In game Communication Improvements

[Mordent]

Turn Groups into something you can edit with TermOS. Add members, remove members, create new groups, delete groups.

From a mechanics point of view, I think this should be done as follows (there are alternative ways):

• Add a mail server object on a network terminal, probably in the bridge. It can be accessed via TermOS, in which case it has some simple commands for altering its centralised groups. Super user access (head ID) is needed to modify existing groups or add/delete groups.
  • Default groups are departmental (medical, research, engineering, civilian, command). Crew are added to the relevant group(s) as they join. These groups cannot be deleted, but crew can be deleted from/added to a group (new job for the HoP).
    
  • Other groups can be added or deleted as necessary.
    
• PDAs send mails to one of the following:
  • Individuals (works as currently)
    
  • Centralised groups (packet is sent addressed to the server, with the target group in the message metadata; server sends packets out to individuals in that group as if sent from the original sender (probably with a bit of metadata to indicate that it was a group message, for the purposes of display at the other end so the receiver knows it was a bulk message).
    
  • Custom groups (multiple packets sent, one to each individual, probably with a bit of metadata to indicate that it was a group message). Replying to this message only sends to the original sender.
    

As far as I can tell, this doesn't mess with existing packet functionality, instead simply adding to it. It goes without saying that MISSILE can't be sent to groups.

If you can make custom groups a file (and therefore sendable to other PDAs) you can have one person make it and then send it around the group.