Flak sounds too loud - Someone help please?

Post by **Nanook** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 20:51

Virtually all the sounds you hear inside your cockpit are created by the onboard computer for situational awareness (no sound in space, remember

). So having deafening sounds for FLAK and IRE's makes no sense. Having your computer generate sounds that adversely affect your combat abilities is just bad and cannot be justified!

esd · Post by **esd** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 21:21

TraurigRitter wrote:Hi esd, moving this to the mod forum sounds like a good idea. I'm hoping someone can help me out, either in the form of a mod/patch or else step by step guide on changing the sound!

Your wish is my command.

I think it can be done though - it'd involve editing the sound file (which is in one of the .dat files, if I remember correctly).

Klyith · Post by **Klyith** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 21:25

Extract sound 919.wav, edit it to reduce volume, and repack it into a mod. That sound is also the sound of a M6 exploding, so the next time you kill a P it will be a wimpy bang.

Flak guns have a bit of a bug that the boom of their exploding bullets does not attenuate with distance properly. The annoying thing isn't just that they're too loud, it's that they're the same volume whether you're being hit or on the other side of the sector.

Minsc · Post by **Minsc** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 22:47

Hello everyone, I had the same problem before with the flak/big explosion sound sounding horrible at any level of volume. What I did was to create a small simple mod that replaces the flak explosion sound with another explosion sound from the game. Now both off these sound almost excatly as loud but the one I use dont have the static/high pitched noise.

If I rember it correctly I replaced the sound file 920.wav (used for flak and big explosions and more) with the 919.wav sound file (the sound file is merged into the mod so it doesn't touch anything in the *.cab files).
If yo ureally want it I could send it to you or perhaps you could direct me to a free file hostage site.

Soundfile 920.wav is classed as "very big explosion" and soundfile 919.wav is classed as "big explosion", both have almost the same sound level but the 919 file has no high pitch ear killing noise or what I used to call head-ache generator!

Klyith · Post by **Klyith** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 23:04

Minsc wrote:If I rember it correctly I replaced the sound file 920.wav (used for flak and big explosions and more) with the 919.wav sound file (the sound file is merged into the mod so it doesn't touch anything in the *.cab files).
If yo ureally want it I could send it to you or perhaps you could direct me to a free file hostage site.

#1 - Flak booms are definitely sound 919.wav, not 920.
#2 - What high pitched sound? Both of those explosions have a sort of swoosh sound in them, but it isn't what I'd call high pitched.

...
As I have written before on this subject, my favorite way to mod this is to heavily reduce the firing rate of the flak guns. The loudness is much more tolerable when there aren't 10 repetitions layered on top of one another.

Minsc · Post by **Minsc** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 23:17

Well on my X3 it is the 920 file that is used for flaks. By changing the 920 with the 919 file it got rid of the problem. My 920 file has a kind of high pitched noise baked into the explosion (you think my 920 file is corrupt?) that makes it unbearable to hear. The 920 file is used for flaks, station explosions and som missile explosions.

What I am saying is true (atleast for my X3 version

) otherwise my mod would have not worked!

The sound files are in the 3.CAB file under s\ ....
If a less potent explosion sound is prefered then the 918.wav (hornet missile explosion if I remeber it correctly otherwise a smaller rocket) is a good one. Or your method can be used.

Syklon · Post by **Syklon** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 23:34

Actually, you are both right, in a way. The flak sound is hard coded so that it uses a combination of all of the ships explosions sounds depending on the distance, number, etc. of the explosions, so altering both 919 or 920 would affect the flak sound.

Minsc · Post by **Minsc** » Tue, 6. Feb 07, 23:41

Aha, then for a less potent explosion sound I would have to replace both 919 and 920 with 918!
But I like the 919 explosion so it is OK for me (all this numbers pfff!).

TraurigRitter · Post by **TraurigRitter** » Wed, 7. Feb 07, 01:45

*blinks* So what would you recommend me to do? The idea of replacing the sound files sounds good (as I'd rather avoid having the weapon stats change). I'm hoping to avoid altering the game as much as possible, as I'm still on my first run.

@Minsc: Sending me that file of yours sounds good (as long as nothing else has changed), how large is it anyway? Could you try www.yousendit.com?

I could also try doing it myself, except I'd need a step by step guide. I don't even know how to extract the sound thing!

And thanks for all the input so far!

Minsc · Post by **Minsc** » Wed, 7. Feb 07, 02:51

Hello, I have uploaded the file to megaupload.com, it is a zip of 856Kb with 2 mods, ExplosionMed and ExplosionLow where as Low sounds less potent than the Med version readme included for my tiny mod!

(If I understood correctly they only allow one download per IP just so you know)

"Soundfix.zip"
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=05IJZ4W2

Edit: I might add that this mod dosnt remove anything (your game is still 100% intact). "Med" version is the file 919 renamed to 920 and "Low" is the file 918 renamed to 919 and 920 (mod contains the sound files).

