There are no sound effects for when your ship is being hit. Your shields don't make a sound. Your hull doesn't make a sound. Damage by missile or being ripped to shreds by laser is oddly silent. It is rather annoying to be taking hits and have no idea what is hitting you, or if you're even taking a hit; sometimes it happens so fast, you almost have no idea what is going on before it's too late.

Also, on a separate note, why don't my lasers hit the target if it is directly in front of me? You'd think that's when they'd be most effective as the target is clearly within firing range, yet it's oddly easier to whittle down something at sniping range.

> There are no sound effects for when your ship is being hit.

There are sound effects for when your ship is being hit.

> Your shields don't make a sound.

But being hit does.

> Your hull doesn't make a sound.

My hull whispers "proton them all". But there's also a sound if I'm hit.

>Damage by missile or being ripped to shreds by laser is oddly silent.

Do you have sound effects enabled?

Yeah I don't have a problem with the sounds on my end. It appears like you either have a corrupted asset, or your effects are accidentally off, or perhaps your sound is being directed to a different output (like a headset that you aren't currently wearing.) Do you hear the in-game music? If you've checked all the preferences, then I'd run a repair on your install to see if there is any corrupted game file.

Fortunately, even if your sounds were off or malfunctioning, the whole screen flashes red when you get hit, and there are red arrows in your UI pointing to the direction from which you get hit.

There are no sound effects for when your ship is being hit. Your shields don't make a sound. Your hull doesn't make a sound. Damage by missile or being ripped to shreds by laser is oddly silent. It is rather annoying to be taking hits and have no idea what is hitting you, or if you're even taking a hit; sometimes it happens so fast, you almost have no idea what is going on before it's too late.

At first I wanted to say "but there is sound" but it turns out, after some thousand games: I honestly have no idea. That has two reasons. First, I listen to shots being fired instead of them hitting me and I try to keep track of how many enemies are near me, or roughly where their gunships are - also this probably means getting hit isn't as loud as getting shot at or locked on. The second reason, which is probably affecting my gameplay more: I always have some dubstep blaring out of my headphones.

Also, on a separate note, why don't my lasers hit the target if it is directly in front of me? You'd think that's when they'd be most effective as the target is clearly within firing range, yet it's oddly easier to whittle down something at sniping range.

I'm not sure where exactly the problem is here, so I give more than one answer:

1. Your shots don't go to the center of your screen, but to where your mouse cursor is.

2. To hit an enemy you don't have to aim at them but instead at the lead indicator (that circle at the end of the line). If you move your cursor over it, it turns red, which means "shoot now".

3. There are things like the base hit chance of your weapon (self explanatory and also affected by distance to target), tracking penalty (the further away from the center your cursor is, the less shots you hit) and the enemy's passive evasion (chance blasters miss him, even if aimed perfectly).

4. In some cases, shooting at somone close to the maximum range, or close to the edge of your firing arc doesn't get hit, because of lag.

5. Almost forgot: your target has to be in range.

Also, if your speech is enabled, your co-pilot should give a bark if someone is shooting you. Usually something short and sweet like "Taking Damage."

I try to lay out my UI so I can see as much stuff as possible, and I don't consider my co-pilot to be cosmetic. I have my missile warning just outside my target reticule, at approximately 2 o'clock, and my co-pilot indicator just outside the reticule at about 10 o'clock.