When you don't need an audio mask ?
- Thread starter SergMx
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No, you should turn it off when you don't need it. It uses a lot of power. 
Audio masking silences a weapon in unpressurized environments, such as outdoors and inside depressurized buildings.
Noise suppressor silences a weapon in pressurized environments.
If both of the above are added to a weapon, it will fire quietly an any environment.
In all cases, weapon shots striking an object are not silenced. And a silenced L6 may fire the rocket quietly, but the rocket explosion is not silenced.
Noise suppressor silences a weapon in pressurized environments.
If both of the above are added to a weapon, it will fire quietly an any environment.
In all cases, weapon shots striking an object are not silenced. And a silenced L6 may fire the rocket quietly, but the rocket explosion is not silenced.
As stated Audio Masking works in unpressurized environments. If you want to use the weapon silently indoors there's a large red panel usually on the roof that you can cut to depressurise the building.
You don't need any masking in a CZ. In these, noise, explosions, deafening gunfire, blood and ludicrous gibs are all part of the immersion.
One of my favourite tactics in a ground CZ is to spot a bunch of enemy dropping in and run to a position behind them and follow. Shooting the tail end charlie and then the next one etc as we all run along. Not noticed lots of times. My tormentor has audio masking and noise suppression. A weapon for all atmospheres. Or none.
Steve
Now that does sound like fun... I think I have some silenced weapons tucked away so I might give this a go!
Two kinds of planets, with and without an atmosphere. The audio masking will mute which ones ?
Based on numerous uses on numerous planets, I'm 99% sure that "outdoors" on any planet is considered "unpressurized". As a side note, the landable planets in ED with an "atmosphere" are said to have a "tenuous atmosphere". Therefore, I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I'm pretty confident that audio masking always works outdoors, regardless of the current state of ED planet atmospheres.
Stay at a long enough range, only engage targets that are on their own and be prepared to run for cover as soon as you've made a kill and you can probably manage without any form of silenced weapons.
But yeah if you want to make sure you're not heard, put audio masking on your long range weapon for sniping from the other side of the base and noise suppressor for your pistol when you're heading inside to turn off the alarms.
But yeah if you want to make sure you're not heard, put audio masking on your long range weapon for sniping from the other side of the base and noise suppressor for your pistol when you're heading inside to turn off the alarms.
Works with unsilenced weapons as well due to the AI occasionally being as dense as osmium.Now that does sound like fun... I think I have some silenced weapons tucked away so I might give this a go!
I understand you, and it's very sad. Why then was it necessary to introduce planets with an atmosphere? Poor game mechanics
I'm hoping it was a first step toward landable Earth-like worlds. ...yeah, I know....I understand you, and it's very sad. Why then was it necessary to introduce planets with an atmosphere? Poor game mechanics
I.e. the bottom line: to muffle the sound of a shot on a planet with an atmosphere, outside of buildings.
One mod is enough - audio masking.
Audio masking just works in the absence of natural sound being carried and natural sound doesn't carry enough in a tenuous atmosphere and so is simulated by our suits anyway. You can safely assume that "outside a building = audio masking safe" irrespective of where you are, yes.
In terms of remembering which does which and why they work differently, it might help you to know some lore/game design history that lead directly to this even being a thing.
Sound doesn't carry in a vacuum and, early on in the game's development (pre-alpha), FD decided that having a space game with almost no sound would be dull and nowhere near as atmospheric (ha ha) as one with sound. Apparently, they tried it without sound and decided it just wasn't worth the "realism". What they did to "explain away" or "hand wave" the fact that we can indeed hear all the sounds around our space ships was that they're all fitted with a device that simulates sounds based on events occurring in range and then relays that directly to our commander via speakers. When on foot, the same sound simulation is carried out by our suits for the exact same reason (game play reason and "hand wave" reason). In reality, we'd not hear anything in a vacuum and our ability to hear anything in a tenuous atmosphere would be severely impaired. If FD decided to go down the route of retaining "realism" instead of fun, they'd have zero need to give us a silencer mod for our weapons except for when inside a pressurised building.
So... The silencer we get by default is called a noise suppressor, which is what it is doing and you can quite easily relate noise suppression with what a silencer actually does.
