Very Frustrated with Voice Attack

[Pville_Piper]

I have the Orion voice pack I have always had issues with voice attack getting off. I finally figured out that one of the issues was the fact that I had a tendency to use keystrokes to move between tabs and the software can't follow that. I also finally figured out how to use the "Reset Panels" function properly. I then removed any UI panel key binding from my joystick so I can't tab anymore. I became very religious about opening and closing the software using voice commands.

And still it gets off.

For instance, if I say open the contacts tab by saying "Contacts" it will open the left panel and tab twice to the contacts pad. If I then say "Left Panel" it will close the left panel. If say "Left Panel" it will open it on the Contacts tab. All very good. If I mistakenly say "Contacts" instead of "Left Panel" I have about a 50-50 chance it will tab over 1 tab. I have no clue as to why it does this. Or, all of that works, several times with no issues. I then say "Navigation" and it opens the left panel, doesn't tab over and Orion says "Navigation" with it still on the contacts tab... How did it get off?

For the most part, it understands me fairly well. But all of a sudden it can't understand "scoop up" or "cargo scoop up" or misses the command all together... Not very fun when you are in a signal source and 6 NPCs have just jumped in...

The other thing that bugs me is the voice pack commands. Oddly enough, there are too many ways of saying something! There must be 10 different ways to tell the ship to go to 100 percent power. There are tons of commands that I don't know what they do or I can't remember them. Trying to find them is can be very hard to do in this huge list of commands. I was going to make a list that I could print out or have open on the second monitor but it quickly became very tedious to do. So then I thought that I would delete all the duplicate commands only to find that if you did it also delete all associated commands as well!

When my new joy stick gets here I will most likely ditch voice attack. I'm tired of zooming up to the station with illegal cargo and having it screw up the docking request (HELLO! CAN WE GET A KEYBIND FOR THIS ALREADY?!!!). After all, how many times can you hear William Shatner sing you "Fly Me To The Moon and still find it funny?

Spoiler

[video=youtube;RIDl84vvp2s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIDl84vvp2s[/video]

 

[Crimson Kaim]

Same with cars. I prefare manual contro lover everything instead noob automatic AI controls which likely screw up.

The best example was during our ski-trip. My friend's car was a heavy Mercedes, around 2T. It had all the automated control software to avoid loss of friction so you might assume that would be very useful in a snowy environment. Nu-uh. Couldn't move a meter without sliding atleast 10. Despite losing control, it may be dangerous since there is a cliff right next to the road (and I mean ... RIGHT NEXT TO IT). So we were stuck and so was the car behind us which did a 180° near the cliff. After an hour of achieving nearly nothing there was a small VW Golf, probably 2004, easily climbing the road UPWARDS. Ofcourse, these are not as heavy as this Mercedes but still packed with alot of stuff. After we have successfully arrived at the first curve (out of 8) the Golf returned and was driving easily downwards after just 30 minutes. Okey we need atleast 3 hours with all the automatic gimmicks which are COMPLETEY USELESS ANYWAYS and this Golf needs maybe 10 minutes to go up/down.

Hooray. Screw automatic controls, stay classy and manual. I prefare the old torch over the light bulb anyways.

 

[Arguendo]

For instance, if I say open the contacts tab by saying "Contacts" it will open the left panel and tab twice to the contacts pad. If I then say "Left Panel" it will close the left panel. If say "Left Panel" it will open it on the Contacts tab. All very good. If I mistakenly say "Contacts" instead of "Left Panel" I have about a 50-50 chance it will tab over 1 tab. I have no clue as to why it does this. Or, all of that works, several times with no issues. I then say "Navigation" and it opens the left panel, doesn't tab over and Orion says "Navigation" with it still on the contacts tab... How did it get off?

Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but I don't think there is a way to make a "Contacts" command that always ends on "Contacts". The reason is that there are no Hotkeys for the different panels in UI, only tabbing through. So, for "Contacts" you would go "A -> TAB -> TAB", but that only works the first time you open the Left panel. The Left panel will now be stuck in the Contacts tab and if you use the same command again, it will TAB over to either "Inventory" if you have another ship targeted, or to "Transactions", as those will be the panels following another "A -> TAB -> TAB" command.
To manage the panels with VA you need to set commands for how many TABs you want to apply, and then remember where you were. Or break it down to two commands, ie. "LEFT" and wait until it opens and then "TAB" how many times you want to TAB over.
Atleast that's my understanding, and since it's so cumbersome I haven't bothered with it for UI panels.

