Useful addons/mods

VAICOM

This makes VoiceAttack worth using in DCS. Have a functional conversation with AI:

Ground crew (chief or crew)
- request rearm
- remove wheel chocks
- request launch (carrier)
- salute (initiate launch; see CNATRA P-816: CV PROCEDURES p.31: FLIGHT PROCEDURES)
ATC (tower, traffic, or specific airfields, e.g. anapa in the Caucasus)
- request startup
- request taxi to runway
- request takeoff
- inbound
- request vectoring
Flight (flight, element, section, or springfield, dodge, ford, etc),
Wingman (one or lead, two or winger, three, etc; use with springfield, etc)
AWACS (AWACS, overlord, magic, darkstar, focus, wizard, or nearest AWACS)
- request picture
- bogey dope (CNATRA P-828: ADVANCED NFO CAS PROCEDURES p.255, inc. BRAA p.256)
and JTAC (uzi, tusk, etc)
- see CNATRA P-828 p.72: DIVISION CAS TACTICS AND PROCEDURES

Also navigate menus on multiplayer servers using; say Options to open the F10 menu and Take # to navigate (e.g. take one two to close the menu). There’s also server, mystery, and cargo shortcuts into the menu.

VAICOM makes the game state available at Crystal Palace. Try

briefing
status
[JTAC/AWACS/darkstar/magic] interrogate

User manual

Disable Auto Frequency Tuning

Motivation

Normally VAICOM will auto-tune radios based on who you call for whenever the Easy Communication option is set. On multiplayer servers you don’t have control over that option, so auto-tuning will be forced on you.

For a more challenging experience on all servers, I set every instance of the AutoTune flag to false. This disables all autotuning functions, ignoring any options you have set in the UI.

Installation

Replace the file exported by VAICOM

with this one. This goes in

%DCS%\Scripts\UI\RadioCommandDialogPanel

e.g.

H:\Games\DCS World\Scripts\UI\RadioCommandDialogPanel\RadioCommandDialogsPanel.lua

Copy the original to RadioCommandDialogsPanel.lua.orig; VAICOM exports this automatically by default so it shouldn’t be necessary, but you can diff against it to see every change.

No promises that this file will work for you. If it doesn’t, just search for AutoTune and replace every true with false.

Configure VAICOM to keep changes

The only way to force VAICOM to not overwrite these changes every time it runs is to deny it write permission to the file.

Add a permission to the folder denying Everyone subfolder delete privileges; apply this to only the containing folder.
Add a permission to the file denying Everyone write privileges.

It’s not clear to me yet if this interferes with any other functionality; nothing in the manual implies that, and I don’t see anything in the files to suggest it.

Note that if you repair, or maybe even update, DCS then you may have to do this all over again.

Config window