AVCS4 Falcon BMS Radios Manual

It is important to understand that voice recognition is only as good as we speak.  Learning how to enunciate and emphasise certain troublesome words & phrases can make a big difference.  I generally make my profiles to include loose recognition options including homophones and use of wildcard commands which may allow any phrase which starts/contains/ends with the command to trigger.

This all depends heavily on proper initial setup of VoiceAttack, which should have included training your Windows Speech Profile for the first time through Windows' own tools, and to complete this training session more than one time for better results.  Users with a strong regional speech accent may find additional training sessions helpful.  My Australian friend said they found success after training it a dozen times, but that may be excessive and generally not required in most cases.

Recognition issues in my AVCS profiles for VoiceAttack are generally fixed through proper training of the Windows Speech Recognition through the training sessions, 3 times completely through the entire training session, at least.  If you have a strong accent as mentioned, there can be plenty of tricky issues that may pop up.  Fortunately, there is a wealth of knowledge on this subject, as well as live support available through the VoiceAttack Discord (see #addendum below).  One place to start is the VoiceAttack Manual - with VoiceAttack as the active window, press F1 to open the VoiceAttack Manual. Review the Quick Start Guide near the beginning, and also the Troubleshooting section around page 233 (or thereabouts).  It’s a matter of narrowing down where the problem lies, and this can be different for everyone.

If certain words are not being recognized, you can train your Windows Speech Recognition profile to recognize your specific pronunciation of those words through the link in VoiceAttack options to 'Add/Remove Dictionary Words':

Follow prompts to add a new dictionary word, and select the box to “Record a pronunciation upon Finish”, and you can train the engine on how YOU say a particular word:

For troubleshooting more general recognition issues in VoiceAttack, please check out this post on this common topic:
https://forum.voiceattack.com/SMF?topic=1635.0

For further support with general VoiceAttack issues (not related specifically to AVCS) such as voice recognition in general, the VoiceAttack discord is available with plenty of helpful volunteers ready to help new users:
https://voiceattack.com/discord

Find additional links for VoiceAttack and AVCS4 BMS Help & Support in the addendum below:
#addendum

The Quick Command Creator allows up to 225 Simple Keypress Commands and up to 225 Advanced Multi-Step Commands to be created by voice command and some simple pop-up windows to guide users through creation.  These commands have the added benefit of allowing options at the end, such as playing an Audio Feedback Mode sound (AFM) upon successful recognition, or gating the command behind the Push to Talk Mode (PTT), or even requiring a simple yes/no confirmation or VAS authorization code to execute the command.  QCC cannot possibly replace the standard method for creating new voice commands using the VoiceAttack editor, but provides an excellent way to create last minute voice commands once already in-game, and to create new commands which more easily take advantage of AVCS systems like AFM, PTT, or VAS, or even the Save File System (SFS) where all user created QCC command phrases and actions data sits, along with other user settings.

Most command phrases have been pulled directly from the in-game radio menu list, and therefore may be less than natural to speak.  I have created many Alternate Phrase Commands already within the AVCS4 BMS Radios profile for some of the more obvious radio calls, and these are simply voice commands with more natural phrasing which call existing voice commands (in their 'unnatural' specific phrasing).

Users can add their own new Alternate Phrase Commands for any existing voice command with the included AVCS CORE Quick Command Creator system.  In the example below, we'll create an Alternate Phrase Command for the cumbersome and technically incorrect voice command "Report on Final" so that we can just say "on final" instead, but we can use a Wildcard asterisk to allow us to say ANYTHING before "on final" and still trigger command recognition (such as "Cowboy 7 on final").

