Noise

Noise is an internal value within the game GoldenEye 007 used to determine how loud Bond is. Generating too much noise can alert guards to your presence. This can be used to your advantage in certain situations.

Overview

Internal to the game there's a value called Noise. This value is updated every frame, but is only used when Bond actually fires a shot. Depending on which weapon Bond currently uses, this value will have a minimum value. And each time Bond fires a shot, the value is increased by a certain amount, again depending on the current weapon. After Bond has fired, the value will start to decrease, If the value is very high, it will decrease quickly, but as it gets closer to 0 (or the minimum value, if it's greater than 0), it will decrease slower. The mechanic makes it so that firing shots in quick succession gives a higher noise value, while waiting between shots gives a lower value. Each weapon also has a maximum noise value, so even if Bond fires many shots quickly, he won't be able to go above a certain value.

Now, when Bond fires a bullet, each guard calculates how much he "heard". It starts off by using the noise value when the shot was fired, multiplied by the guard's "hearing ability". This is usually set to 1 but obviously, if it was higher, the guard would hear fainter noises, and vice versa with lower values. Also, if Bond is further away from the guard when firing, he will have a harder time hearing the shot. Distance decreases noise in a completely linear fashion, so the noise is simply divided by the distance ( Note that the distance is calculated in 3 dimensions, so the difference in height between Bond and the guard matters ).

To end things, the game simply checks if the value the guard heard is greater than 1.0, if so, the guard is alerted. Obviously, some guards don't check for sound at all and can never be alerted by sound.

When dual wielding weapons, left and right guns have separate noise values.

If you switch weapons and your current noise value is higher than the maximum noise of the weapon you are currently holding, firing the weapon once will immediately bring your noise value down to the maximum possible for that gun. It is therefore possible to fire a very noisy gun to a high value, switch to unarmed and slap once to clear almost all of your noise and then switch back to the noisy gun. This results in a much faster reduction of your noise value. For the purposes of noise values, slapping always counts as a right-handed gun despite the fact that slaps can appear to come from either side.

Weapon	Min	Max	Increase per shot
Unarmed	0	1	1
Unarmed	0	1	1
Hunting Knife	0	1	1
Throwing Knife	0	1	1
PP7	1	12	2
PP7 (Silenced)	0	5	1
DD44	2	16	3
Klobb	2	20	2
KF7 Soviet	2	20	2
ZMG (9mm)	2	20	2
D5k	2	20	2
D5k (Silenced)	0	7	1.2
Phantom	2	20	2
Ar33	2	20	2
RC-P90	2	20	2
Shotgun	2	25	4
Auto Shotgun	2	20	3
Sniper Rifle	0	7	1.2
Cougar Magnum	2	20	3
Golden Gun	1	9	1.5
Silver PP7	1	12	2
Gold PP7	1	12	2
Laser	2	16	2
Watch Laser	1	4	0.2
Grenade Launcher	2	20	2
Rocket Launcher	2	25	10
Grenade	0	2	2
Timed Mine	0	2	2
Proximity Mine	0	2	2
Remote Mine	0	2	2
Detonator	0	0	0
Taser	2	10	2
Tank	2	25	10

Related

• Guards: Tracking Bond

External Links

• the-elite forum post on weapons and noise