Murmur - Mumble Integration?

[192nd_Erdem]

Hello,

 

Long ago in the "Wishlist" thread, a coder from Eagle Dynamics wrote that they were working on Murmur integration of DCS engine for the radio communication between players during multiplayer. It's been a long time and I haven't ever seen any news about it.

 

I hope it's still in the works. It's really needed in my opinion. We use Mumble in our squadron and voice quality is incredible. Beyond that Ventrilo and TS2 can offer :)

 

Anyways, is there any news about it?

[GGTharos]

If there were they'd be posted - standby, ED will be ready to talk A-10C sometime in the summer :)

[Zorrin]

...sometime in the summer :)

 

This summer!? :music_whistling:

[c0ff]

The old news about Mumble were - tricky licensing terms stopped the work, but there were rumors for Qt (heavily used in Mumble) to change license to LGPL.

 

Not long ago, the rumors came true and integration is now possible.

 

If you are really interested in it, you can help, telling how do you think such integration should work/look like.

It may even be possible for DCS to provide script (lua) hooks which will help to integrate ANY VoIP solution.

Please, share you thoughts.

 

P.S. Still, I (personally) think that ideally, DCS should have an internal voip (which will simulate aircraft communication system).

But so much to code, so little time.

[joey45]

P.S. Still, I (personally) think that ideally, DCS should have an internal voip (which will simulate aircraft communication system).

But so much to code, so little time.

 

indeed it should.

[zokier]

Ideally, yes, DCS should have integrated voip, but I'm not convinced if currently it would add enough extra value to warrant the extra work integration and maintenance requires.

 

Simulation of real radio systems would be cool, but imho it would be too cumbersome to be actually used by most players, and voip without users is kind of pointless. I haven't yet studied the Ka-50 comms system so maybe its easier than what I think it is.

 

Maybe having (server-side) option of "casual" and "realistic" radio would be best alternative, "casual" being simple one channel per side and maybe a global channel.

 

Having realistic radio would get more important when we get more modules, ie. if we get human controlled FAC.

[c0ff]

Right.

 

As for Mumble/Murmur integration:

1) DCS server should have an ability to send connecting clients some string, defined in server-config file. It will make possible to send an address of external voip server, for example. Client scripts will get this string on connect and command their voip client to (hmm) connect.

2) For "realistic" mode DCS should tell the scripts about selected radio freq, so voip client can connect to corresponding channel.

3) Mumble/Murmur should be externally controllable to make this all possible.

 

Looks like a plan.

[coder1024]

e use Mumble in our squadron and voice quality is incredible. Beyond that Ventrilo and TS2 can offer

The quality for Ventrilo can be really good. Its all in which codec you pick. I've used servers which only provided lower quality codecs and the sounds was much worse. If you use a higher quality codec the sound is really good.

 

So I don't think quality is an issue with Ventrilo at least (been ages since I've used TS).

[JG14_Smil]

people don't even use the radio channels/ID system correctly as it is... :)

[GGTharos]

They will once they become truly useful.

 

Especially if navigation problems are implemented (ie. drifting INS, long routes, etc) ... you need to do it 'the real way' more or less to really get everything out of the sim. Short flights don't force you to navigate. Lack of alternate flights or landing fields doesn't force you to navigate ...

 

The flip side of this is that people who don't try to figure out how to navigate with all those instruments find it all too difficult.

[th3flyboy]

I'll find it hilarious to listen in on enemy comms then!

[slowhand]

i run both ts and vent...they both work very well for the most part. its just i find that there is something missing??i also used ms sidewrinder coms setup for a spell..the whole talk to just your wingmen,flight one at a time or all at the sametime was very cool....but the radio needs to sound like an aircraft radio.would be great if you guys could do that...and i have to concur with Smil most do'nt use the radio to start with....but you guys must have your hands full rt about now...and thx for all the great work you guys do..5x5

[LazerPotatoe]

No one is dissing anyone's favorite voice program.

 

The reason that people are talking about Mumble, and not about TS or Ventrillo, is that Mumble is Open Source.

 

This makes it a very flexible solution for integrating with DCS.

[slowhand]

thx i didn't no tht..sure glad you told me..

[Feuerfalke]

people don't even use the radio channels/ID system correctly as it is... :)

 

It doesn't have to be all that complicated. Of course you can link it into the real radio-system, maybe like this:

 

Playing with 2 sides, you have 2 general channels: blue and red. Considering they use scrambling for coms, you choose the side-channel by applying to blue or red side and won't be able to switch coms independently.

 

Then you could create a channel based on the frequency chosen. If that channel already exisits, you simply join it. A separate column in the score-screen shows radio frequencies.

 

Additionally you have options in the score-screen like in most shooter games: You can chose people you want to "whisper" to, so other people don't hear it and you can mute people. After all it's a game and you don't know who's just joining to spoil fun for everybody else.

 

Like in Teamspeak-Overlay (and again in most shooters or modern (RTS-)games), display the name of the people currently speaking.

 

 

The more simple solution would be to simply join one channel depending on the side you are flying for, independend of ingame set frequencies. Of course then the additional functionality is even more important. ;)

[GGTharos]

There is more to this, but let me address some points:

 

1) You can do it through Murmur's Dbus interface, and it seems to be reasonably complete. The trick is to create a server (perhaps an example configuration should come with DCS) that will allow admin access to DCS so that DCS can appropriately manipulate things - or specifically, create a 'DCS RADIO' channel and give DCS admin access to it.

 

2) Continuing from 1 above, this includes things like - player sets channel to some frequency - DCS checks if this channel exists in the mumble server, and if not, it creates it and then moved the player to it. The trick here is that this request should be sent to the DCS game server, since we don't want the DCS client/player to have any sort of admin passwords/access. Alternatively, the client may download a password from the server which is never written to file.

