VoiceAttack-profiles/docs/EliteAttack.md

EliteAttack

This is my personal VoiceAttack profile for Elite: Dangerous. It started out ages ago as a modification of MalicVR’s public profile, then looked less and less and less like that and I added and cleaned up a lot of things while removing the stuff I didn’t use anyway. By now it would have probably been simpler to start from scratch.

Some of it has grown to a state that it might be useful to others in its own package, so I’ve separated the neutron jumping and Seals stuff into their own profiles.

The rest is a random conglomerate of all things VA and E:D; from various voice commands to lots of EDDI event handlers.

Speaking of EDDI; it has become in integral part of my Elite experience, especially the plethora of information it extracts from the game’s journal and presents to you via lots and lots of status variables and by firing various events that can then be handled through VA commands. It’s great. Check it out. (You might want to make it talk a lot less in it’s personality options, or disable the speech responder entirely like I have.)

Requirements

In addition to the bindED and EDDI VoiceAttack plugins, this profiles needs my Python elite-scripts to do everything properly. The release page here includes a compiled version for Windows that does not need Python installed. If you use the profile package from the release page, they will be installed automatically.

Settings

Because Elite’s keyboard handling is … weird you’ll have to set the key to use for pasting text into Elite:Dangerous. If you are not using a “standard” QWERT[YZ] layout, you will have to change it back to the key that is physically in the place where v would be on QWERTY.

For other settings, see the Configuration Variables section.

Including the Profile In Another Profile

This is meant to be a standalone profile, including the others in this repo (and a couple more). It was never designed to be included into your existing profile. Nevertheless, it should work properly if you follow some guide lines:

• Run the startup command. You will need to have a startup command in your profile (= one that is run on profile loading) and call EliteDangerous.startup by name from that one.
• Make sure all EDDI events that EliteDangerous needs are correctly handled. For all events used in EliteDangerous that you already have handlers for in your profile, you’ll have to include a call to EliteDangerous.<event name>. E.g. for “EDDI Jumped”, call EliteDangerous.EDDI Jumped by name from your ((EDDI Jumped)) command.

Usage

Chat Commands

There’s a bunch of commands in here to send certain things to chat. Unless stated otherwise, they will only work with the comms panel active, and you should be in the edit window ready to send. They will not hit Enter on their own.

• clear [chat;text]: Clears the chat window. Use from outside the comms panel.
• [local;squad;system;wing] chat: Puts you into the chosen chat channel.
• paste text: Pastes your clipboard into Elite. Works outside the comms panel too, e.g. on the galaxy map inside the search field.
• salute; oh seven: Will put “o7” into the chat.

Engineering/Materials

• how many [<g5 manufactured materials list>] do i have: Tells you how many of the given g5 manufactured material you currently have on board. I’ve restricted it to just those to not spam speech recognition with too many phrases, and because those are the ones I usually want to know while jumping around the bubble and having an eye on any HGE that might be around.
• open e d engineer: Opens the ED Engineer tool.
• what [mats;materials] do i need?: Runs the EDDI responder that tells you which materials are below wanted threshold. Needs setting those first. Gets very spammy if you do it for all of them; personally I only set them for g5 manufactured, so I can quickly check if it’s worth looking for HGE in a system I’m in.

Events

The main point of this profile is to react to Elite’s journal events (powered by EDDI). Each of the events listed here will trigger a ((EDDI <event>)) command in VoiceAttack which in turn triggers EliteDangerous.EDDI <event> and all included profiles’ similar commands, e.g. SpanshAttack.EDDI <event>.

The actual ((EDDI <event>)) command will only be executed once by VoiceAttack, the first one it can find. Keeping it separate from the actual code to be run makes it easier to handle (multiple) included profiles.

If the command for an event will send key presses to Elite, it focuses the client window first to make sure they get registered properly. If it is not in focus, the first key press might be swallowed otherwise.

For other commands, the profile just assumes that you are actively doing something in game and it is already focused :)

Body Mapped

Announces an estimate for high-value bodies’ payouts and the remaining mapping candidates in the system as given by EDDI.

Body scanned

Announces any interesting body traits found when scanning:

• terraformable
• Earth-like World, Ammonia World or Water World
• landable and >5 g
• semimajor axis <1.5 ls (only really interesting for planets, but there’s no proper way to separate them from moons, sadly)
• radius <300 km

Feel free to suggest more!

