Modify Hearing Range (Power Type)

Changes how far away the entity with the power can hear, for both ordinary game sounds and Simple Voice Chat proximity audio, the second through Birdsong. The power works on the listener's side: it changes what the entity hears, not how far others hear it.

Type ID: apoli:modify_hearing_range

Fields

What the base value is

The modifiers apply to however far the sound would normally carry, so one power covers every sound at once:

A result of 0 or less means the entity hears nothing on that channel. There is no upper limit, so with a high enough value the entity hears the whole dimension.

Hearing some players further than others

Without bientity_condition, this power changes one number: how far the entity hears everything. With one, the range is decided for each speaker separately, with the listener as the actor and whoever is talking as the target, so a pack can give one squad clear comms while everyone else fades out at the usual distance. This one triples how far the entity hears its own team and leaves everyone else alone:

{
  "type": "apoli:modify_hearing_range",
  "sounds": false,
  "bientity_condition": {
    "type": "apoli:same_team"
  },
  "modifier": {
    "operation": "multiply_total",
    "value": 2
  }
}

Voice ranges are worked out once a tick, for each listener with one of these powers against each player who is talking, so the cost grows with the number of conversations, not the number of players. birdsong:modify_speaking_range is applied in the same pass: the speaker's range is the base that the listener's modifiers apply to, so a shout heard by keen ears goes further still.

A power with a bientity_condition is skipped entirely for game sounds, because a sound has no speaker to test against. Split it into two powers if you want both.

Examples

Deaf, with no game sounds and no voice chat:

{
  "type": "apoli:modify_hearing_range",
  "modifier": {
    "operation": "multiply_total",
    "value": -1
  }
}

Keen hearing, where everything reaches four times as far:

{
  "type": "apoli:modify_hearing_range",
  "modifier": {
    "operation": "multiply_total",
    "value": 3
  }
}

Hears voices from anywhere in the dimension, and game sounds as usual:

{
  "type": "apoli:modify_hearing_range",
  "sounds": false,
  "modifier": {
    "operation": "set_total",
    "value": 10000
  }
}

Deafened only while an example:concussed resource is above zero, and only for game sounds:

{
  "type": "apoli:modify_hearing_range",
  "voice": false,
  "condition": {
    "type": "apoli:resource",
    "resource": "example:concussed",
    "comparison": ">",
    "compare_to": 0
  },
  "modifier": {
    "operation": "multiply_total",
    "value": -0.9
  }
}

The modifier's value accepts an expression, so hearing can scale with a resource: "value": "example:focus / 10".

Notes

• The server decides whether the power is active, so its condition can use anything. For game sounds, the server decides which sounds reach the entity at all, and the entity's client, which needs Apoli installed, stretches how far each sound carries, so a far sound is heard and every sound in range is louder. Without Apoli on the client, the extra sounds arrive but fade out at the usual distance.
• Longer voice hearing works by widening how far the speaker's audio is broadcast and then trimming it back for each listener, so the distant listener hears the speaker while everyone else's range stays the same.
• For the first tick of a sentence, the listener hears at the speaker's own range, and the listener's modifiers take over from the next tick. At 50 ms this isn't audible, and it is why a range change never cuts off the start of a word.
• Only proximity voice audio is affected. Group chat is a separate channel and its members can always hear it.
• Several active modify_hearing_range powers stack, in the order their modifiers sort.
• The voice chat half needs Birdsong and Simple Voice Chat on the server, and the sounds half doesn't. Without them, the voice field does nothing.