A.C.R.E - Advanced Combat Radio Environment - 1.4 Stable - Release Thread

[NouberNou]

Current Version: 1.4.10.500
Latest Release Date: 10.23.2012
Current TS3 Support: 3.0.10.1

Hello everyone! It's time for another stable release of ACRE! This time major priority has been given to stability and bug fixes, with a focus on radio reliability, which we view as the core of our modification. We have found and fixed or mitigated a number of issues related to ACRE and its components, in both the TS3 plugin and the Arma code. This includes an almost total overhaul of the spectator system, which now works very well when turned on by spectator scripts.

Increased stability hasn't been the only thing achieved in this release though. Time has been spent on additional features, the most major of them being 4 different modes for direct speaking. In addition to the original static volume curve for direct speaking voice fall off we have implemented an additional 3 modes.

The first of which is our new Amplitude mode, in which the range of a persons voice directly corresponds to the amplitude of the speaker; yelling is yelling, whispering is whispering. This is the most immersive mode we have right now and really increases the feeling of being there. While this mode is very stable, it does rely heavily on coordinated calibration with the people who play, mics being too quiet or too loud will cause people to sound unnaturally louder or softer than they should be. Because of this we plan in the future to introduce a calibration tool to help stabilize people's voice levels. Until then though this mode is not the default mode.

The last two modes are also highly requested features. Taking inspiration from the original A2TS mod that ACRE owes its spirtual origins to we have introduced two modes that allow dynamic selection of the voice curve. While we do not provide an interface as of yet for these new features there is an extensive API for the system and already multiple communities in the ACRE testing group have developed their own systems for changing the range at which someone's voice travels.

Another major change has been some fixes to 5.1/7.1 handling in Teamspeak 3. While this code is still somewhat unstable due to the nature in how TS3 handles (or mishandles maybe) audio data, it is available for you to try. We hope that you have success with this, but can not guarantee any stability.

We hope that the new stability and features of ACRE 1.4 continue to impress and as always our goal is to exceed any and all expectations in regards to game communications; allowing for the most realistic and immersive communications engine within ANY current simulation or video game on the market today.

The ACRE team would like to thank the entire ArmA2 community for its support, and is proud to announce the latest stable version of the addon for everyones enjoyment.

- IDI Systems / ACRE Team -

WHERE TO PLAY?
United Operations is the OFFICIAL ACRE COMMUNITY! Come play with us at http://unitedoperations.net!

NEED HELP?
Bug tracker & Wiki: http://tracker.idi-systems.com/projects/acre
Please feel free to ask questions in this thread, or visit our official community, UnitedOperations.net, as there is almost always someone around to help with any issues.

DOWNLOAD
Available on the SixUpdater Official Network
Development/Current non-public builds available on the UnitedOperations.Net SixUpdater Server
Zip Package: http://raceriv.com/arma2/acre/ACRE_V1.4.10.500.zip

REQUIREMENTS
* CBA - Community Base Addons (not included)
. http://dev-heaven.net/wiki/cca
* JayArmA2Lib (Included)
. http://dev-heaven.net/projects/jayarma2lib/wiki
* Arma 2 Beta Build (if using included JayArmA2Lib)
. http://www.arma2.com/beta-patch.php

LINKS
Wiki - http://tracker.idi-systems.com/projects/acre/wiki
FAQ - hhttp://tracker.idi-systems.com/proj..._Bug_Reporting
Tracker - http://tracker.idi-systems.com/projects/acre/issues

Whats new in 1.4?
* Increased Stability and bug fixes!
* Optional dynamic voice models!
* Rewrite of the ACRE spectator system (see acre_api_fnc_setSpectator in the API documentation linked above)



GENERAL FEATURES
* Five ACRE-Specific Radios

. AN/PRC-117F man pack radio
. AN/PRC-119 man pack radio
. AN/PRC-148 handheld radio
. AN/PRC-152 handheld radio
. AN/PRC-343 personal role radio

* Vehicles now contain rack mounts and already included radios!

. AN/VRC-103 (AN/PRC-117F Vehicle Rack)
. AN/VRC-111 (AN/PRC-148 Vehicle Rack)
. AN/VRC-110 (AN/PRC-152 Vehicle Rack)

* Rack mounts contain loud speakers that allow anyone within hearing distance to listen to radio conversations!
* 100% ACE2 Compatible

. Integration with all ACE2 man pack radios, using default AN/PRC-119 statistics.

