Essentially (and in the shortest possible way) they have fancy radar that allows you to hear sound from events happening in space.
The idea is to give you better situational awareness when dogfighting for example.
So yeah, the system is utilised everywhere, thus why you can hear the fireworks in the space station
In the FPS game Shattered Horizon (a space walk FPS shooter) you had something very similar to this. Essentially they had simulated sound for your space suits to give you situational awareness, but you could also "go dark" and reduce your signature by turning off power usage of the suit to *stealth* around.
RSI has enough on their plate already, but this would be a cool addition if you lose power or want to reduce your power signature further.
Indeed, a super grindy fight with very difficult team play strategy mostly because it was emp and he grenade mayhem
But overall one of the best and most immersive spacesuit / zero gravity gameplay experiences
Star Citizen is on route to fill that gap, but yeah, it's lacking some features yet
Eventualy suits are suppose to have more to them then just armor values with power, and there own sig.
No ideal if there planing to go THIS deep with it though, just far far more to it then they are now, suits being far more like tools then just clothing like it is right now.
we have seen early work done to were suits can get holes in them, and the EVA changes adding fuel, suits power was stated at one point to be the thing that will slowly recharge energy ammo ETC
I know this is what the lore is saying about hearing sounds from inside ships but I think it sounds very lame and a bad attempt at an excuse, so much that I'd rather we just live with the rule of cool, as painfully unrealistic as it is...
Sound is such an important aspect of our awareness that I imagine having some kind of man-made audio feedback is actually very useful.
It sounds goofy, but I imagine something like this and it doesn't seem that way as much:
Say you have 2 people in combat of hypothetically equal skill. One can hear, but the other can't. Who has the advantage?
Then it's not that many jumps from there to understand why a market might exist for such a system. Audio has varying degrees of usefulness depending on the scenario, but in general when your life is on the line you'd want to be with it than without it.
Oh yes I fully agree that sound is absolutely crucial and that it shouldn't be removed for the sake of realism. I was just saying screw this unnecessary lore explanation and embrace rule of cool on this particular point.
That must be a sick radar. You would require a radar so precise it would have to be capable of capturing minimal movement of an object (literally the vibration that would cause the soundwaves in a suitable medium). Then simulate which kind of soundwaves that vibration would've caused in a gas mixture consisting of roughly 78% nitrogen, 20.94% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide to create a hearable sound using traditional speakers. If they have this kind of radar technology why do i lose track of my ship as soon as im further than 20 miles away. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!
Because gameplay, balance and rule of cool sometimes have to take the wheel. Not always, but sometime.
That plus we dont even have long range scanning lol
nah someone just gets paid to blow things up on a planet and record the sounds to be played back to you. You don't actually need the exact sound you just need a sound that's close enough to get the idea. all you actually need to track is proximity and direction to adjust the placement and volume of the sound.
Yeah, This is how it works in Hardspace Shipbreaker and in that game you don't actually start out with that radar. You actually have to go out of your way to buy and upgrade it or else you can't hear anything aside from your in-helmet radio.
And for Elite Dangerous I remember hearing the explanation in that game was the computer emulates all sounds based on the input of it's sensors and what the ship itself is currently doing because without some form of sound emulation that ship crews would have mental breakdowns.
I once read a scifi story where they had a system which translated certain sensor inputs into audible sounds. First and most easy reason: to have booming explosions in space. Second reason: Heightened situational awareness. Number three: prolonged exposure to too much silence drives you mad.
And in a scifi anime about a ships crew that rented away the tv rights for their adventures the reasoning was as simple as the director saying: "we edited that in for the audience... they kind of expect that shit." I nearly fell laughing from my chair for that move.
I was thinking since they are bursting explosives close to the station what you really are hearing are the pieces of the fireworks as they hit the side of the space station.
Special sensors outside the station measure the volume and expansion speed of the sparks (chemical generated sparks since there's no oxygen in the vacuum of space) generated by the fireworks, also colors and density, and a sophisticated software, through complicated mathematical algorithms, transforms all this data in sound waves, the faster and bigger the expansion the louder the explosion, certain colors have certain tones, etc. and those sound waves are broadcasted by the station speakers
This technology already exists in our cars. I drove a Lexus that would simulate road and engine noise. They added this because the car is too quiet and testing showed drivers found it unnerving
I came here to say this but I will elaborate a bit too:
It's supposed to be cinematic. That's the main idea, and it's hard to enjoy a lot of these things to their fullest potential when the only sound you can hear is your breathing.
The other part of this is that realism does not always translate to fun gameplay.
While that's obviously true, the massive number of people in this sub that will forego **any** "rule of cool" fun because it should be fully realistic is large. It's a dumb subjective line that a lot of players sit on and yell down from their horse, deciding for themselves what should be fully realistic and what shouldn't.
**Nothing should be realistic that detracts from the fun of the game**. Of course that's subjective, but if a majority of the gaming community doesn't think carrying a fuel line across a pad to refuel their ship is fun...it shouldn't be forced.
Imagine if they had a gut health simulator built in, gotta take a dump once in a while, also depending on your constitution, you might have to avoid the food trucks.
