sound effects

[breese]

I could have sworn that I read about Gravity-electromagnetic unification, but can’t find it.

How the discussion went from sound effects to string theory is beyond me, but here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_M-theory

[klauss]

I see many late nights and heated discussions for you and the rest of the core team hammering out such details. Hearing weapons fire is cool, and featured in most space combat simulators, but not my call. Heck, I avoid all the fights I can. After playing the original privateer countless times, and all but prophecy of the rest of the WC series, making a fortune with a kill score of zero is a new challenge. A rather enjoyable one too. I'd just hate for Klauss to make the coolest cannon firing sound ever, only for it to be decided that all that is ever heard is background noise. Have fun; I'm going back to my corner until another comment perks my interest.

Don't worry, I have many cool things in my sleeve for cargo runs as well

[travists]

Only the explanation for the necessary-for-game-play FTL technology (SPEC and JUMP) needs to use really far out technology like that. And to preserve both realism and game play, said technology even consumes basically everything your ship can output while using SPEC and JUMP exploits a rare phenomenon not actually created by your ship (and thus not such a burden to it).

That has been bugging me actually, it should take more than your ship can output.
With any kind of upgraded reactor at all, you can SPEC until your fuel for standard propulsion runs out. With that being the case, why use the wormholes at all? Just ramp up the SPEC a shade more. I'd think in SPEC you should see your drive capacitors drop precipitously. Just remember in your zeal to keep it real, respected physicists still think that there may be FTL loopholes. As for defense and weapons, I see no practical applications for gravity manipulation. Plasma based shields are currently in the "we know how it should work, but will it" stage with some labs actively testing; why go out on a limb there? Change the description of the shields. As for nothing beyond a bigger rocket, I doubt Newtonian physics is the only means of propulsion, that's my point. Dropping nukes out the back and surfing the wake, ion drives, all such are just pushing on the back to make it go faster. Field interactions, current warp theory, or that fellow’s gravitational warping; any quantum physicist’s daydream (as long as it is grounded in solid theories) qualifies.

@breese We got here, because a few posts back, the discussion came around to what is or is not possible. I happen to follow science, with particular interest on the weird and space travel. Some debate ensued, and more recently my curiosity got the better of me. It’s all about what sounds the various devices make. To understand that, we need to know what technologies are in use. To determine that, we must establish what can and cannot be. Ever see that old science show “Connections2”? This leads to that, which leads to the other thing. Soon you’re 180 from where you started. In the end, you are right back where you started, just a little wiser for the ride. Any insights?

@klauss Good to hear! Any chance that a load your own mp3 library option is in there?

Gee…. All I wanted to do, was offer some science to explain the currently out of reach where science for such was needed. Ended up reopening a can of worms. Some times it’s kind of fun though!

[klauss]

Only the explanation for the necessary-for-game-play FTL technology (SPEC and JUMP) needs to use really far out technology like that. And to preserve both realism and game play, said technology even consumes basically everything your ship can output while using SPEC and JUMP exploits a rare phenomenon not actually created by your ship (and thus not such a burden to it).

That has been bugging me actually, it should take more than your ship can output.
With any kind of upgraded reactor at all, you can SPEC until your fuel for standard propulsion runs out. With that being the case, why use the wormholes at all? Just ramp up the SPEC a shade more.

That is actually canon, I remember jacks saying early space exploration and military invasions used SPEC, each because of different reasons. Intersystem SPEC would take a long time (weeks I think), compared to almost instantaneous travel through jumppoints, but jumppoints were way too defensible for any invasion fleet to come through them, and worthless for space exploration (since you had no way of knowing the endpoints).

I'd think in SPEC you should see your drive capacitors drop precipitously. Just remember in your zeal to keep it real, respected physicists still think that there may be FTL loopholes.

I agree. SPEC should last a lot less, but it's quite a balncing act.

@klauss Good to hear! Any chance that a load your own mp3 library option is in there?

Actually you can do that rater easily.
Place your playlist where you want it in .vegastrike/playlists, and off you go.
Playlists, btw, are standard m3u files, so you can assemble them with whatever you like - winamp being a popular choice.

