Rapid fuel indicator clicking

[onetwistedtit]

Typically I like the relay clicks of a segmented display in a cockpit like the Apollo CM, but clicking for every 0.1kg of fuel used (2500 for the whole tank) is a bit much. Otherwise great demo, I had fun flying around, and if not for the incessant clicks, I'd have honed my precision landing skills.

[PigBoy]

Thank you for mentioning this. My goal is to eventually reproduce "reasonable" sounds for everything in the cockpit. The LED seven-segment displays are silent, but the ticking you hear is my attempt at what a fuel flow transducer might sound like. In all likelihood, the fuel flow would be inaudible in the cockpit. I was interested in having some kind of "reasonable" audible feedback to the pilot so they know how much fuel they're actually using. In reality, they would *feel* the flow in their feet due to the resulting acceleration. But in-game, it probably should be audible. The ticking sound reminds me of the sound that gasoline pumps used to make when I was a child (around 1970 or so), but that has no relevance in a spacecraft sim.

Other possibilities could be a variable pitch whistling or "whooshing" sound to represent the sound of liquid flowing in the fuel system. It would also be accurate to have a bang-like sound when the engine starts and again when it stops, but I haven't implemented that yet. Do you have any opinion on these?

May I ask what kind of controller you used to play the demo? Keyboard? Game controller? Touch-screen? VR?

[onetwistedtit]

After watching some of the raw gameplay on the youtube channel I did realize it's a useful indicator of current thrust. I correlated the sound with the only visual change on my screen not related to motion, my mistake.

All of the semi-realistic spaceflight games I've played use a "whooshing" sound varying in intensity by thrust, regardless of atmospheric pressure. Seeing as the pilot is located so closely to the engine of the Sky Dart, it may not be too unrealistic to hear fluid flowing through the plumbing. After whistling to myself for a few minutes, a pitching up and down along with a slight variation in volume could make a good indicator of thrust. An audible bang or pop on engine start would be good.

I'm using a keyboard on Linux, swapping the pan view and attitude controls. Using the mouse to interact with the controls is nice, though the stick does snap back to center if I drag too far out.

[PigBoy]

Thanks for your further thoughts. I'll put the audio changes on the list of things to do :) I also plan to add appropriate sounds for the RCS thrusters at some point (mostly of the bang/pop variety).

It is flyable with keyboard alone of course, but I only use that for occasional testing.
Mouse on the controls is a little bit of a gimmick. As an avid flight simmer, I always expected to prefer a joystick/throttle combo, but when I tried an ordinary game controller (e.g. Xbox) I discovered that I liked it best. When you have an easy proportional throttle control the connection between throttle level and cue sound is probably easier to recognize. In any case some variation of whooshing is going to be more recognizable to the typical player. Thanks again for your feedback!

-Eric