Observations v V2.7.2.0

[Olmba 27]

Hi,

Again thanks for great support.
In my opinion MCE is one of the top 5 addons for simmers, and the potential for this application have no limits. To contribute to make it even better i have for the last month noted down some observation I would like to share.

Checklist
[ ] Oxygen                     --    Tested 100% 
Not work when say  "tested 100%". More information in this post:

[ ] Autobrake             --    Set
When reply saying "set" small pause occur and FO reply with "now set" Nothing happen to the switch even if it already on or off

Script

• Pace
  Whatever changes applied in the pace section of the mce.ini nothing seems to change
  With no pauses added, some pauses occurs for some items. Below is one example, this also occurs for other items.
  anti collision light on 
  flight control switches a and b position to guard closed 
  flight spoiler control switches a and b position to guard closed 
  yaw damper on
  (pause for about 20 second)
  alternate flaps switch off
  vhf nav to normal
  (pause for about 20 second)
  nav irs normal
  (pause for about 20 second)
  fmc nav position to normal
  (pause for about 20 second)
  fuel crossfeed close
  left aft fuel pump on
  left forward fuel pump off
  right forward fuel pump off
  right aft fuel pump off
  galley power on
  emergency lights arm
  no smoking sign on
  seat belt sign on
  window heat test
  window heat on
  hydraulic pump engine one on
  hydraulic pump engine two on
  hydraulic pump electrical one off
  hydraulic pump electrical two off
  check flight data recorder
  check overspeed warning
  check stall warning
  trim air on
  recirculating fan one to on
  (pause for about 20 second)
  recirculating fan two to on
  (pause for about 20 second)
  left pack auto
  (pause for about 20 second)
  right pack auto
  (pause for about 20 second)
  isolation valve open
  (pause for about 20 second)
  apu bleed air on
  bleed one open
  bleed two open
   
• Flight director two
  fd two on
  If already on, FO turn this to off . FD one is ok
•  Commands
  Not found any command for APU trip bleed reset

Speech recognition

• FO stop responding
  This seems to happen when dealing with numbers and it happen randomly (restart is required)

PTT
So far i never use MCE with external ATC programs. I fly on Vatsim most of the time, so I want my joystick button to mute when talking to ATC . mce.ini is set to "UseWithVoxATC=1" , and [VATSIM]NotifyPTTstate=1 . When start up MCE the PTT dosent work and to make this work I must start up MCE with ATCnative enable. The backside is that  ATC window popping up now and then. If disable ATC it still works but if forgot to enable ATC before closing, MCE starts up with ATC disable, and now the PTT doesn't work.  To make it work again, disable ATC with untick "Talk to ATC controllers" then under the ATC section untick and tick  Use DEL key for transmitting (My PTT button is already ticket) Sometime doing this process it make MCE to crash

Push-back
Sometimes make couatl to crash when ask for "need to start engine before push-back"  Maybe this option should be set in mce.ini and make a tick box in the UI?

Refueling 
This is personal preference ,when saying your fuel figure the ground crew respond with "What did you say or I make your pardon, understod"  before entering the correct fuel figure. For me that mean the figure is not understood. Could this be changed so you only will be asked to confirm the fuel figure?

Mute/Unmute 
Again personal preference, when using "NumLock" for disable recognition and when enable, sometimes the FO or other part of the crew ask, "do you need something" well with already high work load in the cockpit, this is only disturbing 

 

[FS++ 707]

Roger that.

We'll look at these items, and hopefully have a fix for most of them this week.

 

[Olmba 27]

Thanks,

One more observation is that couat crash after you are been asked if de-icing is required..

[FS++ 707]

15 hours ago, Olmba said:

Thanks,

One more observation is that couat crash after you are been asked if de-icing is required..

OK,  will be looked at as well.

Regarding Checklist feature.

Suggest you rename your custom checklist to something like "My_Norwegian_NGX_Check.txt" or whatever else. Just make it different from the default assigned checklist name.

Run P3D and MCE at least once, and assign the renamed file for that NGX livery.

Go to \My Documents\Multi Crew Experience\Checklists\ folder.

There should be a file named "New-name_rdr.xml"

Send it to support[at]multicrewxp.com

Regarding auto-brake...

Not sure whether you're aware of this.

There is an option "strict checklist" in "Advanced Options" panel.

When enabled, whenever possible, if FO isn't entirely satisfied with your answer, he will try to set the item as per checklist, and you'd hear "Now set".

For instance, if the checklist item was [ ] Autobrake  --  RTO and the switch wasn't already in RTO, he'd set it on the fly. Because it's [ ]Autobrake -- Set (it is interpreted (as desired, so no action).