Step 1:
Say, "Create a new Voice Command"
(it will ask if you are sure, say, "Yes")

The first pop-up will ask which type of command you want to create, select "Advanced Voice Command(s)"

Step 2:
Enter your new "When I say" phrase for this command, for this example we should use a Wildcard (*) before the phrases, so that we could say anything before these words to trigger this command
Type out:
*on final

Step 3:
Next, we choose the action for step 1 of this advanced command.  From the drop-down list in the pop-up, select "Execute another voice command (by name)"

Step 4:
Since we just want to call an existing command, we only have to enter that command exactly as it is recognized already - in this example, "Report on final"  (*not case sensitive)
Type out:
Report on final

Step 5:
Execute existing command action has options, in this example we do not need to wait for this command to complete, it can just fire off and proceed/exit as soon as it's ready.
Choose "Do not wait for command to complete"

Step 6:
Next, the QCC asks if we want to add a Step 2 to this command, this is used for creating macro commands, but since we are done here, 1 step will be all we do.
Choose "(done - save and continue)" or just click OK

Step 7:
At the end of any new QCC command created, you can choose to go back and edit, or add options that will be part of this command - toggle* these options here if you desire. 
 *Note that we are calling a command that already has Push-To-Talk and Audio Feedback mode checks as part of its makeup - enabling them for this 'calling command' would be redundant, and slow down execution to a slight degree - AFM would literally play 2 audio feedback cues if it was enabled for this QCC command, and the AFM master mode was on.

Step 8:
Finally, the QCC system will save the command, and ask if you want to add another command, or exit.
Choose "(NO - save changes and exit)" or just click OK

AVCS will then reinitialize the profile to load any new/changed voice commands for VoiceAttack, and your new alternate phrasing will now be live.

NOTES:
You can add multiple phrasings to any QCC command - the phrase input box allows wildcards and dynamic command syntax following standard VoiceAttack rules.

Wildcards:     (see VoiceAttack Manual for complete information)

*my command    ← anything that ENDS WITH the phrase "my command"
my command*    ← anything that BEGINS WITH the phrase "my command"
*my command*   ← anything that CONTAINS the phrase "my command"

Dynamics (where the ";" should be read as "or"):

my command 1;my command 2
my command [1;2]
[my;his] command [1;2]
[my;his] command [1;2];that command 1;that command 2;this command [3;4]
[my;his;that;this] command [1..4]

examples:

-or-

Never rename an AVCS profile or it will break key functions!

To view the current profile version of any AVCS profile, first switch to it and let it initialize - the profile title inside the VoiceAttack event log should display the complete version.
The profile name will always read the profile package version without the minor version, because this is unknown to it.

Say, "Show the Profile Version", anytime to see the full version of the currently active AVCS profile

Version Labeling Notes

Using current AVCS4 BMS profile version (at time of this post) for this example - v1.40.2

First number: 1.40.2 - this is the CORE version number, and corresponds to the CORE version of the required AVCS CORE profile, specifically the large F_CORE_INITIALIZE function inside it
Second number: 1.40.2 - this is the MAJOR version number, and corresponds to the current Profile Download Package imported into VoiceAttack, and the folder number of config files
Third number: 1.40.2 - this is the MINOR version number, and corresponds to the current Config Patch Version and active set of config files last synced with most recent versions on the VG website

 

A profile package will never show the MINOR version number in the profile name shown in VoiceAttack when selecting a profile; this number is unknown to it (and irrelevant to it). The complete version will always be displayed in the VoiceAttack event log after initializing any AVCS profile, including the MINOR version number. In this example, if I change a profile system in v1.40 requiring a new download, this would be a "Major" update, and the name of the next package would be v1.41

Minor Updates (config patch only - NO profile download required)
When a small issue is found such as variables in profile config files, including text to speech phrases used by the profile, keys pressed by voice commands, or even the text phrasings of voice commands themselves, most bugs can be fixed with a minor patch update which does not involve downloading a new VoiceAttack profile and importing it. These simple "Live Update" patches sync the config files of users to those on the website, first taking the current configs you are using and placing them into a 'previous' minor version folder. This is so that users can 'rollback' one of these patches in the event that it is needed.

Major Updates (profile download required)
When larger issues involve changing actual voice command actions inside the profile, a new download package must be created and a new Major version update is released, requiring users to download and import a new profile into VoiceAttack. I try to avoid this as much as possible, which is why I have put so much of the operation values into the config files, and included a system to add new simple commands through minor version patch updates by using the QCC system to augment current hard-set voice commands and rigid action lists.