I ended up playing this some more.
I am not 100% sure but I feel like I understand whats going on a little better when I flip my headphones; put the right speaker in my left ear, left speaker in my right ear. I think that means I am 'visualizing' what is going on completely backwards?
I'm not sure what would be best to help that situation, or if its just me.
But some thoughts:
- For a tutorial consider 'training' the player. e.g. Have a ship move around and the player can move left and right, and let the play know when they are lined up with the ship. Maybe a lock on tone. That might help orient me. It wouldn't have to be in the main game but just a 'tutorial' to help orient and get familiar with the sounds.
- Possibly way off your design, but consider visually rendering the scene. Show the player ship, the enemies and the missles etc.. to help orient a sighted person. For a blind person it would change anything. But then very early there is scene is obscured by cloud cover or a nebula or your sensor go out, and everything is hidden and the player has to operate on sound alone. Just another way to help orient a person in the audio environment.