Shrike's (Allegedly) Superior Sounds (Alpha Release)

[Song]

Greetings. This mod, currently under development, replaces the vanilla sound effects for multiple weapons with some new sounds of my own devising.

The initial alpha version is available for download HERE. The changes made by this mod are listed below:

ALPHA 1 (28th July, 2014):

-Replaced snLaserCannon with new snParticleFire on all particle-beam family weapons (except the slicer cannon, which I forgot)
-Replaced snLaserCannon with new snHeavyParticle on all TeV9 family weapons
-Replaced snMissileLauncher on NAMI heavy launcher with new snHeavyMissileLaunch (IMPORTANT: This version of the NAMI heavy launcher is NOT COMPATIBLE with Shrike's Mines & Missiles in any form. If you're running an SM&M variant, you will need to alter that mod to enable the new sound from there, then delete the launcher from this mod)
-Replaced snLaserCannon with new snIonFire on nearly all ion weapons (I'll be trying for a "heavy ion" sound later on)
-Replaced snRecoillessCannon with new snMakayevLaunch on the makayev launcher.
-----------------------------

ALPHA 2 (2nd August, 2014):

-Replaced snLaserCannon with new snPositronGun on Ares Positron gun.
-Replaced snLaserCannon with new snPositronLancer on Positron Lancer
-Replaced snMissilelauncher with new snPlasmaShot on Fracture Cannon
-Replaced snRecoillessCannon with new snHowitzer1 on Hecates cannon and Fusionfire howitzer.
-Revised snIonfire to be less harsh.

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HOW TO USE: Simply install the mod in your extensions folder, and enable it when starting a new game. Please not that at present, SASS works by over-writing every single weapon it affects, and thus it is very prone to conflict with other mods. Either merge them or disable the other mods to get this one working.


RIGHTS AND REPRODUCTION: All sounds in this pack are modified from the original game sounds by Kronosaur Productions, and are free to use or modify for any Transcendence-related activity or production. I'd appreciate attribution for the more heavily modified ones (particle, heavy particle and Ion) though.

[Song]

I'd be really, really interested in hearing feedback on this one. I know we're not generally big on mod feedback here, but with sounds it's absolutely vital to getting things as good as possible.

[TVR]

Alright, downloading. Will try to give feedback by tomorrow.

[Song]

Another day, another set of sounds. Hoping to release Alpha 2 of SASS by the end of the week. Currently I'm remixing the stargate sound into an energy-weapon noise. I'd originally intended for it to be for heavy ion weapons, but I think it'll actually end up as the Ares Positron sound. It won't work for the Lancer though, so that'll need something more exotic.

The current sounds have the following origins, for anyone who's curious:

Ionfire ---> The armor hit sound
Particlefire --> Original laser cannon sound
Heavyparticle --> ShipExplosion1, I think
MakayevLaunch & HeavyMissileLaunch ---> The original missile launcher sound (not major changes)


Edit: End of day progress as follows:

-New sound for Ares Positron Cannon
-New sound for Ringer Positron lancer (based off the ares one, but short enough that it doesn't grate as much)
-New sound for fusionfire and hecates howitzers. Might add these on to other howitzers later as well. Needs to be a little louder as well.

[TVR]

Makayev launcher SFX fits well
Ion SFX sounds extremely harsh and static distorted
Particle SFX is good
NAMI heavy has a high tempo for something so deep

[AssumedPseudonym]

Ion SFX sounds extremely harsh and static distorted

 That’s actually why I like the ion sound. If anything is going to sound harsh or distorted, ion is the most obvious candidate for it.

EDIT: I remember some discussion on IRC about repeating weapons (or lancers, more specifically, I think) and having them only produce their sound effect once. I decided to try an experiment. I dropped the mining laser into your mod for testing purposes, dropped its sound field, and threw in a sysPlaySound event under <OnFireWeapon>. It didn’t help, it still produced sound for each iteration. I more or less expected it to, but I figured it was worth testing. So you know.

[Song]

Ion SFX sounds extremely harsh and static distorted

 That’s actually why I like the ion sound. If anything is going to sound harsh or distorted, ion is the most obvious candidate for it.

The harshness is largely intentional. However there is some leftover crud from when I was modifying the sound that I'm going to try to cut out. It's still supposed to be quite a harsh noise in the end though.

Edit: Also, Audacity cut off the peaks of the sound for some reason during the alteration, which will make removing the harshness annoying unless I go back and try to recreate the entire thing from scratch. So if I revisit this sound it'll be a few alphas down the road. [/Edit]

EDIT: I remember some discussion on IRC about repeating weapons (or lancers, more specifically, I think) and having them only produce their sound effect once. I decided to try an experiment. I dropped the mining laser into your mod for testing purposes, dropped its sound field, and threw in a sysPlaySound event under <OnFireWeapon>. It didn’t help, it still produced sound for each iteration. I more or less expected it to, but I figured it was worth testing. So you know

Figures. Ah well. At present I'm dealing with problematic repeating weapons by either A. Ignoring them or B. Giving them custom sounds of their own. They have less personality as a result, but they don't break as much.

