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Probably a silly question, but why...
can we hear anything other than our own ships internal noises, as there is no atmosphere in space to transmit sound from other ships?
Let me ask you this question: Would it be fun to JUST hear your engines?
The best explanation anyone can muster is that in space shooters, you've always been able to hear what's going on around you. Same goes for Star Trek, Star Wars, and a lot of other sci-fi movies and series. And has humpy says, what would be the point of having sound at all if all you can hear is your own ship humming? There's making a game that's realistic, and then there's making a game that's somewhat intuitive to play.
Duh, it's cause in the future they invent sound in space. ;)
There are three explanations. They are in order:
1) The 'funness factor' explantion. The game is more entertaining with sound.
2) The 'believability factor' explanation. Because humans are so used to living in an environment with an atmosphere, they actually balk subconsciously at visuals presented to the without sound. Sound is needed to connect you with the game.
3) The 'technobabble' explanation. When I first offer you this explanation it is going to sound like I'm using 1&2 and comng up with something to explain them away. However, the more you think about the 'technobabble' explanation the more you realize that it is actually a pretty reasonable explanation. The reason you hear the sounds of things outside your space ships is that the ship's AI analyzes the events occuring around the ship and produces in the cockpit sounds which its human pilot will intuitively recognize as cues to those particular events. In other words, if an enemy is getting close, it produces an engine sound. If something has blown up nearby, it produces an explosion sound. These aren't the real sounds of the events (because they don't have a real sound per se) but they are markers to inform the human pilot that the event has occured. The reason that this is done is that it conveys to the pilot a very large ammount of information in as dence and quick of fashion as possible. The ship could say 'Such and such has blown up 140m to starboard', but that isn't a particularly dence way to convey the information. If the ship uses immersive sound, the pilot immediately can tell what happened, a rough direction and distance to the event more precisely and quickly than a string of numbers would tell him. The ship could visually display the information, but the pilots eyes are already pretty much overwhelmed by a sensory stream and his ears would be going to waste. So it turns out, that while the explanation was invented to explain away the fact that in Star Wars for instance you can hear the X-Wings buzz by, the explanation is actually pretty reasonable and if I were building real star fighters I would in fact incorporate that very technology.
1) The 'funness factor' explantion. The game is more entertaining with sound.
2) The 'believability factor' explanation. Because humans are so used to living in an environment with an atmosphere, they actually balk subconsciously at visuals presented to the without sound. Sound is needed to connect you with the game.
3) The 'technobabble' explanation. When I first offer you this explanation it is going to sound like I'm using 1&2 and comng up with something to explain them away. However, the more you think about the 'technobabble' explanation the more you realize that it is actually a pretty reasonable explanation. The reason you hear the sounds of things outside your space ships is that the ship's AI analyzes the events occuring around the ship and produces in the cockpit sounds which its human pilot will intuitively recognize as cues to those particular events. In other words, if an enemy is getting close, it produces an engine sound. If something has blown up nearby, it produces an explosion sound. These aren't the real sounds of the events (because they don't have a real sound per se) but they are markers to inform the human pilot that the event has occured. The reason that this is done is that it conveys to the pilot a very large ammount of information in as dence and quick of fashion as possible. The ship could say 'Such and such has blown up 140m to starboard', but that isn't a particularly dence way to convey the information. If the ship uses immersive sound, the pilot immediately can tell what happened, a rough direction and distance to the event more precisely and quickly than a string of numbers would tell him. The ship could visually display the information, but the pilots eyes are already pretty much overwhelmed by a sensory stream and his ears would be going to waste. So it turns out, that while the explanation was invented to explain away the fact that in Star Wars for instance you can hear the X-Wings buzz by, the explanation is actually pretty reasonable and if I were building real star fighters I would in fact incorporate that very technology.
Damn... Celebrim beat me to the explanation. LOL
haah.. yeah, it's a great load of bullshi*. very imaginitive.
4) Just because.
5) Because in the beginning, there was ***. Then *** created man, and for a time, it was well. Then man took to the stars, and mothers complained their kids never called. So *** gave them em waves. And the mothers complained that it wasn't the same. So *** gave them sound in space.
:P
:P
It's no load of bullpucky. Here's #3, reduced to simple human English:
Your ship has speakers in the cockpit. It makes sounds for you so you know what the grap is up. The sounds are for the little monkey part of your hindbrain to react to.
Your ship has speakers in the cockpit. It makes sounds for you so you know what the grap is up. The sounds are for the little monkey part of your hindbrain to react to.
and antother thing... (farfetched) Though space may be a vacume... and that means that all that stuff has to go somewhere. And lets just say HUGE HUGE HUGE (GARGANTUAN) colony ship blew up... and the universe of vendetta is in the way of where the 'vacume' pulls all that stuff. So there is a bit of air (explaining explosions and noises) passing through sectors to who knows where.
Sheepdog, space is defined as a vacuum by having something like 40 hydrogen atoms per cubic meter or something like that as I remember. QED there is no "air" to move in space.
bah! it was just a random thought. plus im not even in good science yet... heh.