Carrier Cooldown

Tells you when your carrier is able to do its next jump. Technically only works if you were docked at it when it performed the jump, but I’m doing some behind-the-scenes magic if you weren’t :)

Might be slightly off (too early) in the latter case.

Carrier Jumped

Announces system and body your carrier has just jumped to.

Carrier Jump Engaged

This event fires when your carrier jumps but you are not docked at it. It provides way less information than the Carrier Jumped event, but hey, I don’t use most of it anyway.

Basically just calls Carrier Jumped (and makes sure that a Carrier cooldown event is triggered manually at approximately the right time).

Carrier Jump Request

Announces the system and body your carrier has just been scheduled to jump to. Use this to double check ingame information; I’ve had my carrier accept a body as jump target, but then end up around the star. This might give you a heads up on that.

Carrier Pads Locked

Announces your carriers lockdown procedures. This might only work when you are docked (which would make it pretty useless). Feel free to open in issue if that’s the case.

Commander Loading

Auto-sets my nick in the FuelRats IRC. Probably largely irrelevant to you.

Discovery Scan

Announces the number of bodies (and non-body signals) found in the system. Also compares the number of bodies to the amount reported by EDSM (requires Python scripts).

Docked

Automatically gets your ship into the hangar and opens station services.

Docking Denied

Tells you the reason for docking denial.

Entered Normal Space

Throttles to 0 upon dropping from SC, if EliteDangerous.hyperSpaceDethrottle is set.

Fighter Launched

Orders your ship to hold position so it doesn’t chase after you immediately.

Jet Cone Boost

Sets your ship to full throttle immediately after you have supercharged.

Jumped

• zeroes throttle
• gets the system’s body count from EDSM (requires Python scripts)
• gets stations with outdated data (older than 1 year) from Spansh’s API
• if you haven’t visited the systems, starts a discovery scan (see the discovery scan command)
• last but not least tells you about planets worth scanning if you are on the R2R

Liftoff

Retracts landing gear for you. Seriously, is there any occasion in which you don’t immediately want to retract it after takeoff?

Low Fuel

Warns you when you reach 25% fuel. Also reports number of jumps you have left or the (rough) range you still have on the fumes left in your tank.

Material Threshold

Warns you when a monitored material falls below it’s minimum stock level. You will have to set a minimum desired amount in EDDI’s material monitor options first for all materials you wish to be monitored.

Message Sent

Checks any message you send for a chat prefix and sends it to the proper chat window. Probably largely useless to you without modification.

• .nc: Actually doesn’t send anything, but runs the RatAttack.announceNearestCMDR command with the system given in the rest of the message.
• .dc: Sends the message to the Discord window.
• .tc: Sends the message to my twitch channel window (IRC #alternerdtive).

There are similar event commands in RatAttack and SealAttack handling other chat windows.

Ship FSD

This event actually is several different events in one. Currently the following are handled:

• charging: Warns you if your target system’s main star is not scoopable, including an extra warning at low fuel levels. (Note: This only works if the target system is in EDSM. So it’s kind of useless for its intended use (exploration) and probably going to be removed at some point.)
• cooldown complete: Announces FSD cooldown if you are currently in normal space.

Ship interdicted

Tells you when you have been interdicted by a player. Is also supposed to target the interdictor automatically, but randomly sometimes just doesn’t work. Yay!

Ship targeted

This currently doesn’t do anything. I was fiddling around with automatically targeting a certain module on ship targeting, but it was more hassle than I had thought.

Shutdown

Changes my nick back to default in FuelRats IRC. Probably largely useless to you. If you are using FuelRats IRC you need to change/deactivate this (see below) or you will start impersonating me by accident :)

SRV Launched

Toggles SRV lights off after launching. Might not work if you drop particularly far after deployment because it works off a timer. Conversely might take a second to turn your lights off on a short drop and/or in high gravity.

System Scan Complete

Lists you all bodies EDDI considers worth mapping in the current system.

Undocked

Retracts landing gear for you. Seriously, is there any occasion in which you don’t immediately want to retract it after takeoff?

VA initialized

Fires when the EDDI VoiceAttack plugin is loaded. Makes sure that EDDI is set to quite mode even if the profile was loaded before plugin initialization had completed.

Misc

The commands in here do random more or less useful things.

