Friday Facts #252 - Sound design & Map editor

[Klonan]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-252

[Yehn]

I definitely think a rich soundscape is worthwhile. With a good one, you can close your eyes and still 'see' what is going on.

[mexmer]

as long, as usage of editor can be disabled for multiplayer game in server settings, i will like this one.

[Durabys]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-252

If you add that the Biter Creep under the buildings grows to cover everything around a Biter settlement..on high biter maps you will have basically recreated the Zerg Swarm from Starcraft.

Everything covered by CREEP!!!

[Philip017]

better sound is always worth it!

agree in MP the editor should be enable/disable able in a launch command variable.

[y.petremann]

For my part, I would be glad to have two functionnality about the editor :
1) being able to run the editor without pausing the game, so the player on the editor could be a sort of GameMaster.
2) Player would get notified that somebody used the editor command, so it couldn't be done unotified.

[Rseding91]

1) being able to run the editor without pausing the game, so the player on the editor could be a sort of GameMaster.

You can do that. It was shown in one of the gifs

2) Player would get notified that somebody used the editor command, so it couldn't be done unotified.

Only admins can use it and it can be disabled with the permissions system.

[dasiro]

I must admit: most of the time I play the game without sound, just music from somewhere else. Way back in the beginning it was handy, but since you can auto-repair everything with bots and alerts are easily shown when clicking on them I don't use the audio as a tactical addition as I used to in other games.

I don't even remember whether each entity has it's own unique sound, like it has it's own animation so there's definitely room for improvement to indulge/submerge a player in the game a bit more, with personally some great soundtracks that don't get you bored after an hour

[mexmer]

I must admit: most of the time I play the game without sound, just music from somewhere else. Way back in the beginning it was handy, but since you can auto-repair everything with bots and alerts are easily shown when clicking on them I don't use the audio as a tactical addition as I used to in other games.

I don't even remember whether each entity has it's own unique sound, like it has it's own animation so there's definitely room for improvement to indulge/submerge a player in the game a bit more, with personally some great soundtracks that don't get you bored after an hour

i'm kinda at same boat, after a while i disabled all sounds from game, and just listen to music. i disable entities sounds in most games, unless they have some "importance". but bitter allert is flashy enough in factorio, even without sound

[MarvinCZ]

I must admit: most of the time I play the game without sound, just music from somewhere else. Way back in the beginning it was handy, but since you can auto-repair everything with bots and alerts are easily shown when clicking on them I don't use the audio as a tactical addition as I used to in other games.

Same here.

But my use case is that I leave factorio running on one screen and for example watch a movie on the other. Since there is no quick way for toggling the sounds altogether I just leave them off all the time.
I wish there was an keyboard shortcut for muting sounds, or if the game could do it automatically based on game-window focus, it would be just great.

[Proxy]

one thing that is a bit disapointing is the fact that the ammo inside the Artillery wagon doesn't move after each shot. you know, as a reloading animation

[Termak]

Awesome, my eardrums still rumbling after arty shots.

[betrok]

one thing that is a bit disapointing is the fact that the ammo inside the Artillery wagon doesn't move after each shot. you know, as a reloading animation

Yep, i noticed this as well.

[ShutEye_DK]

I definitely think a rich soundscape is worthwhile. With a good one, you can close your eyes and still 'see' what is going on.

Excactly. Like a good GPS.

[eradicator]

About sound design on a very personal level, i can say that there is one sound in particular, that litterally got so much on my hearing-nerves that i had to remove it from my personal "experience". The high-screetching, ever present, multiplied-a-thousand-fold sound of...belts. I dearly hope that i'm the only one suffering from this particular sound.

Code: Select all

for _,belt in pairs(data.raw['transport-belt']) do
  belt.working_sound.sound.volume = 0
  belt.working_sound.max_sounds_per_type = 0
  end

I want to hear my inserters and assemblers too! And birds! Definetly birds. But where do the birds live after i paved over the whole place? Maybe there should be cicadas hiding in the seams of the bricks, and under the bushes...

That "tick once" button sounds supremely awesome for mod debugging too. And it even has a custom-count mode . Looking very forward to that.
___

2) Player would get notified that somebody used the editor command, so it couldn't be done unotified.

Only admins can use it and it can be disabled with the permissions system.

Isn't that a contradiction? Admins control the permission system. Have to admit that not having a per-map fixed setting to disable it would probably cause flamewars (especially from the achievement community), if you can never be sure that all of the map is "legit". And maybe a bit too hard to resist in a weak moment, when you know it's so easy to reach. On the other side... if it's always active maybe we can get rid of the whole discussion about cheated-or-not, and of "i don't want to use commands because they disable achievements so i'm gonna edit the savegame instead"-people. Yea. Like that's gonna happen.

[darkfrei]

Do we get just pause with it?

[Vandroiy]

Sounds great!

How about blowing some dust into the air around the cannon when it fires? Might be a simple way to visually give it more power.

For extra 1337ness, check for desert tiles and add a whole lot of dust if they are present.

[Tubbles]

I enjoy the map editor very much, and especially the multiplayer capability. Have you guys given 'triggers' or similar functionality or some other scripting any thought? I've spent several years in the wc3 map editor and would love it if factorio got something similar

[MicFac]

It's great that you started work on new sound design. I think this will increase the immersion a lot!
I also like the HR enemy base concept.

[KatherineOfSky]

Yay! I've seen so many people asking about making the Map Editor more functional -- so glad you are updating it! XD

Love the new sound & graphical additions too -- I look forward to even more immersion within the game!