TARS is a plugin which will allow you to integrate DCS: A-10 with Teamspeak 3.
The concept is simple: No channel switching in Teamspeak to ruin immersion. Rather, multiplayer communication ought to be accomplished by setting the radio in the plane to an agreed upon frequency and using that. You have radios in the game, so why not be able to extend that level of immersion to the multiplayer environment using Teamspeak? If other Teamspeak users are on that radio channel and they're in the same Teamspeak 3 channel as you, they will be able to communicate with you over any of the radios in your aircraft. If you die and/or go to spectator mode, you will automatically be placed into a parallel “virtual channel” where you can communicate with your fellow spectators without having to switch channels in Teamspeak.
We hope to release a beta for testing in early 2011. Since we are in a very early phase of development now, the TARS team's current goal is to gather input from the community at this stage, just in case there's a gem of a feature that heavy-MP users need that we can try to implement in the first phase of the project.
Planned features include:
- Automatic control of your radio communications based on what channel you're tuned to and whether or not your radios are on. If you are on a given channel that other players are on, you'll be able to communicate with them without having to worry if you're in the correct Teamspeak channel.
- Dead/Spectator enforcement. If you get killed in-game, you will be sent into a spectator mode where you'll be able to communicate with other players who are dead and/or spectating.
- Radio effective range enforcement. VFM FM radio, for instance, has a limited broadcast range when compared to its AM counterpart. This ought to reflect in gameplay.
- TARS is planned around a client based architecture, with no need to install extra software or otherwise modify the Teamspeak 3 server where you play.
- Planned future integration with Black Shark once A-10 integration is complete.
If possible (and as a secondary objective), we'll be adding radio filter effects based on things like distance and radio type, for a more immersive gaming experience.
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Now, how does Folk fit into this? Well, those of us who play DCS can help in the effort by assisting with some early testing!
Announcements will be posted to the DCS forum. In the meantime, you can help by providing me with as much radio-specific knowledge regarding UHF and VHF FM comms as you have, so that nothing particularly egregious slips through the cracks with development. I've spent plenty of time communicating on general aviation VHF radios and know the gist of how that works, but I haven't had the opportunity to use some of the mor advanced stuff. So, the ins and outs of that would definitely be good resources to have. More announcements will appear here and in the DCS forum as necessary.
