[New build - EXPERIMENTAL] 21w13a: Spaceship and build SFX

[tsunamayo]

This builds adds some revamped Spaceship, hovercraft and building sounds effects.

Improvements for spaceship sfx:

• more connected to player input
• Deals better with perspective
• Account for ship size.

Bugfixes:

3689 Symmetry overlap check do not work sometime.

3697 Ship fall through the ground when far away.

[tsunamayo]

Build is up! Thanks all

[Kaiser-Indrasil]

The engine sound reminds me of the Cyclops submarine from Subnautica!

[Regnion]

I don't like the engine sounds at all. It sounds like what I imagine a little hover scooter would sound like. For fighters, for large ships, the sound just doesn't have oomph. While I understand you don't exactly have a sound designer and an entire workshop available to you for mixing sound effects, I'd like to provide some examples.

MILLENNIUM FALCON SOUND https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snNxffxAMaA

STAR DESTROYER SOUND https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxDH4GPPmcg

PROPELLER AIRCRAFT SOUND https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl4KdIa_gsw

SATURN V SOUND https://youtu.be/ViNcBQ8cDA0?t=42

F-22 TAKEOFF SOUND https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T0UdFH4VCU

Imagine going into lightcruise and having the Saturn 5 sound underlying it, this tremendous guttural burn as you accelerate through a star system. Or the quiet propeller hum in the background as a large ship loiters, like the Star Destoyer, making the ship feel more alive. The powerful, screaming howl of a starfighter in full burn zooming past at hundreds of meters per second.

There is a sound that plays when you take the yoke, a sort of "boom" as the engines come on. That part is cool. It's promptly followed by a little putter-putter-putter sound, which is cute, but disappointing.

[ZachZent]

I partially agree with Reg. The engine sound should be a bit more beefy, but still keep the sci-fi engine sound. Maybe engine deepness can scale with size. Small engines making a higher pitched sound (relatively) while larger stretched block engines make a deeper/low pitched sound.

[SovietSponge]

I gotta be honest, I really dislike the new sounds, ships sound like roombas now. It really just doesn't at all fit what you're seeing with most ships, on larger ships where you expect there to be a big rumble there just isn't one and on fighters and such well they damn near sound like mosquitoes.

[TIKIRobo]

I think also the type of thruster could make a different noise, the small thrusters seem to be electric so they should make a different noise from the fuel burning LC thrusters

[tsunamayo]

Okay I have just realized that the thruster sounds where not playing correctly, I fixed it for next patch. Thruster sounds just like S-5 thruster, depending on whether you are in atmosphere or not the burn sound will be more or less pronounced. Regarding the scale impact it just control how far the sounds goes for now, I will see what I could do to impact with scale. Things is a larger ship is not necessarily louder... I cant use a different set of sounds too, it have to be a continuous thing. Also I cant do a thing that shake your skull. It sounds good for a trailer but it would be just plain painful for long game session. It have to be a smooth thing. The sounds I was not liking was more the destroy, what do you think of it?

[Kaiser-Indrasil]

I've played dozens of sci-fi games, many of which were space fighter sims and none ever came close to how good the engines in Elite: Dangerous sound like. Enjoy.

[Kaiser-Indrasil]

Btw did you think of using something like a sound gradient? (not a technical term) It would gradually shift from one pitch to the next, scaling with the amount of thrust a given ship has. It could pull that data directly from the Spaceship Core block.

You could have, say, 5 different key pitches that would blend together. For example, if the ship had combined thrust which would place it between the pitch 3 and 4 (favouring the 4th), it would have an blend of engine sounds at 40% pitch 3 and 60% pitch 4.

[tsunamayo]

yeah there is plenty of pitch and volume scaling already. I will tweak it a bit more.

[tsunamayo]

what is cool in the Elite one is that it depend on the engine intertia, ie if you throttle up, it will sound loud when the engine is catching up, but once the speed reached is become quieter.

[Regnion]

Okay I have just realized that the thruster sounds where not playing correctly, I fixed it for next patch. Thruster sounds just like S-5 thruster, depending on whether you are in atmosphere or not the burn sound will be more or less pronounced. Regarding the scale impact it just control how far the sounds goes for now, I will see what I could do to impact with scale. Things is a larger ship is not necessarily louder... I cant use a different set of sounds too, it have to be a continuous thing. Also I cant do a thing that shake your skull. It sounds good for a trailer but it would be just plain painful for long game session. It have to be a smooth thing. The sounds I was not liking was more the destroy, what do you think of it?

Is there any way to have directional sound? Or, positional? Perhaps inside the ship, the engine sound is a low hum, like the propeller plane, where it won't drive you insane or wear you out. But behind the ship, when the engines are facing you, it has a much more violent sound. This would also make fly-by's really impressive. This might also be rather complicated, I'm not a game dev.

[tsunamayo]

@Regnion yeah they are supposed to be like that actually, but there was an issue in the build. Will be fixed for next build which drop soon. It has some glow block so hopefully you will like it.