Horrid Advent Sound Effect

many ears were bled today

from Sins Forums

I haven't played too much sins, and am in the middle of my 2nd 1.03 SP match. In 1.02 I never ran up against a large force of advent, but am doing that as we speak in a random medium map.

So i'm facing a fairly diverse and teched-up advent force, we were allies through the game and our empires and fleets are well developed. In my last two battles I faced a group of -

Drone Hosts, Crusaders, Guardians, Illuminators, Disciples, Defense Vessels, and Subjugators.

- And while I was ripping them up, there was this sound effect that was constantly playing, related to some unknown Advent ship spell. It was like, the most horribly loud screeching/ringing sound. There were so many visual effects going off that I couldn't tie it to any particular ship. I'm wondering if its the subjugator's 'suppression or perseverance effect, as i've never faced them before.

In any case I wanted to know if anyone knows what I'm talking about, and has experienced the same. The sound was so bad, I couldn't believe anyone would put it in the game deliberately and I'm wondering if I'm hitting a bug with the effect. If not, it actually pisses me off that IC would punish the player like this. If someone can point me to the correct ship I'll try to go into the game-files and tone the effect down a couple notches.....

technical
7,407 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
It was probably the Illuminators. Their main weapon sounds sort of like a mix between a laser going through ice and a high pitched whine.

Though... Without hearing what you heard exactly, I don't know. You could very well be hitting a big, and the easy thing to do would be to play Advent once until you get a few Illuminators and try them out.

I don't find it terribly annoying, but it is a bit of an attention-grabber when a dozen or so Illuminators light up.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Hey Szoreny,

If you do figure out what is causing this sound please post it. If there is an issue with one of the files or some strange sound behaviour I would like to track it down.

Thanks!
Star Control: Origins
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I'ts definately not the illuminators, - I'll check the crusaders...I've played every .ogg in the 'effect' and 'weapon' sections of Sins' sound folder, - but can't seem to find the offender amongst the files...it's good to see IC has labeled each effect thoroughly at least, I was hoping to find the file and replace it with another effect that's not as unpleasant.. I'll keep looking.

and by the way, - my memory was a little inaccurate in my original post, - the sound is more like a high pitched metallic 'slurping' that rises in crescendo -- lasts about 2-3 seconds each time it goes off, and at a moderate zoom level its unbearably loud compared to the other effects.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Did you have any capital ships in the fight? One of them (I think the Revelation, the one that has Hysteria, because I don't remember the exact name of the ability I'm talking about) has an ability to reduce the cooldown of abilities of friendly ships, and plays a short sort of metallic sound effect.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Crusaders. Definitely.

I mostly play Advent, and that sound drives me INSAAAANE.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Did you have any capital ships in the fight? One of them (I think the Revelation, the one that has Hysteria, because I don't remember the exact name of the ability I'm talking about) has an ability to reduce the cooldown of abilities of friendly ships, and plays a short sort of metallic sound effect.
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Nope, the sound persisted well past the death of their cap-ships. Sounds like Crusaders get the vote, I haven't had a chance to play a game as Advent just yet but Rhedd_V sounds like he's having the appropriate reaction to the effect. Insanity.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Its the disciples stealing and transferring antimatter I believe, its really an annoying sound and the effect is distracting.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Its the disciples stealing and transferring antimatter I believe, its really an annoying sound and the effect is distracting.
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Yeah, - Busby's right, - not that the crusader's effect isn't aggravating as well, - but my beef is with the Disciples - the sound files are appropriately named, - 'Effect_StealAntimatter.ogg' and 'Effect_TransferAntimatter.ogg'

Psugar, - on my setup its not just that these effects are inherently annoying, but they play much MUCH louder than other sound-effects, so you might want to take a look. I'm going to have a go at copying and renaming 'Effect_IntertialField.ogg' to stand in for both the Disciple's Antimatter effects, as the Inertial field effect is quite soothing by contrast.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Yep. Gotta admit, that one's pretty maddening, as well. And you're right, it does play a lot louder than it probably should.

The same is true with the Crusader's. It's not only constant, but you can hear it all over the gravity well. I don't think it's worth the headache just for a little AOE damage. ^_^
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
crusaders and disciples i have to turn sound effect or whatever it is under way down way to stop hearing that loud screeching noise

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
Ok - simply going into the sound folder and doing a little mix and matching to replace the effects you don't like seems to work fine ... I changed the Disciple's steal/transfer effects to the subtle Inertial Field effect. I don't have much experience with Advent, but Stealing and Transfering seems like an ability I'd leave on autocast, and its not important to me to hear when it goes off. Good thing too, since the effect I chose is so subdued its hard to hear at all...a massive improvement. I'm going to do the same for Ruthlessness once I tech up to it and hear exactly what it sounds like, because I can't find an effect tagged as 'ruthlessness' or any derivation there-of in the folder.

That's an exception, because everything in the sound folder is generally well-labeled, all you need is some .ogg codecs so you can preview the sounds in Windows and you're set. Keep backup copies of everything you change obviously, - I'll report here if I run into any problems.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
It's "Effect_DamageOverTimeAura.ogg".

It doesn't sound so bad when you just listen to the sound file, but MAN it's loud and invasive, in-game.

HISSS.... WHOOOSSHHH.... HISSSS...WHOOOSSHHH... Make it stop! ^_^

And yeah, transferring antimatter is definitely best on autocast.