Is any particular HCS Voice Pack more "in-depth" than the others? (Astra, Eden, Celeste)

[Deleted member 110222]

The good news is that I'll be able to buy one tomorrow. Yay! Genuinely can't wait.

But I was listening to the three titled packs on YouTube, and was wondering if they offer different things? Aside from the sound of the voice of course.

Astra seems to be bigger, at least from what I can tell. And she has a personalised response add-on? How's that work?

Cheers for help, and if you have any questions to ask me to better understand my confusion, do not hesitate to ask me.

 

[Dan Dare]

I have the Astra voice pack and it works well most of the time. I still get the odd glitch, like I ask her to request docking and she checks my missions or opens the Galmap instead

Personalised responses I can personally do without to be honest. Random celestial facts? Meh.

Easy to set up though, just install the pack into VA then tell it to "import my settings".

Really I think it's a bit like the voice you choose for your sat nav, you listen to it a lot, so make sure you like it

 

[Deleted member 110222]

I have the Astra voice pack and it works well most of the time. I still get the odd glitch, like I ask her to request docking and she checks my missions or opens the Galmap instead

Personalised responses I can personally do without to be honest. Random celestial facts? Meh.

Easy to set up though, just install the pack into VA then tell it to "import my settings".

Really I think it's a bit like the voice you choose for your sat nav, you listen to it a lot, so make sure you like it

Thanks. I do quite like the sound of Celeste. Very soothing, which by the maker is nice given how many veins I pop during a fight.

 

[Allin]

Astra is the biggest by size - more than double amount of data compared to other voice packs. Dark is my second choice, he sounds VERY similar to Leonard Nimoy, really nice and soothing voice.

 

[Jenner]

Astra is their flagship pack, so it has the most 'stuff'. Other packs do differ a bit on content, and you have to kind of dig a bit on the product page and forums to really find out what they have. Usually they only differ on some extras like the Encyclopedia (science factoids) and Constellations and such.

I have Eli, Orion, Eden, and Vega. If you have any questions on those I can help. For instance, Eden has the encyclopedia stuff and constellations. Orion has a 'nebula tour'. Eli is bad tempered and swears at you.

 

[Leo Sagan]

I bought ASTRA and I wouldn't use any other one because HCS used the british voice AMY from IVONA. This allows me to create any new sentence I wish with the exact same voice and use it for my very own command. I added the personal pack (allowing you to pick ASTRA's name and to teach her your name) and I can't imagine playing without it anymore.

 

[Pumabear8]

I have the Astra voice pack and it works well most of the time. I still get the odd glitch, like I ask her to request docking and she checks my missions or opens the Galmap instead

Personalised responses I can personally do without to be honest. Random celestial facts? Meh.

Easy to set up though, just install the pack into VA then tell it to "import my settings".

Really I think it's a bit like the voice you choose for your sat nav, you listen to it a lot, so make sure you like it

The Galmap is normally because the starting tab is not the correct one, you might have had one of the other tabs selected, Voiceattack does not know which tab is initially selected, it counts from what it thinks the start tab is, this is why I've been asking for a shortcut button for things like request docking, the only time a pilot in an aircraft might look at a radio panel is to change the frequency, the mic button is mounted on the yoke.

 

[XPSuedoX]

I have A.S.T.R.A and its really good, well worth the time it took to setup etc. Just make sure you follow the instructions on "Keybindings" to the T.

The others looked good but to me i really wanted the extra content her pack offered.

Takes some time to get used to all the commands but dam its worth it.

Good luck with your choice mate. Oh you'll find some good keybinding tuts on youtube [up]

 

[Valethar]

Astra was the original pack. She's likely got the most to offer from a quantity of responses standpoint. Before the release of their Singularity profile manager, Astra was a requirement if you wanted to run more than one pack at a time, as it contained the scripts that managed all of the other voices.

The 'Personal Response' pack changes a number of voiced scripts, so that you can be addressed as Commander, Captain, or even your commander's name. You can also, within reason, rename the pack to something else instead of Astra.

The Astra pack was created with a synthetic voice, rather than having a human sit down and read responses like almost all of the rest of the packs, which is why it's the only one that has the personal response option. They can do that in the studio in a day or so, without having to schedule and pay for a voice actor to do the update each time someone purchases it.

Bear in mind that because it's a synth, there are words that it may have trouble pronouncing, so you might end up having to use a different name for the pack's AI or your Commander if it's something that can't be done cleanly. They'll work with you there, though, in that event.

I personally have 5 of the voices, plus the ship's cat. It makes for an interesting time on the flight deck.

My recommendation for you is to pick whichever pack you like the sound of. Don't worry too much about how much it can do, you won't be using it all right away anyhow. Find a pack that suits you, and start off with that one. You can always add more later, and use the Singularity profile manager to assign each pack to a specific role on your ship, so that you'll have multiple 'crew' members responding as you issue commands.

