Silencing sounds from 'THINGS' that aren't sounds

[IgnyteZero]

Posted about this issue on Doomworld, but thought I might as well post about this here also.

Confusing title? Well, here's the thing: I decided to use the poison gas resource from Realm 667 for a map. Now they give off a slime sound which is kinda fine for where they are. Except that the radius of that sound is bonkers and it goes through walls (as all ambient sounds do in Doom). This is not optimal, and I know (I've looked) that I am not the first person to bring up this issue (the earliest post on Doomworld I could find was from 2001 I think).

Now my first thought was that I could use the Thing_Deactivate/Activate scripts and put some sector action thing to trigger it on and off depending on where the player is. It would work good enough for single play at least. But that didn't seem to do anything at all sadly. The gas clouds were just as loud as ever whether they were deactivated or not.

So could of course solve it through very convoluted means, like teleporting the clouds in and out instead (the most suboptimal choice of all obviously), or just move the room with the clouds to another part of the map and use portals. But that again just feels like an unnecessary solution, and it messes a bit with the automap obviously. And using Silent Sectors is ofc a no no.

So my question is this: Is there any other known solution/trick for this? Has anyone thought of implementing a "Thing_Volume" or "Thing_Mute" type script command that could silence any thing with sounds into a sourceport/format?

[Enjay]

I don't know how the sounds in the resource in question are played, but the volume and attenuation (how quickly the sounds "drop off" as you move away from them can be adjusted by several different means. So, it could just be possible to play them quieter and/or with a smaller "can be heard" radius.

If you dive into the files and find how the sounds are being played, it should be possible to figure out the best way to do it for this particular item.

[IgnyteZero]

Yeah I suppose it would mean me having to dive into the Decorate of said item and make a clone of it, see if I can adjust the volume, and give it a new DoomEd number. Not optimal as I'm not very confident with such maneuvers, but possible I suppose.

Just wish there was an easier way.