[PM]

It is possible for <Events> to restrict sound to the first shot only, but it requires checks to tell which shot is which. The modified mining laser below plays the sound only once per burst.

Code: Select all

	<ItemType UNID="&itMiningLaser;"
			name=				"mining laser"
			level=				"2"
			value=				"550"
			mass=				"2000"
			frequency=			"rare"
			attributes=			"EnergyWeapon; MajorItem; Specialty"
			showReference=		"true"

			description=		"This powerful laser is generally used for asteroid mining."
			>

		<Image imageID="&rsItems1;" imageX="96" imageY="0" imageWidth="96" imageHeight="96"/>

		; Removed sound field because sound will be played in Events instead.
		<Weapon
				type=				"beam"

				repeating=			"4"
				damage=				"laser:1d4; mining3"
				fireRate=			"30"
				lifetime=			"15"
				powerUse=			"30"

				hitEffect=			"&efGreenLaserHitEffect;" 
				>
			<Effect>
				<Beam
						beamType=			"laser"
						primaryColor=		"0x5f, 0xf1, 0x2a"
						secondaryColor=		"0x00, 0xff, 0x00"
						/>
			</Effect>
		</Weapon>

		<Events>
			<OnFireWeapon>
				(block (theCount)
					; We use charges as our shot counter.
					(setq theCount (itmGetProperty gItem 'charges))

					; Charges should be zero on the first shot.
					; We play the firing sound only when charges equal zero.
					(if (eq theCount 0)
						(sysPlaySound &snLaserCannon; gSource)
					)

					; We have five shots per burst.  Reset charges to zero after the fifth shot.
					(objSetItemProperty gSource gItem 'charges (modulo (add theCount 1) 5))

					; Return Nil to fire the default weapon.
					Nil
				)
			</OnFireWeapon>

			; These next two events are optional, but recommended.
			<OnInstall>
				; The first shot should have zero charges, so make sure that happens.
				; After setting charges, the item struct changes, so update gItem.
				(setq gItem (objSetItemProperty gSource gItem 'charges 0))
			</OnInstall>

			<OnUninstall>
				; Reset in case we stopped mid-burst and got a charge.
				; This lets the item stack with others and prevent player from evading buying limits.
				(setq gItem (objSetItemProperty gSource gItem 'charges 0))
			</OnUninstall>
		</Events>
	</ItemType>

[AssumedPseudonym]

 Thanks, PM. ^.^
 I was almost positive there would be a way to do that, and if it hadn’t been stupid-o’clock in the morning when I posted that, I would’ve experimented further to try to get it to work. I may have even succeeded, but I can already tell you that the way you did it is not the way I would have gone about it. (Mine would’ve been uglier. Probably a lot uglier. I may even still experiment a bit, myself, just to find out how much uglier.)

[Atarlost]

Harsh sounds are risky: if a sound is popping that can actually damage speakers.

[Song]

Harsh sounds are risky: if a sound is popping that can actually damage speakers.

Alright, I'll try to get a redo in for Alpha 2 or 3.

[Atarlost]

Harsh sounds are risky: if a sound is popping that can actually damage speakers.

Alright, I'll try to get a redo in for Alpha 2 or 3.

I don't know if it's a problem or not. You have to look at the waveform closely and look for cusps and jumps and manually smooth them.

It's something that comes up when you manipulate a waveform and something goes out of bounds and wraps around. Possibly current software has bounds checking, by my sister spent hours manually cleaning sound files when she was doing her computer music course work several years ago.

[Song]

Ion sound is smoothed out a lot in Alpha 2. Still working on the rest of the sounds for it though (Ares Positron sound is currently a placeholder more than anything). Currently stuck on plasma and blast (Akan 30) sounds.

[Song]

Alpha 2 is out now

Alpha 2 includes:

-Revised ion sound effect
-New sound for the ares positron cannon
-New sound for RInger positron lancer*
-New Sound for Hecates and Fusionfire howitzers**
-New sound for Avalanche and Fracture cannons***

-------
If you are currently using SASS, this new version will not be compatible with your save file.

Alpha 3 will be done in a week or two (I'm having some IRL issues that I need to deal with, so things may slow down), and will hopefully see a finishing pass on the Avalanche/Fracture and Howitzer sounds to get them up to par. I'll also decide what the final sound for the positron lancer will be, and continue trying to come up with a sound for the Akan 30 (the last attempt failed, sorry).

------------------
*This is a test sound to examine how best to make a lancer not sound horrible. It mostly does not succeed in my opinion, but I'd be interested in what others think. The other option would be to remove this sound and just use the same sound as the APA.
**This sound is almost finished, but needs a little finetuning in Alpha 3. I'm also planning to modify this into a sound for the Ares Plasma Archcannon
***Partially finished placeholder. I'm again interested in what people think about the idea of this sort of sound. Note: This sound currently only plays on the Fracture Cannon. This is deliberate so I can compare sounds by spawning in an ICS and messing with it. The avalanche will be converted over for Alpha 3.

[Song]

Once again, any feedback on the new release would be exceptionally helpful. I know only 4 people have downloaded it so far, but one or two comments on it would make improvements a lot easier to make.