Sound Overhaul

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Aperture Science said:

I support your suggestion.

 

Well done.

It's weird having two people with very similar usernames, and basically the same profile picture.

[Aperture Science Employee]

Thank you! All the help will be greatly appreciated!

Edited January 29, 2016 by Aperture Science Employee
Quoting Error

[KerbonautInTraining]

The jet engines should whine at idle (like they do now) and roar at full power IMO. Look up AgentJayZ on YouTube. Some of his videos also show the insane throttle response of real life fighter engines (idle to full thrust in less than 3 seconds)

Beware that a couple of his Q&A videos contain mild language.

Edit: Skip to 3:40 for throttling (and associated sounds) and 6:10 for dat afterburner

 

Edited January 30, 2016 by KerbonautInTraining

[StarManta]

Part of the problem is sound immersiveness, and more impressive engine sounds and sonic booms would help. My main issue, though, is that so many things have no sounds at all. Transmitting science is silent. Electricity running low/out is silent. Drilling for ore is silent, as is converting it. Depleting a fuel tank (e.g. time to drop those radial tanks!) is silent, except for the (often imperceptible) change in the engine sounds. Passing into the zone where you're supposed to perform a temperature scan is silent. Landing is silent unless you land hard enough to explode, and there really ought to be a sound when I lightly bonk against a ship instead of docking with it. Docking, too, is silent.  Rover wheels are silent. Cargo bays opening and fairings deploying are silent. Fuel pumping between tanks is silent. Accomplishing mission objective and achievements is silent. Parts approaching critical temperature is silent, and when they fail, is just a generic explosion. Completing a maneuver node (such that it switches from the X to the green checkmark) is silent. Kerbal EVA pack jets and Monoprop thrusters are silent. SOI changes are silent. Running into a solar panel and destroying it is silent. I could go on. I probably will come back and edit this again with more examples.

This isn't just aesthetics or even immersion, although they would help that immensely - the audio queues could and should be functional. The sound in the game should let you know that's it's time to take action. Every single thing listed in the above paragraph should have a unique sound effect associated with it.

And then there's the bugs. For example: the audio bug when you're throttled up and in map view - anytime you drag the view around, sound stops. Any Unity developer (even most amateur ones) should be able to instantly tell that the problem is that the camera used in Map View has an AudioListener on it, when it has no business having that - the AudioListener should be kept on the camera that renders the real-world scene when you come out of map view, or if not that, put onto a different GameObject that follows that position. No exaggeration or grandstanding here: if I had access to the project file for maybe ten minutes, this bug would be fixed. Yet somehow it has persisted for as long as I've been playing (0.17).

The only conclusion I can draw is that the devs play the game on mute, and have been since very early betas. Which is understandable, and would be fine, if they had a dedicated sound engineer as a part of the team. They don't. They badly need one.

Edited January 29, 2016 by StarManta

[Matuchkin]

17 minutes ago, StarManta said:

Part of the problem is sound immersiveness, and more impressive engine sounds and sonic booms would help. My main issue, though, is that so many things have no sounds at all. Transmitting science is silent. Electricity running low/out is silent. Drilling for ore is silent, as is converting it. Depleting a fuel tank (e.g. time to drop those radial tanks!) is silent, except for the (often imperceptible) change in the engine sounds. Passing into the zone where you're supposed to perform a temperature scan is silent. Landing is silent unless you land hard enough to explode, and there really ought to be a sound when I lightly bonk against a ship instead of docking with it. Docking, too, is silent.  Rover wheels are silent. Cargo bays opening and fairings deploying are silent. Fuel pumping between tanks is silent. Accomplishing mission objective and achievements is silent. Parts approaching critical temperature is silent, and when they fail, is just a generic explosion. Completing a maneuver node (such that it switches from the X to the green checkmark) is silent. Kerbal EVA pack jets and Monoprop thrusters are silent. SOI changes are silent. Running into a solar panel and destroying it is silent. I could go on. I probably will come back and edit this again with more examples.

This isn't just aesthetics or even immersion, although they would help that immensely - the audio queues could and should be functional. The sound in the game should let you know that's it's time to take action. Every single thing listed in the above paragraph should have a unique sound effect associated with it.

And then there's the bugs. For example: the audio bug when you're throttled up and in map view - anytime you drag the view around, sound stops. Any Unity developer (even most amateur ones) should be able to instantly tell that the problem is that the camera used in Map View has an AudioListener on it, when it has no business having that - the AudioListener should be kept on the camera that renders the real-world scene when you come out of map view, or if not that, put onto a different GameObject that follows that position. No exaggeration or grandstanding here: if I had access to the project file for maybe ten minutes, this bug would be fixed. Yet somehow it has persisted for as long as I've been playing (0.17).

The only conclusion I can draw is that the devs play the game on mute, and have been since very early betas. Which is understandable, and would be fine, if they had a dedicated sound engineer as a part of the team. They don't. They badly need one.

I strongly agree with this, though I do not want to have an achievement sound every time I do something (completing nodes, SOI changes). Will make this game to arcadey.

I'd like to adress the main issue here with a video:

(don't only listen to the sound. Look at the engine plume as opposed to the thin smoke-trails engines in KSP get.)

Edited January 29, 2016 by Matuchkin

[StarManta]

1 minute ago, Matuchkin said:

I strongly agree with this, though I do not want to have an achievement sound every time I do something (completing nodes, SOI changes). Will make this game to arcadey.

 

How arcadey it feels would depend entirely on what sound effects are used. Obviously the less important things should have more subtle sounds, but a simple, distinct blip or whoosh or tone would make all the difference.

[Aperture Science Employee]

On January 29, 2016 at 0:01 PM, StarManta said:

How arcadey it feels would depend entirely on what sound effects are used. Obviously the less important things should have more subtle sounds, but a simple, distinct blip or whoosh or tone would make all the difference.

Sounds should not be that hard for what the KSP devs do for us. And if there was a whole update dedicated to sound overhaul, I'm a happy camper.

[Aperture Science Employee]

On ‎1‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 4:42 PM, CliftonM said:

It's weird having two people with very similar usernames, and basically the same profile picture.

What about planet ambient sounds? Like wind, water splashing, or grass swaying?

 

On ‎1‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 0:01 PM, StarManta said:

How arcadey it feels would depend entirely on what sound effects are used. Obviously the less important things should have more subtle sounds, but a simple, distinct blip or whoosh or tone would make all the difference.

 

On ‎1‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 11:57 AM, Matuchkin said:

I strongly agree with this, though I do not want to have an achievement sound every time I do something (completing nodes, SOI changes). Will make this game to arcadey.

I'd like to adress the main issue here with a video:

(don't only listen to the sound. Look at the engine plume as opposed to the thin smoke-trails engines in KSP get.)

 

[Rath]

Better sounds and contextual music would be awesome.

 

Play a very lonley song around dres.

 

 

Edited February 8, 2016 by Rath

[moogoob]

I agree with this thread - many sounds are missing. What would be nice, too, is settings on how to handle sound propagation in a vacuum or non-sea-level atmosphere:

Simple would have all sounds play as normal.

Balanced would reduce volume of events outside the active craft based on how much atmosphere there is. On Duna, a nearby explosion would be dulled. On Eve, it would sound closer. Sounds from your current craft would sound as normal, with the assumption that this is what the crew is hearing.

Realistic would be like in Orbiter Sound - from external views, all vehicle sound would reduce in volume as the craft ascends until finally silence in the upper atmosphere/orbit. You would still hear RCS jets/engine sounds/mechanical noises when in an IVA view.

Sorry if this was already mentioned!