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The handbook explains why the sound changed

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The volume and bass keys were not on the keyboard diagram, and nothing told
a returning player why the game suddenly sounds different.

Adds a short section on what came back out of the original soundbanks -
pitch, the missing layers, distance, reverb, doppler - written for someone
who wants to know why their collisions have weight now, not for someone
reading the source. It closes on the knobs, because "it is too much" is a
fair reaction and the answer should be next to the explanation.

PgUp, PgDn, Home and End now light up on the keyboard diagram in their own
colour, with a legend entry, rather than sitting there as dead keys. And
volume.cfg and bass.cfg join the list of files in the folder that belong to
the player.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Cyd
2026-08-06 00:54:32 -05:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 943a15cef4
commit a417175da8
1 changed files with 109 additions and 4 deletions
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docs/rp412-handbook.html
+109 -4
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@@ -273,6 +273,11 @@
border-color: #6d5a1c;
background: linear-gradient(180deg, #251d08, #171205);
}
.key[data-role="audio"] {
color: #7fd4ff;
border-color: #23566d;
background: linear-gradient(180deg, #0a1f2a, #061219);
}
.key[data-role="abort"] {
color: #fff;
border-color: #8a2f2a;
@@ -317,6 +322,7 @@
.lg-flight { color: var(--phosphor); border-color: currentColor; background: #10281a; }
.lg-mfd { color: #ff9a8c; border-color: currentColor; background: #2a100e; }
.lg-col { color: var(--amber-lit); border-color: currentColor; background: #251d08; }
.lg-audio { color: #7fd4ff; border-color: currentColor; background: #0a1f2a; }
.lg-off { color: #4e6a5c; border-color: #1d2b24; background: #101a16; }
/* ---------- pad ---------- */
@@ -866,6 +872,7 @@
<span><i class="lg-flight"></i> flight &amp; stick</span>
<span><i class="lg-mfd"></i> MFD button banks</span>
<span><i class="lg-col"></i> secondary / screen columns</span>
<span><i class="lg-audio"></i> volume &amp; bass</span>
<span><i class="lg-off"></i> unbound</span>
</div>
</div>
@@ -1313,10 +1320,92 @@
</div>
</section>
<section>
<h2>Why the sound changed</h2>
<p class="sub">
Red Planet's sound effects were never files. They lived as samples inside
two Creative AWE32 cards, uploaded from a pair of soundbanks and played
back like an instrument — each sound a chord of up to four layers, every
layer with its own pitch, its own level and its own filter. The port that
brought the game to the desktop had those banks but not the cards, so the
layers were flattened into plain wav files, and a good deal was lost in
the flattening.
</p>
<p class="sub">
The original banks have been read again, and the sounds rebuilt from
them.
</p>
<div class="tbl-scroll">
<table>
<caption>What came back</caption>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Pitch</th>
<td>
Every sound had been shipped at one flat rate with the banks'
tuning discarded, so most of them played at the wrong speed — the
worst by nine semitones. The deep layers suffered most, which is
why the game now has weight it did not have: a collision thud
that lasted a twentieth of a second is two thirds of a second at
the pitch it was written at.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Layers</th>
<td>
Ninety-three sounds were missing pieces — a hundred and
seventy-six layers in all, most of them the low rumble that sits
under collisions and explosions.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Distance</th>
<td>
Sounds carry across the arena on the curve the designers wrote
rather than fading to nothing in a straight line, and they get
duller as they get further away, as they did in the pod.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Space</th>
<td>
Anything outside the craft has the arena's reverb on it; the
cockpit stays dry. That contrast is how the pod told you which
side of the hull a sound was on.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Movement</th>
<td>
Passing craft change pitch as they pass. The port had this
backwards — approaching sounds dropped in pitch instead of
rising.
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<div class="callout">
<p>
<strong>If it is too much, that is what the knobs are for.</strong>
The cabinets ran the game at full level and did their shaping in
hardware — an amplifier and a three-way crossover behind the seat, out
of the player's reach. Your desk has neither, so
<b>PgUp</b> and <b>PgDn</b> stand in for the amplifier and
<b>Home</b> and <b>End</b> for the crossover's low band. Both move
while you play, and both stay where you leave them. The bass control
works on the deep layers only, so turning it down takes the weight out
of the collisions without dulling anything else.
</p>
</div>
</section>
<section>
<h2>Files beside the exe</h2>
<p class="sub">
Four files in the game folder are yours. <b>None of them ship.</b> The
Six files in the game folder are yours. <b>None of them ship.</b> The
game writes each one the first time it needs it and then never touches
it again, so a new build dropped over this folder keeps everything you
have set — and deleting any of them simply starts that part over with
@@ -1357,6 +1446,22 @@
flag. Only written when <code>RP412MFDLAYOUT=save</code>.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th class="mono">volume.cfg</th>
<td>
Where you left the master volume, written every time you press
<b>PgUp</b> or <b>PgDn</b>. Overrides
<code>RP412AUDIOVOLUME</code> once it exists; delete it to go
back to that.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th class="mono">bass.cfg</th>
<td>
The same for the bass trim, on <b>Home</b> and <b>End</b>,
overriding <code>RP412AUDIOBASS</code>.
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
@@ -1412,7 +1517,7 @@
// Key rows, straight from the default bindings profile.
// [cap, sub-label, role, address, description, widthClass]
var F = "flight", M = "mfd", C = "column", X = null;
var F = "flight", M = "mfd", C = "column", A = "audio", X = null;
var SP = "spacer";
@@ -1481,8 +1586,8 @@
];
var navRows = [
[["Ins", "", X], ["Home", "", X], ["PgUp", "", X]],
[["Del", "", X], ["End", "", X], ["PgDn", "", X]],
[["Ins", "", X], ["Home", "BASS +", A, "", "More bass — steps the low band up towards the mix as authored"], ["PgUp", "VOL +", A, "", "Master volume up, in steps of 0.05"]],
[["Del", "", X], ["End", "BASS −", A, "", "Less bass — trims the deep layers, mid and top untouched"], ["PgDn", "VOL −", A, "", "Master volume down"]],
"grow",
[["↑", "HAT", F, "0x42", "Hat up — look"]],
[["←", "HAT", F, "0x44", "Hat left"], ["↓", "HAT", F, "0x41", "Hat back"], ["→", "HAT", F, "0x43", "Hat right"]]