A little guide on stealth in numbers
That's a morning show "The Enlightment beheath Europa's crust" and your grumpy host, clown Cloud!
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So yesterday the idea of "stay fucking quiet, we are going silent" was not entirely intuitive to my crew. The stupid Timmy kept screaming "why are the fabricators ain't working" in his dum-dum Timmy accent. In a submarine which are all about sonars and being quite. Duh. Go watch some movie classics. Like U-571
I probably should have installed some proper indication for stealth mode being enabled for all of the crew, chat is obviously not enough. Like make all the lights in the submarine gently waver with hues of blue or something. Too bad I could not configure the fabricator to just zap Timmy so he lays there and rests for a minute
So, while explaining shit - I felt the need to do some digging on actual numbers, and confirm assumptions I saw on reddit earlier. The mechanic is softly suggested by Daedalic. Azimuth submarine has it in-built, but all what's the button do is limit Engine to 20% - you probably felt like its often not working and you still being pummeled by every single crab along the way. Well, that's because its just a hint and not an actully finished product, probably by design
Do not read further if you want to preserve more of that feeling of asscheeks clenching tension, instead of just being a calculating asshole
What does silent mode actually do? It disables or limits all the things that attract monsters as hard as it can. In Baro a lot of things makes a call to so-called "AITarget" attractor in one way or another. It has indirect correlation with what you actually hear. Bots (including fish) go check out those sounds. Those are measured in relative units. Worth noting that the sound needs to keep repeating - most have a fade time of like ~5 seconds. So if a Charbdys went slightly your way after a single handheld sonar ping for minerals - it will not traverse all across the map just for a single one.
All the numbers are looked up in the source code and xml resources directly by me.
The number below are listed for default beasts like crawler or hammerhead with a standart hearing aids of 1.0. Keep in mind that Abyss assholes have sick senses (the Abyss is often really large, so Daedalics wanted to ensure you can't randomly get away with just diving there). Latchers & Endworms in their Comtacs heedsets hear x10 times further, Charbdys modifier is x7.
The obvious things not to do is sonar pings - those are about 100m attraction for a generic beast. Handheld acoustics are weaker - those are 70m for beacon and 60m for mini-sonar. Remember about Abyss multiplying and do not use those. Scooter is loud too - 30m.
Keep in mind there is also sight and in dark waters a diver is visible from like 15m, but its immediately 30m with flashlight. The Abyss multipliers are easier on that one. x2 on Endworm, x3 for Latcher and Charybdis
Do not worry about submarine light a lot. You did craft up a system so that turrets do not shine unless looking into corresponding periscope, didn't you? Even better - make it so the light on turrets & searchlights are only on when actually moving the view around. That way the Timmy jerking off to passing-by medusas will not fire up the lights for long (as his hands are busy)
Firing is loud obviously. 80m for a coilgun, 100m (same as sonar) for rail. Do not fire if a space helminth is circling for prey nearby.
The mostly loud installation is the engine - a large one can be heard up to 70m at 100%. We limit it to 19% propulsion which is 13.3m hearing range (133m for abyss shitcrackers, so keep in mind that you generally want to float directly up to avoid the fuckers. That's not halfway across the map whooping 700m but its still a large number). Smaller one is 60m. Funfact - if the engine is breaking down it becomes up to 150% louder (the max range clamped is still 70)
Second one to go is the reactor. Its loud by itself. Like 100% load working reactor is heard from 40m, almost half the range of sonar. I considered not disabling it, stick to just hardly limiting the output, but our batteries are strong and we want to get the most of our "float from abyss past the monster" scenario. I also like to send somebody and manually enable the rusty thing when we are finally in the clear
So what's up with oxygen generation, diving suits shelfs, charge stations, fabricators and all of that being disabled?
To my suprise - neither o2 generator nor the fabricators do not actually have any sound sources in the code. So feel free to use it from batteries if they can take it.
Me personally kinda want to conserve power in the batteries so everything nonessential is gone. The lights are still on, be glad, say "thank you". Yes oxygen is nonessential. Its crazy power hungry and all of you guys have diving masks.
The most interesting part now. Blabbing in-game and moving inside the sub. Running is 3 meters of basic range times linear velocity. The default one for sprint is like 5 m/s?, so 15m is pretty substantial. It gets considerably worse with all those synthetic drugs and questionable splicer you've put into your body. UNBIND YOUR RUN BUTTON when stealthed. If the Abyss asshole is passing by real close - do not even fucking make a step.
Yapping your mouth is loud too. It's 10m for chat messages (which are actually still words in terms of roleplaying).
And like 30m for actual strong voice in voip. Loud as fuck, that worm is coming for you Timmy. Guards! Quickly toss him into the airlock. Or inject a paralyzant, do something! We've dispatched already 3 of the beasts, I want to finally get to my erotic massage parlor with those sweet Templar nuns and their chainmail gloves.
The game also has some weird amplitude modifier in calculacitons which I did not have nor time nor wits to grasp at a glance. Probably it tries to account for whispering/shouting, so it can be slightly less of a distance. Or more...
Good luck staying not eaten out there!
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TLDR: Seems like disabling O2 generator and fabricators to stay more stealthy is a common misconception. I've inspected the sources to see the actual numbers and did not find them attracting AI by themselfes in any way. That's all is just the noise from the reactor being stronger with load
PS: Hey guys, we are hiring. Just switched to the Iroh in the zone 4, Eye of Terror Europa soon!