MCE with RC4

[denver69 0]

I have been thinking of getting MCE (Multi Crew Experience) with a headset to try this stuff out. For anyone that has this setup..My style is to have the FO handle the coms (tuning radios and replying to ATC) the entire flight from cleared for takeoff. If I am running MCE can I hand over the comms to the FO and hear him talk to ATC in the Vox voice or will I hear the RC4 voice I assigned him or worse, both. Reason I ask is that if I am doing the voice communications with the FO like checklists and then I hear a different voice when he talks to ATC it will not be very realistic. This may be something I can live with but I am not sure at this point.Thanks

[ohsirus 241]

RC4's FO will handle all the comms if you hand them over. MCE only provides a FO for checklists,etc. There will be two different voices one for the checklists (MCE) and one for ATC(RC4). I personally do the comms for ATC using MCE, and then give the commands to the FO.

[denver69 0]

Thanks.So you mean you tune the radios for him or you do the readbacks and have him do the tuning? I was watching a you tube video and the guy was saying agknowladge to the FO when he wanted the FO to read back ATC instructions. I thought that was a little wierd. I am also thinking of Vox ATC but it sounds like there is a chance it will not work with my system or Mytraffic X judging from many of their forum posts. I'll have to try the demo.Anyway this you tube vide was interesting because RC4 ATC was giving intructions and the actual person was telling the MCE FO to agnowledge the instructions and so the voice was from MCE. So it seems to me they could have coded it to use the MCE voice w/o prompting from the player. I'll have to watch it again to be sure about that.In fact, he even had it rigged so that the FO would pause the checklist to agnowledge ATC instruction, amazing. For me though this is not ideal because in a real airline the FO handles comms on his own and does not need prompting from the captain each time. Unless of course you have 2 different voices going. This actually may not be so bad, I would have to try it out.

[ronzie 21]

RC will use you copilot selected voice when he/she has the comms.There is a disadvantage to a pilot or copilot autoreply. For some ATC commands in RC4 you want to delay response until the action starts especially with aircraft performance delays. For example in the PMDG 737 series often a climb V/S of 200 feet or more takes a bit with an MCP level change or in turbulence you sometimes get a dip before the climb starts either of which will trigger an ATC warning in RC. By delaying the ack or ack and contact you can let the aircraft establish the climb and new heading in the case of modifying an FMC for a direct-to operation from your present position which is three steps. If not very near a checkpoint you can delay an the ack to give you time to do what is necessary to conform to the ATC instruction.

[denver69 0]

Thanks for the relies guys. I decided to try the demo and am having some interface problems with RC4. This may not be the best place to put this but see if any of you guys know:Hi,I followed all instructions. Do not have RC4 on a network, have all key commands at default, no shift or ctrl. Added line to MSI use radar contact=1 and it found .exe. Plus all other instructions in your manual. I load RC4 first then MCE and have use RC4 checked. The FO can understand me very well but when I click the mic to call clearance and use the proper phraseology (I am a real corporate pilot), the RC4 controller does not respond. I am holding the mic down and get the tone the whole time. I have the RC4 options screen as per your manual as well. I can say get radar contact info and my RC4 callsign will apear in your UI but no other flight plan info is there. I am loading a RC4 IFR flight plan up but the MCE UI says free flight with VFR and question marks under departure and destination. This latter problem however may not be correlated to the former for this reason: The first time I did have all my flight plan data in the MCE UI and it still did not work.VHF 1 is tuned to correct frequency.Again in a nutshell a 2 fold problem.1. RC4 controller does not say anything back. RC4 screen does not flash, scroll or anything. I still read options for get weather and contact clearance delivery. When I use the number on the keyboard I am able to get my clearance so RC4 is working. It seems that RC4 is not hearing me or sensing mic button PPT press or something. It is totally disconnected from MCE although as I said above it should work because all the other interfaces between MCE and RC4 are working. And the FO totally understands me.2. Cannot get MCE to see my RC4 IFR flight plan but it does see my RC4 callsign.I am using the demo and am very seriouse about buying this. I am not a freebee guy. I just need to see if I can get it to work on my system.Thank youMarcMaybe some of you may know my problemThanks

Edited January 17, 2012 by denver69

[ronzie 21]

Make sure your RC 4 version is 4.3845.In RC use the keyboard assignment tab to verify the assigned keystrokes.Check your MCE table for phrase recognition and assigned keystrokes.I don't have it but that is how most recognition works.I don't know how MCE would get your flight plan from RC itself unless it is derived from the clearance delivery which you say is not working. Be sure the MCE menu sequence follows the RC menu sequence so you request CD when the correct menu shows. Remember that the RC menu system is context sensitive and may use the same keystrokes for different functions.