[Deus Siddis]

That has been bugging me actually, it should take more than your ship can output.
With any kind of upgraded reactor at all, you can SPEC until your fuel for standard propulsion runs out. With that being the case, why use the wormholes at all? Just ramp up the SPEC a shade more. I'd think in SPEC you should see your drive capacitors drop precipitously.

Well this is actually more like a temporary balance issue. There's a variable already in units.csv that controls this called "warp_fuel_usage" or such. Currently this is not set high enough for most or all ships, especially the small ones. Thus SPEC does not actually drain your capacitors yet.

Anyway the folks who originally set up this project (whatever their actual status is now), added JUMP (wormholes) as a plot device to create choke points to give combatants a defensive strategic advantage. So that the grand space wars the game is set in would not turn into M.A.D. And then to keep wars from degrading into a similarly boring stalemate with sides fortifying jump points, the slower but more versatile SPEC was given as an advantage to the attacker.

So ultimately the reason for having two types of FTL isn't entirely about how the player gets around in real time as strange as it may sound.

Just remember in your zeal to keep it real, respected physicists still think that there may be FTL loopholes.

Like I said I have no problem with FTL, in fact this is essential to make things playable.

As for defense and weapons, I see no practical applications for gravity manipulation. Plasma based shields are currently in the "we know how it should work, but will it" stage with some labs actively testing; why go out on a limb there? Change the description of the shields.

That is basically my feeling as well. Though plasma based shields are only one of the things I have suggested as alternatives.

Another one is using simple electromagnetic shields, whose only purpose is to help protect against charged particle weapons, while point defense takes care of missiles. And then self repairing/reorganizing nano-armor. And then larger robotic platelets that attach themselves like limpets to damaged areas of your hull.

As for nothing beyond a bigger rocket, I doubt Newtonian physics is the only means of propulsion, that's my point. Dropping nukes out the back and surfing the wake, ion drives, all such are just pushing on the back to make it go faster. Field interactions, current warp theory, or that fellow’s gravitational warping; any quantum physicist’s daydream (as long as it is grounded in solid theories) qualifies.

That's fine but then you aren't really talking about unlikely and probably inefficient propulsion, like the Rlaan are supposed to use in place of basic thrusters.

You are talking about making travel time less by altering space, inertia, mass, or whatever (basically SPEC and JUMP) which I have no problem with.

[travists]

That is actually canon, I remember jacks saying early space exploration and military invasions used SPEC, each because of different reasons. Intersystem SPEC would take a long time (weeks I think), compared to almost instantaneous travel through jumppoints, but jumppoints were way too defensible for any invasion fleet to come through them, and worthless for space exploration (since you had no way of knowing the endpoints).

Nice to know someone is on my wavelength on something. Is there a cannon reason for the 97.2C or something like that max on the llama? Otherwise spec seems to be cruse speed x C. With the current energy system for SPEC, 10 * cruse * C would be no issue, going from weeks to days, or less! Ignoring Deus Siddis' theory set in physics for the moment, (Hey, if those in the profession can argue the what we know now, we can certainly argue what we might know 1k years in the future!) let's take the grav warping metamaterial path. Seems to me the best grounded with the most wiggle room, any attempting something like this must walk a razor’s edge. So our material warps gravity proportional to the energy put in. Anything more than 1G about 4 meters away take insane amounts of energy. While the SPEC core is charged it would have a high-energy hum like you hear near a large transformer. Swap out "proprietary" for "meta" and the “theory of the decade” complaint is diminished. Back to sound again!
And thanks for the playlist tip, if it's that easy an in-game method is understandably backburner. -- Running cargo to the strains of the Crazy Frog rendition of "Axle F" --

[travists]

Deus Siddis, thought I posted when I walked away last time, so yours got in before mine. Good to know we aren’t as far apart as it seemed. Any complaints about dule stage shealds, ie plasma field for the matter and some particle and an em layer for the rest? Not only would that protect from weaponry, but also the micrometeorite and cosmic background radiation would be less of a problem. I can explain one way to use gravonic propulsion. It's out there, but possible, barely.


