Sound Design Loops, OR: Why why why??

[vonpoops]

First off, I want to say that a lot of the sound design in X4 is genuinely excellent. The engine sounds, ambient effects, and especially the music—I’ve really enjoyed all of it.

That said, I cannot for the life of me understand the decision to add short, looping, high-pitched sound effects to so many areas where the player is meant to spend extended periods of time.
A lot of cockpits and ship interiors are plagued by these short loops that repeat endlessly and become grating really quickly. Some of the worst offenders, in my opinion, are:

-The Hyperion – Nearly every area of this ship has a extremely short loop that just hammers away. It becomes unbearable after a few minutes onboard. (The hangar area is honestly just insane with how loud and overbearing the loop is)

-The HQ Personal Office – Presumably where we’re meant to manage our empires, but the constant beeping loops make it feel more like a torture chamber.

-The Astrid – Gorgeous ship, and the office at the back is fantastic, but again... ruined by a short, repetitive sound loop. The same goes for the pool area and cockpit.

-Dock Modules – And probably the worst of all, the ambient soundscape on dock modules. It’s so grating and repetitive that I actually dread docking now, because I know the beautiful sector music is going to be cut off by a harsh industrial loop that is chock full of instantly recognizable loops that I now associate with pain.

There are many more examples across ships and stations that make just existing in the game world a test of patience—unless you mute the sound entirely, which feels like such a shame given how good the rest of the audio design is.
So please, Egosoft team: revisit these looping effects. Either rework them into something more ambient and less intrusive, or (ideally) give us a toggle to disable them independently from the rest of the audio.

Also, if anyone knows of any mods that address this—or could point me in the right direction to make one myself—I’m honestly at the point where I’d take the "modified" tag just to preserve my sanity and save my eardrums.

Thanks for reading, and I hope both the devs and other players can understand this complaint comes from a place of love.

[alt3rn1ty]

Subject yourself to some Vogon poetry, then come back to X4 and you will be fine.

[charlie1024]

Maybe, a switch to turn on/off BGM will do work. It seems bit out, but that's the best I think.

[Casishur]

Because of these sound loops, which (including the deafening announcements in the hangar) force me to go to the sales stand at the station every time. where this repetitive background music is always playing.

You can see that every time in my stream. I explain something and then the station announcement shouts in between.
we are currently experiencing power fluctuations, please excuse the inconvenience.

Too bad there is no “shut up” button for station announcements :-/

[MarStrMind]

There may not be such an option (yet), but there is this: https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/864

[Starlight_Corporation]

I like the various station announcements myself (could use a bit more variety), but can see why they're an issue when you're streaming & explaining things.

The sound loops you mention on the other hand can indeed be annoying to outright off-putting (there's a droning one that occasionally comes up when in map view on the Hyperion that's awful, makes me want to sit in the parked fighter on the landingpad to escape it). There's others around as well, some tied to sectors or ships, which I either avoid to spend much time at due to it or simply turn off sound for a while.
And yus the beeping sounds in the HQ room doesn't encourage me to sit there due to it.

Preferred location for me to manage my empire is often the Mamba fighter (can't recall any annoying sound for it, been using it alot) & the various landing pads (and Tidebreak station) because I enjoy the station announcements that occasionally pop up when managing stuff, makes stuff feel more lively & less sterile then simple map view)

[Daemonjax]

My biggest gripe is that the elevator sound effect is too loud.

[Nanook]

I have two major gripes with the station announcements. First, they're so repetitive and frequent, every 30 sec to a minute, that I usually mute the sound while I'm 'out and about' on a station. I've heard them tens of thousands of times over the 11,000+ hours I've played X4 that I just can't stand them anymore.

Second gripe is that they're human-centric. It's so immersion breaking to hear that beeping followed by a human female announcer while I'm on another race's station. And what Boron (Teladi/Split/Paranid) cares about 'an outbreak of Argon flu in the sector'?

There should be a slider just for station announcements in the Sound Settings so they can at least be muted separately from all the other ambient sounds.

[vvvvvvvv]

It's so immersion breaking to hear that beeping followed by a human female announcer while I'm on another race's station.

"ding-dong* Organic. Purge. Proceeding. Within. Expected. Parameters. *ding-dong*
*ding-dong* Dissregard pervousss announcements. Pranksss and accidentsss.... happen *ding-dong*
*ding-dong* Professsional. Beggars. Vaporized. During. Last. Shift. Three. Thousands. Six. Hundred. Eighty. Three *ding-dong*
*ding-dong* Sssomeone turn thissss thing off already! *ding-dong*
*ding-dong* Distribution. Of. Argon. Plague. Proceeding. As. Planned *ding-dong*
*ding-dong* Thisss announcement will be interrupted. Enjoy. The music. Think. Of the profitssss *ding-dong*

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=k7N03xmkfOk

[Alan Phipps]

Just a typical result of letting an AI run the announcement system. Always 100% consistent. (Boredom and message-fatigue are lifeform-only traits and do not compute ...)

[db48x]

-The HQ Personal Office – Presumably where we’re meant to manage our empires, but the constant beeping loops make it feel more like a torture chamber.

Are we playing the same game? The office is the quietest place in the game.

Also, you should hang out in the Science Lab for a while so that Boso can offer you tips.

[mr.WHO]

LOL, I must be very composed person, because background sounds in X4 never bothered me.

Pretty much the only time I noticed, was that one console on Raptors' bridge sounds like McDonalds machine alarm that is constantly ringing