Will we ever get improved combat sound and visual design?

[CMDR Woland92]

I want my weapons to look and sound heavy and powerful. I’m always disappointed by the light zapping noise of the pulse and burst lasers. They also look pretty weak. It’s soemtimes hard to tell if your cannon is even firing. Why can’t we have a huge, visible tracer round? The lasers should be shooting huge (depending on hardpoint size) crackling beams of plasma. I know there’s no sound in space but presumably we would still hear something inside the pressurized cockpit of the ship?

With so much apparent emphasis on combat (and with the generally incredible graphics and sound design) it’s surprising that the combat sounds and visuals are so underwhelming.

Am I alone on this? Do you think we’ll ever get improved visual and sound design?

 

[babelfisch]

Weapon sounds depend on hardpoint placement, a MC next to your cockpit is way louder than a MC 20m away from you.

 

[Yodebe]

You need some better speakers!
The sound is the best thing of all.

 

[CMDR Woland92]

On the contrary, friend. I have a very expensive sound system with two full dynamic range Martin Logan speakers and subwoofer. I have a Denton AVR, a 60 inch 4K UHD tv and I have my audio settings optimized for large, loud speakers.

My system is the cat’s pajamas, but I still feel like I’m shooting a squirt gun. It is the input that is lacking.

 

[nanite2000]

The thing is, pulse lasers and burst lasers generally *are* quite weak, especially when compared to munitions based weapons.

As babelfisch said, weapon volume is dependent on placement. If you're using laser turrets on a large ship (e.g. an Anaconda), you're not going to hear them firing very well since they could be over 100m away from where your commander is sitting. Conversely, in a Krait where your guns are right next to your cockpit, they will be very loud and clear.

Get a decent speaker system as Yodebe said - many of the larger weapons have more bass to emphasise their size. A subwoofer will make this very evident.

Also, check your sound settings in-game. Make sure it is set to either 'Normal' or 'Full Range'. 'Night Mode' will reduce bass and increase treble to make everything sound less 'booming'.

Additionally, while tracer rounds are not an option for weapons, you can simulate tracer rounds by applying a bright weapon colour. This makes munitions based weapons very obvious, and allows you to distinguish more clearly which weapon fire originated from your ship.

EDIT: Oop - just realised you already said you had a decent sound system. Check your in-game audio settings and weapon placement then.

 

[777Driver]

I want my weapons to look and sound heavy and powerful. I’m always disappointed by the light zapping noise of the pulse and burst lasers. They also look pretty weak. It’s soemtimes hard to tell if your cannon is even firing. Why can’t we have a huge, visible tracer round? The lasers should be shooting huge (depending on hardpoint size) crackling beams of plasma. I know there’s no sound in space but presumably we would still hear something inside the pressurized cockpit of the ship?

With so much apparent emphasis on combat (and with the generally incredible graphics and sound design) it’s surprising that the combat sounds and visuals are so underwhelming.

Am I alone on this? Do you think we’ll ever get improved visual and sound design?

I partly agree with you about the sound, have said similar things on here many times. Will state the obvious and say the sound design in this game in general is a work of art, nobody can deny that. However Many weapon sounds in this game are incredibly weak.

(Coming from an Audiophile perspective) my reasoning behind the above is that the devs have the philosophy that extremely repetitive weapon sounds need to be tamed in order to not drive people insane on various setups.. Could be completely wrong.

Get yourself a decent sound system and Subwoofer, crank it up, fit a bass transducer to the chair, load up an F63 Condor Multi cannon variant, pull the trigger on those guns.. Trust me it is one of the most heavy, glorious weapon sounds you will hear/feel in any game.

Now take things like pulse/burst, plasmas or even Torp/Missiles launches. Doesn't matter how huge your sound rig is, it sounds kinda weak. Those kind of sounds are hard to appeal to everyone, the safe bet is to keep them tame.

 

[Yodebe]

On the contrary, friend. I have a very expensive sound system with two full dynamic range Martin Logan speakers and subwoofer. I have a Denton AVR, a 60 inch 4K UHD tv and I have my audio settings optimized for large, loud speakers.

My system is the cat’s pajamas, but I still feel like I’m shooting a squirt gun. It is the input that is lacking.

Cool. I wasn't trying to be patronising, just thought you might be on some computer speakers or something.

777 might be right too, a completely fantabulous pulse laser sound probably would drive you completely nuts fairly quickly.

I'm surprised you don't like the cannon sound although it does really need loads of sub to get the effect.

o7