Assuming, as present knowledge indicates, that gravity manipulation is possible, just darn tricky. Further assuming that a confined beam can be made with that tech. Finally assuming that by focusing two of these beams just in front of the ship there can be a virtual mass effect generated putting a G force on the front part of the ship, which in turn pulls on the whole ship.

It is messy, slow, and makes more assumptions than a "Buck Rodgers" comic, but just might be doable. I think the Rlaan would be better served by EM thrusters. We don't know if the theories work in practice, but it has got to allow for better acceleration!

[Deus Siddis]

Any complaints about dule stage shealds, ie plasma field for the matter and some particle and an em layer for the rest?

My uneducated guess is there are two hurdles a plasma shield would have to overcome to make any sense.

The first is how to keep it close to your ship, as densely as possible so that it functions as a defense.

The simplest option could be to model it after modern day real life reactive armor. But instead of explosives you have an array of plasma thrusters that fire against a projectile just before it impacts.

A more radical possibility could be to use ball lighting just like real life body shields. Ball lightning is like a self containing vessel of plasma which you would have to maneuver around your ship with an array of electromagnets (that would double as a defense against charged particle weapons). Before an impact, the ball would be maneuvered in front of the hostile projectile and pushed against by the electromagnets as the projectile penetrated through it.

The second hurdle is would it actually be anywhere near effective enough.

It has to be multi-directional, multi-use, energy efficient, lightweight, compact and last but not least, capable of significantly affecting a high speed and high density projectile before impact.

That's a long list of requirements, and one that another contender technology might handle better. Like point defense. Or self replacing reactive (or conventional) armor "platelet" robots. Or a self repairing armor layer based on nanotechnology of some sort.

[travists]

I saw a thing on sci-fi science on one of the educational channels, looking into real research in real labs on this subject. I don't remember all of the details, but the basic principle is charging the hull. That takes care of the first hurdle. The second one the answer, right now, is: "It should, but we don't know." However, they (the scientists) use dense plasma fields to explain the large windows on things like "Star Wars", so the working assumption seems to be just a question of how much power you can dump into it. The fact that we can currently have low levels of this in the lab (they actually showed the prototype) indicates that the levels required are not unreasonable. Perhaps the EM shield helps to confine the plasma, and the plasma protects the EM shield from disruption by matter? There are the current problems of if it can't get in, it can't get out either, and it should block everything, including sensors. But if it acts like a non-Newtonian fluid (the cornstarch and water mix that's so fun) so low energy input passes with little resistance, but higher energies makes it lock together and become solid, then you just have to open holes when your guns fire.

Great thing about science fiction inspiring kids to become scientists, there is some real research on what can and cannot be done.

**edit just looking over your post again, I have no problem with advanced armor. This is just how shield tech in the works may be applied**

[Deus Siddis]

I saw a thing on sci-fi science on one of the educational channels, looking into real research in real labs on this subject. I don't remember all of the details, but the basic principle is charging the hull. That takes care of the first hurdle.

Maybe. You can only maybe have it in direct contact with the hull if it is at a low temperature. Which might limit it's effectiveness as a defense, I don't really know.

Otherwise you might have to do something like quickly switch between pushing and pulling it, to keep it close but not too close.

The second one the answer, right now, is: "It should, but we don't know." However, they (the scientists) use dense plasma fields to explain the large windows on things like "Star Wars", so the working assumption seems to be just a question of how much power you can dump into it.

Great thing about science fiction inspiring kids to become scientists, there is some real research on what can and cannot be done.

I think it is supposed to flow the opposite way though. Science fiction should take it's leads from actual modern science and then compelling science fiction should follow from it. If the science fiction element is not thoughtful and reasonably possible you are only leading those kids to an uninspiring dead end. And you've already got religions for that.

Trying to ram explanations into the mold of star wars or star trek is just pure unoriginal, derivative hollywood style thinking. And it's mostly going to be wrong. George lucas and gene roddenbury were story tellers, not scientists, and could very well have gotten their technological ideas from comic books, but even at best didn't have anything better than a many decades' old understanding of how things might work. In other words their commercial success doesn't make them prophets.

