Friday Facts #396 - Sound improvements in 2.0

[hexagon]

I've always found it weird that the vehicles sounds get higher pitched as you go faster. I mean, it makes sense as you're accelerating more, but once the vehicle has to stop working as hard to get to its desired velocity, you'd expect it to get less noisy.

In fact, I'd imagine the noisiest thing about vehicles at higher speeds is the rolling noise from the tires

Would love to see the dev team's take on this.

[Rebmes]

Thanks for sharing, very exciting! For me, this is also a reminder of the scope of this expansion.

[FuryoftheStars]

I've always found it weird that the vehicles sounds get higher pitched as you go faster. I mean, it makes sense as you're accelerating more, but once the vehicle has to stop working as hard to get to its desired velocity, you'd expect it to get less noisy.

In fact, I'd imagine the noisiest thing about vehicles at higher speeds is the rolling noise from the tires

Would love to see the dev team's take on this.

Technically, to keep a vehicle going at the max possible speed the engine can push it, you'd need to keep the engine going at its max possible speed (unless there are other limiters involved, like a governor).

[mmmPI]

that "psst" sound (anyone who has ever lived near a railway or even been to a train station will know what I mean) preceding a train approaching from a distance when standing near a railway track could be a fantastic addition, both for immersion sake as well as an audible cue for player to warn them of an approaching vehicle

That may be the pneumatic brake that release pressure ? like the first 3 second of this :
https://pixabay.com/sound-effects/air-o ... ase-29600/
I imagine this should be played after the train came to full stop

Some smaller psst can also be heard alongside screeching during train approach/braking :
https://www.soundsnap.com/trainbrakes03_wav

That's just one amongst yours many thoughts, but also just 2 of those websites for sound effects and there are many that have so many effects !!

Where you stand makes a big difference for the sound, wanted to add that because i mentionned the "tadac-tadoum" noise of a train, but that is typically the noise of the train from inside the train, not heard from the station which is what you describe.This is related to the acoustic of the wagons, making the people inside the train hear only the noise related to their own wagon passing on train joints.

I couldn't find any english video explaining why the train noise is not tactac tactac, why the second set of wheels make a noise perceived differently than the first set of wheels when you are inside the train, but this one in french has proper subtitle and say that it's because of how the sound propagate not only transmitted through air but also some vibrations of the wagon's body. Also why this sound is different not just less frequent with newer longer rails and show how they are made.

[dog80]

HYPE!!!

[Gemma]

The day I was given a proper excuse to have Factorio running beside the bed as I sleep.

[pleegwat]

Oh and lastly (and certainly most importantly), can we get horns?! If only just for manual use, I wanna beep at the biters! (Also could include an automatic horn that plays if a player is close to train tracks whilst a train is approaching... then again making deaths by your own trains more easily avoidable sounds like a bad thing if only because of how funny it is)

But would a factorio train have a horn or a whistle?

[Usul]

Please try to create the sound that steel tank treads would make when driving on a street or cobblestone! It's really noisy!

[SilentStorm]

I then realised that we could have invisible creatures, for example small non-hostile alien birds in the trees

Is it just me, or does that mean a lot more entities, which needs to be calculated and drag UPS down?

As for the ambient noise sound, I trust they can be controlled/disabled separately? Because I feel like that is going to become annoying rather quickly

[Donion]

Is it just me, or does that mean a lot more entities, which needs to be calculated and drag UPS down?

As for the ambient noise sound, I trust they can be controlled/disabled separately? Because I feel like that is going to become annoying rather quickly

There are no actual entities for the ambient critters.
There is a Ambient volume slider in the sound settings. But note that the volume of ambient sounds was boosted in the video for demonstration purposes, it's more subtle in-game, especially as you zoom out.

