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What does this mod do?

TL;DR: Makes weapon sounds more realistic for player and NPCs. Improves and balances ambiance and reverb to be more realistic and lively. Increases the diversity and dynamics of in-game sound. Fixes numerous issues. Lightweight and compatible with all sound replacer mods.


-Adds two sliders in the Audio menu for Reverb and Ambiance. To make the sliders sticky, they default to 100%, slightly louder than vanilla (which is around 80-90%). "Ambiance" controls the volume of machinery hum, birds, water drips, insects, room tones, etc. It also controls in-game radios. "Reverb" simply controls the amount of reverberation - most noticeably gun trails, explosions, and things like reverb from Magnolia's singing - it does not turn off the actual reverb in the cell, just how certain things interact with it. Thus, you may hear some things like voices to a degree even at 0%. There is no way to completely remove it, and it would sound weird as hell anyway. Still, this allows you maximum flexibility.

-Adds ambient sounds and reverb types to regions where they were absent, or fixes inappropriate or generic settings. For example, outdoor ambient sounds are removed in the vanilla game when you enter small shacks or other small structures with "faked" reverb settings - this mod fixes that. This makes the sound design of the game (which I quite like) denser and more "alive" feeling. Additionally, "one-shot" ambient sounds like wind gusts and creaking wood will now trigger more frequently.

-Adds newly created ambient types to areas that used generic settings. Glowing Sea caves, sewer pipes, and elevators now no longer sound identical.

-Adds vanilla ambient sounds to appropriate regions. This includes birds and occasionally cicadas during the day, crickets and howling dogs and wolves at night, etc.

-Rebalances Indoor and Outdoor Ambiance. Vanilla is much louder indoors - this brings them closer to being even without totally changing the dynamic. Some incidental sounds have been made slightly louder.

-Increases (or in some cases decreases) the amount of reverb certain sounds produce. Gunshots, exploding cars, and the like now behave much more realistically, and quieter sounds are somewhat tweaked as well on a case-by-case basis.

-Fixes outdoor weapon trails to match the various weapons. In the vanilla game, all weapons use the same generic pistol and rifle sounds. With this mod, laser, plasma, and gamma weapons have unique outdoor reverb tails, along with unique-sounding weapons like the broadsider.

-Rebalances NPC weapon sounds to be seamless with player sounds. What this means is that the tails now run through the same reverb
parameters as the player tails, rather than the more muted vanilla style. This really makes gun battles lively and loud, especially indoors.

-NPCs now use unique outdoor tails, allowing youto distinguish ballistic and energy weapons from a great distance.

-Different room types and areas behave differently. Vaults are now cavernous, echoey, and metallic. Wooden rooms are more muffled. Cinderblock is more sound-absorbent than metal, etc. The difference between small spaces and large ones is greater. Outdoors has as close to a simulated echo as the engine allows, letting you really feel the power of big guns and the power armor impact landing. Speaking of which...

-Power armor footsteps and Impact Landing now reverberate a little more, for both player and NPCs. This is a small tweak, just barely noticeable, but it has a nice effect when surrounded by NPCs in Power Armor.

-Increases attenuation for almost all reverb types. This allows sound to propagate over longer distances, whilst decreasing the distance in which sounds will play in "2D". A bullet whizzing next to your head will sound much different than a wide miss, or a hit.

-Fixes the wimpy-sounding frag grenade. A home-brewed mix of the vanilla frag mixed with some of the frag mine and a hint of exploding car to add bass, this should work well with any sound replacer mod or with vanilla. Fun fact: exploding cars use the Skyrim fireball sound as their main layer.

-All explosions are slightly louder, and will rumble a little more. Grenades of all types have been tweaked to emphasize their individual sounds (i.e. flames for Molotov, ice for cryo, electricity for pulse, and so on). If you have a subwoofer or good bass-heavy headphones, they will sound huge, but are in fact only a measly 3 db louder.

-Larger creatures and NPCs produce more reverb and louder sounds. This is mostly improvements to the Deathclaw - the roar and stomp are much more impressive now. Mirelurk Queens, Behemoths, and Liberty Prime all make louder footsteps, etc.

-Pip-boy radio behaves like in-game radios and will interact with the reverb of whatever cell you are in. Mucho immersivo. (Not affected by ambient slider).

-In-game radios, PA systems, power armor speakers, pipboy radio, eyebot radio, TVs, intercoms, etc. have improved audio quality, making them
less tinny and easier to understand.


What does it not do?

-Does not use any scripts. This mod is lightweight, lag-free, safe, and easy to uninstall (see below).

-Does not replace any sounds, and is perfectly compatible with all sound replacement mods, such as PAMS, Radiant Birds, Cinematic Explosions, etc.

-Does not edit any cells in any way. The mod is bug-free in this regard, and is compatible with any mods that do edit cells.

-Does not add any new sounds, although I am not opposed to the idea. Audio Overhaul for Skyrim does this to great effect, so maybe in the future.

-Does not affect UI sounds. For that, please try my Adjustable UI Volume Sliders mod. Load it after this one.