 

[X-Terminator]

FD ignored to design the Left Panel to be like the Right Panel. It will scroll continuously so it can not have a reset position in any Macro...now start the slow clap for FD...

 

[Susanna]

I have the Orion voice pack I have always had issues with voice attack getting off. I finally figured out that one of the issues was the fact that I had a tendency to use keystrokes to move between tabs and the software can't follow that. I also finally figured out how to use the "Reset Panels" function properly. I then removed any UI panel key binding from my joystick so I can't tab anymore. I became very religious about opening and closing the software using voice commands.

And still it gets off.

For instance, if I say open the contacts tab by saying "Contacts" it will open the left panel and tab twice to the contacts pad. If I then say "Left Panel" it will close the left panel. If say "Left Panel" it will open it on the Contacts tab. All very good. If I mistakenly say "Contacts" instead of "Left Panel" I have about a 50-50 chance it will tab over 1 tab. I have no clue as to why it does this. Or, all of that works, several times with no issues. I then say "Navigation" and it opens the left panel, doesn't tab over and Orion says "Navigation" with it still on the contacts tab... How did it get off?

For the most part, it understands me fairly well. But all of a sudden it can't understand "scoop up" or "cargo scoop up" or misses the command all together... Not very fun when you are in a signal source and 6 NPCs have just jumped in...

The other thing that bugs me is the voice pack commands. Oddly enough, there are too many ways of saying something! There must be 10 different ways to tell the ship to go to 100 percent power. There are tons of commands that I don't know what they do or I can't remember them. Trying to find them is can be very hard to do in this huge list of commands. I was going to make a list that I could print out or have open on the second monitor but it quickly became very tedious to do. So then I thought that I would delete all the duplicate commands only to find that if you did it also delete all associated commands as well!

When my new joy stick gets here I will most likely ditch voice attack. I'm tired of zooming up to the station with illegal cargo and having it screw up the docking request (HELLO! CAN WE GET A KEYBIND FOR THIS ALREADY?!!!). After all, how many times can you hear William Shatner sing you "Fly Me To The Moon and still find it funny?

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIDl84vvp2s

I have voice attack but no voice packs with it. I managed to get it to do a number of these types of commands, mostly by tabbing across, then down, request docking, up, tab back across to the left and then exit (leaving the left panel in the same state it was when it opened so that the command (a macro in effect) would work next time). All was well...

My issue with voice attack is that the voice profile becomes corrupted after about a week and it no longer understands my commands. I then reload the voice profile from backup and it's good for about another week... But I just got fed up having to reinstall the voice profile after it became corrupted each time. I don't use voice attack any more. A pity because it's an awesome app! Perhaps if I used headphones instead of speakers the profile wouldn't become corrupted as easily, but I prefer to have proper audio and no voice attack. Oh Hum.

 

[CmdrJacks]

You can create variables with voice attack to keep track of certain states, like the state of the current tab in a panel. Each time you switch tab you modify the variable, and each time you open the panel you read the variable so you know from where you're starting. It works well, even though I don't really use VA as it's just quicker to use my joystick for everything. Pretty sure it's all in the docs.

 

[Akarana]

I bought VoiceAttack a few weeks ago and love it, but as I'm another who prefers to manually control the ship I haven't gone overboard with setting up voice commands.

I got VA mainly so I could use EDDI as well as Text-to-Speech for the ship AI, rather than a voice pack. Using EDDI has the very useful side effect of being able to import your flight logs directly into EDSM as well.

Starting with the default EDDI profile, I added a few of my own voice commands mainly for the inconvenient multiple keypresses for functions which interrupt normal flight, combat etc.

So I've now got:

Orbits - HUD orbit lines on/off
View - changes to debug view and presses Enter to clear the warning screen/changes back to cockpit view
Photo - takes screenshot, then high resolution screenshot
Flight recorder - starts/stops and saves recording (via Nvidia Share Overlay UI)
Instruments - turns HUD on/off

I did experiment with variables (lights on/off etc) and example profiles from this forum but found my efforts not quite reliable enough yet. I need to read up on the scripting language more thoroughly, but until I can do that, I'm keeping it simple and sticking to the basic toggles.