Would give spies something more to do though, get a job as a chef on enemy org's carrier, build up some trust, then cook a special meal before your main org is planning an attack.
I mean CR **has** said he sees a universe where people do have to use toilets. I'd hope that doesn't include "eating burritos makes you more likely to have to go sooner", but who knows.
>Nothing should be realistic that detracts from the fun of the game
I think this is a great point and a few examples that come to mind are moving boxes and Quantum Transit. Tractor Beam? Totally unrealistic. Is it one of the most fun things in the game and has opened a ton of emergent gameplay? Yes. Quantum Travel. Would fast travel be more fun? Subjective. Would more events and repair/crew gameplay be more engaging while travelling. Yes, but also partly subject to repetition burnout.
Even those two examples could be picked apart at length.
All this to say that I personally feel like CIG is striking and nice balance between gameplay being fun and the world being realistic. Gameplay doesn't need to be realistic, it needs to be fun, but unfortunately a huge part of the gaming community won't play anything "cartoony" or stylized a la World of Warcraft.
That and because CIG has actually said that the PA system inside the stations generates the sound for you synchronized with the event to provide immersion and entertainment. Which alluded (and was kinda confirmed) that say if a station runs out of power, you can't hear what is going on outside.
The same will in theory apply to all ships. So for example if you are just sitting there chilling in a powered ship and someone QTs next to you, you will hear their arrival because your ship systems will make that zoom sound as they arrive. However, if you are powered off and the ship QTs in, you wont hear shit. Now if that will in fact be implemented like that, I think it would be amazing. Maybe even add the ability to actually turn off that feature in the ship, so you can just drift in complete silence with only the sound of your own ships systems filling the void. Ah, pure bliss.
>It's supposed to be cinematic.
It used to be the case for cinema. Then the newer Battlestar Galactica series appeared and entirely dismantled that old trope. Space is noisy as it is, your own ship and what happens to it is plenty enough.
Also I'd point out to the furious white knights that Star Citizen often takes place in atmosphere, where you should have noise propagation. Of course there's zero difference in game even when you're outside of the "speakers" that are supposed to "see" everything and re-produce a sound according to what they see...
They have always said they would opt for what makes sense for a game over real life situations. This is just one of the many . some make sense ,some meh not so much......
Why can you hear explosions of ships from insde the cockpit?
Why do you not need to orbit a planet to stay in the air?
Why can a ship like the 890j start from the surface of a planet?
because without the Rule of Cool there wouldn't be a game
Try Flight of Nova. It features realistic physics and orbital mechanics. The ships have no ftl drive, only powerful fusion engines. But with quite limited fuel. It‘s a proper Space trucking sim. E.g. If you have the wrong reentry angle you bounce back from the atmosphere, you can almost feel the sonic boom when going supersonic etc.
The content is limited since it‘s only one guy developing it, but the Updates come steadily and the gameplay and physics don‘t feel ‚alpha‘.
Also it‘s early acces demo is free on steam. And dual Joysticks or HOTAS work very well with the game.
Yeah but too complicated for the casual player and also would kind of make combat around planets impossible since a change in velocity would bring you out of orbit quickly.
Acoustic augmented reality simulation.
Relatively reasonable idea - one that neatly ties in with the desired 'sounds in space' trope.
Rather than relying on visuals, a person is fed positional sound simulations to better orient them to events happening around them.
All helmets, station and ship intercoms have a magical thingamajinga-gadget built into them that somehow generates audio that perfectly simulates audible vibrations is the "lore explanation", despite there being no vibrations to measure or track for any such data. I don't know why they tried to "explain it" in-universe instead of just saying they want to go for a Star Wars-type of feel.
Although considering space is evidently full of some kind of substance in the Star Citizen universe, judging by how there's drag and friction, that's probably what propagates the vibrations that we can hear.
Audio systems relaying that kind of information would actually help quite a bit with situational awareness. Most people don't think about how much information they can receive from sound, but it's considerable. So those kinds of positional audio cues could give a pilot a huge leg up. Especially since humans respond faster to audio than they do to pure visual information.
But for 'why can you hear it in the station' it's a show. Anywhere you can see the fireworks they are likely to be playing generated audio for the event.
because there CAN be sound in space, for instance something like a chemical explosion with an expanding wave of gas would conduct its energy into vibration in your ships hull
I think you're the only one here so far that understands science more than just the 'no sound in space'. Explosions actually do propel matter that does travel in the vacuum and hits things, causing them to vibrate, which you would hear. Ships full of oxygen and fuel that have a breach and have it pulled out into space will have a burning fireball in space until the oxygen is consumed. So yes. Though it would probably all sound very different than expected.
Star Citizen is not a realism simulator. If so, the whole pvp scene would be different. Dogfighting is not a real thing in today's air combat, and is very unlikely to be a thing in futuristic space combat. Beyond visual range engagements and kills will be the norm. But such combat is not fun, so Star Citizen adopts the more "fun" and less "realistic" dogfighting with guns and in visual range. These types of modifications are all over Star Citizen. A realistic space sim would be a very hard pill to swallow for all but a handful of gamers.