And note that the Science Channel and it's ilk are ultimately concerned only with said commercial success. That's their job, to make a profit. If their viewers are intelligent and resourceful and demand variety and accuracy, then this is what the programming must present them for the channel to stay in business. If however their viewers are poorly informed, rely mainly on television for their information and demand mainly star wars and star trek, then they'll get star wars and star trek.

Garbage in, garbage out. But either way they won't ever call themselves the Garbage Channel; they'll want to keep "Science" in their brand name.

**edit just looking over your post again, I have no problem with advanced armor. This is just how shield tech in the works may be applied**

If you have to go out on a limb, choose the thickest limb.

I don't yet know myself which is really the thickest, but it is good to keep in mind that there's probably more than one of them to choose from.

[travists]

And note that the Science Channel and it's ilk are ultimately concerned only with said commercial success. That's their job, to make a profit. If their viewers are intelligent and resourceful and demand variety and accuracy, then this is what the programming must present them for the channel to stay in business. If however their viewers are poorly informed, rely mainly on television for their information and demand mainly star wars and star trek, then they'll get star wars and star trek.

Tell me about it. TLC once was "The Learning Chanel" now it's more the reality TV Chanel
Don't be so dismissive though, the one on a light saber ended up with while not strictly impossible, it would be better to "mail it to your opponent", and many of those that where inspired by sci-fi have learned what can and can't be done, and dealt with it. The best role the fiction plays is well can we? But this was actual lab work, not speculation. I'll do some digging for you if you would like.

[travists]

Plasma window: It exists! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_window

Between windows and shields: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology ... 00724.html

plasma shield is harder to find, still looking though. for our purposes a ramped up window in a magnetic bubble should work.

[klauss]

Cold plasma is used as a sterilizing method, AFAIK, not a shield or anything like that. I don't think you could have a plasma cloud massive or energized enough to deflect any significant attack.

A simple electrical field would get rid of plasma torches, though, as it would neutralize them, leaving only their thermal energy to deal with (no ionizing radiation), so I don't see how cold plasma would be better than that.

As a stealth field, maybe. But not protective shields.

[Deus Siddis]

Plasma becomes increasingly viscous (thick) at higher temperatures, to the point where other matter has trouble passing through.

Well there's the answer to my question. The plasma must be very hot. That means it can't be allowed to touch the hull directly. So it would have to be kept at just the right distance. Too far and you lose efficient control and it diffuses, too close and you burn.

A simple electrical field would get rid of plasma torches, though, as it would neutralize them, leaving only their thermal energy to deal with (no ionizing radiation), so I don't see how cold plasma would be better than that.

I think much of the idea though is to prevent or reduce the delivery of the thermal and kinetic energy carried by the charged matter, right? Wouldn't neutralizing it only make these goals harder to achieve?

[klauss]

Ionizing radiation is particularly bad, so in case anything touches your hull, you still want it to be neutrally charged. But yes, you want it electrically or magnetically charged before it touches the hull, so it's easier to deflect.

[travists]

Re: cold plasma Yes, that is what they are used for now. Research is being done on shield and cloaking properties, and looks promising. Power is the big problem here, but that is modern power concerns. VS shields seem to take a small city's worth of power. At those energies, defense applications become possible. The plasma window is not a sterilization method, but hold atmospheric pressure differences at bay, while letting other things pass. Ramp up the power, and tune it right, it should work. Don't think of it as defense tech, it is space survival tech boosted to defensive levels. I.E. The micrometeorite plasma shield (one of the real proposals) is boosted to resists cannon rounds. As Deus Siddis mentioned while I was typing and working (computer tech, bush a bunch of buttons then wait) Hot works, just enveloped away from the ship. Both em ionization and plasma can be used to provide an effective protection field.

[Turbo]

Happy new year! This discussion is all over the place, so my comments are the same.