Hope FD allow VA to process variables directly via the game API eventually.

 

[Itaki]

Sorry OP is having problems with VA. I was using a freebie VA clone up until a couple weeks ago. Decided to buy the real VA and am very pleased with it. I considered Orion or another voice pack but didnt want to learn (or edit) someone else's profile. So I'm growing my own handmade profile with simple commands at the moment.

I also searched for freebie voice packs and found KICS. http://www.alpha-orbital.com/kics
It has 579 pleasing female voice responses for many ship actions. I've only programmed about 20 macros and applied some of the KICS voice responses and it works pretty good in my bounty hunting profession.

Yes, the left panel in ED can be problematic if you sometimes use it manually and then try to issue some complex command with VA. I have a 'request docking' VA macro sequence that only works right after I lock a destination in the navigation window. If I check contacts or something then the request docking macro wont work.

FDEV doesnt seem to care that we use macros so maybe someday they will create an exhaustive /slash list of ship control commands so we don't have to cobble together voice controls the way we do now.

I'm not really a proponent of total voice control or total VA macro ship automation. It's dangerous/annoying to over-automate for combat, but VA is certainly nice for those times that my joystick thumb had to be on two different buttons at the same time but couldn't. I like how VA removes the need to search for keys on the keyboard.

I use VA for pip management, throttle %age presets, targeting, boosting, lifting off from different locations, landing gear toggle and a few others I cant remember off hand. My latest additions are thruster bursts for each directions and upcoming will be a 3 second down thrust for 'touchdown' on a pad.

Sometimes VA doesn't understand me, especially if I'm tired. I mumble a lot. Sometimes I forget what the command is. It also doesn't work if my voice is overly excited. It also doesn't work if I'm trying to use the command that I used to use with the other VA clone but never programmed in the new VA profile. (haha) Sometimes it's good to just fly without VA.

Combat can be a kick though with some VA voice responses. Almost like you have a co-pilot.

I imagine some of Orion's responses can be bypassed or turned off making him less annoying. Enough of my baloney for now.

Take care. o7

 

[[VR] Deggial]

I also use VA and I like it a lot.

Unfortunately, as cmdrs Arguendo and Jacks have described, there is no direct way to open certain tabs. I don't use pre-built voice profiles (mainly due to the fact that they are in English and my voice recognition is set to German), but have created my own profile. As mentioned, there are two ways to handle the tab switching:
1) Store the current location in a variable and use it to culculate the amounts of necessary tabbing forward/backward. But this is complicated and needs many conditional branches.
2) Reset your location to a default position (usually the navigation tab) every time you exit the panel. You need to store your current tab here, too, but only need the value once while exiting.

Unfortunately, the whole tabbing (be it to open a specific panel by tabbing, be it during the reset process) is somehow unreliable. In my experience, there has to be a certain pause inbetween the "key presses". If this time is set too short, the command can be skipped and you end at panel you don't want to be. (I guess, this can happen, if the CPU load is high). From there on, everything is screwed up until you move to the default entry point manually.
So, maybe you could try to increase the pause lengths in your VA profile in order to solve your issue?

 

[Pville_Piper]

I understand about the issues with opening using macros. I understand the process. What I don't understand is how the tracking gets off. It is random and I can't seem to get it to work consistently. It was fine for a while but it seems to be getting worse. I might try to re-install the program and see if that works,

I haven't had too much problems with the program not understanding me. I might just go back to building the va profile on my own as I can keep it simple that way and have a concise list of commands the I use.

 

[jgm]

I understand about the issues with opening using macros. I understand the process. What I don't understand is how the tracking gets off. It is random and I can't seem to get it to work consistently. It was fine for a while but it seems to be getting worse. I might try to re-install the program and see if that works,

I haven't had too much problems with the program not understanding me. I might just go back to building the va profile on my own as I can keep it simple that way and have a concise list of commands the I use.

The panels reset on certain actions. No idea what they are nowadays, but it used to be on start (obviously), system jump, and docking. If you know what they are then you can trigger on those events to reset the panel state you hold internally in VoiceAttack.