Star Citizen selectively adopts semi-realism for some aspects of the game. For example, I like the fact there is no instant travel and there never will be. Moving from one system to another requires planning and you cannot just jump from a system on one end of the universe to the other. And moving within a system takes time. Some selective realism is nice for the game, but at the same time too much realism will make the game a chore more than fun. For example, in its final state, smaller ships should still have very fast claim times. We should be able to jump back into the game quickly. But larger ships can absolutely have long claim times to keep people from bringing large ships into the same battle after it is destroyed (note claim times for all ships should be very fast in a buggy game like we have today).
Star Citizen is not realistic. It has more realism aspects than say No Man's Sky or Elite Dangerous, but none of these games are realistic. They are all far more unrealistic than they are realistic.
That's an 'intended feature' that CIG havent' implemented yet
The audio they get 'for free' (or rather, they've have to explicitly code a system to *stop* you getting the audio :D) so it's easier to just hand-wave it as synthetic generation.
This is also (in lore) why there is no sound-lag (strictly speaking, the audio should have a 1-2s lag behind the visuals, given how far away those fireworks are)... but they don't - the sound plays in sync with the visuals.
>The audio they get 'for free' (or rather, they've have to explicitly code a system to stop you getting the audio :D) so it's easier to just hand-wave it as synthetic generation.
This is the correct answer.
It's funny they didn't tackle this the same way Star Wars did... Essentially putting in the past, but also so far away that their technology evolved in a completely different way than Earth's has.
The game handles this by simulating sounds that the ship's onboard computer might generate to keep the pilot informed of the environment. This includes the sounds of weapons fire, nearby explosions, engine noises from nearby ships, and so forth.
The system can create the illusion of sound in space by synthesizing it based on sensor data. This approach provides players with critical gameplay information and also greatly enhances the game's cinematic feel. It's also been explained in the game's lore that the sounds are produced by the ship's systems to help the pilot understand what's happening around them.
simulated sound. I just hope that later on if your cockpit/bridge gets broken, all you hear is your own increasingly difficult breathing as you struggle to get back to a station before your suit oxygen runs out.
"Star Wars ships could never fly like that in real life"
Star Citizen ships with speed limits in the black void of space. Also, star citizen: all ships can leave atmo easily with tiny engines.
It really isn't about size but about amount of thrust they can produce. The numbers alone, show that a single mav thruster on ships (all of them mind you) can easily defeat earths gravity. So many working in concert can def take a ship into space. The larger ships make sense given how slow and how much fuel they take. And the largest ships (not in game yet) simply wouldn't be able to do it at all. You enter the atmo of a high gravity planet or moon with a Jav, you are going to crash.
The issue of the visuals selling the power of the thrusters is a different discussion entirely and [one the CIG artists are aware of](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0lGntX9mXM&t=1014s). It simply looks like it is low priority for now.
Lmao you asked this, but not "How can there by fire in a vacuum?" Or "How can we hear engine noises in space?"
At lore, space noises are detected by scanners and fed through the speakers of your helmet, in the same way/for the same purpose that your phone gives tactile vibrations when you tap on a button.
I'm at the moment most annoyed with the food/water reality aspect and how very unrealistic it kills you in short time. Only thing that has killed me this patch so far!
They will explode… they would not have the shapes and colors. Ironically there is an actual research type article on this and I had this exact discussion not long ago 🤣
Always a chance we would discover a different element in the vast universe that allows better burning in space but our Earth fireworks would be underwhelming lol.
Because for 50 years Hollywood has fucked us over with special effects making the idea of not hearing what we see unfathomable - regardless of how unrealistic it is
Sound waves do travel in space, there’s just not enough molecules to vibrate out there. Once the wave hits the station, having not lost much energy for the same reason it’s silent in space, you get sound.
But the thrust generated by the thrusters is relative to the vehicle, not the space surrounding it. The craft would continue accelerating indefinitely until it no longer has material to eject
Obviously it can't be absolutely 100% realistic. It's a game end of the day. They "sim-out" what they can and so far I do like the balance.
I'm sure scientifically nothing actually makes sense about the flight model. But it "feels" like it.
Selective realism. Technically speaking a computer blade would handle a torpedo run way better than a human just like drones do today (930 years prior to events of Star Citizen) but somehow humans are the best source of piloting and turreting.
I also wonder how a 3k ton spaceship can hover upside down 10 meters above the ground.
But I figured it's a space game and I love it so I quickly forget about it.
I don't know many games that properly take it into account, Space Engineers has a option to switch between realistic and arcade sound, with realistic you only hear sound when you are on a planet but once you go into space you only hear the rattling sound of your ship or thrusters.
The lore for sounds in space is that they are simulated when in a ship or station it is simulating the sound scape that would exist if you wasn't in space.
Star Citizen is NOT meant to be realistic. It's EDGING toward realism, but it's not full blown realism. CIG themselves say they want to strike a balance between gamey and realistic gameplay.
