Detach drums from music!

[Wundsalz]

I like your sound track, but I've listened to it for quite some time now. Hence I often play with the ingame music turned off. However that currently implies that I can't hear the drum sounds (which indicate enemy proximity) either. That's a significant disadvantage. Can you please implement a volume slider for those drum sounds in the audio options, separated from the one for music volume?

[redria]

This. I turned music off long ago so that I could hear people in lobby and in game with no problem. I didn't even know the drums were a thing for a long time till someone on my crew kept mentioning drums and I was like "huh?".

[Captain Phil]

Or simply make it so the music starts playing after a ship takes a hit from a hostile source.

[ramjamslam]

I think the drums is a snippet from the soundtrack track "Another Day in Hostile Skies" which is cued up in certain combat scenarios.  It is there to build tension but at the moment it's just used as an mechanic to tell if an unspotted enemy is close or not.  Maybe it should be played at different times and not necessarily when the enemy is close e.g. when you are hiding in clouds or find cover and become unspotted.

[Dresdom]

Yeah. +1

Also why drums?

[Squidslinger Gilder]

I'd like a separate slider for music and action music, aka the drums. Just so I can swap the one off but leave the sonar on at max.

[Imagine]

Or we could do the thing which was asked for many months back and get rid of the drums altogether making ambushes much more fun and possible

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Or we could do the thing which was asked for many months back and get rid of the drums altogether making ambushes much more fun and possible

Yeah, I tried that. All it got was people screaming heresy at me for suggesting such an idea.

[Wundsalz]

Or we could do the thing which was asked for many months back and get rid of the drums altogether making ambushes much more fun and possible

HERESY!
While I believe that the drums raise the awareness of players, I think that knowing the enemies are relatively close helps the game-flow. On some maps, like rumble, there are just so many ravines that hide and seek games could go on forever. Also the drums do have a positive effect on the game atmosphere, imo.

[Imagine]

Or we could do the thing which was asked for many months back and get rid of the drums altogether making ambushes much more fun and possible

While I believe that the drums raise the awareness of players, I think that knowing the enemies are relatively close helps the game-flow. On some maps, like rumble, there are just so many ravines that hide and seek games could go on forever. Also the drums do have a positive effect on the game atmosphere, imo.

Could easily move drums to when, I dunno, spots go down instead. Game aesthetics should never interfere with game mechanics.

[Wundsalz]

I think the drums to be a game mechanic.

[Omniraptor]

What really hurts ambushes is the compass auto-spotting.

[Imagine]

I think the drums to be a game mechanic.

But it's not.

Muse staff can correct me on this one if it's horribly inaccurate, but I don't believe that it's said anywhere to listen to the audio cue to know when enemies are near, it's just something that happens because of the way the audio cue was programmed and people have noticed.

[Wundsalz]

I think the drums to be a game mechanic.

But it's not.

Muse staff can correct me on this one if it's horribly inaccurate, but I don't believe that it's said anywhere to listen to the audio cue to know when enemies are near, it's just something that happens because of the way the audio cue was programmed and people have noticed.

How aren't they part of the game mechanics? Drums DO indicate enemy proximity. People know that and use that knowledge to their favor.
One can argue whether muse knew what they did there, but as playing special music when enemies are nearby is a rather straight forward implementation I believe they haven been well aware of the effect it has on the gameplay.
Personally, I think the drums have a positive effect on the gameflow. They allow pilots to fly relatively careless, and hence faster, while searching for a new engagements. That's a good thing, as it helps to get players into action quicker.

[Piemanlives]

My tidbit on the whole drum situation.

That is this has been in here since what? Start of development? If Muse thought the drums were an issue they would have been removed or changed months ago.

As for the actual point of this thread? I agree that these could be separate options.