[REL] BillCar's Active Sonar Ping Mod Mk.II

[BillCar]

Has anyone tested out Mk I of the mod yet? I'd be curious as to what people think / what needs changing!

[Hitman]

It's peculiar and rather different from others used before

I can't say wether it is realistic or not, but it does sound a bit "short" to me?

The main problem I see, is that the fact that an escort is pinging around doesn't mean the beam is trained at you and giving him a return And your sound is just the one from the return, not from the emission. The PING heard in movies is more or less representative of what you hear if a ship is pinging near you. But if that ping hits you, then you would also "hear-feel" the actual sound wave impact, and that is what your own PINg reflects.

I wonder if the best idea would be to swap the soundman voice for "The enemy has us in his beam" (Or whatever is said when voices are in english, I just play with german ones) for your ping return, and leave the original ASDIC emission as it is. That way, you would clearly hear when the enemy is hitting you, not just when he is emitting.

[BillCar]

Interesting! Does anyone know how I could implement what Hitman suggests?

Is there actually a way to make the game differentiate from the destroyer pinging NEAR you and the destroyer actually getting a return? If so, that'd be great, and I could blend the two sounds...

I do understand that my file only represents the ping actually hitting the ship and giving a return. I have always wondered how the pinging works in the game (I understand how it works in real life, but in the game, it seems like if you are hearing the pings, then that means that the enemy is hitting you already – if this ISN'T true, then there is hopefully some way to set it up so the game uses one sound file for pinging and another for pinging+return!).

[Sailor Steve]

Deja vu! I can't find the thread, but some time ago someone did something exactly like this. If I could get to my computer I'm sure I could share it.

Doesn't matter, since more is better, but I sure wish I could let you see this, just for comparison purposes.

[BillCar]

Pretty sure it was Ktl_Kurtz - he posted in this thread earlier, and his mod is a good one.

Would it be possible for you to try my sound out too, Steve? I am trying to get as many people to weigh in as possible so that I can tweak it in accordance with the general opinion of the community!

Please let me know what you think if you can!

[brett25]

Hi billcar,

i like your sound, the only question at this point is what does the sound actually sound like? ive heard the ping rattles through the hull. i like the pebble sound alot, maybe the other sound could have more rattle and an scraping echo/reverb to make it sound like the hull is voluminous/cavernous. Reverb/echo would give a nice 3d feeling to the sound as well

[BillCar]

I'm going to try and make a rattling sound - I've been playing around with dropping a few smaller pebbles or BBs on the steel plating. I hope that I can make a new version for next weekend that uses this sound.

[BillCar]

Okay, I've been playing around, and I have noticed that once the sonar operator says "Enemy is pinging us, sir!" the sound of the pinging gets steadily louder. So there is definitely some sort of switch in the game where the volume of the ping goes up when the enemy is actually detecting you.

I don't know much about modding, but it seems to me that there should be some way to edit the game files to either

a) have no sound until the enemy is actually pinging you, or
b) have one sound for when the enemy is pinging without getting a solid return on you, and another for when you are actually being hit by the ping

Does this make sense to anyone else? If this is possible, would anyone be able to explain to me how I might go about doing this?

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by BillCar

Would it be possible for you to try my sound out too, Steve?

Not possible at all right now, as I have absolutely no access to my computer. I'm posting from the library.

[divingbluefrog]

Hi,
Actually there are two "ping" sound in the /sound directory : Echolot_ping.wav and Sonar.wav. They are very similar, the second more high-pitched.
They could be the two different sounds you're looking after. I can't do self-testing at this time, but I hope this can help.

[BillCar]

Originally Posted by divingbluefrog

Hi,
Actually there are two "ping" sound in the /sound directory : Echolot_ping.wav and Sonar.wav. They are very similar, the second more high-pitched.
They could be the two different sounds you're looking after. I can't do self-testing at this time, but I hope this can help.

Unless I'm mistaken, the Echolot file is just for the U-boat's depth-sounding.

[BillCar]

Think I just found something great!

http://www.hnsa.org/sound/soundinthesea/track32.mp3

This is a recording, taken inside a submarine, of active sonar striking it. This is from a recording that was declassified by the USN in the 1950s and released by a sonar development company in 1960, and so would perhaps date from the 1940s.

What we hear is the squeak and, a second later, a sound pretty close to the one I made for this mod: a short, metallic impact sound.

The squeak can be heard throughout the recording, and the metallic impact is audible twice: listen for the ping 3 seconds into the recording and the impact at 4 seconds, and then again with the ping at 13 seconds and the impact at about 15 seconds.

This is not recorded over hydrophones, it sounds like it is recorded on an open microphone inside the submarine.

This will be the basis for the new sound I make. I will take the old recording, lower it slightly, and preface it with the squeak.

[BillCar]

This is the second version, based on the link in the post above.

[verte]

The squeak is close, but the impact sounds different from the one from hnsa.

[BillCar]

There's a good reason for that, actually – the recording quality on the HNSA is rather poor, and so I figured that leaving more echo on impact would make it sound more lively.

If people want, I can make one that is more of a dead-sounding "thunk" like you hear on the recording. However, I am pretty sure that that is just the sound as heard through their low-quality microphone, cutting off the actual fullness of the sound.

I will try and make a dead-sounding mod for later tonight, and will put both links in the OP.