Ominous Silence

        ----METHODOLOGY----

Sounds in A:I are either packed into soundbanks, stored loosely in the SOUND folder - or in rare cases, both. Packing the game's thousands of files in this way is part of why it runs so well, even on consoles in the year 2013.

On the "New Objective" sound in particular, a special prefetched sound is played from the bank for 100 milliseconds, and then the full audio file is played from the SOUND folder.

For this mod, loose WEM files are silenced by rendering a silent WAV file of equal length, resulting in a file that still plays but emits no audio. It's then imported into the same tool used by the developers to convert the file back into a WEM format usable by the game.

The files contained in the soundbank are a little trickier; they had to be extracted from the bank using community-developed tools (for reference purposes) and then the matching data was overwritten with zeros using a Hex Editor on the soundbank file itself, resulting in a silent audio file contained within the bank. This is the only way to accomplish this without information files that are not distributed with or used by the game. If such files were to be provided, a "safer" method could theoretically be used to silence the files within the soundbank, without technically corrupting them.

Don't be afraid of the word "corrupt" here; these files were all reviewed in cursory testing before releasing the mod.

That being said, please report any issues found during gameplay, AS LONG AS YOU ARE 100% CERTAIN THIS IS THE ONLY MOD YOU HAVE INSTALLED!

Testing was conducted to ensure changes are consistently seen in every mission, but not every version was stress-tested for full playthroughs, and sometimes, ya know, shit happens.

   ----INSTALLATION----

1. Find a safe place in your PC and create a new folder. Name it DATA, create another folder inside it, and name that one SOUND.

2. COPY the following files from your Alien: Isolation folder and store them in the SOUND folder you created in Step 1:

/DATA/SOUND/UI. BNK

/DATA/SOUND/478875779. WEM

 THIS IS YOUR BACKUP FOLDER. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR IT.

3. MOVE or COPY the DATA folder from this modpack into your Alien: Isolation root folder (the one with AI.exe in it)

4. Select "YES" to all overwrite prompts.

If there are no overwrite prompts, you either moved the old files instead of copying them, or you put the new files in the wrong place.

Either way, you did not follow the instructions. Shame on you.

   ----UNINSTALLATION----

MOVE or COPY the DATA folder you backed up in Installation Step 1, back into the Alien: Isolation root folder.

If you neglected to follow Installation Step 1, apologize to your Alien: Isolation folder, delete the UI. BAK file, and verify your files. Your original file will be restored, and you'd better back it up this time!

        ----REMOVED-SOUNDS----

FileID = "478875779" (loose)

478875779. WEM

;The full version of the prefetched file below, with a sort of "ping" followed by a mild bass sound with lots of reverb. Very musical and out of place if the "New/Updated Objective" flash doesn't appear along with it. Removed in all options. (It's kind of the whole point)

FileID = "478875779" (UI # 126)

new_objective_b61cbaa4.wav

;Just the prefetched version of the file above, which only plays the first 100 milliseconds. A short, sort of "ping" sound that abruptly ends, making it extremely annoying to hear if the full sound is silent. Removed in all options.

FileID = "537721147" (UI # 85)

objective_update_beep1_b61cbaa4.wem

;A very high-tech-sounding, chirpy, beepy sort of sound that plays when some objectives are updated. Sounds as if it comes from Ripley's gear or perhaps a nearby computer, making it far less intrusive and more plausible than the deep bass of the musical alert above. Removed in the "Silent Objectives" options.

FileID = "775187373" (UI # 121)

save_station_attract_b61cbaa4.wem

;This emits from Save Stations on a constant loop - like a homing beacon - to alert you that they're nearby. Helpful if you're new, but considered extremely annoying or even painful by many players. Only removed in the