 

3) It most certainly is.

 

4) No Voip system that I know of supports this, but perhaps a mumble plugin can be written that helps: A player should only hear another player if there is adequate SNR. SNR can be degraded through jamming, distance, or broken LOS - this means that when the push-to-talk is sent, the stream must also contain some sort of SNR information in relation to all other players in the channel. If the receiving player receives a stream with a low SNR flag, that stream is then locally muted.

 

Naturally, other types of effects can also be created like broken up communications etc for jamming/low SNR etc.

An additional flag could serve as a secure comms flag and if you don't have the correct key, all you hear is static ;)

 

Right.

 

As for Mumble/Murmur integration:

1) DCS server should have an ability to send connecting clients some string, defined in server-config file. It will make possible to send an address of external voip server, for example. Client scripts will get this string on connect and command their voip client to (hmm) connect.

2) For "realistic" mode DCS should tell the scripts about selected radio freq, so voip client can connect to corresponding channel.

3) Mumble/Murmur should be externally controllable to make this all possible.

 

Looks like a plan.

Edited May 23, 2009 by GGTharos

[Distiler]

There is already a basic mumble plugin, a russian guy did it a while ago:

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=27180&page=9

[SUBS17]

So in the aircraft you could have UHF and VHF coms how about a face to face channel as well within voice range for when on the ground in FPS mode. Another good aspect is only Radio coms can be accessed if the player is using a radio like in Arma. Arma has a few good aspects of this such as the enemy AI can hear you if you talk if you are too close(for DCS FPS mode:thumbup:). Another aspect is HAVQuick radio channels for the A-10C and F-16 which sets preset channels which are encrypted so th3flyboy can't listen in:D. Some other cool features are to use speech recognition for controlling AI which would make things more interesting. From my experience with the latest air war as far as coms go its good to be able to switch freqs to guard channel or a common channel in the lobby to ensure both sides are ready for the fight and also to be able to switch freqs between flights for coms with other packages. In open falcon/FF5 the IVC didn't use that many channels compared to FSX but it worked ok if you were to go full realism with airfield freqs and FAC/ground units etc then you would need alot more channels to cover it.

[SUBS17]

The flip side of this is that people who don't try to figure out how to navigate with all those instruments find it all too difficult.

 

Scalable realism would fix that with easy radio option etc.

[Feuerfalke]

Why make it so complicated, GGTharos?

 

I know this is a top-notch sim and realism is on top of the list, but with risking to hurt some peoples feeling: It's still a PC-game!

 

 

With all the flaws on the sim-side in DCS, to me it sounds like an evasive maneuver to say implementation of VoiP is too difficult because of LOS, jamming, SNR flag, etc. Of course we want it as realistic as possible, but even if I hurt some personal feelings: It's a PC-game!

 

So at the current stage, with the limited time and resources, why not implement a simple VoiP-system? Just plan and simple to aid multiplayer-gaming and promote the first modules. There's plenty of time to improve comms later, together with the rest of the MP-functionality.

[GGTharos]

Why make it so complicated, GGTharos?

 

I know this is a top-notch sim and realism is on top of the list, but with risking to hurt some peoples feeling: It's still a PC-game!

 

The answer to your question, emphasis mine ;)

 

 

With all the flaws on the sim-side in DCS, to me it sounds like an evasive maneuver to say implementation of VoiP is too difficult because of LOS, jamming, SNR flag, etc. Of course we want it as realistic as possible, but even if I hurt some personal feelings: It's a PC-game!

 

So at the current stage, with the limited time and resources, why not implement a simple VoiP-system? Just plan and simple to aid multiplayer-gaming and promote the first modules. There's plenty of time to improve comms later, together with the rest of the MP-functionality.

 

I mention it because it can be done, and -without- creating a VoIP implementation from scratch. I also mention it because DCS already has this radio physics infrastructure built in ;)

 

In the end, the devs will add what they have time to add.

[Cyb0rg]

Why make it so complicated

 

This is one of the reason i fly BS; The other one its because its a top-notch sim and realism is on top of the list. :joystick:

 

It's still a PC-game!

 

PacMan or Tetris are PC games. This is a simulator.

Edited May 23, 2009 by Cyb0rg

[c0ff]

This is a simulator.

 

That's right, nonetheless:

 

So at the current stage, with the limited time and resources, why not implement a simple VoiP-system? Just plan and simple to aid multiplayer-gaming and promote the first modules. There's plenty of time to improve comms later, together with the rest of the MP-functionality.

 

Good thinking, Feuerfalke. One step at a time.

[LazerPotatoe]

Some other cool features are to use speech recognition for controlling AI which would make things more interesting.

Not sure if you know this, but this can already be done with programs like Shoot and VAC. But it would be nice to integrate everything into one program, rather than having multiple programs running in the background.

 

Cheers,

[Feuerfalke]

This is one of the reason i fly BS; The other one its because its a top-notch sim and realism is on top of the list. :joystick:

 

 

 

PacMan or Tetris are PC games. This is a simulator.

 

 

Ridiculous argument - I honestly doubt that running Teamspeak while flying turns DCS:BS into Tetris. :yay:

 

 

@GGTharos:

If you really stick to your argument, that a feature will not be implemented unless it is fully realistic modelled, we wouldn't play BlackShark for another 3 years.

 

@cOff:

Thats correct. The difference between a professional Simulation and a PC-game is the fact that you have to sell it to customers.

And most modern games sell and keep alive with multiplayer-features. And this is even more true for a teambased game like a flightsim.

To support this, I'd rather implement 10 features I will later improve than denying them important things and risking to decrease the success of later releases that might contain one feature 100% perfect.

Edited May 23, 2009 by Feuerfalke