If you don't want FO to touch anything while reading the checklist, de-select option.

[Olmba 27]

With regards to the de-icing error, FO refuse to start the engine if have answers no to complete de-icing before push-back. 

2 hours ago, FS++ said:

Suggest you rename your custom checklist to something like "My_Norwegian_NGX_Check.txt" or whatever else. Just make it different from the default assigned checklist name.

Run P3D and MCE at least once, and assign the renamed file for that NGX livery.

Done with the same result

2 hours ago, FS++ said:

Go to \My Documents\Multi Crew Experience\Checklists\ folder.

There should be a file named "New-name_rdr.xml"

Send it to support[at]multicrewxp.com

It's done

2 hours ago, FS++ said:

There is an option "strict checklist" in "Advanced Options" panel.

When enabled, whenever possible, if FO isn't entirely satisfied with your answer, he will try to set the item as per checklist, and you'd hear "Now set".

For instance, if the checklist item was [ ] Autobrake  --  RTO and the switch wasn't already in RTO, he'd set it on the fly. Because it's [ ]Autobrake -- Set (it is interpreted (as desired, so no action).

If you don't want FO to touch anything while reading the checklist, de-select option.

In this matter FO replay with the same  "now set" wherever Checklist is set to strict or no strict

[Cargostorm 151]

On 21.8.2017 at 11:52 AM, FS++ said:

We'll look at these items, and hopefully have a fix for most of them this week.

 

I have an other observation, and maybe it has been reported before. If I use MCE with PMDG NGX everythings works normally at the beginning. However, some time later in flight mode, if I remain silent for a while, the MCE application freezes. It does not respond anymore and I need to kill the process in the task manager. The folder with the MCE DLL X64 is correcly located in the Prepar3d V4 root folder, so that is not an issue.

[FS++ 707]

1 hour ago, Cargostorm said:

I have an other observation, and maybe it has been reported before. If I use MCE with PMDG NGX everythings works normally at the beginning. However, some time later in flight mode, if I remain silent for a while, the MCE application freezes. It does not respond anymore and I need to kill the process in the task manager. The folder with the MCE DLL X64 is correcly located in the Prepar3d V4 root folder, so that is not an issue.

You may want to go to Windows device manager and check the USB ports aren't set to go to sleep after a while.

When using a USB headset, which has a built-in audio chip, should the latter go to sleep, it may take a while to wake it up. And MCE UI will eventually go unresponsive. Could eventually periodically send something non-disruptive to the speech engine to recognize in order to keep it busy.

But first, check the USB chain isn't going AWOL. Eventually try plugging the USB headset to a different port on the back of the PC. Avoid using USB hubs.

Same can be said of Wireless headsets. 

Because they are designed to preserve battery life, you never know when the device goes to sleep.

[Cargostorm 151]

You may want to go to Windows device manager and check the USB ports aren't set to go to sleep after a while.

2 hours ago, FS++ said:

You may want to go to Windows device manager and check the USB ports aren't set to go to sleep after a while.

 

This is not the reason I am afraid. I used the same heaset for IVAO and VATSIM and MCE was frozen during the flight while I was talking to the ATC controler. So the headset was actually busy, but somehow in V4 MCE gave up. I have not had this problem in P3D V3. I will investigate further.

[FS++ 707]

15 minutes ago, Cargostorm said:

You may want to go to Windows device manager and check the USB ports aren't set to go to sleep after a while.

This is not the reason I am afraid. I used the same heaset for IVAO and VATSIM and MCE was frozen during the flight while I was talking to the ATC controler. So the headset was actually busy, but somehow in V4 MCE gave up. I have not had this problem in P3D V3. I will investigate further.

OK, thanks.

Could be connected to MCE PushToTalk when talking to Vatsim.

 

[charlie130 196]

On 8/21/2017 at 9:11 PM, Olmba said:

Thanks,

One more observation is that couat crash after you are been asked if de-icing is required..

Hello Svein.

I see some occasional Couatl trouble, which can vary from CTD to Couatl stopping?

Are you running the very latest Couatl? Try updating to the latest. Also ensure the airport has fully initialised Couatl before starting MCE. Then check parking position is set correctly for the aircraft you are flying. Sorry if you already know all this, but in my experience there are many things to go wrong with Couatl!

Other factors can affect de ice procedures, such as ambient temperature?

The MCE guys are the "business" when it comes to support so you are in good hands. Things like checklist and flow commands are tricky sometimes and require aircraft specific settings. Autobrake, I usually say "checked", since it's always RTO on take off, you can put that in every time. Landing checklist, usually "Medium", but "checked" covers it nicely and permits the crew to set the appropriate mode whilst accomplishing the checklist item.

