Jeff, "because we can" is not a good reason to make major game changes. We don't have any need for this, we don't particularly want this, and it will just cause headaches when people have to change setups and strategies to deal with this. Unless there is some significant benefit to adding this that we're not realizing, or some new zone that requires it, please just leave the currently adequate ping system alone.

Any change to the game is opposed by some percentage of the players since they perceive it to be to their disadvantage relative to others. But I have to always strive to make the game better overall.

Literally no one asked for this.

But what exactly does this improve? It's a shiny new feature that will get old after about 30 seconds, for both the players that actually use sound. It doesn't give the game any new depth, fix any bug or improve any problem, while it DOES allow spam despite the delay (alt+tabbing between several accounts, making a swarm of slaves and triggering them all via those awesome slave hotkeys, getting some friends to join in, ect), as well as introducing new headaches for the pinger.

Besides being unable to maintain a ping at lower levels, it will as many people stated give yet another advantage to the target of stealth attackers in PvP. It's quite possible to ping and still not be seen, while this noise will apparently be audible whether or not you can actually tell the person is there. It will also allow far faster reaction time, which is one of the most important things for fighting stealthers. Depending on the range in which the sound is audible, it could also let you know when a sniper is about to attack (they ping from beyond your radar range, then start firing. Normally, you don't know until a volley of pain smashes into your ship. With this, you will react when you hear the ping).

Is it really worth all those problems for a new noise that most people will just disable anyway?

(A feature that WOULD be worthwhile is, as someone said before, the ability to automatically enable only certain sounds, without having to mess around in the game files and go through a headache each patch).

I'm raising the BS flag on this one here. As a seer myself I will comment that the system is fine as it is right now.

I'm going with the others on this. If it ain't broke don't fix it. This because I can attitude is what has been killing this game.

If this system is implemented I will be leaving this game myself.

Tbh jeff..maybe you should test this by actualy playing the game other then sitting in ur testing gal?

il gladly pvp you 1v1 to test it if you remove your admin gadgets.

(plz have more then 43 glory)

Err... ummm...

SONAR has an audible ping. RADAR doesn't. SO unless you are planning on introducing water borne warfare leave the PING out of SS. (When driving you are constantly being bombarded by RADAR signals. Unless you have a RADAR detector in your car you'll never know when.)

Your so called RADAR ping is just your RADAR going from passive to active. I.e. receive only to transmit and receive but transmit for a very short period of time.

SO unless you are planning to make ALL RADAR scream when active...

Note; Passive RADAR is using the ambient noise in the surrounding space and looking at it to see if there are any targets. Anything that reflects the noise is a target which your RADAR system can filter to remove real noise from reflected noise. This noise can actually be the RADAR signals from other ships in the same galaxy, or radiation of very active stars. This ambient noise is not a perfect detection environment and you need to "ping" to see small items or distant ships. The best time to ping is when you are coasting.

Stop talking before you get banned again.

*cough* drone charging *cough*

Add noises to bases, drones as you fly past!

Oh. I forgot about this change. It's still completely inane as far as I can see.

a good place to start, would be the parts of the game that are actually a problem

because the C2 beta will display ALOT of really serious problems that i have been talking about for a long time

be prepared to have people bitch about aug tweaking more than they bitched about the aug stacking removal and rebalance a while back... (AT is a bottleneck in the game, the people who succeed in the beta will be those who get the highest AT level

this simple fact will cause the forums to explode with people who're pissed off at not being able to advance in the game)

you may want to set up a plan incase AT does become a problem, like selling AT commods from certain AI bases throughout the universe (but not until it actually becomes a problem... if you fixed it now, you'd be robbing me of the ability to say "I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO" to the people who disagreed