TraurigRitter · Post by **TraurigRitter** » Wed, 7. Feb 07, 08:11

Thanks for that Minsc! *gives you an invisible cookie*

Khaak_Slayer · Post by **Khaak_Slayer** » Thu, 8. Feb 07, 16:00

Thanks dude! Most appreciated, would you like me to mirror that for you? i have a paid account on RapidShare .com and .de so it'll never be deleted.

And just to give my opinion, i find the sound effect ridiculous, during combat near a capital ship, it's all you can hear, and it's the exact same sound effect over and over and over, it sounds far too irregular/unique to have it repeat in such a way to be realistic. i wonder if it's possibly to create a set of code to have several explosion effect files and randomly access each per explosion.

Minsc · Post by **Minsc** » Thu, 8. Feb 07, 16:18

Hello, of course you can upload it to rapidshare.

About the other question Im afraid I dont know but a forum member said earlier that the flaak sound selector is hardcoded to use a combination of 2 soundfiles 919 and 920 and perhaps some other less potent explosion sounds. What could be done is to remix the explosion sounds and for example add part of other explosion sound files to file 919 and 920. This would make it sound more pleasant to the ear and as a mix of small and big explosion sounds, but ill see if I can do something about it!

Khaak_Slayer · Post by **Khaak_Slayer** » Thu, 8. Feb 07, 16:36

There we go: http://rapidshare.com/files/15522536/Soundfix.zip.html

Similar principle to Mega Upload's site i believe, if you choose the free option down the bottom right you have to wait a short time-limit and such.

Also, that sounds good. Have you ever played the game HomeWorld 2? (i adore that game) but anyway, if you have, i would suggest making a sound effect for the flack similar to that of the Hiigaran Mothership's gun batteries, as well as the small fighter main-guns, it has a very nice and deep sound to it.
I really wish i could find my fourth Hard-Drive, i made and remixed around 50 awesome explosion sound effects for the game Star Trek Bridge Commander a couple of years back, but i deleted the game folder on my secondary disk by accident a few months ago, and the only backups are on this hard drive that i can't find.

But good luck with your endeavors! i look forward to hearing what you come up with.

Edit: i managed to find four of the original explosions which i then modded into four firing effects for a ship i designed and modeled for a Homeworld2 Total Conversion called Angels Fall First,.

The ship was designated "Gunship", it's essentially one long rail-gun barrel which fires a high yield shell at super speeds, it called for a sound effect that would justify its power, however i don't believe they were ever made use of. I personally think they sound pretty kool, so if anyone is thinking of making a high-power rail-gun or plasma weapon for this game and requires a nice unique sound effect, let me know and i'll let you have a listen.

Minsc · Post by **Minsc** » Thu, 8. Feb 07, 20:44

Well I have done now a new tiny sound mod (well actually 4!). I have used 4 types of different types of explosions that sound like what would be considered good for a flaak cannon in this game. Becouse the weapon sound seems to be hardcoded (it doesn't seem to be possible to map soundfiles to weapons/bullets) then what I did whas change the 920.wav (big explosion, flaak, station, M2/M1, big asteroid exploding) and mix in some other explosion sounds.
I had to make the 920 sound balanced becouse it is used not only by the flaak cannon but I think I got it quite good. When a station or M2 blows up it now has several pre explosion sounds before the final big one (station gas canister, ammo racks exploding before the final boom!). I have keept the file short enough so that it doesnt continue to play when the flaak bullets have faded away. Also I have reduced the 919 soundfile volume to spare ones ears!
The 919 sound file is the 918 sound renamed to 919 and the volume reduced from the original ear drum shaking level!
This becouse the flaak uses both sound file 919 and 920 for the flaak and to prevent the 919 to be to loud so that it doesnt overcome the 920 sound!

919.wav, used for medium ships/M6, medium asteroids, flaak (sound level reduced).

920.wav, used for big ships/Mx, big asteroids, stations, flaak (new explosion sounds mixxed in).

I hope I got it right, becouse it my ears hurt after hearing the explosion sounds 100 of times!

"SpecialExpLow" mod has the big and medium explosion sounds lowered for sensible ears!
"SpecialExpMed" mod has the big and medium sounds set to a bit higher volume than the "Low" mod.
"SpecialExpLowLE" is the same as the "Low" mod but it has the explosion bit of file 920 lowered (so you can here the different explosion better).
"SpecialExpMedLE" is the same as the "Med" mod but the volume of the explosion bit of the 920 file has been incresed slightly!

X3ExplosionSoundMod.zip, 2.39MB.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZUKCYVN1

EDIT: Here is the same mod as above but it has higher volume for both sound files (I prefer this myself).

X3expModSpecialExpHigh.zip, 627KB
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=D5Y9L1F8

Charlie Whiskey · Post by **Charlie Whiskey** » Tue, 20. Feb 07, 13:32

Am I the only one that think the flak sound effect sounds more like depth charge exploding around a submarine rather the flak around an airplane?

Khaak_Slayer · Post by **Khaak_Slayer** » Tue, 20. Feb 07, 16:29

Actually yes i think you probably are the only one, seeing as depth charges are under water and sound rather muted, and this is in space not air ;d

I'm only joking with you.

Anyway, this would be a good place to post a link to some sound effects i made to replace the current: http://forum3.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php ... 31#2029531