[denver69 0]

There is no MCE table per say. I also have the latest RC4 and all keys are default. I think I may have to update from FSUIPC 4.754 to 4.758 and see how that works. One fix was to click use multi line display window which is checked so unfortunately I am one of the fortunate very few with this problem. Got 9 days left to get the demo working before I decide on buying. So far was pretty cool untill I sighed into the mic and the FO turned of both IRS's! But I am sticking with it, I think it has potential.

[Steve1969 8]

There is no MCE table per say. I also have the latest RC4 and all keys are default. I think I may have to update from FSUIPC 4.754 to 4.758 and see how that works. One fix was to click use multi line display window which is checked so unfortunately I am one of the fortunate very few with this problem. Got 9 days left to get the demo working before I decide on buying. So far was pretty cool untill I sighed into the mic and the FO turned of both IRS's! But I am sticking with it, I think it has potential.

There is a phrase table and an IFR tutorial document. Look in the Docs subfolder where you installed MCE e.g. "C:Program Files (x86)Multi Crew ExperienceDocs" and read "IFR RC4 FSX & FS9 ATC.pdf", "interfacing with RC4.pdf" and "Complete ATC manual.pdf" for starters.Make sure you have trained the speech recognition. Also right click on the MCE interface and make sure "show commands in FS" is checked so that you can see how effective the speech recognition is at understanding what you are saying. It does take some time for it to improve.Contact MCE's support as well. They are fab and will hand hold you until it works OK.Best wishesSteve Edited January 18, 2012 by Steveo38

[denver69 0]

Yea, I have read everything. The FO understands me fine so its not an understanding thing. The support guys have had a few with this problem and are working on it.Thanks for the time however.

[ronzie 21]

Even though you want to use default RC keys check that tab anyway. I think it varies from the manual.

[denver69 0]

It is the same. Sounds like they will have the fix for it tomorow. Just a testament to FS++ support, only 2 guys with this problem and they worked to fix it anyway. I am definately going to buy it. You know what else was the coolest thing. I flew an approach into Pheonix Mesa yesteday hand flown from 10,000 while able to use the FD the whole way because I had another hand free to synch the FD to the command bars with the MCP by giving verbal MCP commands to the FO. This was something that was a pain before because of having to mouse click the fields in the MCP while hand flying the aircraft with the FD. Something that is totally easy to do in real life but happens to be a simmism.That in itself is worth the 35 bucks.

[agutz 13]

Hi denver69I would be interested to hear how your story goes on because the problems you describe are the same I had:I did manage (with the help of the ecxellent support team) to set up MCE/RC so that the applications recognise each other (In my case FSX/MCE on the server, RC on the client; MCE doesn't use FSUIPC). MCE could read flight number and the flight plan and I saw the RC window in FSX). However, what did not work was a stable communication between the two. Voice commands concerning the plane were recognised very well but ATC communication was quite bad (only about 30%). MCE support told me repeatedly it was not a voice recognition problem but, for me, it felt like flying with a radio badly needing repair!@ ohsirus: "RC4's FO will handle all the comms if you hand them over."In the version of MCE I have this is not possible with RC (I will check if they changed that in an update). When handed to a new control you have to ack it, change frequencies and contact the next control. That takes some time (rarely did I succeed within the rigid time constraints of RC).We never got to the root of the problem. Again, support was very patient and helpful but couldn't solve it. In the end I gave up.I don't know if this was a problem related to my computer setup but since MCE is one of the rare applications not having a support forum (which is something I dislike) I never found out.Well, there is at least one other person having similar problems.

[denver69 0]

The sent me a link to the demo extension with the fix for me but the link just takes me to generic domain. No biggie, they are so quick I'll probably have the link again in a couple minutes. It's like there in front of their computers all the time! Hopefully this version will work with RC4 but even if it does not I will still probably buy it just for the FO interaction. Inherit limitations with hand flying with the flight director make it inordinately difficult to keep the FD syched by the MCP due to needing a free hand to change the MCP all the time during a buisy aproach. Being able to tell the FO to set the MCP windows with verbal commands allows a much more enjoyable hand fly experience with the NGX and allows being able to do it with the FD. Before I just turned the FD off when hand flying because sometimes I would not have time to change the MCP and it was disorienting to have it showing erroneouse command indications. This alone is worth 35 bucks.

[madmaxland 0]

when will PF3 MCE integration work with x plane 10 or 11?