The vast majority of our sound effects are placeholders. We contracted a composer for music but have not yet contracted anyone for sound effects.
I am firmly in the “Battlestar Galactica” kind of sound for space: no sound other than own ship and objects / gases hitting own ship. Being caught in the blast of an explosion should be heard indeed, while a distant interceptor firing its lasers should be silent. Then everything becoming muflled then very noisy when going into atmo… It’s really immersive in the TV series, and games that do it (or a modded KSP) are too. Adds to the hostility of space due to the claustrophobia inducing soundscape
Otherwise if you are firmly planted in the “sounds in space !” side, then eliminating all secondary noises, maybe weapon fire noises for distant objects, just keeping nearby objects with a steep muffle / distance curve, that would both get closer to the realistic approach above and sound really cool and differentiate from atmospheric sound.
Missing are re-entry sounds and the eventual woosh of atmo dragging the ship ? (didnt hear that or maybe i didnt pay enough attention)
Unless I am wrong:
And it seems what you remember of Battlestar Galactica is not true, as you hear “projectiles whooshing by” sounds in the TV series. None of the pilots would be hearing that. They also seem to muffle all the sounds equally.
What you describe is in the Firefly movie though. But only when the director chooses to. As you can hear only the vibrations from the fired gun and nothing else… That is up until the next scene…
Caught two great audio moments in Hutch’s stream as he flies by destroyers: (~30 seconds)
The “audio awareness magic thingy module” excuse has been given for “sound in space is cool because it was in Star Wars” before, on Star Citizen forums for example… That’s just a huge hand wave for “magic sensors can see everything kilometers away without fail in every direction even if occluded”. It’s also a cheap excuse for “we cant be bothered with realism”…
And yeah i’d be satisfied with a Battlestar Galactica kind of rendition, yes there are close by wooshes but globally the soundscape is limited to the viewpoint (inside the ship if the camera is inside, etc.) which makes sense by coupling the visual viewpoint with the audio. While inside a ship you only hear whatever is affecting said ship. Also I:B battles look visually a lot like BSG battles
“it’d be cool” is not the excuse I gave.
But yes, I would also like an option to disable sound outside the ship while in space or have:
After reading lots of comments on the videos on youtube regarding the “sound in space”.
Maybe a quick intermediate thing would be to increase the maximum muffling that can be selecting via the slider and set the current amount somewhere in the middle. So people who prefer more “realistic” sound can dampen the effects even more.