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Unfortunately, the whole tabbing (be it to open a specific panel by tabbing, be it during the reset process) is somehow unreliable. In my experience, there has to be a certain pause inbetween the "key presses". If this time is set too short, the command can be skipped and you end at panel you don't want to be. (I guess, this can happen, if the CPU load is high). From there on, everything is screwed up until you move to the default entry point manually.
So, maybe you could try to increase the pause lengths in your VA profile in order to solve your issue?

I found that a press of 0.03 followed by a pause of 0.02 made most things reliable. Make sure you turn off the GUI effects in the options, though, as otherwise panels are unresponsive for a while when they are first displayed and that can cause issues.

 

[Pville_Piper]

The panels reset on certain actions. No idea what they are nowadays, but it used to be on start (obviously), system jump, and docking. If you know what they are then you can trigger on those events to reset the panel state you hold internally in VoiceAttack.

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I found that a press of 0.03 followed by a pause of 0.02 made most things reliable. Make sure you turn off the GUI effects in the options, though, as otherwise panels are unresponsive for a while when they are first displayed and that can cause issues.

I'll have to check that when I get back home... Thanks.

 

[Glock_N_Load]

I use VA very little in voice but find I can make some pretty elaborate micros

 

[Technomancer]

I've pretty much solved the panel issues, and something REALLY odd has to happen for them to get out of whack. The trick is to send it back to the FIRST tab (on either panel) before closing it. I've scripted it to do just that for all scenarios where the panels might get closed.

There are quite a few things you have to consider when dealing with the panels, e.g. when you open either of the maps (galaxy or system), it will auto close the panel at whatever tab you're at. Then the next time you say "Contacts", you'll be outta whack. Same with hyperspace, sc, comms panel, or opening the other panel.

I've solved all the issues and it works perfectly virtually all the time. The only really remote scenario it messes up on me is when I'm in sc and I happen to be looking at a panel and I get interdicted, which immediately closes the panel on me at whatever tab I'm at. Then (unless I was at the Navigation tab) the next time I try to use it, I have to open it and manually put it to the Navigation tab and I'm good to go.

 

[Enopho]

I use VA with Kics 4 and have been using it successfully for about a year with no corruptions in the profile and no issues with the panels. what jgm said about the key press timings is correct. if you use a standard keypress timer without specifying the duration of the keypress you WILL have issues. To resolve the panel switching/tabs etc. just use a reverse order for the close panel option. for instance.. you can use 'Contacts' as a verbal command which will open left panel and tab to the contacts pane. then use 'Close Contacts' verbal command to reverse the command going backwards to the navigation pane and then closing the panel.

kics 4 has a lot of the panel switching which i also used to have issues with sorted out and also has a really cool improvement from kics 3 where the keybindings in the game are actually in the kics profile as well, so the response times for the macros to run are way faster! for instance the 'Request Docking' command which will tab to left panel, move across to the contacts pane, then tabs down to the station/outpost etc and then selects it and requests docking and then reverses all of the commands so comes out of the left panel cleanly takes less than a second - its like a blur - and then Kics responds with a very nice voice profile to say it has been done (developers girlfriend who is dutch.. a really nice voice)!

I have had quite a lot of experience playing with Kics and VA so happy to help or even help someone setup their VA with Kics if you want.

also to the person (sorry i didnt catch your name !! ) who was having issues with the VA not reponding with the right key press .. i.e. you say left panel and the comms panel opens!? you need to say the command, then ALT TAB out to VA and look in the window in VA to see what words VA recognised.. then have a look in you VA macros for the panel that opened (in this case - comms panel) and remove the command that matched, and then add the same verbal command to the panel you WANTED it to open (in this case left panel).

you have to remember that VA uses the voice recognition that comes with windows - so set that up.. also people have accents, for instance if you say 'wingman three' with an irish accent for instance.. VA might thing you are saying 'wingman tree' and it will not work so add 'wingman tree' into the words it will recognise for that command.. just check the window that VA uses to identify what it thinks you are saying and then teach it to recognise your accent.

if anyone would like me to help them with VA or Kics for that matter, please send me a PM.

Eno.