However, the audio masking device we get to stop others "hearing" our weapon fire is actually a chip that masks the signal created by our weapons when they fire that other suits would normally detect as part of their "hand waved" device to detect sound. This is why bullet/projectile impacts (if you shoot a wall, for example) are never dampened in any way and are always fully detectable if an NPC is near enough; that sound is never masked nor is it suppressed. But, when your weapon fires, if it has the audio masking mod, it'll subvert the "hand waved" pretend device all weapons have that normally transmit their audio information to anything in range that can detect it.
It's basically a transponder hack but for weapons. And the way to know the difference is it literally tells you that it is masking its audio [signal]. As opposed to suppressing the noise it makes.
I do use both on any weapon designed for stealth killing but I think audio masking is the only one you really need. Using the energy link to quietly kill indoors is pretty easy for massacre/assassination missions and scavengers never go indoors but when you're outside there's usually a lot less cover and it's more useful to be able to silently kill non-shielded targets from a distance. Noise suppressor is a nice-to-have. Audio masking is hugely useful though if you want to kill softer targets without getting detected, but you still need to do enough damage to kill them before they put up their shields, otherwise the benefit is lost anyway. For this reason, I think audio masking is less useful for some automatic weaponry.
There are some comments above discussing the usefulness of these mods in CZs and I'll always say that you should use whatever mods you want to use because, largely, the only thing that actually matters in EDO is the grade of the weapon anyway but... I'd much prefer to use mods that give you QoL in combat than a silencer... Every target has a shield (one shot stealth kills are not a thing) and will always react when shot and it's very rare any other NPC will react to you shooting them if you're far enough away, so you're not gaining any benefit from being silenced (I believe it possible to shoot at a bunch of NPCs and only the one you shoot with react to you anyway). I prefer extended magazine, faster handling, stowed reloading (this one is amazing in CZs, resulting in hardly ever needing to reload) and then any other mod dependent on the weapon (usually improved hip fire accuracy).
But for scavenger killing and massacres, audio masking helps so much, particularly on the Executioner. Without it, you're almost guaranteed to have to engage shielded enemies. With it, you can take out the whole settlement and never get detected.
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Interesting. I seem to run out of mmo alot, stowed reloading or no. I think I need to monitor whats happening more closely. Personally, my CZ weapon of choice is the Aphelion with ammo clip, headshot, range and stability. Perhaps I should "get out more" and experiment
I only ever used it with two Executioners with extended magazine and it takes about 5s to fire all 5 shots, so you're able to fire constantly without reloading. The tormentor can fill in any gaps as well.Interesting. I seem to run out of mmo alot, stowed reloading or no. I think I need to monitor whats happening more closely. Personally, my CZ weapon of choice is the Aphelion with ammo clip, headshot, range and stability. Perhaps I should "get out more" and experiment
It may not be as useful with other weapons if you can unload their magazines in less than 5s.
As a note, you can skip the silencers and put on some more aggressive mods if you obey the Never Be Not Moving principle. As long as the settlement occupants don't see you with your gun out or standing over the corpse when they get there, they won't know it's you.
Inside of buildings it can be a little trickier to pull this off as your avenues of escape are somewhat more restricted.
Personally I find there's little point in a noise suppressor on an executioner as it's not really an indoors gun, but audio masking can be good for stopping your target from pausing when they hear the pop and messing up your lead on them or getting their shields up before the shot actually lands. Same goes for the L-6. On the other hand, audio masking isn't really as necessary on close-range weapons where you aren't going to be doing any sniping or can just run around the corner before anyone comes to see what the noise was.
I do like a double-silencer on my P-15 though. Extended mags and headshot damage on the other slots. A silent sidearm is a very solid upgrade from using the zapper.
Inside of buildings it can be a little trickier to pull this off as your avenues of escape are somewhat more restricted.
Personally I find there's little point in a noise suppressor on an executioner as it's not really an indoors gun, but audio masking can be good for stopping your target from pausing when they hear the pop and messing up your lead on them or getting their shields up before the shot actually lands. Same goes for the L-6. On the other hand, audio masking isn't really as necessary on close-range weapons where you aren't going to be doing any sniping or can just run around the corner before anyone comes to see what the noise was.
I do like a double-silencer on my P-15 though. Extended mags and headshot damage on the other slots. A silent sidearm is a very solid upgrade from using the zapper.
How do you turn off an audio masking mod?No, you should turn it off when you don't need it. It uses a lot of power.
My preferred primary weapon;
This is partly due to Possible PvP scenarios,; no sound to attract opposing cmdrs and no purple flash to tell them where I am.
G5 to reduce TTK to minimum, it'll drop an NPC before they can get their shields up reliably if you can land your shots.