9 replies to this topic

[Joseph Ward]

Hey all, I am fairly new here (first post!!).. so apologies if this has been addressed elsewhere already but..

IMO the environmental feel this game would be much more immersive, and greatly enhanced by background radio chatter - specifically, obeying a reasonably accurate and laconic military RATEL style - press-ganged of course into the Battletech Universe.

I say this because the overall tactical picture in a mech battle would stretch far further than just in-team chat, for example, and notwithstanding your own lance (or STAR's!!!) level of EMCON, you would be passively picking up channels from all manor of service and comms support, logistics, field bases, dropships, salvage/rescue, COMSEC intel etc etc battlefield entities, both friendly, and enemy. The greater context of an engagement, and battlefield infrastructure is far-reaching.

It would be AWESOME to hear some sort of believable live tactical estimation and battlefield chatter, via distant, crackly-sounding comms. This could include, but not be limited to position reporting - i.e.: "All callsigns all callsigns all callsigns - I have an unidentified HEAVY at position charlie-niner, range 3km, estimate course two-five-zero, bearing drawing right..... ", mayday calls (from ground troops, stricken dropships, or mechs etc), warning orders and new situational threat escalations, chatter with other battlefield assets (orbital dropships "this is dropship Kent, attempting low orbit burn re-entry for dustoff at navpoint gamma", aerospace fighters/bombers etc - "All callsigns all callsigns, warning of imminent artillery strike at position delta-four, ARROW-four strike inbound")..

Perhaps the background chatter volume could be altered through settings to not interfere with team chat, or left high if team chat not in use etc.. at any rate it should definitely be there - and, based on my experience, radio comms really are reasonably difficult to comprehend in the heat of any dynamic situation. Confusion is part of warfare. No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy.

Once again, I realise this has probably already come up - or that the devs are already at work on something to this extent.. or maybe there is even a patch already that I don't know about?

But I thought this was well worth bringing up..

thoughts?

thanks for reading

[Bhael Fire]

Yes...there are numerous threads on this topic. Many people want to see more immersive ambient sounds, radio chatter being high on that list.

Also, welcome aboard.

Edited by Bhael Fire, 27 November 2012 - 03:44 PM.

[Garth Erlam]

I myself am hesitant of these things. I'd want them (if added) to be very quiet, otherwise they would seem to be referencing what is happening in-game. That would get incredibly confusing, eh?

[Joseph Ward]

@ Bhael - thanks sibkin, it's good to be on board.

@ Garth - as I say you could turn the volume down (as you would try to clean up channels and interference in real life). Radio comms should be fairly confusing though - as that IS the real life drawback to using them, afterall.

[Bhael Fire]

Yeah, radio chatter would have to be ambient background noise, just to make the world seem more alive and the conflict much more expansive than just the area your lance is currently located.

[Joseph Ward]

Exactly what I am saying.. seems we are in violent agreement here.. so long as it is nothing like the cheesy radio chat we had on MW4. lol don't get me started on that game...

[Joseph Ward]

whilst on the general topic of comms' and electronic warfare tho - I do think it would be ideal to have background chatter integrated with teamspeak, and to some extent interfering with it.

I say this because one would expect that the limitations which apply to radio and SATCOMs a thousand years into the future would be similar to the limitations that apply today. The hollywood action movie assumption that battlefield comms always work perfectly is absolute fantasy: for example a typical modern individual man portable radio set has a useful range of about 5km in good operating conditions, if not running through a re-bro (rebroadcast site).. but remember the old radios the soldiers found in the first Transformers movie - which they exclaimed in frustration they would only get 20 to 30 miles out of before the final city showdown?...

The laws of physics will be the same a thousand years from now: radio waves will still diffract around mountains, and coverage will be affected by topographical features (unless you are bouncing radiowaves straight off a planet's ionosphere to overcome coverage blindspots on the other side of a mountain etc - in this case you would still have more lag). Atmospheric radio diffraction properties are also variable on this planet (heat and humidity being the major factors here on Terra) - as they would also obviously be on others (ambient radiation/solar interference may be higher on other worlds etc etc).

To a degree - you would also expect active sensor systems to interfere with each other and with comms (radar obeys the fourth inverse law for radio interference - so a relatively low-power radio transmitter can cause major interference to another device if close enough), i.e. SATCOMs/uplinks could interfere with radar when in use; comms chatter would definitely affect passive sensors/passive radar; active sensors may interfere with comms when used at high power levels; comms could even be jammed by enemy mechs using ECMs/ESMs etc.. operating under radio silence could (okay, should) be tactically advantageous.

This is an all important aspect in multi-dimensional warfare. Meanwhile having perfectly audible teamchat 100% of the time just seems wrong. Accurate tactical pictures are much harder to paint in real life. It would sound and feel much better with at least some interference, unreliability, and most importantly background noise/chatter to make comms a little harder to pick up.

And pardon my digression..

[Joseph Ward]

okay so here's an interesting video..



not sure where this (radio) audiotrack came from? was it embellished from another game? It sounds okay - definitely sounds like battlefield comms' chatter - maybe the RATEL protocols could be improved a bit on though.. more military and Battletech-like.

The environment feels way cooler with this in the background, though. I would definitely leave music choice to the individual player though, if even desired.

Very nice work anyway - the Orthodontist...

[Ragor]

If I want more intense radio chatter to distract me while in battle I just increase the decibel of TS3...

[Joseph Ward]

I'm new here.. what is TS3? teamspeak software?