• bind keys;reset key binds: Reloads your key binds through the bindED plugin. You should do that after changing anything in the controls options.
• copy current system: Copies the current system name into the clipboard.
• distance [from;to] […]: Tells you the distance from your current position to the other thing you mentioned and is supported in the command. (requires Python scripts)
• do a barrow roll: WHOOOOOOO!
• fix window dimensions: When you start the game in VR, it forces into windowed mode with weird resolution. This changes it back. Hover the “PLAY” entry in the main menu, then run this. Will need adjustment for different graphics cards/drivers and the resolution you want.
• neutron [jump;trip] time: Shorter version of the same thing in SpanshAttack.
• neutron jumps left: Shorter version of the same thing in SpanshAttack.
• open copied system on EDSM: Opens the system in your clipboard on EDSM in your default browser.
  • open coriolis: Opens Coriolis in your default browser.
• open [current;] system on EDSM: Opens your current system on EDSM in your default browser.
• open EDDI options; configure EDDI: Opens the EDDI configuration window.
• open e d d b [station;system;faction;] [search;]: Opens EDDB in your default browser.
• open e d s m: Opens EDSM in your default browser.
• open inara: Opens Inara in your default browser.
• open materials finder: Opens EDTutorials’ materials finder in your default browser.
• open miner’s tool: Opens https://edtools.ddns.net/miner in your default browser.
• reload bindings: Reloads your bindings for bindED.
• shut up EDDI: Immediately stops any ongoing (and queued) EDDI speech.
• [start;stop] [EDISON;navigation]: Hits CTRL+ALT+E which just so happens to be the start/stop hotkey I have set in E.D.I.S.O.N.
• [bodies;what’s;what is] left to [map;be mapped;scan]: Tells you which bodies EDDI thinks are worth mapping in the system that you haven’t mapped yet.

Navigation

There are so many navigation-focused commands now, they deserve there own category. Basically anything that helps you plot anywhere. A lot of those are powered by awesome EDDI so I don’t have to do the work myself!

• plot course;[target;] next [waypoint;way point]: Plots a course to the system set in ~~system or the one in your clipboard. The former way is usually used by other commands to not interfere with your clipboard.
• [find;target] nearest [encoded;manufactured;raw] material trader: Targets the nearest respective material trader.
• [find;target] nearest [guardian;human] tech broker: Targets the nearest respective tech broker.
• [find;target] nearest [interstellar factor;mission system;scoopable star]: Well, you know the drill by now.
• [find;target] nearest mission system: Targets the nearest system that has a mission target.
• [find;target] [<system>]: Targets the given system on the galaxy map. There’s a bunch in there, the list is easily extensible. Drop me a note if you want something included.

Ship Controls

Basically anything that is related to directly doing something with your ship.

• [abort;cancel;stop] jumping: Stops a currently charging FSD jump.
• [buggy;exploration] power: Sets your PD to 0/4/2 or 2/4/0 respectively. Works in SRV too.
• [close;deploy;extend;open;retract;] […] [up;down;]: Overly complicated command to handle everything related to Cargo Scoop, Hard Points, Landing Gear. You get the gist, I guess. Works in SRV too.
• [disco;discovery scan]: Executes a discovery scan. To work properly, you’ll have to set the Discovery Scanner to your first fire group, secondary fire.
• [dis;]engage silent running: Turns silent running on and off.
• [head;spot;] lights [on;off]: Turns your lights on and off. Works in SRV too, kinda; turning lights off there relies on the state updating fast enough, which sometimes leads to weird results.
• [jump;engage;get me out;punch it chewie] [and scan;] [when ready;]: Retracts everything that might be protruding from your ship, then jumps to the next system. If the FSD isn’t charging within 1s, it gets you into SC instead (e.g. if your target is obstructed). If given “and scan” runs a discovery scan. If given “when ready” waits for mass lock to clear, your FSD to cool down and you to leave scoop range before jumping.
• night vision [on;off]: Toggles your night vision on/off. Works in SRV too.
• power to [engines;shields;systems;weapons: Sets 4 pips to the thing you told it, 1 to the others.
• rapid fire lights: Flashes your lights 5 times in a row.
• retract [all;everything]: Retracts, well, everything.
• [start;stop] [firing;mining]: Starts/stops holding down primary fire. Mostly useful when mining. When triggered with “mining”, also deploys the cargo scoop.
• [super;] cruise [when ready;]: Retracts everything, then jumps to SC. If given “when ready” will wait for mass lock to clear and your FSD to cool down first.

SRV controls

Things relevant to your SRV, but not your ship.

