[Suggestion] Suppressor & Flash Suppressor

Change or remove the auto spott when using a weapon without a supressor. You should use your ears to locate fights and if it's to many sounds out there, then you should have another build for that situation.

Make more use of the flash suppressor with more darkness, or enhance shadows so you can move stealthy using wits and came and not only with stealth suits.

I'd prefer the auto-spot to be a lot less accurate and more vague ('sound in this area').

The flash suppressor shouldn't even exist. The only reason it does is because the devs were too dumb to think of a unique concept, so they stole the idea from Battlefield. There's no such thing in real life as a flash suppressor. A flash suppressor would involve hiding muzzle gasses. Muzzle gasses make the loud boom. Muffling the flash would mean muffling the gasses would mean muffling the sound of the gunshot, which would be...a sound suppressor.

There's flash hiders, but they don't actually 'hide' the flash. They just direct the gasses in a way that doesn't fill your vision with your own muzzle flash, so when shooting at night you don't blind yourself. It's only because of the name 'flash hider' that people who know ******* nothing about guns think that they magically get rid of the flash altogether.

I think the auto spot is to balance out hardware. Not everyone has 200 dollar suround sound head sets

I bought a headset, earphones and microphone, for $18 back in the beginning of 2013. It's plugged directly into the front of my computer in the provided ports. No special sound cards, standard Realtek drivers for the audio. It's easy to tell general direction but distance is harder to grasp outside of spitting (Earth spitting, mind you; we don't spit on Auraxis). Just offering.

Auto-spotting on radar is to simulate the subtleties of sound awareness that isn't easily replicated without a surround sound system. With headphones, I only have a left and a right, after-all, and most basic systems are only expected two speakers.

It's not the same as a 200 dollar set. You can tell where they are on the other side of a wall and how far.

They use stuff like this to help weaker player have a chance against the hardcore.

I have a $30 headset and Razer Surround (free). I can estimate distances +-10m and direction +-30 degrees. Good enough for PS2 purposes.

2 speakers <> high quality 7.1 suround sound.

It's like saying a ball mouse = laser mouse. Yes they both do the same thing but one is clearly better. That is just part of it.


It is to help new players fight better players. A huge reason people quit this game is because they don't know what killed them or why. So they add stuff like this to help them

Why the hell are there flash hiders on a gauss rifle?

Errr... "flash suppressors" are a real thing. The term is interchangable with "flash hider". In fact where I'm from (the same state where the SOE Devs are headquartered), the term "flash suppressor" is far more commonly used than "flash hider". Firearm manufacturers, like Bushmaster, will use both terms interchangeably as well. Even the US military in official manuals on the M16/M-4 will use the term "flash suppressor" (p. A-28 for example).

Flash suppressors simply suppress the light flash for the shooter. Same thing that flash hiders are supposed to do, because they're the same thing. Arguably if we're just going by terms you would expect flash hiders to hide muzzle flash and flash suppressors to suppress (but not hide) muzzle flash, which is the opposite of your logic.

So not sure where you learned that "flash suppressors" are an imaginary thing or a misnomer... SOE is actually using the term correctly (though again the PS2 flash suppressors don't function like IRL flash suppressors).

Eh, yeah, great idea! Especially with NS weapons! Everyone can use them, and if even one guy uses them you constantly need to check if it's friend or foe, or get shot in the back!

I like the auto-spott function. It gives supressors a real goal.
Also, what do you mean "you should have another build for that situation"? Do you mean that there should be new options to listen for gunshots and locate people through the minimap/your ears?

Eh... When you fire a weapon, you use an explosion to propel it in most cases. Regardless, the bullet upon exiting will have some flames behind it, which are visible as a muzzle FLASH, as in light. There is equipment that can make sure the flame is expended inside the barrel or in other parts of the weapon, so there's no flash anymore. The removal of the tracers is a welcome game concept that helps keep you stealth in busy area's, where your blip won't be as noticeable or when you are at range.
Because if we start getting real-life examples in it, the game would revolve more about firing missiles from one Warpgate to another and wiping people out when they exit. If you thought spawncampers/warriors were bad...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_suppressor

This tells us that it in fact does decrease the muzzle flash to the enemy, but just not every effectively. Now for Planetside 2 it wouldn't make sense, you don't really blind yourself with your flashes and the enemy does benefit from seeing your tracers and muzzle flash. So by changing it you can have a huge advantage. If you haven't figured out when it's an advantage, get a different class than a Heavy and start Flanking dude! If positioned right, I can empty my weapon completely without being noticed by the simple fact that people don't watch the minimap that much, and are much more inclined to see tracers and track them to their origins.

