Sound Mod - In space, no one can hear you explode

[Galaxian]

*Skip down to about post #11 for the mod*

On my new system I have 7.1 sound and noticed that some of the ship-board sounds, such as the verbal missile alert, particle cannon fire, afterburner sound,etc come from the side speaker output while other sounds like the beam weapon, console "beep", radio chatter and missile proximity alert only seem to come mostly from the front/center.

Now why do I care you ask?

Cause I'm a goon and have my headset plugged in to the side speaker jack... and my 5.1 surround system plugged in to the front, rear and center/sub jacks.

This gives a really interesting audio experience where sounds like the verbal missile warning sound like they come across the headset and are distinctly separate from general ship and background noise.

If there was a way to make the radio chatter and other ship-board alerts/alarms come across the same as the voice missile alert, it would be really nifty...



[Edited on 12-26-2010 by Galaxian]

[Edited on 12-31-2010 by Galaxian]

[Edited on 12-31-2010 by Galaxian]

[Aures]

Nice idea. I recently got a 7.1 surround headset and it is certainly different playing with that enabled.

[Galaxian]

Thanks.

I've played around with the sound/balance settings and I really dig this setup.

The good:

It makes it sound like most of the ambient ship noises, drive/thruster sounds/weapon sounds and whatnot come from being carried through the ship's hull and are external to the headset.

The in-game music, partical weapons fire (outbound), and voice chatter such as the verbal alerts for missile launch, docking tractor engage disengage, AI ship comms traffic (IE "You're not good enough to take me down....") seem to come directly through the headset.

This creates a really cool cockpit environmental effect.

The less than optimal for this setup:

The only negatives so far are the the inbound missile warning 'beeper'. missile lock tone and the generic 'system beep' that sounds for open/close nav/trade/inv console seem to come from just the front/center speakers and are difficult to hear with the headset on and the speakers set at a reasonable volume.

If there was a means by which these sounds could be set to the same channels as the voice traffic/music etc it would in my opinion be the ultimate setup sound-wise.

For me anyway....

[MMaggio]

I don't think the game sounds were encoded as 7.1 so it can not be played back in that mode. You may get some seperation, but only due to your card's synthesizer.

[Maarschalk]

Sounds Cool.....very nice.....

[Galaxian]

I don't think the game sounds were encoded as 7.1 so it can not be played back in that mode. You may get some seperation, but only due to your card's synthesizer.

Thanks for the intel! I was not aware of that and it is entirely possible that my sound card is working some 'magic' on the signal.

It's certainly worthy of investigation.

I'll be rather pleased if I can get this to work how I'd like.

[MMaggio]

May I suggest you set your card's settings to 5.1, if you can.
I pump my sound thru my home AV reciever and found that 5.1 works best.
Good luck

[Galaxian]

I did some mucking about with my sound settings and if EM isn't outputting 7.1 sound, my sound widgets are up-mixing it to that as the sounds coming from the side channels is distinctly different than that of the front or rear channels.

So just for kicks, I swapped the jacks for my headset into the front channel and front channel speakers to the center output. And hot-diggity! I got essentially what I was after sound-wise.

I hear all the alerts/tones/buzzers/etc through the headset with the auditory sensation of 'ambient' ship sounds coming from the speakers. I'm giving up positional accuracy with the speakers, but using a headset and speakers at the some time sort of does that anyway.

Another random thought I had was regarding an option to turn off 'external' sounds and only hear what's inside the cockpit or transmitted through the ship's frame.

Jane's F/A-18, which is my atmospheric favorite has this option and it's really quite effective.

Perhaps this could be achieved with some custom 'blank' sounds for external explosions etc. via the mod kit.....

[Marvin]

Ahhh ... the makings of another modder. Excellent.

[MMaggio]

That is an interesting suggestion.
I suggest you suggest it to Vice

[Galaxian]

Thanks. I'll take your suggestion and suggest it to Vice...

Meanwhile back at Galaxy HQ:

I took a look at the mod kit and was able to accomplish essentially the same thing by doing the following:

create a 'sounds' dir under my EM install directory
recorded a silent .wav file and placed it in the sounds folder
then made copies of the .wav and renamed them as follows:

exp1.wav
nuke.wav
s3.wav
s4.wav
thunder.wav

The net result of this being that I no longer hear weapon hits or missile impacts on ships other than my own. Nor do I hear explosions or nebula 'thunder'.

Sound doesn't carry well in the absence of atmosphere, so this mod adds another small bit of the 'being out there' feeling for me.

Haven't made planetfall yet anywhere with weather, so I don't know how the no thunder will play out there.


[Edited on 12-29-2010 by Galaxian]

[MMaggio]

Oh, you will want to hear all of that experience!

[Galaxian]

OK, so I am really digging this sound mod.

I added flyby.wav to my 'silent' .wav files as I had another ship buzz me and I could hear it.

Here's the current full list:

exp1.wav
nuke.wav
s3.wav
s4.wav
thunder.wav
flyby.wav

There's an eeriness about things in space going BOOM!

I press the weapon release on a missile, hear it leave the rack, watch it track true to the target then... a big flash and my ship feels the shockwave from the energy released by the atomized bandit... and no sound, because it's cold hard vacuum.

I almost feel sorry for the b*****d.... Almost.

::D

[Galaxian]

Nice. That's a great idea about those sounds.

A proximity alarm and a "Danger! Nuke Detected!" alert sound.