• [recall;dismiss] ship: Recalls or dismisses ship. Currently does the same thing regardless of the state of your ship. I wish it would be possible to restrict it to doing one thing each, but that’s currently not possible sadly.
• [toggle;enable;disable] drive assist: Handles all your drive assist needs!

Targeting

Well … targeting stuff, I guess. Not really sure why I made that it’s own category, but oh well :)

• target next system: Selects the next system on your route.
• target wing man [1;2;3]: Targets your wing men.
• target’s target: Targets your target’s target.
• wing man [1;2;3] target: Targets your wing men’s target.
• wing man nav lock: Toggles wing man nav lock on the selected wing member.

UI Commands

Everything handling stuff that’s not related to controlling your ship, but manipulating some UI element(s).

• controls options: Opens the controls options menu.
• docking request;request dock[ing;]: Sends a docking request.
• [enter;leave] F S S: Opens/closes FSS.
• galaxy map: Opens the galaxy map.
• [main;game] menu: Opens the ESC menu.
• [relog;reset] to [open;solo]: Relogs to Open or Solo mode, respectively.
• restart from Desktop: Quits the game and restarts from an open launcher by clicking the play button.
• set […] filter: Sets a nav panel filter setting. See the command or just try different things for what is possible. You need to clear filters and hover over the filter button, then run this.
• system map: Opens the system map.
• take [high res;] screenshot: Takes a (high res) screenshot.
• toggle orbit lines: Toggles the visibility of orbit lines.
• [toggle;show;hide] interface: Toggles the cockpit interface (CTRL+ALT+G). Probably needs to be adjusted if you are not playing with Neo2 keyboard layout :)

Update Commands

• check for profiles update: Does just that. Is also automatically run each time the profile is started.
• download profiles update: Downloads a profiles update if applicable. Will prompt you to restart VoiceAttack when the download has finished to import the updated profiles.
• open profiles change log: Opens CHANGELOG.md on Github.

Logging

The profile supports logging a bunch of stuff to the VoiceAttack event log. By default, logging is concise and constrained to basically error messages.

If you need more logging (usually for debugging purposes), say enable logging. If you want to enable verbose logging by default, call the Logging.enableLogging command from your custom profile’s startup command.

Configuration Variables

There are a bunch of configuration variables. You should not overwrite those manually, instead use the provided commands in the _configuration section!

Basically all the settings are available using the customize settings prefix, then saying [enable;disable] <setting> for on/off switches and set <setting> for text variables.

• EDDI.quietMode (boolean): whether or not to set EDDI to quite mode. Default: true.
• Elite.pasteKey (string): the key used for pasting into Elite. On QWERTY this is v. Default: p.
• EliteDangerous.announceEdsmSystemStatus (boolean): whether to announce the system or some of its bodies missing on EDSM. Default: true.
• EliteDangerous.announceMappingCandidates (boolean): whether to announce mapping candidates when they are scanned. Default: true.
• EliteDangerous.announceOutdatedStationData (boolean): whether to announce stations with outdated data in systems you jump to. Default: true.
• EliteDangerous.announceR2RMappingCandidates (boolean): whether to announce planets worth mapping when jumping into a known system. This is useful for doing some R2R on the side. Default: false.
• EliteDangerous.autoChangeFuelratsNick (boolean): whether to change the FuelRats IRC nickname automatically when changing commanders. Probably largely irrelevant to you. Default: false.
• EliteDangerous.enableCarrierAnnouncements (boolean): whether or not to process fleet carrier events. Default: true.
• EliteDangerous.enableAutoUpdateCheck (boolean): whether or not to automatically check for updates on profile startup. Default: true.
• EliteDangerous.flightAssistOff (boolean): whether to automatically toggle FlightAssist off on liftoff. Default: true.
• EliteDangerous.hyperspaceDethrottle (boolean): same thing as the SC assist setting; if on, will throttle to 0 automatically after jumping. Default: true.
• EliteDangerous.oldStationThreshold (int): Age in days that will cause station data to be considered outdated. Default: 365 (1 year).
• python.ScriptPath (string): the path you have placed the compiled python scripts in. Default: “{VA_DIR}\Sounds\scripts” (the “\Sounds\scripts” folder in your VoiceAttack installation directory).

Delays / Pauses

Delays needed e.g. between key presses in UI navigation can vary wildly depending on your PC’s specs and configuration. Therefore they should be configurable, shouldn’t they?

So far those actually are:

• EliteDangerous.delays.quitToDesktop: Delay between quitting to desktop and hitting the play button in the launcher.