/Shard/Revoker/Medusa/Boltstrike, etc.], [close/medium/far], [1 to 12] o' clock, [high/low]."
• Incoming missile: "INCOMING, [IR/semi/active], [1 to 12] o'clock, [close/medium/far], [pop flares/jam] and break [left/right]!"
• Defeated missile: "Incoming is cold."
• Missile within ~3 km and still active: "INCOMING HOT! BREAK! BREAK! BREAK!"

Offensive callouts:

• One target selected: "Engaging [name of target]!"
• Multiple targets selected: "Engaging multiple targets!"
• Range information per range circle, called out at 25%, 50% and 75%: "Range solution [inadequate/decent/acceptable]."
• Range circle at 100%: "Good range! Shoot!"

Status callouts:

• Any part damaged: "We're hit, let's get out of here!"
• Any part red or blown off: "Critical damage! Eject! Eject! Eject!"

This would of course require some kind of message stack system to queue incoming messages and a priority manager that will bump urgent messages (incoming missile, close bandit, damage) to the top and kick out low priority messages in turn (especially when handling range information).

Just food for thought.

[haughty kiln]

if this gets implemented please dont crowd-source it like baha did for VTOL VR

[arctic shadow]

This would take a heck of a lot of work to implement so I'd imagine it is a low priority for the devs... but... it would be very, VERY cool

[keen portal]

"Crowd source" as in "community voice acting"?

[haughty kiln]

yeah

[keen portal]

Seems to work for Freespace. 🤷

[shy tundra]

add check box: Mute WSO

[keen portal]

Ah, a USAF flight officer.

(Better: Treat the second crew member as a payload item, so you also save the weight. Chicane drivers would be punished by a lack of auto-targeting for the gun though.)

[lapis root]

don't have a vr, whatd he do wrong?

[shy tundra]

They sound... like they would rather be somewhere else, monotone, literally reading from a script.

[plush flume]

I'm 100% for notifications about flying shells on the aircraft and anti-aircraft and aircrafts staring at you, atmospheric yell about needing to eject. Watching the cameras is his job, and since he's human, he should yell. But the repetition of RWR, reports of finding enemies that can't hurt you, damage notifications sounds lame, and can scare people

[keen portal]

The minimap doesn't zoom out far enough. If I get a radar missile shot at me from 30 km, I want to know the direction it comes from as soon as possible because I just can't see it yet.

[plush flume]

I think a normal RWR showing the direction of the missile is a different topic.

[lapis root]

also been waiting for someone to suggest this, but also

MAKE THE TONE OF VOICELINES BE BASED ON CURRENT SITUATION

here's a similar sim game, but with tanks instead of planes which has this implementation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLRSAJl7Vgw

[tender trail]

[hollow merlin]

"PLANE, 10 KILOMETERS, FRONT"

or
"IN-FRONT OF US! SHOOT HIM DOWN SHIT SHIT SHIT"
"SMOvoice crackKE IN THE AIR! BEHIND! HIGH!"
"TRACERS! BREAK! BREAK!"

like GHPC level voices would be good

[rough urchin]

Honestly this is one of, if not THE, killer features of GHPC. I bet loads of people of bought that game simply because the voice acting is so intriguing (they got real tankers in as VAs I believe.)

If Nuclear Option had something similar, it would be incredible.

[rough urchin]

Perfect scenario - 2nd crewmember voiced (either by AI or by an official voiceline set) or by your own MP3 voicelines added into the game a la my suggestion here: #1212641523661934614 message

WSO completely toggleable on and off.

You can have your car satnav sound like Mr T, so why not have your WSO sound like Microsoft Sam/some Vtuber from Fiverr/your own WIFE?

[latent olive]

Heck no

[rough urchin]

Heck yes

[latent olive]

DCS Hornet betty sounding like my mom, that's bad enough...

[rough urchin]

I wouldn't know. But giving players choice is always good.

