an interesting bug with propeller sound

[raduz]

hi everyone,

I discovered something strange: the turn count you hear via hydrophone is supposed to be identic with the real turn count of the ships propeller. so I made a mission with only one C2 and I adjusted its max RPM in the .sim file to 25. then I used external view to count visually the turn count. it was 25, indeed. then I checked the hydrophone and it was 25.

but then I set the max RPM to 15. the real turn count was 15, all right, I was able to count visually the revs. but when I checked the hydrophone, I heard 21 RPMs! anytime I set the max RPM to <22, I always heard 21 RPMs, no matter how slow turned the propeller. I even set the RPM to 1, and the propeller did 1 turn per minute, but the hydrophone was telling me 21 rpms! the same goes for max. RPM. it is 47. you can hear max. 47 beats per minute although the propeller turns much faster.

I tried to modify the propeler_4_hyd in the sounds (I made it faster in the audacity software) but this just pushed the RPMs up and that was it (the limits were no more 21 to 47 but rather 42 and 94).

do you have any idea where this can me modified or whats the reason of this issue?
I checked the sh3.sdl file (propeller_4_hyd used by C2) but I didnt find anything interesting (there is just loop, volume, pitch, doppler factor, max and min radius).

[Rubini]

Hi raduz,

First of all thanks for your great work on that hydrophones tutorial!:up:

I also woked a bit with hydrophones to make the Stay Alert crew fix mod and my conclusion is that the hydrophones are another unfinished feature by the Devs. It's the unique section where you can't adjust correctly using the Sensors.dat or even the Sensors.cfg. A lot of hardcoded and limited features are in the hydrophones.

It's impossible for example really have big differences on sea state or from a big ship and a small one speaking about sensitivity. The game also don't makes any difference between a small sail boat and a big convoy. It's a pity.:cry:

If you find anything more let us know, ok?;)

[raduz]

hi, rubini,

I was reading your hydrophone/visual thread very carefully and I must say you did a good job! especially with the visual detection. as for the hydrophone, I think there is a way to input differences betweeen small ships/big ships. although we cant modify the propeller sound volume for each ship separately*, we can change the pitch of the propeller sound, so that small ships will have clearly higher propeller sound while the big ships will have a low sound.

*actually, it is possible to create a special propeller sound for each ship (or for each type of ship) and set the volume as we wish. however, this requires an important modification of the SH3.sdl file and adding some 10-15 new propeller sounds. complicated, but possible. this way, we could discriminate the sound intensity of the big ships/small ships.

as for the convoy/singleton, you are totally right, it is a real problem, and I have no idea how could the convoys sound volume be raised...