Hey maybe you should try reading my entire post before getting all upset and pedantic. Flash suppressors as they work in game where there's no flash whatsoever don't actually exist. If you want to hide the flash completely you would have to use a suppressor / silencer.

I would also add that I don't understand the point at all in-game. Three of the four continents have absolutely no concealment to take advantage of, and every gun shoots big '**** me' lasers that point to your location, as well as the fact that there's the 'shoot here' doritos over all enemies, AND you have the minimap sound ping.

Really... don't try to weasel out of this one.

You don't need a surround headset. You need a stereo one. Your brain do the rest. Surround software often distort the positions of sound sources. When you have a surround headset, set the surround simulating software off, set you headset to stereo in your OS and then hear the difference. It is much easier to locate the sound sources cause your brain is able to do it. Just like in reallife.

So the price of a headset should determine the stereo quality, comfort, durability and bonus things like wireless.

Why does everyone ignore the GOOD questions?

A Gauss or Rail weapon creates super-heated gasses that would need to be redirected just like a regular weapon (well, if they are worth their salt anyways) - just for much cooler reasons.

In a regular weapon you are creating that gas through burning a propellant to propel your bullet. In a Gauss or Rail weapon, you are creating it by moving the projectile with such speed that the friction with the air and rails/coils causes it to burst into plasma - like a gosh darn shuttle re-entering the atmosphere.

So in short; You need a Flash Hider on a Gauss Weapon to protect your eyes from the awesome.

I see what you are saying, but would you have that level of proposed plasma from an 18" barrel with a small power output in the range that would make sense for a battery the size of the ones depicted on the weapons? The air catches fire on the big ones, but given the velocity of the projectiles these guns fire, they are more like the PIAT of the gauss weapon world.

I use two soup cans connected by a string the goes right through the middle of my head.
I hear everything.

Eh, flash supressors remove the "big '**** me' lasers that point to your location" as part of the deal. That's their big advantage. That's why you can use the concealment that you can find on every continent everywhere if you put more than 2 seconds into it.

You don't know a lot about sound. I don't know too much, but I do know this (I had to know this to create a system to help guide blind people across an ice-scating ring):
Stereo sound means there are just two sources. You can use the difference in time before it hits one ear or the other to determine what direction the sound is comming from. Sounds that were recorded stereo have this feature, there were two microphones that recorded it, and one was a little later to record than the other depending on distance. This gives a far more real sense of hearing.
However, planetside 2's sounds probably aren't recorded stereo, but made stereo. This usually means that they just change the volume of the sound, rather than the time difference. Changing the volume works, your head can make sense of it, but it's less of an indicator than the time difference between your ears.
Another problem with stereo: you can only determine sound sources on a 2-dimensional plane. There is no difference in height that can be made with just two sources. So every sound will be on one and the same plane for you: exactly level with your ears. By sight you can enhance your vision and determine a source, but the actual hearing part didn't deliver you this, which was the whole point.
By using surround sound, the headphones can make the sound come from above or below. Your ears can slightly determine by the way sound bounces through the ear what direction the sound comes from. Just about every surround sound software is highly advanced. Now I don't know for sure, but my guess is that these have software that simulate both softer sound for the farther ear, but add in a slight time-difference as well. This means you have more indicators to find the source.