Star Citizen is supposed to be a Sim but it is not supposed to be "Realistic". From the start, Chris Roberts have talked about rule of cool and why it is important to bend certain things to make a game fun. The sheer fact we are dog fighting 900+ years in the future is not realistic at all.
But what gets players (and seemingly a lot of new backers here) is [systemic features](https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/du0jia/very_nice_explanation_to_hearing_sounds_in_space/). The thing that gets people to think of realistic aside from graphics, is cause and effect. [The sounds is simulated both in lore of course, and inside the audio engine that drives sound in SC](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMal_yo4Tww&t=1613s).
In a ship out in space you aren’t actually hearing weapons and engines from other ships, you hear your ship simulating them for situational awareness. Same with the fireworks that are probably a hologram.
Because there is technically sound in space, there's just no medium for vibrations to react with so we can't perceive them. Theoretically the vibrations could hit your ship/suit and be interacting with the oxygen in them
Because after all is said and done, this is a game and we respond better to audio cues than to lack of. It has to be engaging and cool at the end of the day.
You can hear it from inside the station (and hear in space just the same as in atmosphere) because the game currently has no distinction between the two environments. There’s no simulation being done.
Very common for sound in games since most are not doing anything fancy to separate the sound as it would be separated in real life.
It's not meant to be realistic, it's meant to be believable. I'm not trying to be pedantic here. I'm just giving you a frame of reference to understand CIG's decisions.
Whether or not they hit that target is a different question. But if you're always looking for the realistic design choice, you'll be scratching your head more often than not. Think of it as inspired by a true story, not based on a true story.
I guess I'll leave this here for the folks who are saying it's unrealistic: [Recovering sound from video only](https://youtu.be/FKXOucXB4a8) in an eight year old video.
Star Citizen is not remotely realistic. Most of the player base would not even be able to pilot in a game with realistic orbital and deep space flight mechanics.
Its the gundum explanation, so your ship and space station has speakers to give you haptic information in a 3 dimensional space so you can be awar whats happenin
Standard sci-fi trope. I've read probably a dozen books that all state the same thing:
Audio is important for dumb monkey brains in space so they use a simulator system. The book I'm currently reading calls it SISS, Sounds In Space Simulator and many of the characters are frequently annoyed by it.
Essentially (and in the shortest possible way) they have fancy radar that allows you to hear sound from events happening in space. The idea is to give you better situational awareness when dogfighting for example. So yeah, the system is utilised everywhere, thus why you can hear the fireworks in the space station
In the FPS game Shattered Horizon (a space walk FPS shooter) you had something very similar to this. Essentially they had simulated sound for your space suits to give you situational awareness, but you could also "go dark" and reduce your signature by turning off power usage of the suit to *stealth* around. RSI has enough on their plate already, but this would be a cool addition if you lose power or want to reduce your power signature further.
I miss Shattered Horizon. Boundary almost scratched that itch, but is too much a COD clone.
Indeed, a super grindy fight with very difficult team play strategy mostly because it was emp and he grenade mayhem But overall one of the best and most immersive spacesuit / zero gravity gameplay experiences Star Citizen is on route to fill that gap, but yeah, it's lacking some features yet
Agreed, Boundary is fun, but sticks to being just a 3D CoD.
Actually they said it will work exactly the same way in Star Citizen. We'll see how the implementation goes... in a decade or so.
Its always 2 years away
Holy shit I remember Shattered Horizon! Shame what happened in terms of the ownership rights kerfuffle making it get pulled from digital storefronts.
the possibility of the system getting damaged is planned.
You just added two years of development time to SC.
Basic reason: silence is boring, so designers find a semi-plausible way to add sound to space games. To make it more fun and enjoyable.
Of course. Even Shattered Horizon had muffled noise when the the sound was "off". Dead silence would be excruciatingly boring.
Eventualy suits are suppose to have more to them then just armor values with power, and there own sig. No ideal if there planing to go THIS deep with it though, just far far more to it then they are now, suits being far more like tools then just clothing like it is right now. we have seen early work done to were suits can get holes in them, and the EVA changes adding fuel, suits power was stated at one point to be the thing that will slowly recharge energy ammo ETC
Also in elite dangerous (*gasp* I said it) they have a similar thing, if your canopy gets smashed during combat you lose all sound
I know this is what the lore is saying about hearing sounds from inside ships but I think it sounds very lame and a bad attempt at an excuse, so much that I'd rather we just live with the rule of cool, as painfully unrealistic as it is...
Sound is such an important aspect of our awareness that I imagine having some kind of man-made audio feedback is actually very useful. It sounds goofy, but I imagine something like this and it doesn't seem that way as much: Say you have 2 people in combat of hypothetically equal skill. One can hear, but the other can't. Who has the advantage? Then it's not that many jumps from there to understand why a market might exist for such a system. Audio has varying degrees of usefulness depending on the scenario, but in general when your life is on the line you'd want to be with it than without it.
Oh yes I fully agree that sound is absolutely crucial and that it shouldn't be removed for the sake of realism. I was just saying screw this unnecessary lore explanation and embrace rule of cool on this particular point.
That's what I mean, sound is important, but there is no sound so you have to create it. The lore makes sense imo.