I have two Cepstral licenses, a male and female, so could easily do text-to-speech computer voices.

I just ran through some demo phrases on http://cepstral.com/demos and it sounds good. It mispronounced some words when I fed it a few VS lines, so phonetics might be required.

I used my own (altered) voice for the translator in ship-to-ship communication* because the text-to-speech that comes with Windows was barely understandable. But the technology is getting there. Even if we leave my work as the translator in place, a Cepstral voice would be great as the voice of your ship informing/warning you, precisely because it should be different from the translator. I like the "Allison" voice because it is easiest to understand, and I always imagined my ship would be female if it had a voice (a Western-culture sailing thing I suppose).

If you create high quality weapon firing, weapon impact and engine SFX, you'll become the best loved content creator.

Knowing a bit about the (theoretical) science behind these events will enable us to "design" the sounds. What is "engine noise" -- some or all of the following?

• Capacitor whining**
  Electromagnets humming
  Coolant pump motors whirring
  Thruster vibration (pitch varies by ship size, so fighters might roar and capships rumble?)
  Valves clicking
  Servo motors buzzing

If such a list is the right direction to go, then we have somewhere to start.

In real life, you don't need to be shooting tracer rounds to use a firearm.

I can tell you from experience, tracers help. For rapid-fire, they help you "walk" your aim onto the target, and for single-shot fire they help you see where you are hitting. So I'd want an invisible energy weapon to have a coaxial visible beam to help me aim. But, more on that below.

Of course, your target can see the tracers too. And while you can't hear your enemy firing at you in space, I hope my ship gives me some kind of warning (tone, voice that says "incoming", or alarm) that the next sound I hear might be hull impacts. The radar blip turns blue if someone is targeting me, so the game should be able to do this.

Come to think of it, an audio warning for any event I did not initiate, but will affect me, is worth considering. For example:

Urgent events:
"targeted" -- someone locked on to you; maybe hostile, maybe not
"incoming" -- someone shooting at you
"critical damage, eject" (it would also be nice if critical systems like reactor, hull, and shields could give warning when they drop below 50%, can the game do that?)

Not urgent, but helpful:
"SPEC available" -- out of the base gravity well, can SPEC
"SPEC disengaged" -- intered the gravity well, SPEC disabled
"entering jump point" -- press J to jump
"entering docking range" -- press D to dock

On the firing end- electrical buzzes, coolant pumping, perhaps some kind of lens guard rapidly opening and then closing. On the victim end- the sound of your hull being vaporized, cut through, perhaps warping from the rapid localized heat increase.

Real-life military laser range-finders make a soft click, presumably from the electrical switches. Interestingly, the wavelengths best suited to range-finding through smoke, fog, and dust are invisible to the naked eye, but are also the wavelengths that do the most retinal damage if your eyes are not protected by filtered lenses. An energy weapon capable of damaging your target might be invisible, but if it wasn't 100% efficient, then it would lose energy on the way to the target which might become visible. A ball of plasma would lose bits of gas that would quickly cool down to emit visible light. A beam on the way to its target would heat up the tiny bits of matter that even a vacuum contains, enough for it to emit visible light.

Edit: I haven't played VS in months. Partly this was because driving in Atlanta every day provides plenty of excitement, but mostly because something in SVN broke the game. But I'm pulling the latest updates now so hopefully, it will work. The update will wipe out all my experimental play lists (testing http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/ ... ical_Audio) but I was gone long enough that I forgot where I was with them anyway.

* http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/ ... munication

** As I recall, a capacitor whines with increasing pitch as it charges, and decreasing pitch as it discharges. Is it possible to generate a constant low-volume capacitor whine, with pitch changing to match your current energy supply? That would be both immersive and good for gameplay.

[pheonixstorm]

I hate driving in Atlanta....too many pedestrians on the sidewalk for me to drive through... hehe. I tink I shall stick with the south side of town.

[Deus Siddis]

• Capacitor whining**
  Electromagnets humming
  Coolant pump motors whirring
  Thruster vibration (pitch varies by ship size, so fighters might roar and capships rumble?)
  Valves clicking
  Servo motors buzzing

Those all sound good to me.

