Ultimate Sound Mod for Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts

Relic has put a very big attention to sound detail in COH but their file structure and particularly BSC container files are extremely complicated to mod. Therefore unreal amount of work was required to get the actual samples to sound correctly in the game itself. But the most time consuming process was getting the sound volumes right for the vehicles. After months of testing and tuning the time has finally arrived so that I can release this mod.

FULL LIST OF CHANGES

- features authentic engine and weapons sounds

- improved Relic samples loop blending

- tuned volume so you can hear ambient and other background sounds better which in turn gives you better immersion

- vastly improved volume balance for vehicles between idle, engine and revs sound as well as more audible tank tracks sounds

- added many missing effects for vehicles (see below)

- implemented completely new effects for all vehicles such as suspension sounds and metal creaks for tanks, weapon reload sounds for AT guns and recoil effects for all cannons.

SMALL ARMS

A lot of effects are completely new, some are taken from different mods and improved in various ways. All the weapons are included so no more unrealistic sound for Boys AT or FG42 for example. The sound volumes are roughly even between weapons so no large spikes in volumes should be expected.

Machine guns now sound like the real deal, not just the sample itself, but they also have a correct rate of fire implemented thanks to modding BSC container effect. M1 Garand now has an authentic ping sound when reloading.

CANNONS

Different cannons/guns now all have unique sounds when firing and will no longer share the same effects anymore. This applies to distant artillery effects as well so you can hear the difference between different caliber of shells used. Of course identical weapons share the same effects so you will hear that Tiger and Flak 88 for example sound very similar - unlike in vanilla game.

RECOIL EFFECTS

I have also increased the volumes and fixed the missing recoil effects for all the cannon type weapons in the game as well as added them to weapons which Relic left without. Important thing here is that I have managed to make recoil sound in sync with weapon animation.

Added missing effects for:

- Puma, Geschutzwagen, Pak38, Pak40, 57mm AT, Jagdpanzer, Hotchkiss, Ostwind, King Tiger, Anti-tank halftrack, Hummel, Leig18, M1A1 light howitzer

RELOAD EFFECTS

Furthermore I have implemented weapon reload sounds for all the AT guns and tanks with open top design. Here I have also made sure the sound plays in sync with weapon animation.

Added missing effects for:

Pak38, PAk40,57mm AT, Marder III, Leig18, M1A1 light howitzer, Flak88

VEHICLES

Those were by far the most challenging and time consuming to get right. I have discovered that some original effects appear to be correct for some vehicles such as both halftracks others were just fictional samples. Relic has made majority of vehicles share the same sound effects and this is something I wanted to change so each vehicle has its own sound. Some vehicles however shared same or similar engine in real life. Here is a list of them:

Maybach HL230 - Panther, Jagdpanther, Tiger - late variant, King Tiger

NL42 TUKRR & HL42 TUKRM - Sdkfz 250 light halftrack, Sdkfz 251 halftrack

HL120 TRM112 - Stug IV, Panzer IV, Hummel, Wirbelwind, Ostwind

Ford GAA - M4A3 Sherman, M7 Priest

General Motors 6004/6046 engine - M4A2 Sherman, M10 Wolverine

Continental R-975-C4 - M18 Hellcat, Ram Kangaroo

GMC 270 straight-6 - CCKW Truck, Staghound

As you can see many vehicles in COH shared the same engine in real life. You would think Relic would had made them at least share same effects! But no they use completely different samples while they made different engines share the same effects - it was a total mess so I had to fix it.

You will hear that in my mod they sound correct. Not only do vehicles now use authentic sounds, different subvariants will use a proper engine samples themselves. No more shared effects.

US Sherman - Ford GAA V8 samples

Commonwealth Sherman - Chrysler A57 samples

Tiger early - Maybach HL210 samples

Tiger late - Maybach HL230 samples

So with all the necessary sound samples obtained and implemented including idle sounds, on gas sounds and engine revs now the time has come to fix many Relic sound bugs.

ENGINE LOAD SOUNDS

You will hear them only when a driving up or down a steep hill. I am very happy that I have managed to implement them since those were broken for all the vehicles in the game or were too silent to hear! Surprisingly I have found that a lot of those effects sound authentic but Relic used those effects as raw engine sound for some reason for the tanks like the Sherman.

Known issues: HQ truck, Hummel, Hetzer and Marder do not work. This is a Relic bug I couldnt fix.

TURRET SOUNDS

I have increased the volume so you can actually hear these effects.

Known issues: Staghound, Hotchkiss, Stuart do not work. Relic bug.

TANK TRACKS SOUNDS

In Vanilla there were just a handful of effects shared between all the vehicles. Now there are much more of these effects and also vehicles with the same track type share the same sound.

I have implemented new tracks sound for the Tetrarch, Stuart and the Churchill tank. It was missing all together. Now you will hear the tracks when turning the tank for example.

IMPLEMENTED SUSPENSION SOUNDS AND TANK CREAKS

I have discovered that a tiny number of the vehicles had this actually implemented. Jeep is one example, HQ truck and Sherman Firefly also had some metal creaks effects but thats it.

Now all the vehicles use suspension effects. Also you will hear metal creaks on all the tanks. The effects are diverse since Relic included them in the Sound engine but not used them for some reason.

All in all vehicles not only sound realistic now, they are also more immersive when driving across the battlefield.

And other small tweaks...

CREDITS

Special thanks to Manerheim for his support and updated version of BSC Works and SMF play. Without them this huge project would never come to fruition.