[Tertius]

While more detail in sound design is really nice, I remember there are moments where sound becomes noise. I'm playing and designing some production line and thinking really hard if I should put that to the left or to the right, or I'm debugging why this line doesn't have full throughput. Suddenly there's one thing that really gets on my nerves: that's the howling sound of the wind. Suddenly it turned into just a carpet of noise - and I turned it off.
Later, the same thing happened with the clicking of the assembling machines. Their sound became monotonous while inspecting that production line. So I turned it off as well.
Walking sound - I turned it off.
The music - I turned it off after a day or two. Too eerie.

tl;dr
I admit I might be more sensitive than the average player, but I would really appreciate if repetitive sounds are not played continuously. If ambient and environment sound get lower the longer they are played.

Screenshot 2024-02-03 162834.png (95.77 KiB) Viewed 2315 times

[Panzerknacker]

I then realised that we could have invisible creatures, for example small non-hostile alien birds in the trees

Is it just me, or does that mean a lot more entities, which needs to be calculated and drag UPS down?

As for the ambient noise sound, I trust they can be controlled/disabled separately? Because I feel like that is going to become annoying rather quickly

Who cares about UPS, this is improving the game massively.

[lyallp]

Sound improvements are awesome, I guess we don't want it too realistic, like trains as they go around bends having their wheels squeeling!

That could get really annoying, quite quickly, during gameplay!

[mmmPI]

I admit I might be more sensitive than the average player, but I would really appreciate if repetitive sounds are not played continuously. If ambient and environment sound get lower the longer they are played.

More context is always helpful to me !

Alerts at 90% is something i would NEVER do again, and i would warn anyone against it in multiplayer game due to the risk of getting your ears destroyed whenever someones messes up with speakers. To me that is the sound which has the most potential for being repetitive and annoying, i even designed some system to turn them off manually from map view x).

I often turn off music when i want to play some other ambiant because it gets repetitive over thousands hours that's something i'm used to when playing a lot the same video game but i would never turn off the walking sound, they are very satisfying to me, sometimes i add a mod that adds wooden floor, like dectorio just for the sound effects , ploc ploc ploc ploc, plocplocplocploc.

I think (default) wind volume depend on the zoom level you use, i don't know the exact magic, but intuitively i would say when you are very zoomed out, the wind is louder than when very zoomed in, maybe it has to do with which others sounds are allowed to play at the same time so that wind is heard more sometimes even if it's not louder, it help me focus most of the time, but i know that feel of "disturbing carpet of noise" you describe. When focusing on combinators or trains things, more than during combat or building that can happen to me. Things need be silent for no distractions during the mental representation process OR earing stays focused on repetitive satisfying sound like music, unlike people chatting. Such process being interrupted by alerts , that's how it works for me.

[Svip]

I then realised that we could have invisible creatures, for example small non-hostile alien birds in the trees

Is it just me, or does that mean a lot more entities, which needs to be calculated and drag UPS down?

As for the ambient noise sound, I trust they can be controlled/disabled separately? Because I feel like that is going to become annoying rather quickly

Who cares about UPS, this is improving the game massively.

Also, its impact on UPS will likely be minimal. While not clear in the FFF, I'd imagine that sound effects are entirely local (e.g. on a multiplayer server, this will not affect the server's performance), and only limited to where the player is (and looking through remote view). This means relatively few entities will be producing sounds at any given time, regardless of the size of your base. Remember, logistics, assemblers, inserters, etc. all needs to be handled even when you aren't looking, sounds... not so much.

[ridesdragons]

I do hope as more sounds are added that, while accuracy should be aimed for to an extent, whether it's pleasing to listen to (or at least not painful to listen to) is prioritized over how accurate it is. for example, the tank in the demonstration. I can hear the squeaky wheels, and I hate it lol. please apply some WD-40 to the tank treads, thanks

I do like most of what I see (er, hear) here, though. very nice

also, this is kinda just wishful thinking on my part, but since it was brought up in the end, I'm hoping we get some kind of factory music. and I don't mean music that gives off the feeling of a factory, but rather the song is played by the machinery you'd find in factories. it's a concept I've been interested in for a long time, but there's hardly any actual examples of it, even if only going partway (such as using machinery for percussion but traditional instruments for the melodies and such). machines are quite rhythmic (by design, albeit inadvertently), and there's quite a bit of room to squeeze in pistons, exhaust pipes, hydraulics, and the various mechanical parts on the assembly line into a sort of harmony. something like the Song of Raindrops from Girls Last Tour, but with machinery instead of rain. I've also always felt like the song Bombing Mission from the original FF7 sounded like one of the instruments used were the pistons/hydraulics/exhaust pipes you'd find in the reactor you're rushing through (the one that played on the beat for most of the main melody). as much as I love factorio's OST, I think it's a bit of a missed opportunity that there aren't any tracks that sound like the factory itself is playing a song.