I can tell you from experience, tracers help. For rapid-fire, they help you "walk" your aim onto the target, and for single-shot fire they help you see where you are hitting. So I'd want an invisible energy weapon to have a coaxial visible beam to help me aim. But, more on that below.

This is a different animal though, there is absolutely no need to "lead" a target, whatever you point at, you hit. And when you hit, the visible effect will tell you that you have.

A ball of plasma would lose bits of gas that would quickly cool down to emit visible light.

I think there's no question that any charged particle weapon will be brilliant. Blasting light in every direction.

A beam on the way to its target would heat up the tiny bits of matter that even a vacuum contains, enough for it to emit visible light.

Hmm, not sure about that. Maybe you are thinking about a low orbit environment? Or very low orbit perhaps. The matter density in deep space is just incredibly sparse. And modern day weaponized lasers operating at ground level don't produce any visible beam, that I've seen.

[Turbo]

This is a different animal though, there is absolutely no need to "lead" a target, whatever you point at, you hit. And when you hit, the visible effect will tell you that you have.

100% accuracy requires autotracking on all weapon mounts (which is expensive and not sold everywhere) and radar lock. Without both, the ratio of shots fired to target hits is quite low for me and, thankfully, my enemies.

The matter density in deep space is just incredibly sparse. And modern day weaponized lasers operating at ground level don't produce any visible beam, that I've seen.

Near any nav point (planets, stations and jump points) there could be gas from ship exhaust, dust from past battles, and other bits of matter whose escape into deep space is delayed by gravity. Would there be enough material to make an otherwise-invisible energy beam visible? Maybe...but if not, I'd still want a tracer beam I could see to help me aim.

[Deus Siddis]

100% accuracy requires autotracking on all weapon mounts (which is expensive and not sold everywhere) and radar lock. Without both, the ratio of shots fired to target hits is quite low for me and, thankfully, my enemies.

What I'm saying though is a tracer of any kind won't help your accuracy with a laser, because it essentially hits whatever your cross hair is sitting on at that moment. There is no delay, so no leading is necessary.

Also you could put a pencil in front of your screen that points at your cross hair and you have the same effect as a tracer beam.

Near any nav point (planets, stations and jump points) there could be gas from ship exhaust, dust from past battles, and other bits of matter whose escape into deep space is delayed by gravity. Would there be enough material to make an otherwise-invisible energy beam visible? Maybe...but if not, I'd still want a tracer beam I could see to help me aim.

Look no further than a particle beam. There probably isn't a way to make a weapon's grade particle beam that doesn't glow brighter than the surface of the sun.

[Turbo]

What I'm saying though is a tracer of any kind won't help your accuracy with a laser, because it essentially hits whatever your cross hair is sitting on at that moment. There is no delay, so no leading is necessary.

Oh. Yes, that's true.

• Capacitor whining**
  Electromagnets humming
  Coolant pump motors whirring
  Thruster vibration (pitch varies by ship size, so fighters might roar and capships rumble?)
  Valves clicking
  Servo motors buzzing

Those all sound good to me.

Great! Here's a rough draft of all those sounds played together, using the medium-pitch thrust:
http://www.willadsenfamily.org/VSvoice/ ... oise-1.ogg
The thruster sound would only play when engines are engaged, but the rest would be a constant background. For the demo I didn't worry too much about relative volumes. I'm not sure when to play the servo motors and valve clicks, so for the demo I just tied them together and put them in at 4 random times during the 5-second duration.

Here's the Audacity files plus my notes on how I created the sounds, so you can play the tracks individually, including the small-fighter and capship versions of the thrust sound.
http://www.willadsenfamily.org/VSvoice/engine-noise.zip

This is a rough draft to prove the concept. We might, for example, want multiple instances of some of these sounds, or put them in different stereo channels, or something. We definitely want to work at higher sample rates during preproduction -- I forgot to change my settings when I made these, or would have done that already.

