Nav Icon Sounds

[WKFO]

I thought it would be cool if the nav target we selected made a distinct sound according to what kind of object it is, like our sensors are picking up and starting to track the object. So I made a few short sounds:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/hrqzonukn5ob ... F-xca?dl=0

I cropped the gas giant, stellar object and terrestrial planet sounds from PeterK's environmental ambiance effects.

For orbital and ground stations, I made a morse code beacon effect; orbital stations broadcasting "SPACE STATION" and ground ports broadcasting "GROUND STATION". And to add some more depth into it, I made a slightly distorted and noisy version to play when we are far away from the station (bad comms signal), and a clean version to play when we are in the vicinity (good comms signal).

What do you think

EDIT: Oh, and if you don't object to the idea, I will probably go and make multiple variations of the same sounds so it won't play the same thing over and over again if you happen to spam nav targets.

[impaktor]

Nice

1. I suspect many players will think this is a sound eminating from the ship systems. Which it is? What's the psudo-science here? "The ship UI gives audio-feedback"?

2. the difference in far/near for orbital seems to only be volume in background white noise, but for ground station there's also a volume difference for the morse signal, so seems inconsistent. I like the difference as it's done for ground station. I.e. different overall volume level for also the morse signal.

[WKFO]

1. Fiction-side context: It is the station's beacon broadcast. Stations continuously broadcast strong beacon signals on a certain frequency to make it easier for ships to locate stations and track them without relying on maps and their own sensors.

I imagined it as something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGl_iRqhlfM
The channel above transmits time information using IRIG timecode (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRIG_timecode), so electronic clocks can automatically be updated to correct time. I thought that civilian stations could do something similar, but to broadcast orbital telemetry. The audible morse code signal is the standart fail-safe in case a ship can't receive/decode those more complex telemetry broadcasts. Because those signals are a faction-wide (or maybe even galaxy-wide) standart, one could use the signal itself, the ship's inertial measurement unit (for distance and relative speed calculations) and the signal's doppler effect to locate and track a station. (and of course this will never happen in-game)

EDIT: Oh, you meant to ask about planets as well... It is something like what NASA does here: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/20 ... of-the-sun The ship observes the planet and comes up with a sound it creates according to the data.

2. Okay. I can do it like how I did for the ground station.

[nozmajner]

It feels a bit odd to me, having these sounds upon targeting. The intention isn't clear to me, even after your clarification above. Is it an UI sound? Or some kind of sample form the targeting system? If so, why it plays a sample upon targeting?

[FluffyFreak]

I like the idea

[impaktor]

If this isn't used for targeting objects, could the station Morse sounds instead be used when requesting docking permission, or similar?

[WKFO]

nozmajner: honestly just because it is a nice effect? also makes it look more sciency, giving the feeling that the spacecraft is automatically "probing" system bodies to get or confirm the overview map data. The audio is just for a nice gameplay effect.
impaktor: it is used for targeting objects, but sure. I just didn't want to use long morse codes so the sfx wouldn't be annoying.