Sound Effect replacement pack for Colobot: Gold Edition

[True Destroyer]

I love Colobot, but this game is 15 years old and Gold Edition hasn't changed anything about the sounds used.
(I guess it's likely not going to happen). The sound effects had not aged well.

Therefore I decided to replace some of them (22 files), and create a replacement pack (original files included too, as a backup). Most of the sounds were taken from freesounds.org and remade with Audacity.

In the attached zips are small single audio files with all concerned effects, you can use them to compare the sounds that I found irritating to the ones that I decided to replace them with.

I would replace more, but there were issues.

Spoiler :

I wanted to replace the alien sounds, but there seems to be some form of software recycling of sound effects, they are possibly used with different pitch in different places. The sounds I replaced them with were used as ambient sound which was heard all the time anywhere on the map. If someone wants to investigate this further, the files are namely "sound020.wav", "sound034.wav", "sound035.wav" and "sound036.wav".

If you  find any other sounds annoying let me know. The ones I find annoying  the most (even in 2001) were the "research center calculating" sound, the "shooter firing" sound, and the "engine overheating" sound. Post any feedback in this thread, please if you send private messages (like for my TrueLevels thread) other users cannot see how I answer your questions. The sound pack was roughly tested, but there still may be some issues, so let me know if there are any problems.

V2 changelog:

Spoiler :

sound025 cannon - faster tempo, shortened to 2 cycles, from 9. Unfortunately the game still plays this sound when the cannon has already finished shooting.
sound026 breathing in helmet - higher pitch, faster tempo, lower volume.
sound049 organic cannon - more 'organic' - I forgot that it has this green ball of organic matter, and is supposed to be more organic than mechanic.

Installation:
After downloading, simply put the whole .zip file in your "mods" directory (...\Program Files\colobotgold\data\mods). Don't unpack it.
If you dislike some of the new sounds, remove them from the .zip file and they won't be changed ingame.

To uninstall simply remove the .zip from the "mods" folder.

Link:
Download the sound effect replacement pack (V2) here - 4.4 MB


@Edit: Thanks krzys_h for explaining that this ZIP in mods method works for any content. I should have guessed that it's not only for levels. So now you don't have to copy anything or merge folders, and installation is a lot easier!

[krzys_h]

Awesome job! These sound quite good, I think we need some official sound replacements.

And like I mentioned in your other thread, for installation you can just copy "replacement" into the mods folder and it will still work fine and be easier to uninstall.

[Simbax]

There was one person who said would provide new sounds, but disappeared long time ago and there are constantly more important issues, so new sound were kind of low priority. It's good that there is at least a mod, maybe we could use some or all of them officialy in the game?

[True Destroyer]

(...) maybe we could use some or all of them officialy in the game?

Of course ! And here are some sounds I haven't used for various reasons, yet you may find them useful.
Some of them are raw as I downloaded them, some are already reedited.

[RaptorParkowsky]

There's some sounds that I would put into official Colobot GOLD builds even now, but most of them are a half or really bad. Well, good graphics are relatively easy to achieve but proper sounds are a lot harder, especially if GOLD's sound OpenAL implementation still is buggy and there is too much sound samples that game is playing with different speed and pitch. Without sound refactoring it will be hard to remaster GOLD's sound samples and finally change them in official repo.

There's my list of likes/dislikes:

Code:

-- - 100% bad
-+ - 50% bad
+- - 50% good
++ - 100% good

-- 009 failure sound                    - Original IMHO better and fits prefectly into Colobot design.
++ 011 random beep                      - Sounds strange but cool. I also like the original. Possibly we should use both depend of the situation?
+- 014 random beep                      - For message pop-up I prefer the original one, otherwise it's ok.
+- 017 annoying beep                    - In main menu I prefer the original one, otherwise it's ok.
-- 018 healing                          - I think we should stay with the original one that IMO requires only some noise reduction.
-+ 019 research center researching      - Well, doesn't really fit into Colobot design, too futuristic, maybe Colobot 2 will be a reason to use this particular sound. I think we should only remaster the original one in Colobot GOLD.
-- 022 menu asterisk                    - Maybe I'm stranger, but I really love this sound in all original EPSITEC games, it's so iconic that I would only remaster that old one.
-- 023 menu unavailable beep            - This is probably also DefenseTower shooting sound. I would stay with the original one.
-+ 025 cannon                           - Too asynchronous with fireballs in game & too long.
-- 026 breathing                        - Too low bass with some strange noises, I think original is better.
++ 030 some beep                        - Really good, but I would use also the original one in some places.
++ 031 low battery beep                 - Definitely to replace with next version of GOLD!
-- 033 some alien sound                 - I'm really not interested into any changes of alien sounds. Only remastering is acceptable. For me they're too iconic and they're so original to compare with other sci-fi alien sounds that they must stay with GOLD remake.
++ 040 charge sound                     - Sounds really good in game, but somehow strange outside the game. Definitely to replace with next version of GOLD.
-- 049 organic cannon                   - Sounds too mechanic, less organic than in original.
-+ 063 human "AYYY"                     - Too old-school FPS pain-sound style but still a little better than original.
-- 066 alien dies                       - Again, I'm not into alien sound changes business.
-+ 069 human dies "AU"                  - Again too old-school FPS pain-sound style.
-+ 070 human cough                      - Too futuristic with woman's "HEV" voice for Colobot design. "Cough" sample is rather ok but there's too much echo.
++ 072 annoying overheat sound          - Original used in main menu is good, but when engine is overheating it's not that cool. Definitely to replace with next version of GOLD!
-- 079 some weird sound                 - Better original.
-- 080 some weird possibly alien sound  - This is sound of orgaballs hitting the ground. Again, original sounds more organic and better.

[krzys_h]

If anybody needs a reference of all sound IDs with their source code names and comments:
https://github.com/colobot/colobot/blob/...und_type.h
If somebody could prepare an updated list of comments to go to that file that would be great.

It is of course possible (and quite easy) to separate some sounds that are used in multiple places, but only for changes in the official data package.

[RaptorParkowsky]

@krzys_h : Thanks for the tip, bro! I'm not a programmer, but I feel enough of mind power to be a good code commentator . I'll prepare an updated list of Colobot sound samples. I hope this will be useful startup.