What none of the headphones have is shoulders. To my surprise while researching, I found that the shoulders have a great deal to do with determining sound location, along with the position of the head. A sound source will have the sound bounce off the shoulders and into your ears. The distortion this gives to the sound gives a very, very clear idea if the sound came from the front, side or back.
That's another problem: the human mind is a bunch of easy-mode programs with flaws in them. If an unseen sound source is in front of you, you cannot determine if it's in front of behind you. Multiple sound sources in one line will even blend in if they come from exactly the front or back. Blind people at cross-walks will be able to determine only one sound source when multiple lights are ticking, unless they start moving their head. By moving their head they will be able to make the sound of each soundsource bounce differently into their ears, and they can determine what distance the source is at and have a better idea how many sources there are.
You can't do that with stereo headphones, the "source" moves with you. Surround sound headphones have the same problem, but have more indicators of distance and position. You could, however counter-naturally, shake the head of the guy on-screen to change the source. But stereo would still have the flaw of having only 2 dimensions in level with your ear. This was one of the lesser problems for my research, as we only needed a sound-source to float in the air where the next "waypoint" was located, height wasn't a factor, and since stereo means a 2 dimensional sound on the level of your ears this was OK. The biggest problem was that they didn't have a virtual guy on-screen that they could have their head shake. We needed to record the position of the head relative to the surrounding area. Otherwise the simulated sound-source would move along with the head, away from the track they were supposed to move at. Add that to the simpler recording of position relative to the surrounding area through triangulation in a small area with modified WIFI signals for instance and you got a system that can guide people around through floating sound.
Still need to build the damn system, but it worked in theory

That is one of the most stupid things i ever heard...
Like a gaming devoloper would programm an extra function just to help players with cheap headsets.

And on top of that you are totally wrong. A good 200 $ stereo headset beats any same priced surrond headset anytime when it comes to hearing a direction. Hell, even a 50$ headset would beat one.
Sure, surround may sound nicer, but it is not better when it comes to hearing directions.

On Topic:
I never used the flash supressor, i will take a compensator over not getting spotted anytime.

Where i totally agree is, that autospot is just lame. Be it for infantry or vehicles.
Make it so manual spotting is required.
Instead of hearing where shots come from, ppl just look at the minimap. I find that quite stupid.
But in return make it so, that spotted enemies appear spotted on everyones HUD aswell.
At the moment it only spots for minimap.

Give the weapon attachments positive attribues when it comes to handling, like the compensator does.
Making stealth perks in vehicles counter spotting, maybe shorten the spot time by a lot.

The supressor is also totally usess now. It just changes the Sound, but it is as loud as a normal shot and can be heard the same range. Sure it stops autospotting, but any not deaf player hears you shooting and sees your bright tracershots shots.
Make suppressed shots more silent and not to be heard after 25 m range and remove all bullets be traced shots, maybe make every 5th bullet be traced shot.

And because of that, you don't need a surround simulating software with planetside 2. It makes things far more worse than without it.

I bought a 7.1 headset last year. I was excited for the new experience. But then i started planetside 2 and other games and figured out, that i couldn't locate any "ingame"-sound sources anymore. And yes all was perfectly configured around the surround software. Then i randomly found a video about 2 sound engineers, explaining that 1. there are no real surround headphones out there, cause you just have 2 boxes (one for each ear) and 2. all surround softwares for headphones didn't do a great job.

And for an evidence there is a video called the "virtual barber shop". So before you "listen" to that video, turn off your surround software and set your "surround" headset fully to stereo. Then close your eyes and listen to the video. Sound aweseom? YES!

And now do this again with your software and it's settings. You will realise the locations of the sounds are different and totally wrong.

You get "a" same effect in Planetside 2. That was the reason i posted that. And yes, i'm not a sound engineer and i don't know if the sounds in planetside 2 are recorded with 3 mics (Binaural recording was used for the video) but i know they didn't sound really great and they don't work with surround software just because i tried some stuff around.

So in this case, yes stereo is better. I didn't say stereo is all the way good. But for headphones yes. And the brain is able to do much, when you simulating a reallife atmosphere, like you do when you record with 2 mics (Binaural recording), one for each ear, to simulating an ear.

And what i can say from my experience. I can locate all the things in planetside 2. No matter how far there are away, no matter how high they are.

And for the shoulder part, it is interesting and maybe important for reallife sound locating. But not for records for headphones, cause they didn't use a shouler, instead only a head.

So in the end, i think we can't compare reallife and virtual sound locating, cause they need different recording mechanics.

I hope my post didn't sound rough or angry. If so, it wasn't my purpose.