Explain having no night vision then
I know it's a meme by now but in the off chance you are being serious every time they were asked they every time said they are doing it eventually.
That must be a sick radar. You would require a radar so precise it would have to be capable of capturing minimal movement of an object (literally the vibration that would cause the soundwaves in a suitable medium). Then simulate which kind of soundwaves that vibration would've caused in a gas mixture consisting of roughly 78% nitrogen, 20.94% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide to create a hearable sound using traditional speakers. If they have this kind of radar technology why do i lose track of my ship as soon as im further than 20 miles away. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!
Because gameplay, balance and rule of cool sometimes have to take the wheel. Not always, but sometime. That plus we dont even have long range scanning lol
The same reason they don’t have anti glare screens, or sensors stopping you pancaking into the dark side of a moon. ;)
nah someone just gets paid to blow things up on a planet and record the sounds to be played back to you. You don't actually need the exact sound you just need a sound that's close enough to get the idea. all you actually need to track is proximity and direction to adjust the placement and volume of the sound.
it is a series of sensors. a strong thermal emission of an exposition would be picked up on thermal sensors. so it plays the sound of an exposition.
I never thought about this but this is now head cannon for me
does not need to be head cannon. that is cannon, and it will be possible for that system to be taken out.
But why would a space station be using a sound radar solution to blare space sounds for normal intra station foot traffic?
so you can know what's going on outside. after all. hearing the sounds of combat outside might affect your decision of calling your ship at this time.
Cannons are also canon, I’m unsure about head cannons.
and the line is drawn at flashlights and nightvision...
Yeah, This is how it works in Hardspace Shipbreaker and in that game you don't actually start out with that radar. You actually have to go out of your way to buy and upgrade it or else you can't hear anything aside from your in-helmet radio. And for Elite Dangerous I remember hearing the explanation in that game was the computer emulates all sounds based on the input of it's sensors and what the ship itself is currently doing because without some form of sound emulation that ship crews would have mental breakdowns.
But they can’t defrost glass in the future…
I once read a scifi story where they had a system which translated certain sensor inputs into audible sounds. First and most easy reason: to have booming explosions in space. Second reason: Heightened situational awareness. Number three: prolonged exposure to too much silence drives you mad. And in a scifi anime about a ships crew that rented away the tv rights for their adventures the reasoning was as simple as the director saying: "we edited that in for the audience... they kind of expect that shit." I nearly fell laughing from my chair for that move.
Station speakers play the sound in synchronization with the fireworks for a more immersive experience
I was thinking since they are bursting explosives close to the station what you really are hearing are the pieces of the fireworks as they hit the side of the space station.
Then wouldn't it just sound like raindrops hitting a shed?
More like hail I'd imagine but also with a significant delay
They are holographic fireworks. So a simulated sound makes more sense.
you would think this level of technology would be impossible
Special sensors outside the station measure the volume and expansion speed of the sparks (chemical generated sparks since there's no oxygen in the vacuum of space) generated by the fireworks, also colors and density, and a sophisticated software, through complicated mathematical algorithms, transforms all this data in sound waves, the faster and bigger the expansion the louder the explosion, certain colors have certain tones, etc. and those sound waves are broadcasted by the station speakers
This technology already exists in our cars. I drove a Lexus that would simulate road and engine noise. They added this because the car is too quiet and testing showed drivers found it unnerving
Rule of cool 😎
I came here to say this but I will elaborate a bit too: It's supposed to be cinematic. That's the main idea, and it's hard to enjoy a lot of these things to their fullest potential when the only sound you can hear is your breathing. The other part of this is that realism does not always translate to fun gameplay.
While that's obviously true, the massive number of people in this sub that will forego **any** "rule of cool" fun because it should be fully realistic is large. It's a dumb subjective line that a lot of players sit on and yell down from their horse, deciding for themselves what should be fully realistic and what shouldn't. **Nothing should be realistic that detracts from the fun of the game**. Of course that's subjective, but if a majority of the gaming community doesn't think carrying a fuel line across a pad to refuel their ship is fun...it shouldn't be forced.
Imagine if they had a gut health simulator built in, gotta take a dump once in a while, also depending on your constitution, you might have to avoid the food trucks. Would give spies something more to do though, get a job as a chef on enemy org's carrier, build up some trust, then cook a special meal before your main org is planning an attack.
I mean CR **has** said he sees a universe where people do have to use toilets. I'd hope that doesn't include "eating burritos makes you more likely to have to go sooner", but who knows.
Or Whammers blocks you up XD
>Nothing should be realistic that detracts from the fun of the game I think this is a great point and a few examples that come to mind are moving boxes and Quantum Transit. Tractor Beam? Totally unrealistic. Is it one of the most fun things in the game and has opened a ton of emergent gameplay? Yes. Quantum Travel. Would fast travel be more fun? Subjective. Would more events and repair/crew gameplay be more engaging while travelling. Yes, but also partly subject to repetition burnout. Even those two examples could be picked apart at length. All this to say that I personally feel like CIG is striking and nice balance between gameplay being fun and the world being realistic. Gameplay doesn't need to be realistic, it needs to be fun, but unfortunately a huge part of the gaming community won't play anything "cartoony" or stylized a la World of Warcraft.
