"Radio" filter for player voice

During missions, the voice-acted lines of the characters are put through a filter to make them sound like they're coming over a low-bandwidth connection; that is traditional in Wing Commander games, and therefore appropriate. However, the voice of the player character (in this case Sandman) also sounds like it's being heard over the comm, which I find to be a bit odd. I don't recall Blair's voice in WC3/4 to have been filtered; in any case, I think using the comm filter on the player's voice makes it much harder to connect to the player character, or identify which lines are spoken by "us."

I don't know if there's a reason for this that I've failed to grasp, and I don't know how hard it would be to change at this point. I just think it would be nicer to have Sandman's voice sound like it was actually in the cockpit with the player, rather than sounding like it's coming from another ship. Is this something that anyone besides me noticed?

The reasoning was that in ME2 Sheppard's voice is also processed through a radio filter once he has a helmet on.

:? ...but ME2 is played from a 3rd person perspective. I always thought of the wing commander games as being 1st person perspective (especially given the cockpit animations in the older WC games). It's not that big a deal, but I still think it doesn't quite sound like the player voice in WC 3/4 did, which is basically why it stuck out to me. I guess if no one else noticed it, it's not worth worrying about.

Well I also noticed that after remembering the clear voice of Blair in WC3/4 (the comms of those games were limited compared with Saga however). If it's not big trouble it would be nice to have Sandmans voice without the radio filter.

Have you ever spoken while wearing a helmet? Your voice is damped because of the helmet, and in case of Sandman who is wearing a helmet with an integrated headphone, you wouldn't probably hear your own voice. (Think about helicopter pilots, they can only communicate via headset and don't hear their own voice) So it would make sense that Sandman is hearing his own voice through the helmet's speakers instead. I mean, a Hellcat is no helicopter, but who says that a fighter cockpit is a complete low-noise environment? 😊

We can argue about how it is in reality (in fact the F-16 cockpit is quite silent during flight with the canopy closed and bear in mind that it's cutting through the air not empty space, we could also argue why there is sound present in the void of space? 🙄 ), but this is a game. The undeniable fact is that in WC3/4 Blair's voice was clear - but the last call is still on the developer side.

damson wrote:we could also argue why there is sound present in the void of space? 🙄 )

But you're right, it's a dev decision. Still, it's interesting to discuss such things since there are many different opinions which I didn't know before.

Well, we'll try to surprise you - we already have several ideas. We will make some decisions and we'll let you know as soon as we know how we would like to address this issue.

Just out of a lark, I tried a friends AF Helmet and a Motorcycle Coms setup in a helmet. Both sound tinny and scratchy like you would hear from another fighter. Surprised me!

I noticed today that the behavior of the audio in the opening cutscene is more what I remembered from WC 3&4; when the camera is inside the shuttle, both Sandman and Crazy Jane have no filter applied, and when the camera cuts to outside the shuttle, Jane's voice is radio-filtered. Though you could argue that a shuttle is a different sonic environment than a fighter.

The Cairo build gets two thumbs up from me ➡️ ➡️ 😊 Also, is it just me or does the new Sandman actor sound a *lot* like Mark Hamill when giving orders (e.g. "break and attack", etc)?

Yes, yes he does. 😊 Nicely spotted.

Yes, the Sandman's voice without radio filter fits the game quite well ➡️

As sceptical as I was before, I like the new sound filter for Sandman's voice very much. Fits perfectly into the game imho.