[2.1.7][Linux] Ghost entities playing same, scratchy sound

[darthruneis]

When opening the interface for a ghost entity, all entities (at least the ones I've used so far - inserters + assembly machines in this save) seem to play the same, off/scratchy sounding sound effect for the interface opening.

Normal entities seem to play their audio normally, and inserters have a different sound from assembly machines, etc. I expect the same for ghost entities.

Noticing this on linux, but haven't tested for this on Windows so not sure if it is Linux specific.

[Donion]

Thanks for the report.
This is very much intended. Ghost entities play a special ghost sounds for opening their GUI, also closing, building the ghost, etc.

[nighthawk2400]

+1

While intended, it's a really unpleasant sound. Maybe you can filter off some of the high frequencies? I think OP's description of "scratchy" is spot on. Configuring ghosts is one of the most common things you do in the game so it's really important to have a good sound. The regular open/close sound is a really satisfying ka-thunk.

[_CodeGreen]

Regardless of intent, this sound hurts my ears. It's perceptually louder than every other entity gui sound in the game, and I had to mod it to be silent.
I am not opposed to ghost gui sounds, however the current ones are not ideal.
I even thought I had a bug in one of my mods while updating it to 2.1, because these new sounds sound exactly like when you layer the same sound multiple times and it gets blown out. The fact that multiple people think it's a bug in the first place should be an indication that something needs to change.

Here's someone else's message from the community discord when I finally figured out what it was:
> Watching someone stream 2.1 the other day, we were wondering where the odd loud noise was coming from…

[Hokome]

I also thought it might be a bug and I'm surprised it isn't, the sound is actually painful to my ears. At this point changing the sound is not a matter of personal preference but accessibility in my opinion.

[Harkonnen]

+1 it sounds like an alert to grab attention

[Dorenkosh]

Yet another voice here to say this seemed like an error. When I first noticed the sound, I thought it was possibly related to this person's audio issues: viewtopic.php?p=695290 and so I changed the audio driver from Pipewire to PulseAudio. When it persisted, I looked again, and found this thread and was confused.

A distinct sound for interacting with ghost entities is a neat idea. This particular sound is unpleasant.

[Donion]

I have forwarded this to our sound designer for consideration.

[Donion]

In 2.1.13 the ghost entity open/close GUI sounds have been replaced with new ones. They are supposed to be similar to the old ones but softer. Let us know how do they sound to you once it's released.

[Harkonnen]

In 2.1.13 the ghost entity open/close GUI sounds have been replaced with new ones. They are supposed to be similar to the old ones but softer. Let us know how do they sound to you once it's released.

Thanks.mp4

(56.61 KiB) Downloaded 28 times

[Dorenkosh]

In 2.1.13 the ghost entity open/close GUI sounds have been replaced with new ones. They are supposed to be similar to the old ones but softer. Let us know how do they sound to you once it's released.

Just tried out the new sounds. I like them. They're good. They don't sound like they're errors.

(I am a bit ambivalent about having one set of open/close sounds for all ghost entities, because you lose the audio feedback of "I tried to click on [thing] but got the sound effect for [different thing]." That might be the intent, however, and crafting distinct ghost-version sounds for the 23 open/close pairs I see in the data folder seems infeasible. This point is beyond scope, however, which is why it's a parenthetical.)

Some thoughts:
Compared to the previous ghost entity open-close sounds, the new sounds are longer, particularly the open. This is good. Part of what made the previous ghost-entity-open sound strange was that it was only 0.038 seconds long. It was over before I noticed it was playing. New ghost-entity-open is 0.166 seconds long, plenty of time to register consciously. (The close effect only went from 0.08 to 0.10.) Neither new sound has the higher frequencies that seemed to be part of the unpleasantness for some people. You know all this already.

Subjective impression:
They make me think of being underwater, or of water generally. It's a mix of the sort of 'bloop' sound of fluid or large bubbles moving slowly, and the frequency range reminding me of "hearing muffled by water" audio effects. On the face of it this is kind of weird. One level deeper, this works perfectly, because blueprints are blue. They are blueprints and they sound sorta-kinda like they're underwater?

You mention that they "are supposed to be similar to the old ones" and I don't really hear it. I suppose ghost-entity-close is similar. But the old ghost-entity-open just came across as a tiny burst of static. The new one is 4.3x as long and actually has any sense of "this is what this sounds like".

For me, the new sound effects completely resolve the issue. I'm curious to know what other people think, particularly those who found the previous version painful or physically uncomfortable.

[darthruneis]

I will second that this new version is much, much better. Originally when I noticed this sound I was thinking my headset was dying, or my drivers were failing, or something else rather alarming with my then-new (and still somewhat new) linux setup - thinking I had somehow done something horribly wrong and messed up my system, until I traced it down to the sound of opening the GUI for a ghost entity.

This new sound would NOT have made me think that. I find it a bit odd/surprising perhaps but definitely something I can get used to (I did get used to the previous sound and basically stopped noticing/hearing it explicitly too, but it took some time).

The odd/surprising nature of it could be argued as a good thing, given it will be very obvious that it happened when opening a ghost entity, where that wasn't immediately clear in the previous sound.