What if Elite had more realistic sound-effects?

Butter of Sorrow

B
Or in other words, no sound-effects at all except in atmospheric places.

I discussed this with a friend of mine once. He said that realism isn't that important because everyone likes pew-pew spacebattle noises which I guess is a kind of understandable perspective. However, since a lot of people seem to emphasize ED being more a simulator than a game shouldn't it lean more towards realism?

The immersion factor in this case is debatable, but I think an actually silent space would have an interesting atmosphere to it. A lot of space themed movies are also loyal to this concept so my question is why aren't games as much?

What do you guys think?
 

Brimstone

Brimstone
The sounds you hear are simulated by your ship, that's why you see so many things that look like speakers in your cockpit. Otherwise, yeah, it'd be pretty quiet and boring.
 
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Leo Sagan

Leo Sagan
The sounds in E : D are pretty amazing. There are "artistical" ways to render more realistic "sounds" in space (Battlestar Galactica comes to mind) but frankly I don't give a ******. I'd rather have a working mission system or landing on atmospheric system than another artistic sound design.
 

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
Butter of Sorrow said:
Wait, is this actually canon? That's... pretty bizarre even from science fiction standards.
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Not really bizarre. The ship has sensors which convert the electromagnetic spectrum to hull vibrations which you pick up as internal sound. Hence you hear explosions instantly, rather than delayed by the speed of sound in an atmosphere.

It is designed to give the pilot extra auditory feedback on the space around him.

That's how I rationalize it, and I think it makes sense.
 

TuxedoSteve

TuxedoSteve
Butter of Sorrow said:
Wait, is this actually canon? That's... pretty bizarre even from science fiction standards.
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Yes, that's the canon. Not really all that bizarre when you think about it. Makes perfect sense imo. (and I'm sure I've seen some other sci-fi that does something similar)

The sounds are simulated so that pilots have better situational awareness. Imagine if you couldn't hear anything. You wouldn't be able to know where ships you aren't targeting were without checking the sensors, but because of the simulation of sounds, we are able to tell not just the location of other ships, but you can also tell what weapons they may be using, what type of ship it is, and if you're really good, what direction they're facing and how fast they're going. We also get noises that can help with a lot of other tasks besides combat.
If you ever want to see how it's like without any simulated sounds, equip A rated life support and turn it off (A rated only because of the highest time before suffocation) and that will disable almost all the sound.
 
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Butter of Sorrow

B
TuxedoSteve said:
If you ever want to see how it's like without any simulated sounds, equip A rated life support and turn it off (A rated only because of the highest time before suffocation) and that will disable almost all the sound.
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I've had my canopy blown off enough times to know what that's like. x)

Still it proves kind of difficult to fully absorb that feeling with the pressure of getting back to a station asap every time. Also even then you can hear a lot of sounds even if they are muffled, which doesn't make a lot of sense.


By the way I think I should make it clear just in case that I'm not particularly bothered by this sound-effect thing, I appreciate the game either way. Just an interesting detail to think about is all.
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
Butter of Sorrow said:
Also even then you can hear a lot of sounds even if they are muffled, which doesn't make a lot of sense.
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Actually, it does make sense: the speakers are still there and still trying to emit the sounds, only the sounds aren't transmitting through the air like they should, because there's no air. The muffled sounds you hear are being transmitted from the speaker through the chain of solid objects between the speakers and your ears: the ship's superstructure the speakers are attached to, the chair you're sitting on and the flight suit you're wearing. It's fairly standard physics exploited in numerous sci-fi stories: if two astronauts in spacesuits want to talk to each other without using radios, they simply touch helmets, and their voices can transmit directly through the helmets.

Your ship's computer knows your cockpit has been breached and that the air in the cockpit is gone, so might even be smart enough to automatically compensate for this and ramp up the speaker volume to the max so that the sound, transmitted through all those solid objects, is as loud as possible.
 

Pyrebird

Pyrebird
Butter of Sorrow said:
Or in other words, no sound-effects at all except in atmospheric places.

I discussed this with a friend of mine once. He said that realism isn't that important because everyone likes pew-pew spacebattle noises which I guess is a kind of understandable perspective. However, since a lot of people seem to emphasize ED being more a simulator than a game shouldn't it lean more towards realism?

The immersion factor in this case is debatable, but I think an actually silent space would have an interesting atmosphere to it. A lot of space themed movies are also loyal to this concept so my question is why aren't games as much?

What do you guys think?
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Certain sounds (like collisions and kinetic weapons) would actually be heard because sound is just a pressure wave moving through a material. It would be fairly quiet for the weapons, for for collisions it would be deafening.
as for light and energy based weapons, those shouldn't have sound at all. Everything except for the light and energy weapons has a reasonable explanation if you think about it.
What other people are saying about the ship sensing light flashes and stuff to cause explosion sounds kinda makes sense, but it raises the question of; "What would happen if we came across a Quasar?" Because that's just a star that blinks super fast as it rotates.
would you have massive crashing noises as the ship detected it?
Seems kinda flawed from a logic standpoint as there's random lights and all over the place when you're in space.
 

Wylie28

W
You do realize that there is air inside your cockpit and the energy from the engines of other ships is enough to hear when they are close right? The sounds in ED are very realistic get your canopy shot out and all you hear is your breathing and the sound of a very quiet AI
 

kofeyh

kofeyh
Yes, the sounds are primarily simulated for pilot situational awareness; feedback for actions occurring is vital.

This is pretty well illustrated when you enter space dock and there's a sudden, almost imperceptible deadening of sound, which would be reflective of the slight delay that exists as sound passes across a station and through the ship's exterior (as apposed from coming directly from the ship).

Sound design in this game, is actually some of the best I have ever come across. If you only ever use speakers, try headphones. You might be quite surprised at what the difference is like.
 

Pyrebird

Pyrebird
Wylie28 said:
You do realize that there is air inside your cockpit and the energy from the engines of other ships is enough to hear when they are close right? The sounds in ED are very realistic get your canopy shot out and all you hear is your breathing and the sound of a very quiet AI
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No, that's not true in the slightest.
In order for heat to transfer, either the photons emitted must have *EXTRAORDINARY* amounts of energy, or there's mass between the two ships, and enough of it at a high enough density to cause a sound. *edit* I mean cause a transfer of kinetic energy to cause a sound.
Space is a near vacuum so the density argument is already out, and I doubt that the ships need to expel much in the way of gasses to propel them in an environment that provides relatively low resistance to travel, IE 0 if you discount Gravity as it's negligible after a certain distance from stars and planets.
F=G(g/r) that pulling force gets lower as you get farther away.

If you've taken 12th grade chem and physics than you should know this.
 
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Wylie28

W
the main point of my post was the sound in the cockpit thing the engine part was more speculation I sort of assumed that the engines did expell tons of energy, but now that I think about the resitancelessness (too late for me to find a better word) of space you are right the engines are probably fairly weak.
 

Aewarin Jameson

Aewarin Jameson
Butter of Sorrow said:
However, since a lot of people seem to emphasize ED being more a simulator than a game shouldn't it lean more towards realism?
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Only if you believe what *some* people think.

ED is a game that tries to maintain realism and accuracy to a degree, but the Devs have always said gameplay > realism. Sounds in your cabin as a silent game is boring - personally I don't care why just that they absolutely 100% kick rear ! (The sounds are for me what make this game - crank up the bass and you will see why)
 
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