Yeah I posted something on that a few days ago and SirBaron dropped by and gave some comments on it. Can't wait to see what you guys do with the UDK.

Actually, even though there is not sound in space, because their is not air to create a vibration, their is air inside the spaceship. So a weapon firing will create sound for anyone inside a spaceship as the noise from the accelerator/release or any other mechanical part of the weapon will create vibrations against the ship and although you would hear a different kind of sound from "phewwww, or vrrrmm" you would still hear something, just something to take note of.

I think this is how the Battlestar Galactica producers often tried to describe sounds in space. Okay, yes, they violated the rule many times for the sake of a good 'splosion, flak-cannon barrage or Cylon engine fly-by but often you were placed within the cockpit of a colonial viper and could only hear the thrum of the cannons firing and pellets of debris hitting the ship. If they couldn't afford to stick to the rule at all times for the purposes of drama, I was happy they'd at least made an effort. 🙂

As for the vibrations carrying through space I'm not sure even that would work - what are the vibrations propagating through in a void where baryonic matter is restricted to a few free-floating atoms of basic elements per light-year? On earth atmospheric gases act as a transmission medium. In space there is nothing to do this so even a ship a fairly close range - itself containing a little pocket of gases to do the same job - would still not receive those initial energy waves. However, I freely admit my grasp of these matters is tenuous at best so I may be talking complete piffle: can anyone shed some light on this?

your right about vibrations in space, there would be no sounds in space, because the transfer of the mechanical energy is not possible because their is no frictional loss of energy by whatever weapon in a vacuum, which is a good thing for the weapon, but you hear no sound.

my case was that, a weapon attached to the ship, would at least grunt when its fired, because it would be producing vibrations against the ship.

even more difficult to think about is, would you hear sound from shield of some sort around your ship.

today its difficult to visualize that future shields will even be effective, even against debris.

the amount of energy required to create solid plasma gas around a ship would be huge, especially one that is even about too withstand normal space debris. and realistically i don't even think it would be like our conventional science fiction shields that we think of, a special machine that creates electromagnetism to charge the plasma particles would be required, and they would just withstand the force, most likely wouldn't fluctuate in power level, or need recharge, it would be more like it withstood so and so amount of newtons, or it didn't. Maybe we have the right idea about being able to divert more {energy} to make the shield more hard, because like i said, more power, more stronger it would be, otherwise the rest is pure fiction. I like the realism, but it totally takes the fun out of it all. basically we wouldn't be able to hear the shots against the hull, maybe not even hear a stutter.

space is really boring without fiction

I'm kinda amazed people are still going on about the sound thing.

We've had it brought up so many times that its kinda a 'switch off' point for most of us on the team now, there will be sound, enough said haha

The game is Science Fiction, not raw, modern day science, the backstory to the game posted on this forum really should tell people that, our current scientific understanding is leagues behind the current situation at the point you enter the game; although not so far as to be unbelievable.

In terms of shielding, yes, the amount of energy required to absorb mass impact etc is HUGE. AND I MEAN huge, the only reason the player craft has decent shielding in something of its size is down to the prototype phased sheiding technology it uses.

Of course a level of suspending current scientific reasoning is always going to be a key precept of Science Fiction, even if the key fundamentals are in place, something usually changes or impacts upon the situation for it to be considered science fiction 🙂