If you haven't already, go here and browse around. They even have a voice pack done by the lass that voices the ship AI in game (Verity Croft).

https://www.hcsvoicepacks.com/

 

[lysan]

I got 5 of them, astra Orion eli Vega the cat.

Im very fund of Eli, he is very rude, I love that he he

 

[Marbat]

You'll need to train your computer via speech recognition to make it work at its best.
I also have Astra, recently got Celeste but went back to Astra.

 

[NW3]

I have the Obsidian voice pack. I'm a big fan of Obsidian Ant's videos, so it's not at all jarring to hear his voice, while I'm playing.

 

[Kingston@#]

I have the Obsidian voice pack. I'm a big fan of Obsidian Ant's videos, so it's not at all jarring to hear his voice, while I'm playing.

how is it? thinking of getting that one as well to go with astra and eden.
@OP i would say astra has the most stuff in it but the other that i have eden is catching it up. its a case of wait until the others are updated.

those who are having issues with panels not opening correctly. simple cmd to fix. reset panels

 

[leeG]

I went with Verity. Same actor as in game computer voice, with all the Astra functionality.

 

[Taranis Dekker]

I got 5 of them, astra Orion eli Vega the cat.

Im very fund of Eli, he is very rude, I love that he he

I'd get Eli (to join Vasco), but I don't want him swearing when my 7 year old son is around :x

 

[Deleted member 110222]

I got Astra. I like it. Just sounds like a computer.

 

[evanevery]

The good news is that I'll be able to buy one tomorrow. Yay! Genuinely can't wait.

But I was listening to the three titled packs on YouTube, and was wondering if they offer different things? Aside from the sound of the voice of course.

Astra seems to be bigger, at least from what I can tell. And she has a personalised response add-on? How's that work?

Cheers for help, and if you have any questions to ask me to better understand my confusion, do not hesitate to ask me.

Be careful what you ask for!

I have Kate and I've had to figure out to turn off unsolicited chatter every time I arrive at ("Shields for Landing?", etc) or leave a station ("Are you ready to jump?", etc). It was cute to start but EVERY time got old really fast. HCS-VP will parse the ED log files to give you this info. Took a bit of searching to just turn this off without effecting everything else. It was buried pretty deep. I forget the exact thing I had to turn off, but if anyone wants it (it was single new entry), PM me and I'll look it up...

 

[evanevery]

Just to be complete...

If anyone is tired of all the "helpful chatter" you get over and over and over and over and over every time you arrive at or leave station or planet (Shields?, Gear?, Jump?) etc - Here is a quick and easily reversible way I've found to turn it off. I've really come to hate all that inane crap and found myself telling my AI to "shut up", " Fork Off", etc (to no avail).

I had to poke around a bit to find a simple way to disable this that was easily reversible.

Edit the following HCS Voice Pack Command (I assume all packs have the same structure):

Category: "AI - Questions"
Command: "((Ask Question)) (voice disabled)"

- insert a single line at the top of the sequence which says "Exit Command". You can insert this from: Other -> Advanced -> Exit Command.

This will effectively disable all the routine coming/going chatter. (You can see the chatter it disables by looking through the sequence). If you want to re-enable this stuff - just delete the "Exit Command" line you added...

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Just to be complete...

If anyone is tired of all the "helpful chatter" you get over and over and over and over and over every time you arrive at or leave station or planet (Shields?, Gear?, Jump?) etc - Here is a quick and easily reversible way I've found to turn it off. I've really come to hate all that inane crap and found myself telling my AI to "shut up", " Fork Off", etc (to no avail).

I had to poke around a bit to find a simple way to disable this that was easily reversible.

Edit the following HCS Voice Pack Command (I assume all packs have the same structure):

Category: "AI - Questions"
Command: "((Ask Question)) (voice disabled)"

- insert a single line at the top of the sequence which says "Exit Command". You can insert this from: Other -> Advanced -> Exit Command.

This will effectively disable all the routine coming/going chatter. (You can see the chatter it disables by looking through the sequence). If you want to re-enable this stuff - just delete the "Exit Command" line you added...

Or you can just say "Invoke off" and it will turn off that prompting, just as the manual says it will. When you want the prompting back, you say "Invoke On." It remembers this setting between sessions. I've had no problem with this working for Eli, Orion, and Verity.

 

[RadiKyle]

Wow this is a timely thread for me! Long story short, I bought the Celeste pack because I liked the voice but was very disappointed when I found out it didn't have the "interactive mode" where the AI will occasionally say things without being prompted. I was really looking for that.

I've since been informed that only the following packs have the "interactive mode on" option:
Astra ,Doris, Kate, Ksai, Leo, Legend, Midnight, Minus and Vasco
(I'm very suprised Eden is not in the list, since the store has a whole blurb about her wanting to be human, etc.)

So of the female voices among these, which one(s) would add the most interest to the game? Any top recommends? Is it just Astra? What are some examples of what they do in the interactive mode? I heard one of them starts an "I spy" game? (Thought it was Eden actually)

Thanks!