I'm torn on whether they should pull from pre-existing sources (so you'd tell the mod where Black Mesa is installed, or maybe where a copy of the PAMS fallout 4 mod is for the fallout armors), or if you should bundle in what you can (reika is having a similar conundrum with satisforestry playing the satisfactory soundtrack).

I do think it'd be nice to have a separate volume control and for the sounds to be normalized a bit (so the armor volumes are at roughly the same level)

One type of sound that I do want to add is the "plink" noise that fallout 4 has when you get shot with power armor on. Good thing that "metal impacting metal" is an incredibly simple noise that even license-free sources got right, so that shouldn't be an issue. Another thing I absolutely want is steam hissing with the desh suit on (once I actually finish that thing in the next 1000 years).

Reading sounds from other games is pretty complicated because almost all modern games store their assets in some proprietary format which I would have to somehow unpack and then convert if the sound isn't an OGG already, so that method is out of the question.

As for the volume control category, I believe most armor noises are currently part of the "player" group but looking into a way of adding my own might be worth a try. Heck, machines could be their own group because many people complain about their centrifuges being too loud.

Ahh, fair enough!
PAMS is storing the files as .wav files, but black mesa's using the vpk (which is available, but you'd have to write the parser for it).

For volume control: I'd agree having volume control for the machines would be nice, although it'd also be good to normalize the machine sounds (like how the centrifuge is far louder than many other machines). That could be done by just running things through audacity, or even running things through a filter at run time if you were so inclined. Custom sound categories are possible, since reika's mods do it pretty frequently (I'd check DragonAPI, since that probably has a helper function)

Also: The desh suit's the test steam armor? Neato!