[BraveCaperCat]

I WAS hoping to see a glimpse at another of the new planets, but sound improvements are also great!

[Tertius]

but i know that feel of "disturbing carpet of noise" you describe. When focusing on combinators or trains things, more than during combat or building that can happen to me. Things need be silent for no distractions

It's different for me. Did you ever work in an open-plan office with air conditioning? You don't really hear the air conditioning, but sometimes the air conditioning stops working. Then everybody looks up: "Oh, what a silence". It's as if some pressure is taken away from you. You hear people shuffling their feet at the other end of the office you don't usually hear. Now it is REALLY silent, and for a short time you work lighter, easier. Then the air conditioning continues and the feeling vanishes.

All that looped continuous sound in Factorio is like that air conditioning for me. If I change from factory inside to open land, I welcome a sound change. But after a few minutes, I don't need the sound any more - it becomes noise. If I go back, I welcome the new sound from manufacturing machines, but as before, only for a few minutes before it again becomes noise.

[snoutbug]

Sounds great. Though I am missing the iconic screeching, squeaking and scratching of train wheels taking a corner.

I always thought sound design was facinating. Probably because I don't know the first thing about this.

[mmmPI]

It's different for me. Did you ever work in an open-plan office with air conditioning? You don't really hear the air conditioning, but sometimes the air conditioning stops working. Then everybody looks up: "Oh, what a silence". It's as if some pressure is taken away from you. You hear people shuffling their feet at the other end of the office you don't usually hear. Now it is REALLY silent, and for a short time you work lighter, easier. Then the air conditioning continues and the feeling vanishes.

Yes that is a different phenomenon, to me i think that's when the water heater stops or start its heating cycle at night, or the leafblower from the park outside through closed window, not very loud, but when it's over it's suddenly much better and it's the moment of realization that the noise was there. I don't have experience of "office air conditionner", so i can only imagine.

Suddenly hearing new noises like people walking or people chatting is the kind of thing that could be distracting for me, maybe that's why i have the wind setting very high, when playing factorio i don't want to be distracted, the wind and ambiant from the game covers them. I wouldn't notice such subtle variation playing on multiplayer, i would be chatting or 100% focused on the game, that hasn't changed from the time i was a kid and i would not hear when called for something when playing video game and having no clue how much time has passed. I think many players experience that when playing factorio or some form of flow.

I did check and the wind is louder when zoomed out, if you zoom in a lot before going to map view and keep it unzoomed there so you don't see the entities but only the pixels view, then the wind is very quiet, and it is a problem for me when doing some more abstract thing like reasonning for combinators. The state of mind is different i try to think of one thing, and another that happens after, or in parralel , and try to keep representation of what signal is where like a mental card construction that need constant balancing, it's not a flow of continously doing a task and another and another, with no feeling of time or ability to hear anything from the outside world. Instead any sound distracting would risk making part of the construction collapse and make the process of representing something longer and me angry at the source of the noise. In such case i could disable the music to not be suprised when it starts and instead play a soundtrack i choose if i'm not in a quiet environment.

All that looped continuous sound in Factorio is like that air conditioning for me. If I change from factory inside to open land, I welcome a sound change. But after a few minutes, I don't need the sound any more - it becomes noise. If I go back, I welcome the new sound from manufacturing machines, but as before, only for a few minutes before it again becomes noise.

That make sense but yeah very different for me :

soundsettings.png (16.03 KiB) Viewed 2009 times

I remember spending some time setting those value, but now i don't remember what is game effect or simulation or environment. Alert is the the one that made me change the default at first. And also for multiplayer there is a tickbox to make the chat message silent that is important i think.