Zero-atmo-maps

[yurch]

With the lack of players on the server at the moment, I decided to try through the campaign on impossible. I've reached the (first?) zero-atmosphere map.

The immediate thing I noticed (besides extreme-speed AP rounds and beams knocking down half my dropships) is that there is no sound, with most in-game noise being from an odd ambient music that takes it's place. While yes, in space, noone can hear you scream, that doesn't necessarily mean you can't hear yourself scream, at least without some seriously impressive soundproofing. Would it not be more appropriate to limit sounds to impacts, driving sounds and weapon fire - but obviously only for the controlled vehicle? I'd like to know if it's working differently for other people.

And another thing - the ambient music 'resets' every time I check the spacebar map. I'm someone who does this very frequently, and find this rather annoying - even if the track is short to begin with...

[ June 04, 2006, 03:00 PM: Message edited by: yurch ]

[combatplus2]

I got a kick out of playing that no-atmosphere moon map! The creepy ambient and silent explosions really work for me. A better Sci-fi feel than I was expecting.

Yes, I suppose one should really hear the crew "arg"s from his own vehicle (altho it's my least favorite sound effect), and projectile impacts on your vehicle would make sense to keep audible.

[Taras]

Agreed - it's very strange to be in a silent fight, then glance up to your status and suddenly notice you have damage. Even though the hulls of these things aren't pressurized, impacts should still resonate through the structure (and thus be audible).

In general, the silence and ambient music do an excellent job of conveying the feel of being in a vaccuum. Execution needs some polishing, but the concept is great.

[weasello]

Maybe a really muffled version of all sound effects, like a wet towel overtop of the speakers?

[aittam]

we'd be able to ear our vheicle internal sounds though

[phil180]

(Sorry for resurrecting an old thread.)

Is there any chance that some sounds can be added for zero atmosphere, possibly as an option? Much as suggested as above, e.g., the internal sounds, hits on own vehicle, own weapon fire and engine noise.

Or should I add it to

http://dropteam.johalla.de/moin.cgi/Wish_List

?

Ta,

Phil.

[poesel]

For a second I thought you had resurrected yurch!

Has anyone seen him lately btw?

Add it to the list. I hope someone reads it from time to time

[aittam]

Pure speculation but last week or the one before i battled with somebody I never met before with a certain style if I may say so

[Junglist]

From what I can tell Yurch gave us the Bacchus before riding off into the sunset...that's the last thing I really remember from him.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

Probably worth noting that the assumption seems to be that the vehicles are pressurized ... which is not necessarily reasonable.

It'd be a far wiser course when designing a multi-atmo-capable vehicle to leave the whole thing unpressurized and simply suit up any pilots. Thus, if holed on a zero-atmo planet, you don't get explosive decompression with resultant secondary damage and you don't get compressive flooding when holed on an underwater/dense-atmo run, either. You save on resources, cost, and required stores as well.

If you put pilots in the vehics at all, but I've beaten that necrotized equine before.

If the vehicle itself is unpressurized, there'd be no hearing of anything save through chassis induction, and hopefully your crew compartment is shock-proofed, which would damp even that out.

So, silent damage hits in zero-atmo are actually sensible and defensible. The only thing you might hear would be a crew hit ... and then there's no ears to hear it.

[Imperial Grunt]

The main thing I hate on the zero-atmosphere maps is the fact that you get so many bad drops and you can flip so easily, especially when going over a crater edge. Seems to me that the internal computer or something would compensate the vehicles hydralics or something to mitigate oversteering, etc... they landed on the moon in 1969, and the lander did not flip over, nor the rover vehicle.

Wounded drivers and gunners would have to be quickly dead...should'nt there be some pink mist venting out into space when the driver's or gunner's compartment get ruptured, or are they in pressure suits themselves?

Maybe there will be sensor and control audibles, and even radio traffic, those kinds of sounds would still be blaring in the crew's ears.

Maybe the current sounds should go away entirely so you just have eerie silence.

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

hmm, I want hollwood compromise physics! like the muffled space sound in the new battlestar galactica.

BTW rhe newest incarnation of Firefox 2.02 (windows) keeps crashing when I try to post something here. Happens both at my work and home computers.

[poesel]

IG: technically speaking, the flipping thing is not caused by zero-atmo but by low-gravity.

High-g and zero-atmo might be a nice setting. Probably for the often mentioned crystal map.

This post was written with FF 2.0.2 under WinXP.

Append: and didn't crash

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

Originally posted by poesel71:

IG: technically speaking, the flipping thing is not caused by zero-atmo but by low-gravity.

High-g and zero-atmo might be a nice setting. Probably for the often mentioned crystal map.

This post was written with FF 2.0.2 under WinXP.

Append: and didn't crash

Arrgh, echelon has finally found me!

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

High-g and zero-atmo might be a nice setting. Probably for the often mentioned crystal map.

Tough one to justify, though. Anything that's really high mass probably accumulated a large atmo during formation. You'd pretty much have to postulate a system where the sun'd had some kind of critical event and vlew the atmo off after formation and cooling.

(Yes, I'm in and out a little more lately. Life is slowly settling down.)

[poesel]

The atmo condensed into the crystal of course!

Or the crystals are semi-sentient and ate the clouds!

There you go: two scientific proven models in no time - now go and make the darn map!

[Toby Haynes]

Originally posted by Alexander SquidLord Williams:

Tough one to justify, though. Anything that's really high mass probably accumulated a large atmo during formation. You'd pretty much have to postulate a system where the sun'd had some kind of critical event and vlew the atmo off after formation and cooling.

You could have an interplanetary or moon/planet near-miss event suck much of the atmosphere off a rocky planet surface. G around 1.4 and Atmos around 0.2 is probably physically reasonable.

Of course, you could design the level to reflect a major asteroid collision.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

Originally posted by Toby Haynes:

You could have an interplanetary or moon/planet near-miss event suck much of the atmosphere off a rocky planet surface. G around 1.4 and Atmos around 0.2 is probably physically reasonable.

Of course, you could design the level to reflect a major asteroid collision. [/QB]

Rare, but the possibility leads to a real mess of a map full of crater and cracking events. Which, of course, is fun.

The next hard part is to decide why there's a fight taking place over such a Hell-forsaken nightmare of destruction. Unearthed Ancient base/artefacts or somesuch would be the obvious reason. There sure won't be a happy populace lounging around in the debris. Can't even use the old saw about "wanting rare materials from the interior of the meteor," since they could have more easily just scooped it in space.

Fun, though.