Any plans to implement a sonic boom to atmospheric flight?

So we have talked about this previously and there are a few barriers to this. Mach 1 is different depending on atmospheric pressures and the type of planet that you're on. It opens up a lot of questions, but the biggest issue that it opens up is the question of whether you simulate the speed of sound. As in, when you see an explosion in the distance, do you hear it seconds later? Which apparently isn't the case. And it isn't the case because for gameplay reasons, it's much more important that you know what's going on actually now. And this is, again, the important thing is that it's fun to play. There is a little bit of vary there. If you go down the route of talking about sonic booms, that implies that there is a speed of sound representation too. But that's not necessarily the case, I guess. We could say at a certain speed, as a function of what the atmospheric density is, we could maybe provide a sonic boom sound in atmosphere. We haven't done it yet, but because it comes up so often, I think we would definitely consider it. What was the phrase? We will consider planning to think about it.

It is the question that comes up every single time we do a show with the audio team. It is the most consistent question; it has been there in the first episode, it will be there in the last episode until it actually happens. It's very much a community-desired effect, but I'm just going to paraphrase every version of the answer that we've gotten over the years. The biggest thing, as you said, was the atmospheric density. It's different on every planet. It's still being developed in every planet. They're still being adjusted. The speeds of the craft are still being adjusted. Folks are about to learn about all the atmospheric flight changes coming in Alpha 3.10, with changes to speeds and stuff like that. There's so much that needs to be considered before we get there. I don't think there's anybody that doesn't want it. It's just a question of whether it's a reasonable amount of work or request at this point.

There's a major visual and physical effect it has as well. If thin plates of glass aren't smashing under the pressure wave and things like that, if trees aren't bending because of them, then it isn't just audio. There's an impulse thing going on as well.

If we're going to do it, we're going to do it. But yeah, I think the short answer is everybody here wants it just as much as the folks out there want it.