Cheers

David

 

[Olmba 27]

Hi David,

Thanks for your advise,

I run latest Coulat, it's random crashes and it seems to be causes by some timing between GSX and MCE ,It also help when FO is available and not working trough some flows :-) "Checked" work for many checklist item, but I when I make scripts  for a specific company  I want them it to be as close to the real life as possible. MCE is one of the best when it comes to support, I'm (100% )  ;-) sure they will come up with a solution .

One idea that just pass trough, what about to implement a function where you can select  a set of sound files to play in random order. Then you can have different safety demonstration, and other that change from time to time.. Is just a wish, I see so many opportunities with MCE and it give me much knowledge about procedures for different aircraft and company's ..

[charlie130 196]

11 hours ago, Olmba said:

Hi David,

Thanks for your advise,

I run latest Coulat, it's random crashes and it seems to be causes by some timing between GSX and MCE ,It also help when FO is available and not working trough some flows :-) "Checked" work for many checklist item, but I when I make scripts  for a specific company  I want them it to be as close to the real life as possible. MCE is one of the best when it comes to support, I'm (100% )  ;-) sure they will come up with a solution .

One idea that just pass trough, what about to implement a function where you can select  a set of sound files to play in random order. Then you can have different safety demonstration, and other that change from time to time.. Is just a wish, I see so many opportunities with MCE and it give me much knowledge about procedures for different aircraft and company's ..

Yes there is a case for looking at GSX/ MCE "timing". I sometimes don't get a push back after answering "negative" for the request "start engines before push back"? But I find it's more Couatl related and airport specific. EGFF is particularly tricky for Couatl, it throws a wobbler at gate 17? Orbx recently updated some scenery and I had to re install Couatl to get it to behave!

Insofar as sound files playing? "Notify" is your best friend! With Notify you can play any .wav file, so you can record what you want and trigger it when you want during a flow. Even make a complete flow with nothing but "notify" lines. You can get FO singing "happy birthday" if you like! Lol! 

You can run different checklists, by renaming them, as Gerald said earlier. So if your company does things in a different order, then that's accommodated! Or merely add, alter or amend the existing checklist.

You seem to be well aware of what's possible with MCE. It's the ability to create accurate flows and checklists specific to the aircaft and furthermore, specific to the company or procedures that you have used before, that's really powerful!

Cheers

David

[RALF9636 1,898]

3 hours ago, charlie130 said:

Yes there is a case for looking at GSX/ MCE "timing". I sometimes don't get a push back after answering "negative" for the request "start engines before push back"? But I find it's more Couatl related and airport specific. EGFF is particularly tricky for Couatl, it throws a wobbler at gate 17? Orbx recently updated some scenery and I had to re install Couatl to get it to behave!

Insofar as sound files playing? "Notify" is your best friend! With Notify you can play any .wav file, so you can record what you want and trigger it when you want during a flow. Even make a complete flow with nothing but "notify" lines. You can get FO singing "happy birthday" if you like! Lol! 

You can run different checklists, by renaming them, as Gerald said earlier. So if your company does things in a different order, then that's accommodated! Or merely add, alter or amend the existing checklist.

You seem to be well aware of what's possible with MCE. It's the ability to create accurate flows and checklists specific to the aircaft and furthermore, specific to the company or procedures that you have used before, that's really powerful!

Cheers

David

Just to avoid confusion, I think you slipped up here a little.

The "Sound=" command is for playing sound files whereas the "Notify=" command is for text that will be read by the FO (preferably with a TTS voice).

 

.

[Olmba 27]

4 hours ago, charlie130 said:

Insofar as sound files playing? "Notify" is your best friend! With Notify you can play any .wav file, so you can record what you want and trigger it when you want during a flow. Even make a complete flow with nothing but "notify" lines. You can get FO singing "happy birthday" if you like! Lol! 

The notify command is not a option in this matter, here is one example;

For my customised script I have added one sound file for departure brief, so when I call for "are you ready for the departure brief" FO respond "Yes I'm ready" and a the script start's playing the defined sound files. 
When you add a sound file in the script editor, it could be pointed to a folder  instead of one single file, so If you have 2 or 100 files inside that folder it will play them randomly. For sure, I will not add 100 happy birthday songs. 

[charlie130 196]

6 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

Just to avoid confusion, I think you slipped up here a little.

The "Sound=" command is for playing sound files whereas the "Notify=" command is for text that will be read by the FO (preferably with a TTS voice).

 

.

Yes that's affirmative! Thank you sir. 

Best regards

David

BTW, I also sometimes use a fourth party voice command program that uses "Jess", but going into that would overcomplicate this thread and isn't recommended when using MCE! But that's why I get a little confused sometimes....lol.