[latent olive]

Yeah, at least have the option to turn it off

[rough urchin]

Of course. If this idea was implemented, it'd be the first menu option programmed. Probably a slider in the Audio settings would do it and be most appropriate.

[lapis root]

upvoting because of easily replacable/moddable voicelines, ignoring the rest

[rough urchin]

Oof OK lol. Jokes landing poorly today.

[keen portal]

Holy cow, that muffled "Up!" from the loader! A++++++ immersion. 😳

I really hope they add the Leopard 2 at some point. Instant sale and probably instant flashbacks.

[keen portal]

I'd so add Half Life wavs. Or SHODAN.

[lapis root]

keep testing and find a sweet spot dawg

[little mural]

this would be amazing for Imersion
and some frantic momments

[viral bough]

PUT THE NOSE ON HIM!!

[lapis root]

for those who haven't watched or played GHPC yet, here's a video with a larger variety of voicelines (creamier) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qskl-6UlKcM

[paper arrow]

i feel like good voice acting could bring this game from "fun little arcade-sim jet game" to something much more exciting and engaging.
it would really immerse you into the fight, the combat already makes the game pretty immersive but if we get some good voice acting it could bring it to a whole nother level

[thorny lotus]

GHPC has some amazing voice acting. You can feel the terror in their voices as an Enemy tank moves it's turret towards you

[safe cave]

seriously something like this would be incredible

[whole knot]

I have thought about this, while not necessarily for the WSO, but for other AI planes communicating their intentions/status. It would be quite a bit of work to catalog and assemble all the required parts

[keen portal]

"Other AI planes communicating" would have been a follow-up request, but I realize that you'd first have to implement a system to sort them into flights, each with a unique callsign and then add more granularity to their state description.

[viral bough]

If you spectate an AI, when it takes off, it usually flies to a specific area with specific targets

[civic plank]

Maybe you could use and improve on already existing stuff : TTS works quite well and there are some available assets on Unity Asset store that give natural results, with a reasonable cost.
If chat, mission messages and AI pilots could be spoken with a good TTS, it would provide a nice immersive environment...

[keen portal]

Not quite what I meant. By "flights", I mean that factory-produced Chicane #99 would identify itself as "Wolf flight", while Chicane "#100" would be "Goose flight" and so on. Then it would need calls like "Goose flight taking off", "Goose flight is going in", "Goose flight is under fire!", "That's a kill for Goose flight!", "Goose flight is bugging out.", "Goose flight is landing.", "Goose flight is refueling.", etc., all with a pool of suitable variations so that 10 active AI aicraft all wouldn't say the exact same thing.

The "flight" thing is tricky because it would need a pool of like 100 different callsigns to avoid too many repetitions during an Escalation match plus tracking which callsigns have been used and which are in use to avoid duplicates on the battlefield.

[whole knot]

I'm not convinced getting AI to do a decent job would be considerably less effort than getting decent voice acting, but it is incredibly flexible.

[civic plank]

Well, considering you only need to store (or generate) strings that the TTS shall read, it is a considerable amount of data you save.
Also, this opens the possibility for mission makers to create as many lines as needed, without concerns about existing sound files.
It saves a lot of data transfer over the network, as lines can be read locally, the host just sends the string to be read.
In my opinion, it is worth considering... Let me find a good TTS engine on Unity Asset Store, we can even raise funds to offer to Mitch if some people are willing to 😉

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/generative-ai/overtone-realistic-ai-offline-text-to-speech-tts-251304

[whole knot]

The problem with this is it sounds like what it is. I need one that can convince me it's burning to death.

when the machines can actually replace human actors I'll consider them

[civic plank]

Hehe of course, for a few years still, it will be hard to beat a human actor to read convincing voices.
You'll need several hours of recordings and post treatment, several takes etc, which will cost way more than this.
It could be an efficient placeholder, knowing that nothing stops you from mixing TTS lines with actual recordings when these are required / available.

[hollow merlin]

"hey i'm bleeding out help me aaaa"
VS
"I'M BLEEDING F**K HELP ME ARGH"

[stoic shell]

I would really like to hear my WSO calling out "Rifle!" or "Bingo fuel!"