[breese]

Great! Here's a rough draft of all those sounds played together, using the medium-pitch thrust:
http://www.willadsenfamily.org/VSvoice/ ... oise-1.ogg

I may be completely off base here, but I would not expect cockpits of future spaceships to be full of irrelevant sounds from various equipment. Rather I would expect that the sounds heard have been designed to help the pilot.

The general trend in today's cockpits is to mute noise and instead to introduce auditory cues about the location of enemies, dangerous conditions, etc.

Maybe we should focus on identifying useful auditory cues, such as shields, armours, or capacitors reaching a lower threshold, leaving SPEC flight, entering nebula, weapon recharge (especially those with a long recharge time, like torpedos or mini-grav thumbers).

[Turbo]

I may be completely off base here, but I would not expect cockpits of future spaceships to be full of irrelevant sounds from various equipment. Rather I would expect that the sounds heard have been designed to help the pilot.

That's why we talk about this stuff. I like to see/hear a rough draft of whtever we're talking about, so in this case I created one because I have the tools. If we (the group) decide not to use it, that's okay. I learned new tricks making those sounds, and I have them on file if I need them someday. So, you're not off base.

After hearing my rough draft, I agree with you to a point. Before my hearing started to go, I drove with my ears as much as my other senses. I could sometimes hear if the car/truck/van/SUV/tank/APC/HMMWV was having a problem before I could feel, smell, or see the problem. If the sounds are tied to the condition or situation of your ship, they're not irrelevant. But we need to talk more about

• * what game events would be suited for useful sounds
  * can sounds be tied to those "useful" game events
  * would we prefer
  • 1. computer sounds (beep, buzz, alarm, etc)
    2. computer voices ("Info: SPEC disengaged", "Caution: fuel low," "Warning: hull damage")
    3. native sounds (change in capacitor pitch, rattle, crash, bang, boom)
    4. something else?

[CLoneWolf]

Forgive me if this gets too long and/or slightly side-tracked, I'm writing while pondering...

First of all I think we should consider: what's the pilot wearing on his head while piloting? Nothing? Ear plugs? A full helmet eventually capable of EVA in case of life support failure or direct cockpit breach?
This fact alone can influence how much, if any, can be heard of ship-environmental (previously referred as native) sounds.

I agree that a trained and expert ear can be a unique diagnostic tool, but:

- at space fighter level I'd expect a diagnostic computer to provide all the relevant info (though of course it might malfunction, or it might get shot)

- relying on hearing to keep system awareness is IMHO too computationally heavy for a pilot's brain engaged in combat; the studies about sound sets used in current fighter planes show how vital it is for pilots to recognize each sound ASAP to cut on reaction times; what I mean is, as useful such native sounds can be to the expert, they'd risk to be much more often a distraction to the freshman.

So maybe the best option would be a custom volume setting that any user can set as they like, and that's a quite common solution.

And now the side-tracked part: the tools.

Fiddling more with music oriented software, (shameless plug: new music in my page at http://olografix.org/groucho/mymusic/ ) I've found ways to overcome a feature of Audacity that I couldn't help feeling as a limit (actually two):

1) having to apply effects to sounds (sometimes taking quite a while on my old PC) to hear the result, and eventually undo the effect if not satisfying, making trial and error quite time consuming.

2) being unable to change the effect parameters over time, possibly "recording" those changes in the project so that they are done once and for all.

Point 1 can be resolved by Traverso, LMMS and Ardour which support LADSPA plugins and even VSTs; many Windows-native VSTs will work even on the Linux versions of these programs.

I haven't found a way to solve point 2 with Traverso, but its upside is ease of use and no MIDI handling, which is most probably not needed by people working on pure sound effects; LMMS and Ardour are more complicated but they support effect parameter automation, providing much more flexibility to the user, and after all they're not a nightmare to learn; getting the grasp on them, coming from pure midi sequencers, was doable for me.

As long as I've worked on voice acting recordings, Audacity has been the main tool; but for multi-layered effects like Turbo's native sound draft, learning these other programs might be a good investment.

Oh, and if anyone ever needs metal hit sounds, this is a very interesting synthesizer.