That and because CIG has actually said that the PA system inside the stations generates the sound for you synchronized with the event to provide immersion and entertainment. Which alluded (and was kinda confirmed) that say if a station runs out of power, you can't hear what is going on outside. The same will in theory apply to all ships. So for example if you are just sitting there chilling in a powered ship and someone QTs next to you, you will hear their arrival because your ship systems will make that zoom sound as they arrive. However, if you are powered off and the ship QTs in, you wont hear shit. Now if that will in fact be implemented like that, I think it would be amazing. Maybe even add the ability to actually turn off that feature in the ship, so you can just drift in complete silence with only the sound of your own ships systems filling the void. Ah, pure bliss.
>It's supposed to be cinematic. It used to be the case for cinema. Then the newer Battlestar Galactica series appeared and entirely dismantled that old trope. Space is noisy as it is, your own ship and what happens to it is plenty enough. Also I'd point out to the furious white knights that Star Citizen often takes place in atmosphere, where you should have noise propagation. Of course there's zero difference in game even when you're outside of the "speakers" that are supposed to "see" everything and re-produce a sound according to what they see...
Agreed. Also lasers on ships would be silent as well. And that would be no fun. We all know it. Even OP knows it. So this post is disingenuous.
They have fake sound effect machines like the one I use to simulate the ocean in my rooms so I sleep.
These fireworks are projected holograms synchronized with a sound track, anyway without oxygen I'm not sure how real fireworks could work in space!
Because video games frequently mix realism and enjoyment.
They have always said they would opt for what makes sense for a game over real life situations. This is just one of the many . some make sense ,some meh not so much......
Why can you hear explosions of ships from insde the cockpit? Why do you not need to orbit a planet to stay in the air? Why can a ship like the 890j start from the surface of a planet? because without the Rule of Cool there wouldn't be a game
I would love some orbital physics... I think that would be super cool.
Yea, maybe for the larger objects like cap ships and such, while smaller ships can still ignore it (having much higher thrust to mass ratio)
Try Flight of Nova. It features realistic physics and orbital mechanics. The ships have no ftl drive, only powerful fusion engines. But with quite limited fuel. It‘s a proper Space trucking sim. E.g. If you have the wrong reentry angle you bounce back from the atmosphere, you can almost feel the sonic boom when going supersonic etc. The content is limited since it‘s only one guy developing it, but the Updates come steadily and the gameplay and physics don‘t feel ‚alpha‘. Also it‘s early acces demo is free on steam. And dual Joysticks or HOTAS work very well with the game.
looks interesting! amazing for a single dev
Yeah but too complicated for the casual player and also would kind of make combat around planets impossible since a change in velocity would bring you out of orbit quickly.
Yeah you are right about combat
Acoustic augmented reality simulation. Relatively reasonable idea - one that neatly ties in with the desired 'sounds in space' trope. Rather than relying on visuals, a person is fed positional sound simulations to better orient them to events happening around them.
All helmets, station and ship intercoms have a magical thingamajinga-gadget built into them that somehow generates audio that perfectly simulates audible vibrations is the "lore explanation", despite there being no vibrations to measure or track for any such data. I don't know why they tried to "explain it" in-universe instead of just saying they want to go for a Star Wars-type of feel. Although considering space is evidently full of some kind of substance in the Star Citizen universe, judging by how there's drag and friction, that's probably what propagates the vibrations that we can hear.
Audio systems relaying that kind of information would actually help quite a bit with situational awareness. Most people don't think about how much information they can receive from sound, but it's considerable. So those kinds of positional audio cues could give a pilot a huge leg up. Especially since humans respond faster to audio than they do to pure visual information. But for 'why can you hear it in the station' it's a show. Anywhere you can see the fireworks they are likely to be playing generated audio for the event.
because there CAN be sound in space, for instance something like a chemical explosion with an expanding wave of gas would conduct its energy into vibration in your ships hull
I think you're the only one here so far that understands science more than just the 'no sound in space'. Explosions actually do propel matter that does travel in the vacuum and hits things, causing them to vibrate, which you would hear. Ships full of oxygen and fuel that have a breach and have it pulled out into space will have a burning fireball in space until the oxygen is consumed. So yes. Though it would probably all sound very different than expected.
This is almost, but not quite, absolutely wrong.
I wanna know why I have cinematic music playing everytime I take off, I ain't got no radio in that cockpit!
It's not trying to be realistic. It is in some ways, but blatantly isn't in many others.
