Ability to silence audible alerts from anywhere

[JasonC]

I often use programmable speakers to sound alerts for various things. I usually use global playback because 1) without it, it's difficult to tell if a new alert activates since the UI only shows one alert icon and has no other visual indicator of new alerts beyond the first, and 2) it's something that needs my attention. However, I also often want to silence them because it sometimes takes time to address them and the sound gets obnoxious. I prefer not to mute the game because 1) that silences any other new alerts and 2) I like playing with sound.

To that end I'd like to be able to silence an alert from wherever I am. The way I would like it to work, specifically (edit: except for idea 1b below), is: When an alert is silenced, it stays silenced until it deactivates then activates again, but only after it's been deactive for at least 1 second.

That rule is intended to allow effective silencing of alerts that are produced in response to threshold crossings of values with a lot of noise in them (where there can be a period of rapid deactivation and reactivation of the alert during the transition, and silencing the alert should not be frustrating during this type of event).

However, the issue is, I can't think of the UI I'd like for this, since currently all active alerts are grouped together under one icon and the main UI screen doesn't really have anything in place to select single alerts. Let's talk about this.

I have two rough ideas although I'm not sure how great they are:

Idea 1: Click the alert icon to just silence every alert that is currently playing a sound. This is pretty straightforward, easy to learn, and probably what I'd generally want to do anyways.

Edit: Idea 1b: Click the alert icon to mute/unmute alerts in general. This also seems intuitive and eliminates the need for that 1 second deactivation time logic I described above. New alerts wouldn't produce sounds while alerts were muted, but when unmuted you'd hear them all again. It also means it's stateless wrt specific alerts, and if that's an implementation benefit then hopefully it increases the chances of getting this feature. This one is growing on me as my favorite./Edit

Idea 2: To silence an alert, look at the map, and click the flashing icon on the map to silence that specific alert. This gives a bit more control at the cost of tedium. The map is the only place I can think of with distinct alert indicators for each alert, but I don't know if there's actually value in having this extra control.

That's all I got.

[conn11]

Or on alert notification:
LMB: show alert on map (default Vanilla behavior)

RMB: mute alert, so a new alert sound can be played,
maybe even better cancel it. Though this would require some kind of alert log.

Opening the map, just to cancel an alert seems kind of annoying.

[Rseding91]

There's a console command you can run to to that:

/mute-programmable-speaker

It doesn't disable achievements and doesn't need you to be an admin.

[bobucles]

There's also a pile of other console commands to play with.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Console

Code: Select all

/mute-programmable-speaker <mute/unmute> <local/everyone>
/mute-programmable-speaker mute local	
Mutes or unmutes the global sounds created by the Programmable Speaker. Use “local” to mute just the local client. Admins can use “everyone” to mute the sounds for everyone on the server.

I am a bit surprised that global alerts are a console setting but not in the sound settings.

[JasonC]

There's a console command you can run to to that:

/mute-programmable-speaker

It doesn't disable achievements and doesn't need you to be an admin.

Oh sweet!

I think it would be great to tie something in the main UI to that functionality as a vanilla feature.

[Rseding91]

There's a console command you can run to to that:

/mute-programmable-speaker

It doesn't disable achievements and doesn't need you to be an admin.

Oh sweet!

I think it would be great to tie something in the main UI to that functionality as a vanilla feature.

It is a vanilla feature. You just open chat, type that, and it's done. Nothing could be less vanilla about that

[JasonC]

It is a vanilla feature. You just open chat, type that, and it's done. Nothing could be less vanilla about that :P

:-|

[ssilk]

I see many action films. Some siren runs suddenly and the commander shouts some commands and his/last command is always: “... and turn off this dammed alarm.”

The simplest implementation of this would be:
- Click on the icon, you jump to the alarm on map.
- Zoom in, you have built a switch into the circuits, something, that can be handled from map-view
- trigger that switch and the switch sends a “silent” signal to speaker

The same functionality can also simulated by a circuit (instead having the final comparison in the speaker this comparison is made in a combinator before the speaker and he also includes the silent signal into the decision). So what’s really needed is this switch, that can be handled from far away.
There is a mod that exists for that:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/remote-switch

So what I’m saying (and already have implemented myself) is that this isn’t needed, because you can create this yourself.

[teast1984]

I dream about factorio that when I set up a speaker that triggers an alarm under certain conditions and I have a global set, that I can hear it everywhere, then when the alarm icon appears at the bottom and I hear the sound on the headphones, clicking on the icon would be able to make a mute for this alarm, which would disappear when the alarm is turned on again (condition of another triggering: min, e.g. 10 seconds of no alarm occurrence)

[ssilk]

joined with older topic — ssilk

This is quite related to those
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=82508 Option to suppress / delay entity destroyed alarm sound
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=58076 Different Volume for Different Alerts
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=46386 Dismissing alerts

[distortions864]

There's a console command you can run to to that:

/mute-programmable-speaker

It doesn't disable achievements and doesn't need you to be an admin.

Oh sweet!

I think it would be great to tie something in the main UI to that functionality as a vanilla feature.

It is a vanilla feature. You just open chat, type that, and it's done. Nothing could be less vanilla about that

It would seem the command does not work from RCON, or console.
Could this be fixed, or is there a way to set this parameter from LUA?
I was hoping to use 'mute everyone' to silence speakers by default.
I looked, and didn't see it in the LUA api... but I might be blind.

Thanks!