* ACRE now implements ACRE interaction keys utilizing the CBA framework. Most player should be familiar with these from their prominence in ACE2.
* PRC-343 now replaces the default ArmA2 'ItemRadio'
* Realistic GUI interfaces for radios, they are the real thing
* Directional speaking for non-radio, normal communications

. Real-time 3d positional information

* Realistic terrain affects for radios

. Signal lose & distortion from buildings, hills, trees, and other objects
. Realistic power output and antenna length considerations for all radios that effect signal
. Realistic frequency wavelength falloff; higher frequencies do not travel as far
. Real-time positional calculation for fast-moving objects

* Separate Push-To-Talk key (non-toggle) for using your radio

. If a person speaks on their radio and you aren't on that frequency, you can hear them 'directly'

* Multiple hotkeys and quick-displays for fast information about your radios
* Players can carry multiple radios on different frequencies

. Hot-swap radio hotkey
. Current radios selection menu
. Pop-up display on broadcast to know current radio in use

* Radios are now considered unique objects within the ArmA2 world

. Radios are droppable and maintain ALL settings for anyone who picks them up
. Program a radio and trade it with a player!
. Pick up your dead enemies radio and discover his platoon's frequency

* Man pack Radios have the ability to use 'PA' mode in a vehicle, broadcast at 40,000mW!
* Custom Squawk sounds for all radio transmissions (credits to Krause)
* Realistic distortion effects

. Normal broadcasting distortion
. Signal lose distortion and noise

* 100% BattlEye compatible
* Performance and desync considerations

. All time critical radio information is communicated via TeamSpeak3, server desync doesn't break ACRE
. Crash/Desync fallback functionality. Sound "anomalies" are no longer possible with lag/desync.
. Optimized distance, terrain, positional and signal calculations
. Use of JayArmA2Lib for Named pipes communication; 0-latency inter-process communication between TS3-ArmA2
. Server side garbage collection of radios to prevent object clutter/long mission lag
. Many fixes for ts3/arma2 crashes, server/mission disconnects

* Global 15 second reset for any of these scenarios
* Dead player and respawn handling for both radio and direct chat

Changelog between 1.3.5 and 1.4.10

-- 1.4.10 --
* TS3 Version increase to 3.0.9
* Fixed Muting again - now unmutes all local mutes

-- 1.4.9 --
* Fixed surround and falloff issues for different 5.1/7.1/3.1/Stereo issues with TS3.
* Fixed clients not getting unmuted if in different channel, disconnected, or if you restart TS3
* Fixed ACE inheritance issue
* Fixed ACE ruck capacity of 117/119

-- 1.4.8 --
* Drastically reduced pipe traffic, hopefully increased named pipe bandwidth... should fix some reliability issues at high player counts as well as sticky direct speaking.

-- 1.4.7 --
* Fixed bug where per-frame handler code would run after mission end causing odd behavior

-- 1.4.6 --
* Moved even more loops to per-frame handlers
* Refactored code to use less scheduled execution time

-- 1.4.5 --
* Moved more loops to per-frame handlers
* Moved critical server loops to non-scheduled execution

-- 1.4.4 --
* Final build for release.

-- 1.4.3 RC4 --
* Bug that wasn't allowing volume to be attenuated by vehicles in direct speaking when using original voice model.

-- 1.4.2 RC3 --
* Default voice curve model is now the original model.
* Removed some debugging code that was causing server crashes/desync.
* Increased radio volume.
* Potential independent setting of soundpack volume (not tested).

-- 1.4.1 RC2 --
* Implemented different voice scale modes.
* Added persistant speaking events while speaking to compensate for potential TS3 packet loss.
* Tweaked amplitude model

-- 1.4.0 RC1 --
* 5.1/7.1 fixed
* Direct speaking distance is based on the actual volume of the speaker
* Multiple bug/stability fixes through 1.3.x series

-- 1.3.19 --
* Loudspeakers now are based on distance including the distance to the actual speaker, taking over when closer to them.
* Respawn gear script handling has been improved/fixed.
* Cleaner handling of lagged respawn gear scripts.
* Switched direct speaking from using visiblePosition to getPosASL because visiblePosition appears to be horribly lagged (despite its name).
* Small clean ups, tweaks, etc.

-- 1.3.18 --
* More overhaul of spectator system
* Direct speaking oddities fixed up, no more sharp pan behind head, less noise in direct voices, more balanced panning

-- 1.3.17 --
* Overhaul of spectator system
* Attempt to fix global blip on respawn
* Muting was not functioning correctly for people not on the same radio channels
* Vehicle racks retooled
* Buddy radios retooled

-- 1.3.16--
* Version upgrade due to many issues in 1.3.15.
* Major stability fixes and debugging information added.

-- 1.3.15--
* Version upgrade due to many issues in 1.3.14.

-- 1.3.14--
* TS 3.0.3 Support
* Performance changes, multiple loops moved to per-frame handler non-scheduled environment.

-- 1.3.12--
* Memory Leak Hotfix
* Fix for Arma2 wrong pos at distance bug fix.

-- 1.3.11--
* Fixed: Cut outs should be much reduced on both radios and direct speaking.

-- 1.3.10 --
* Fixed: ACRE no longer causes cutouts. Wow?
* Fixed: With Stereo sound, you would still hear people really far away when they were REALLY far away

-- 1.3.9 --
* FIXED TS3 ISSUE WHERE STEREO SOUND WAS IMPROPERLY MIXED BY TS3!