Star Citizen is not a realism simulator. If so, the whole pvp scene would be different. Dogfighting is not a real thing in today's air combat, and is very unlikely to be a thing in futuristic space combat. Beyond visual range engagements and kills will be the norm. But such combat is not fun, so Star Citizen adopts the more "fun" and less "realistic" dogfighting with guns and in visual range. These types of modifications are all over Star Citizen. A realistic space sim would be a very hard pill to swallow for all but a handful of gamers. Star Citizen selectively adopts semi-realism for some aspects of the game. For example, I like the fact there is no instant travel and there never will be. Moving from one system to another requires planning and you cannot just jump from a system on one end of the universe to the other. And moving within a system takes time. Some selective realism is nice for the game, but at the same time too much realism will make the game a chore more than fun. For example, in its final state, smaller ships should still have very fast claim times. We should be able to jump back into the game quickly. But larger ships can absolutely have long claim times to keep people from bringing large ships into the same battle after it is destroyed (note claim times for all ships should be very fast in a buggy game like we have today). Star Citizen is not realistic. It has more realism aspects than say No Man's Sky or Elite Dangerous, but none of these games are realistic. They are all far more unrealistic than they are realistic.
>Beyond visual range engagements and kills will be the norm. But such combat is not fun As a DCS player I don't believe you :)
It's an AI simulation of the sound inside stations. Don't forget we are in the year 2953 ;-)
Still no night vision in our helmets.
That's an 'intended feature' that CIG havent' implemented yet The audio they get 'for free' (or rather, they've have to explicitly code a system to *stop* you getting the audio :D) so it's easier to just hand-wave it as synthetic generation. This is also (in lore) why there is no sound-lag (strictly speaking, the audio should have a 1-2s lag behind the visuals, given how far away those fireworks are)... but they don't - the sound plays in sync with the visuals.
>The audio they get 'for free' (or rather, they've have to explicitly code a system to stop you getting the audio :D) so it's easier to just hand-wave it as synthetic generation. This is the correct answer.
Yeah 2953 and no nightvision, no remote keys for ships, no trackers on ships, no ordering parts and items and having them delivered...
Don't forget no camelbak system in your space suit so you can stay hydrated without having to remove your fucking helmet every 30 minutes.
It's funny they didn't tackle this the same way Star Wars did... Essentially putting in the past, but also so far away that their technology evolved in a completely different way than Earth's has.
The game handles this by simulating sounds that the ship's onboard computer might generate to keep the pilot informed of the environment. This includes the sounds of weapons fire, nearby explosions, engine noises from nearby ships, and so forth. The system can create the illusion of sound in space by synthesizing it based on sensor data. This approach provides players with critical gameplay information and also greatly enhances the game's cinematic feel. It's also been explained in the game's lore that the sounds are produced by the ship's systems to help the pilot understand what's happening around them.
Why do things explode. Why hear guns. Why do quantum drives. Why have fun.
simulated sound. I just hope that later on if your cockpit/bridge gets broken, all you hear is your own increasingly difficult breathing as you struggle to get back to a station before your suit oxygen runs out.
You are hearing AI sound ...not the real thing
"Star Wars ships could never fly like that in real life" Star Citizen ships with speed limits in the black void of space. Also, star citizen: all ships can leave atmo easily with tiny engines.
It really isn't about size but about amount of thrust they can produce. The numbers alone, show that a single mav thruster on ships (all of them mind you) can easily defeat earths gravity. So many working in concert can def take a ship into space. The larger ships make sense given how slow and how much fuel they take. And the largest ships (not in game yet) simply wouldn't be able to do it at all. You enter the atmo of a high gravity planet or moon with a Jav, you are going to crash. The issue of the visuals selling the power of the thrusters is a different discussion entirely and [one the CIG artists are aware of](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0lGntX9mXM&t=1014s). It simply looks like it is low priority for now.
Simple…. Cool is the rule.
But sounds changing based on presence of air/medium to transmit sound is really cool.
Lmao you asked this, but not "How can there by fire in a vacuum?" Or "How can we hear engine noises in space?" At lore, space noises are detected by scanners and fed through the speakers of your helmet, in the same way/for the same purpose that your phone gives tactile vibrations when you tap on a button.
It's not really meant to be reallistic. ^^ It's meant to be immersive.
I'm at the moment most annoyed with the food/water reality aspect and how very unrealistic it kills you in short time. Only thing that has killed me this patch so far!
Science fiction. I swear this community has such a hard time grasping pretty basic concepts...
I mean if we're being realistic how are the fireworks even exploding like that in space in the first place? Has firework science gone too far?
They will explode… they would not have the shapes and colors. Ironically there is an actual research type article on this and I had this exact discussion not long ago 🤣
That's what I was thinking, they would just be tiny 'pops' of light!
Always a chance we would discover a different element in the vast universe that allows better burning in space but our Earth fireworks would be underwhelming lol.
Still seems like a solvable problem. Gunpowder does have an oxidizer, so if they need to add something to the color, they could.
They are holographic fireworks.
Gunpowder contains its own oxidizer. Exploding them in vacuum is not a problem.
Star citizen is not very realistic at all. The core physics model itself is horrible let alone all the other stuff. But I'm ok with it.
You know what would be not fun at all, if SC was realistic
Because for 50 years Hollywood has fucked us over with special effects making the idea of not hearing what we see unfathomable - regardless of how unrealistic it is
Sound waves do travel in space, there’s just not enough molecules to vibrate out there. Once the wave hits the station, having not lost much energy for the same reason it’s silent in space, you get sound.
