First Impression from a new player

Good morning,

Overall, I'd like to say that I am quite impressed with the work you've all done on Torn Stars thus far. It can not be easy making a total conversion for a game that has been relegated to abandonware status. I generally enjoy the game but there were a couple of things that bothered me.

I know that Cambragol has worked on the music (I believe) but the ambient sound of this slow, monotonous banging gets very aggravating after the first hour. So much so that I went in and turned the music off. Is it possible to replace that file with something from my own collection or one of the original pieces from I-War2?

Also, is it possible to restore the original LDS engine noise? When it ramps up to full speed, it really sounds like a very high frequency whine. Chased my poor dog clear out of the room and started to give me a bit of a headache.

Lastly, I had purchased some silver from the rare metals mine in the starting system and was taking it (along with my util wingman) to the processing plant in Bedalov. When I tried to open up the UniGUI to sell it, I received the error message that no UniGUI subsystems were available. Is this normal? I didn't catch that in the starting tutorial I printed off to help me get used to the game.

I-War 2 isn't abandonware in the strictest sense of the word, because Atari (the purchaser of Infogrames/Hasbro Interactive) is a member of the ESA and has not released it as freeware. The whole "five years" thing is just an excuse, in my eyes.

I also dislike the station "music". The plain ambiance that you hear in space doesn't bother me, however.

I did write a little plugin to allow the use of custom music (particularly, to write in a combat music system), but it was a bit buggy. I'll put it up later tonight (can't do anything about it right now, as I have to leave to write a final exam!).

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Surgeon-General's Warning: Early test cases of Torn Stars have resulted in fatalities. The errors in the software should be gone by now. Hopefully.

The music for Torn Stars is not really music, but rather environmental sound effects. We pretended that the ship's sensor can interpret electromagnetic and other energy pattern or fields, and turn them into audible sounds. Hence all the effects you hear are meant to be thought of in this sense (rather than having completely silent space. Realistic, but perhaps too easy? hahah)

The station 'music' which people either hate or love, is meant to be the sound of the LDSI field generator. That is the source of the heavy pulsing sound. Different 'empires' have slightly different LDSI generator sounds. The loud, repeating bursts of sound are meant to represent the FTL communications. It is more or less a broadcast for the station, aiding in location, identification, navigation etc. Finally, if you get really close to the stations, you will hear a general thrum, representing the overall interal electrical activity. This sound differs broadly from station type to station type.

Also, since all these sounds are effects rather than actual music, it leaves the player free to pick whatever music they want, while traversing the stars. This seemed the best way to deal with it, rather than picking a set of music, and risk alienating players even more than simple sound effect would. If you don't like the effects, just pop in your own music and drown them out. Or turn them down.

If you are really adventurous, venture into the mod folder and start messing around with the various music 'suites' and ini's we have set up. I can't remember all the details off hand, but GrandpaTrout included some details about how to add and modify sounds/music. If you came up with a good set you could package it up and offer it as a mod for others to enjoy.

The LDS noise was changed after certain people became annoyed with the original sound. It seems that both sounds annoy someone to a certain degree. I might make a completely new one in the future and get rid of the old once and for all.

I also have to admit, I don't really like either LDS sound. I guess my preference would run to something more bass in nature.

I just added a switch that lets you turn off whole music system. I use it when popping into and out of the game frequently while debugging. It is nice to be able to hear the game sound effects, but not interrupt the music I have playing while coding. Since others might use the feature, I moved the switch out of my debug stuff and into the options screen.