-- 1.3.8 --
* Changed: Updated API version and made compatible for TS3 3.0.0 Final
* Fixed: Locality issue where closing a dialog would close it on other clients as well
* Fixed: Muting was occurring oddly for spectators.
* Fixed: Playerlist construction while people were dead was...interesting.
* Fixed: Possible locking and syncing issues with current radio lists

-- 1.3.7 --
* Added: Preparation class definitions for different antenna's and powers in vehicles (not implemented yet)
* Changed: PA mode removed from AN/PRC-119. It now sucks compared to the 117F in all respects.
* Fixed: Signal code was running faster than it should have, causing FPS lag @ greater than 60 players.
!!!!!!!!* Fixed: ArmA2 has a engine bug for positions at a distance, causing signal loss.
This is now fixed. We manually propagate our positions, so signals now always work
when distances are greater than 10km. Yay ArmA2 bug workarounds.
* Fixed: There was a small chance that you would start a mission and radios would disappear.
* Fixed: When you "stopped using" a vehicle rack radio, it would break for a misison.

-- 1.3.6 --
* Changed: Death and spectating completely revamped. Again. Fixes death blip and spectating bugs.
* Fixed: RPT antenna error. Fixes #153
* Fixed: Parachutes had VRC's. Fixes #150
* Fixed: Vehicle racks would stop working after certain amounts of time. Fixes #152
* Fixed: When you died inside a vehicle or respawned, you would still have the radio after respawn.

-- 1.3.5 --
* Changed: Removed ACRE version popup error in TS3
* Fixed: Your radio would not work when you respawned with it and a vehicle rack radio. Fixes #137
* Fixed: Retransmission was not working under some circumstances.
* Fixed: Unmounting a radio while using it didn't get handled properly.
* Fixed: isKindOfRadio/hasKindOfRadio fixed (again, sorry). Fixes #140
* Fixed: Trying to mount a radio while already using one caused a script error. Fixes #141
* Fixed: You can now only "Use Radio" once at a time on a radio. Fixes #143
* Fixed: setSpectator did not work. Fixes #128

THANKS
* All the official & unofficial ACRE testers
* UnitedOperations.Net Community for dealing with us pushing broken updates all the time
* Havoc Company (www.havoc-company.com) for all the 1-on-1 and beta time
* rexehuk for killing so many animals on our behalf
* Shack Tactical (www.shacktac.com) for multiple thorough testing sessions
* SSG Clan (www.ssg-clan.se) for so much thorough testing and dealing with crashes
* Task Force Blackjack for their unending unguided testing and bug reports which have helped us so much
* The ACE/CBA teams for random scripting and engine discussions and debugging
* All the various ArmA2 Skype channels for listening to us (Think tank, im looking at you)
* Sickboy specifically for his heavy work and integration on making with SixUpdater became a reliable and extensive platform to deliver ACRE and JayArmA2Lib
* BI Forums community for the support

[Tholozor]

Outstanding!

[Jsmuk]

Great to finally see this update, it has a few features (Vehicle racks!) that I have wanted to use again for ages.

Is it up on Six Updater?

[NouberNou]

Not up on SIX yet. Should be within the next 24 hours.

[Heaney]

This exceeds my expectations. This is the greatest thing in the last 2 months.

10/10.

One feature request: different output device for direct chat and radio. If this is possible for you it would be really immersive, as we could have direct chat coming through speakers and radio through headset.

One thing if you did this though, is you would need to have it so that if someone talks on a radio ON THE SAME CHANNEL as you close to you, they would also output direct chat to you. So 2 at the same time.

[Jsmuk]

One feature request: different output device for direct chat and radio. If this is possible for you it would be really immersive, as we could have direct chat coming through speakers and radio through headset.

One thing if you did this though, is you would need to have it so that if someone talks on a radio ON THE SAME CHANNEL as you close to you, they would also output direct chat to you. So 2 at the same time.

This would be pretty damn cool, its a shame I don't think its actually possible

[NouberNou]

I would also like to implement that sort of thing, but I do not see it being a feature we could easily build on top of Teamspeak sadly. We do have our own voice client, but it is fairly far away from anything we'd want to release to the public, as its meant for more controlled environments.

[Heaney]

Okay thanks for the response. I understand that a project like this has to hit limitations *some* time.

Without being annoying may I ask- what are your plans for Arma 3?

We do have our own voice client, but it is fairly far away from anything we'd want to release to the public, as its meant for more controlled environments.

So one day could you have this launch semi-integrated with Arma 2 on Six Updater, the way that aceclippi is?

And then you could have a way for people to set their IP for voice server in init.sqf.

So from the player's perspective, they launch arma 2 and join the server, and they're talking once they're in. No voice client is apparent to them...

Dude. Or am I dreaming?

[brightness]

Sadly this function

acre_api_fnc_joinServer;

doesn't work (I know, I read it wasn't sure if it was working) but it could been a day saver for most Units new pubbers - Just having TS open then go to an box and press "Join ts"

Good update thought!

[Sickboy]

Up on SU - was out yesterday.