Mumble

Mumble is the voice communications used by WinterCo and is internally hosted. It replaced Teamspeak 2 because it has better voice quality and doesn't have the "phone home" licensing issues of Teamspeak 3.

On the WC-EN “Services” page, click the green arrow at the end of the Mumble row to activate your Mumble account.

You will be given a page with your Mumble user name and password. Copy the Mumble password. When you click to continue, Mumble will be launched and you will be asked for the password! If you didn’t copy the password first or if you have problems with the password, use the “Reset Password” for Mumble on the “Services” page. It’s the second icon that looks like two arrows chasing one another. Then try connecting and using your newly chosen password.

Connecting, of course, requires you to have Mumble already installed.

When you connect for the first time, you’ll want to do a few things:

1. Make a bookmark for the server.
   Click the globe icon while connected and choose “Add New…”. It will pre-fill in (or ask you) your current Mumble connection details, which should have the address “voice.wintercoalition.space” Set the “Label” to something obvious like “WinterCo-EN” and click “OK”.
2. Configure your audio settings.
   Choose “Audio Wizard” from the “Configure” menu and run through the Audio Wizard to choose the right sound input and output devices, set your volume correctly, and set up your push-to-talk key.
3. Configure a ‘local’ key.
   We’re encouraging people when in larger fleets to use a ‘local’ push-to-talk key (AKA “blue lips” or “yellow person”) that broadcasts only to the fleet channel and not to the FCs. This will make it easier for the FCs in the command channel (who can normally hear fleet comms) to hear themselves and to have conversations uninterrupted.

The TEST Wiki has a nice graphic on how to set up whisper/shout keys, but the basic steps are as follows: nice graphic on how to set up whisper/shout keys

1. Go to Configure → Settings
2. Make sure the “Advanced” box is ticked, if there’s one present.
3. Choose “Shortcuts” from the options.
4. Click “Add” to add a new button.
5. Click on the blank area in the “Shortcut” area of the new “Unassigned” row that’s appeared and press your desired key combination for talking to the current channel only.
6. Click on the “Unassigned” name in the “Function” area of that new row and scroll down the list until you find “Whisper/Shout”.
7. In the “Data” column, click on the “Empty” bit.
8. Then click on the three dots that will appear as a button immediately to the right to select your whisper target, which should be “Shout to Channel” with a channel target of “Current”. Do not tick any of the other boxes in that dialogue box.
9. Click “Apply” to save the settings or “OK” to save them and exit configuration.

You might want to set things up so that this is actually swapped: what you think of as your normal push-to-talk is actually whisper/shout to current (AKA ‘local’) and the push-to-talk that broadcasts to all linked channels (AKA “red lips”) is a different key that you need to consciously think about using. You can edit shortcut keys in the same settings area. Click in the “Shortcut” area of the shortcut whose key binding you wish to change and press the key(s) you want to assign to that shortcut.

Mac OS X Users: If you’re using a recent version of Mac OS X, the above instructions will work, but you may find the hotkeys don’t work. You need to enable access for assistive devices for Mumble:

1. Go to Mac OS X System Preferences;
2. Find the “Security & Privacy” control panel.
3. In the “Privacy” tab, if Mumble is already listed, make sure there’s a tick in the checkbox. If Mumble isn’t listed, then click the “+” button and navigate to your Mumble application to add it. You may need to authenticate as a user with admin privileges for your Mac to do this.

If you’re an FC, you might also need a ‘global’ key that broadcasts to a linked set of channels, like all the command channels simultaneously. Setting this up is similar to setting up the ‘local’ key. Follow all of the above steps, but instead:

1. Choose “Parent” as the channel target and not “Current”.
2. Tick the “Shout to subchannels” box.
3. Set a different shortcut key combination.

Remember, as an FC, when speaking to your current command chat or to all command chats, preface what you’re saying with “Local” or “Global” as appropriate.

By default, Mumble will have text-to-speech notifications for all kinds of events, like people leaving and joining a channel. In large fleets, this quickly becomes very annoying! However, it’s pretty easy to configure Mumble to have pop-up notifications, text-to-speech notifications, a custom sound, a console message, or any combination of those (or nothing) for each particular type of event.

1. Go to Configure → Settings.
2. Make sure the “Advanced” box is ticked, if there’s one present.
3. Choose “Messages” from the options.
4. Enable/disable tickboxes as you please for any of the messages listed there. Typically you’ll want to disable text-to-speech for “User Joined Channel” and “User Left Channel” at a minimum.
5. Click “Apply” to save the settings or “OK” to save them and exit configuration.

You may need to restart Mumble for these to take effect.

EvE in Windows works with the Mumble overlay so you can easily see who is or isn’t talking and whether they’re using local or global. It’s apparently a bit more of a pain in Windows 10 but straightforward in older versions.

If you’re using Windows 10, then download the Windows x64 Development snapshot from the Mumble site and have it replace your existing Mumble.

1. Go to Configure → Settings.
2. Make sure the “Advanced” box is ticked, if there’s one present.
3. Choose “Overlay” from the options.
4. Follow the on-screen instructions about resizing, moving, or otherwise customizing the overlay.
5. Right click on a user in the sample overlay, and sensible filters:
   1. “Talking and recently active” OR “Only talking”. The first will show who is currently talking and who has said something recently. This is useful if you find yourself often wondering who said something (logi pilots and FCs particularly will find that handy). The other only shows currently talking people.
   2. Always show yourself (optional). This will always show you on the overlay, which means the overlay is always visible. Some people like the overlay always present. Some don’t. Your choice!
6. Click “Apply” to save the settings or “OK” to save them and exit configuration.

Note: It’s necessary to start Mumble first so the overlay can hook into EvE.

You may find it convenient to be able to run more than one copy of Mumble so that you can be on our comms and WinterCo-CN at the same time. This is relatively easy to do in Windows but trickier on the Mac. These instructions cover Windows only. There’s also a BRAVE video demonstrating the process here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKK5ZWdiFco

1. Find your Windows Mumble application.
2. Right-click on it and select “Properties”.
3. Go to the “Shortcut” tab.
4. In the field labelled “Target”, add -m to the end of the command after the final quotation mark. Note that there needs to be a space between the final quotation mark and the -m. Your field should read something like (but with the appropriate path!) "C:\Program Files\Mumble\mumble exe" -m.
5. Click “OK” to save this.

You can now start Mumble multiple times.

Note: Using this method, the hot keys will be the same! You probably want to either remember to put yourself into a “No Chatter” room on one or set up a hotkey to toggle mute. With the latter, if you’re muted on one, using that hotkey will unmute you there and mute you on the other one.