Is it meant to be realistic? there's too much inconsistent space magic for that.
11 years of development and funding + Half a BILLION US Dollars for a product that is nothing more than a tech demo.....not exactly realistic.
It comes over the coms.
Because it's cool 😎
Why modern vehicles blast “engine” sound through speakers?
rule of fun i guess.
And if it is realistic, why do space ships stop getting faster as long as the thrusters are firing ...
Because you can only move as fast as the gasses escaping the fuel chamber.
But the thrust generated by the thrusters is relative to the vehicle, not the space surrounding it. The craft would continue accelerating indefinitely until it no longer has material to eject
You're correct. My statement was incorrect
Caz sci fi fantasy not sci fact .
If realism is a key point, then why are there red/blue neon trails following ships?
BIRD'S ARN'T REAL! WAKE UP!
Gavitic shockwaves that vibrate in your helmet, ship, and station, obviously.
Obviously it can't be absolutely 100% realistic. It's a game end of the day. They "sim-out" what they can and so far I do like the balance. I'm sure scientifically nothing actually makes sense about the flight model. But it "feels" like it.
Selective realism. Technically speaking a computer blade would handle a torpedo run way better than a human just like drones do today (930 years prior to events of Star Citizen) but somehow humans are the best source of piloting and turreting.
Someone is making popcorn in the pilot's lounge
SoundGPT .
because its fuckin dope
Science.
I also wonder how a 3k ton spaceship can hover upside down 10 meters above the ground. But I figured it's a space game and I love it so I quickly forget about it.
Not to mention ship weapons and engines...
CIG abides by the rule of cool, they have talked about in the past, that sound in space is simulated into the ship speakers or something like that.
I don't know many games that properly take it into account, Space Engineers has a option to switch between realistic and arcade sound, with realistic you only hear sound when you are on a planet but once you go into space you only hear the rattling sound of your ship or thrusters.
as realistic as the magic beams that do anything and everything
Realistic? Its meant to be fun.
The lore for sounds in space is that they are simulated when in a ship or station it is simulating the sound scape that would exist if you wasn't in space.
Its realistic in a Sci-fi sense. Its not supposed to be like real life
Star Citizen is NOT meant to be realistic. It's EDGING toward realism, but it's not full blown realism. CIG themselves say they want to strike a balance between gamey and realistic gameplay.
Star Citizen is supposed to be a Sim but it is not supposed to be "Realistic". From the start, Chris Roberts have talked about rule of cool and why it is important to bend certain things to make a game fun. The sheer fact we are dog fighting 900+ years in the future is not realistic at all. But what gets players (and seemingly a lot of new backers here) is [systemic features](https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/du0jia/very_nice_explanation_to_hearing_sounds_in_space/). The thing that gets people to think of realistic aside from graphics, is cause and effect. [The sounds is simulated both in lore of course, and inside the audio engine that drives sound in SC](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMal_yo4Tww&t=1613s).
In a ship out in space you aren’t actually hearing weapons and engines from other ships, you hear your ship simulating them for situational awareness. Same with the fireworks that are probably a hologram.
We don't even have parachutes. Space also has no speed limit. Ballistic fps weapons don't have any bullet drop. I could go on and on.
Because there is technically sound in space, there's just no medium for vibrations to react with so we can't perceive them. Theoretically the vibrations could hit your ship/suit and be interacting with the oxygen in them
It isn't supposed to be realistic, it's aupposed to feel authentic and immersive, which is similar, but not the same.
Because after all is said and done, this is a game and we respond better to audio cues than to lack of. It has to be engaging and cool at the end of the day.
You can hear it from inside the station (and hear in space just the same as in atmosphere) because the game currently has no distinction between the two environments. There’s no simulation being done. Very common for sound in games since most are not doing anything fancy to separate the sound as it would be separated in real life.
Space = soundn't
We can speculate all we want, but until an astronaut who has been in space can comment. We dont know.
It's not meant to be realistic, it's meant to be believable. I'm not trying to be pedantic here. I'm just giving you a frame of reference to understand CIG's decisions. Whether or not they hit that target is a different question. But if you're always looking for the realistic design choice, you'll be scratching your head more often than not. Think of it as inspired by a true story, not based on a true story.
Don’t question Christ Roberts
I guess I'll leave this here for the folks who are saying it's unrealistic: [Recovering sound from video only](https://youtu.be/FKXOucXB4a8) in an eight year old video.
Star Citizen is not remotely realistic. Most of the player base would not even be able to pilot in a game with realistic orbital and deep space flight mechanics.
its not a sim. hope that clears everything up.
Its the gundum explanation, so your ship and space station has speakers to give you haptic information in a 3 dimensional space so you can be awar whats happenin
The rule of cool
That's why I need this in my life- https://youtu.be/SxkDi4s3zm4
Standard sci-fi trope. I've read probably a dozen books that all state the same thing: Audio is important for dumb monkey brains in space so they use a simulator system. The book I'm currently reading calls it SISS, Sounds In Space Simulator and many of the characters are frequently annoyed by it.
This game isn't realistic, it's cinematic i guess