[winged magnet]

I would make him lose it by flying low and clipping the ground a bunch

Also I think they should also have some informals such as a basic "watch it", or "careful" if you get peppered with .50 cals or if a far away launcher or aircraft fires a missile at you

I just don't want to hear every detail about the missile that I can see is coming for me every time.
Eg. IR from really close? watch it WATCH IT

[lyric kettle]

Would definitely be a nice addition, adding to both immersion and situational awareness.

[strong axle]

Like this? (Yes I know the Ifrit is a single seater)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h06V68GlzxQ

[winged magnet]

Missile fired - rifle/fox type
Catch
Dodge this
Bomb drop - pickle amount PABs/GPOs
Catch
Bunker buster drop - paveway amount type
Vehicle drop - good luck
Good luck out there
Godspeed
Go get em
Off you go
Nuke drop - let there be light
Tact. Nukes unlocked - about time
Str. Nukes unlocked - alright
Far missile - keep an eye on that
Near missile - look out
Light damage - watch it / careful
Med. Damage - might wanna head back to base
Hvy. Damage - we better head back
Irrecoverable damage - eject
Air kill - splash amount bandit/hostile
Ground kill - splash amount
Sea kill - splash amount, nice one
Large kill (the kind that triggers the splash track) - alright
Nuke kill(s) - that never gets old
Gun kill - nice shooting
Gunner kill - splash one bandit/hostile
Crew member dead - self explanatory
Crew member taking fire damage - self explanatory (I also feel they should eject if you won't while burning)
Crash land / injury - self explanatory
In exclusion zone - uh oh
Oh no
Aw s*t
Lets get outta here

Just some formal/informal examples

Oh god I did not realize it was that much

[devout estuary]

Pretty nice half of them!
Gere my several ideas.
Tactical nukes unlocked - it has been zero day.
250kt drop - kaboom.
Many bomba dropping (more than 20) - gooood morning Vietnam!
Medium damage - probably we should back to the base.
Vehicles drop - come on, kill them all!
Heavy damage - oh boy, go back to repair.
Gun air kill - ace.
In exclusion zone - oh no no no no no.
Enemy jamm you - look at this bastard!
Boat/ship kill - bulb bulb bulb.
Gun ground kill - i like a brrrtt.
Strategic nuke unlock - oh god apocalypses!
Friend lock you - you just lock, yeah?
Friend make splash(music or etc) - strike!
Optical missiles incoming - are you serious?
Flares random drop - I'm not hot, im not hot.

[keen portal]

Yes, something like this. Maybe a bit less Ace Combat drama in the calls.

[strong axle]

It's way easier to cannibalize existing lines from the WSO in project wingman than trying to beat the text to speech program into emoting.

[keen portal]

Isn't the key to battle comms that there is zero emoting?

[strong axle]

Absolutely. But they're still human. https://youtu.be/2uh4yMAx2UA?si=FtfT7RFSXVzR5CiD&t=178 https://youtu.be/WkZGL7RQBVw?si=vntWZYhha__RoEWD&t=10

[keen portal]

The WSO sometimes still sounded as if it was her first day on the job with next to no training.

[vital abyss]

you've got a hole in your left wing

[strong axle]

What kind of demo do you want for free on a four hour turn around?

Half this thread is gushing about the emotive speech in Gunner, Heat, PC

[keen portal]

Hey, by principle, I liked what you did. If you've used POW's assets to cut down dev time, fine by me.
I guess I just have an issue with PW's voice acting.

[strong axle]

It's fine.

[hollow kettle]

I'm willing to try and do this; buuut I'm still sounding like a squeaker

[strong axle]

I don't think my apartment neighbors would appreciate me recording a good Stroke 3 impression at the proper volume.

[hollow kettle]

bahaha, nice

Maybe go out to a field somewhere, set up a little wind-proof shed and scream your guts out from there?

[strong axle]

I don't have an extension cord that long.