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Radio / Speech — orders & AWACS chatter

The in-game voice: the message queue (MSG*) that carries every order and event between planes, and the speech layer (SAY*) that turns a queued message into a HUD line plus a played .5K radio clip. This is what produces wingman comms, AWACS/GCI calls, low-fuel and rearm prompts, and the running combat chatter.

Provenance: Ghidra static analysis of the game executable with FA.SMS symbols applied; recorded in the symbol database and applied to the Ghidra project. Progress: reconstruction matrix. Markers follow spec-authoring.md: confirmed · inferred · unknown.

The message queue (MSG*, #493)

MSGSend (0x4180A0, the subsystem's largest function) is the single primitive behind every order and combat event. It queues a T_MSG record into a fixed 0x22-slot table (0x522D40, stride 0xD5; the +6 fire-time word is 0xFFFF when the slot is free): confirmed

T_MSG  +0x00 u8   flags (bit0 = silent, bit2 = from-network)
       +0x01 u8   random salt (line variation)
       +0x02 u16  fromId
       +0x04 u16  toId
       +0x06 u16  fireT   (_currentT + delay; 0xFFFF = empty slot)
       +0x08 u16  param
       +0x0A u8   kind    (the SayProc opcode — see below)
       +0x0B i16  payloadLen (<=200)
       +0x0D …    payload

Recipient addressing is the interesting part: a toId of 0x8000/0x8001/0x8002 is not an object — it fans out through WNGPart/WNGWingmen/WNGLeader to the leader, the whole wing, or the wing-minus-sender; 0x8003 + thisComputer addresses a specific human station; 0x800B is an any-AI wildcard used by MSGReceive. Local AI recipients are serviced immediately (ImmediateService); non-local recipients are mirrored to peers by MPMsgSend. If the message is addressed to the player and audible, MSGSend also calls SAYMsg so the player hears it. confirmed

MSGReceive pulls the first due message matching a recipient mask; MSGMultiGet/ MSGMultiCanGet are the multiplayer relay path; MSGHide/MSGPop bracket a burst of orders so only the net effect is spoken; MSGRemoveCurObj/MSGRemoveSecondaries are the death/cleanup purges. MSGSendChatter (owned by network.md as a shipped-.MC import) is the mission-script entry point that sends a chatter line to a wing. confirmed

The speech layer (SAY*, #493)

SAYMsg (0x48D350) renders one queued message: it pushes the sender as the current object and dispatches to that object class's SayProc via CallUtilProc(6) — the OBJSayProc dispatch slot objects.md names but never followed. The procs live with the object system (_PLANESayProc 0x48D780, _OBJSayProc 0x48E8D0, _PLANECommentProc 0x48EC40), and each builds a line out of the shared SAY helpers documented here. confirmed

Line construction is a small phrase grammar, assembled into two accumulators (text at 0x552FF0, a comma-separated .5K sound-name list at 0x553050) and flushed by FinishSayLine/SayFlushLine: confirmed

  • SayPickLine chooses one of N alternative lines for a topic — random when there is no sender, otherwise senderId % N so a given plane says it consistently.
  • SayContactType builds "N bandit(s)", special-casing MiG-17/19/21 by type-name prefix and appending the aspect word from the target's facing bits.
  • SayClock / SayRange / SaySpellNumber / SayNumberWord are the "your 3 o'clock, high", "2 miles", digit-spelling, and number-word builders.
  • SayContactCall and SayWaypointCall assemble the full AWACS "Contact, multiple bandits, …, please advise" and "Proceed to waypoint N, bearing X, descend to angels Y" transmissions — both weather-gated by WRWeatherEffects (see renderer.md § Weather), so a call only reports what the caller could actually see.

FinishSayLine prefixes the speaker's callsign (SayObjName; "CO-PILOT"/"VOICE" for the player), HUDMessages the text, plays the .5K list at radio volume, and arms the chatter cooldown (SayScaleTime scales it by time compression). SayFlushLine additionally re-sends the line over the network so remote players hear it. confirmed

Fixed lines. SAYLowFuelMessage is the Joker/Bingo/"running on fumes"/"out of gas" ladder, each fired once via plane-flag latch bits; SAYRearmMessage, SAYSuppRadarMessage (AWACS/GCI link on/off/broken), and the Fort reports (SAYFortAircraft/SAYFortStatus) round it out. SAYTranslate swaps an English distress clip for its Russian equivalent when the player flies a MiG (side 0x14/0x15). confirmed

Radio: MSGSend queues a T_MSG to one or a fanned-out set of recipients; SAYMsg dispatches audible player-bound messages to the object SayProc, which assembles a line through the SAY phrase helpers and speaks it.

Functions

Full record: db/symbols/radio.csv.

VA Symbol Role
0x4180A0 MSGSend queue an order/event to one or a fanned-out recipient set
0x4185A0 MSGReceive pull the first due message for a recipient mask
0x48D350 SAYMsg render a queued message via the object SayProc
0x48D470 FinishSayLine speak the assembled line (HUD text + .5K audio)
0x48E740 SayContactCall the full AWACS contact call (weather-gated)
0x48EB20 SAYLowFuelMessage the Joker/Bingo/fumes/out-of-gas ladder
0x490F30 SAYTranslate English→Russian distress-clip swap for MiG players

Open Questions

1. The SayProc bodies are owned by the object system

_PLANESayProc / _OBJSayProc / _PLANECommentProc (the per-class line generators, and _PLANECommentProc's 2.6 KB of unscripted air-combat banter) are claimed in db/symbols/objects.csv with their chatter-state globals (_sayLastComment, _sayCommentUntil, …). They dispatch through this subsystem (SAYMsg → CallUtilProc(6)) but are documented as object behaviour. The split is deliberate; this doc is the transport + phrase-grammar half.

Status: resolved (by design) — the procs live with objects.md; the pipeline is here.

2. The kind opcode table

PLANESayProc's switch enumerates the message kinds (5 break, 6 approach, 0xB engage, 0x12 firing, 0x14 splash, 0x1C in-range, 0x1F mission-accomplished, …). They are the same opcodes FlightKey and the wingman AI pass to MSGSend; a consolidated kind→line table would be a useful reference but is mechanical to extract.

Status: open — re-static (tabulate the PLANESayProc/PLANECommentProc kind switch).

  • objects.md — the SayProc dispatch slot and the per-class line generators.
  • wingman.md — the wing/group AI that issues most orders via MSGSend.
  • network.md — MSGSendChatter and the MPMsgSend peer mirror.
  • renderer.md — WRWeatherEffects, the visibility model AWACS calls respect.
  • chat.md — the human multiplayer chat that rides the same MSGSend path.