Speech Enhancement Package

[+Menrva]

I have been using Polak's beautiful speech package, which enhances stock voices, and recently I decided to tweak the SpeechSystem.ini file to add the missing voices by Hawkeye ("call the ball" and "Vampire"). With some tweaks and .str hex editing I managed to put Red Crown back as the original TACC, while adding Hawkeye's voices as separate for the two mentioned instances. By chance I even fixed the following stock bug:

[Concept080]
//MSN_SPC_WING_REPLY_NEGATIVE_ENGAGED,
TargetFragmentID=SPC_WING_NUMBER
BodyFragment002=SPC_WING_REPLY_NO
BodyFragment001=SPC_WING_REPLY_PADLOCKED

to

[Concept080]
//MSN_SPC_WING_REPLY_NEGATIVE_ENGAGED,
TargetFragmentID=SPC_WING_NUMBER
BodyFragment001=SPC_WING_REPLY_NO
BodyFragment002=SPC_WING_REPLY_PADLOCKED

Below, a screenshot showing a edited .str file. It no longer displays "Call the ball" (capital letter after a comma), instead it displays "call the ball". I made other little fixes like this. Red Crown comes back as it should have been since day one. Hawkeye missed a number of voices and it's not even mentioned by Departure and other flights. The Hawkeye callsign is no longer mentioned, and his additional voices can be considered as those of an aircraft carrier controller, or something like that.

Someone might be interested, so I'll release the package when I feel it's ready. It's way more polished than what we got on the stock game. Before you ask, there's no way to add more voices like we had in the past for Snoopy and the Ground forces. They are all mentioned in the SpeechSystem.ini file. TK simply locked some triggers that enabled such dialogues.

The mod comes with a plus; there's no need to use two different folders (Speech and SpeechUSN), as long as one edits the NATIONS.ini file so that every country uses the stock USAFSpeech and USAFSpeechText .cat archives; only a Speech folder is really needed.

Edited February 3, 2019 by Menrva

[JosefK]

Thanks for doing this, any chance to replace "Red Crown" with some other term...  just doesn't exactly seem right as the term comes from a Navy destroyer sitting off of North Vietnam (that I remember all the way back from Jane's Fighter Anthology and playing Vietnam War in SF2).  Magic as if a call from AWACS seems possible.  Understand if no.

 

Otherwise, many thanks!

[+Menrva]

1 hour ago, JosefK said:

any chance to replace "Red Crown" with some other term...  just doesn't exactly seem right as the term comes from a Navy destroyer sitting off of North Vietnam (that I remember all the way back from Jane's Fighter Anthology and playing Vietnam War in SF2).  Magic as if a call from AWACS seems possible.  Understand if no.

In theory I could. However, I would need to tweak a number of soundfiles and create arbitrary names from the voices I already have. The result may not be good at all. Basically, I would have to use existent voices (obviously), cut them and join them so they form something that sounds different, like "Hawkeye" or something else. "Hawkeye" sounds nice and generic, but I need to create Hawkeye for Departure, and other entities who name it. I'll see what I can do. If the result is decent enough, expect a change. Otherwise, I can simply remove "Red" from "Red Crown", and "Crown" would sound a bit more generic.

Oh, BTW, I guess you recall Red Crown from Jane's USAF instead. I remember that in it there were different AWACS and controllers, like Red Crown, Buck Eye, Magic, etc.

Edited February 3, 2019 by Menrva

[+Menrva]

I managed to create some sound samples from the original ones; now "Hawkeye" is named by Departure and other flights, instead of Red Crown. I am not 100% happy about the result, but this is the best I could with the original samples saying other things such as "Tomahawk", "High", "Flight", etc.

Edited February 7, 2019 by Menrva

[CowboyTodd41]

Actually, it should be period accurate. "Red Crown" was still being used as the callsign for the fighter controller on the USS Bunker Hill even during Desert Storm

Here is a google books excerpt from "Desert Storm at Sea: What the Navy Really Did" about Red Crown Operations.

[+Menrva]

21 minutes ago, CowboyTodd41 said:

Actually, it should be period accurate. "Red Crown" was still being used as the callsign for the fighter controller on the USS Bunker Hill even during Desert Storm

Good to know! Nothing prevents me from releasing alternative files, for those who prefer Hawkeye instead of Red Crown or viceversa.

[+Menrva]

Mod is coming next week!

  

Edited February 7, 2019 by Menrva