WIP Feature Poll: Communications update

[Firebarrage]

Hey all,

I'm going to try something new and see how it goes. That thing is I talk about what I'm working on while I'm working on it to get community feedback before it gets released. Disclaimer: This thread, and any in the future if I keep doing this, isn't any sort of promise. Its more of a "hey I've been playing around with this and might do this update if I think it comes out well. What do people think?" deal. This isn't an official New Thing Coders Do, just a Thing Firebarrage Is Trying Out. 

Here goes!

I'm working on a communications update that includes several components. There's a handful of things I could possibly include in this update but I'm not sure if people will like it or not, so I'm opening it to discussion/polling here. This is NOT a guaranteed content poll, it's more for me to see what people are interested in so I can put my effort into the aspects people like most.

The components include:

1. Cell phones! Its like normal phones. But cell phones. You can call any phone/cell phone from them or be called by others. Think of it as a better version of PDA messaging. They must be in range of a cell tower to function, and the further you are from these towers the worse the call quality becomes. Cell towers can of course be wiretapped to listen in to conversations or destroyed to block communications. It also goes without saying that Nanotrasen is probably not going to budget for perfect radio coverage of a station. It's up to mechanics to boost the system if they want clear signals. Questions I have about phones are: 1a) Should they be starter items or be purchased? 1b) If they are purchasable should they be bought with spacebux, credits or both? If credits, should they be cheap (~200 credits) or expensive (~1000 credits)?
   
   
2. Radio changes. I'm considering a new radio system that requires some more crew interaction for long-distance comms. This means that radio headsets would no loner work between Z levels. Instead you would need to find a long-distance communication antenna on other Z levels to send messages between them. Many areas like the diner would have these added by default while adventure zones would require you to build one if you want to talk to the station.
   Second, I'm thinking of making radios require radio towers (shared with cell phone towers). Like phones, your radio signal quality is directly related to how close a tower is to you. This is a big pile of questions really. 2a) Should radio headsets be blocked between Z levels and should inter-Z-level comms be replaced with a long distance communication device? 2b) Should radio headsets be affected by distance from radio towers on a station?
   

I really like the idea of radio being a more involved mechanic. Adventure zones will feel more isolated and risky, traitors gain new strategies to interfere with communications, security can wiretap comms to listen in on traitorous messages, etc. Let me know your thoughts in the poll.

Oh and if you have suggestions or questions or think im a big dumb idiot who shouldnt do this at all go ahead and post below. Except Azungar. His opinions don't matter.

[Podrick Equus]

Perhaps there could be a "Portable Radio Tower" that could be set up with a short battery life to allow communication in a dead zone or from far away.

I also think that there should be *some* way to talk to people from other Z levels but it shouldn't be easy.

[UrsulaMejor]

This is a game about communication. anything that impedes our ability to communicate better be thought about, considered, scrutinized, and really REALLY REALLY taken seriously. this is a proposal that affects literally everything to an unquantifiable degree.

I think it could be interesting to limit range by frequency; higher band channels could have a shorter distances than lower band channels. this would mean that the general channel could be heard anywhere on station at all times while department specific radios could be moderated to make private communication a bit harder.

aside: if literally any component of this is significantly impacted by powernet, this is a hard no from me. powernet is trivial to sabotage and also a buggy hellzone that turns itself off every other round. Manta already struggles to stay powered on RP where there isn't always someone to start the engine and I would absolutely hate to see the impact extended and trivial radio silence would have on our roleplay

aside 2: "signal quality" is likely going to be more of a tedious mechanic than interesting depending on how you implement it. I foresee a lot of just hitting ctrl+up and repeating myself in my future that doesn't add anything except frustration

[Firebarrage]

I think I should clarify a few things. The way I'm working right now there are large radio towers and small ones. Large radio towers are strong enough to serve an entire z level and are found on the station and debris z levels. I'll toss up some diagrams and examples in a bit here.

Inter Z level communication isnt being removed at all. You just need a tower nearby to do it. High level adventure zones wont have towers on roundstart but one can be assembled on site.

[The Gorog]

I feel like the need to buying the phone will make it quickly be forgotten among the bajillion other things and features we have in the game.
And if I actually buy myself one, just to notice that the people I try to contact never end up having bought one themselves, I will stop buying them myself.

On the cross Z level thing, I will just vote no until there is some more clarification. Fire said on discord that some easy adventure zones would get a communications tower and if this will also influence PDA messaging is unclear. I think its easy enough to get stuck in adventure zones when you dont get yourself some form of port-a-sci remote.
Relying on other people to help doesnt always work out as is, as well as power problems.

But I am ok with the idea of radio towers being required for communication.

[Frank_Stein]

I feel like the phone system should just be tied to PDA functionality, but with additional phones purchable as "burners" which could also have assembly functions

Also, how about off station satellites to bounce signals off of? Maybe as a method of contacting other Z levels, or as a backup for other coms going down? There could even bw things like message delay as the signal bounces around

[Comrade f191]

Should it be made that Radios require a Radio Tower and only work on the current Z level, I suggest the addition of some sort of manpack radio akin to this ol' piece of kit.

It should allow communication between Z-levels (Provided they have this or a radio tower) and should also function as a small portable radio tower. It would be powered by a large cell and would-when in operation-use a large amount of power. 

It should use enough power and slow you down-While also taking up the entire backpack slot-that it only gets used in Emergency's, Telesci Expeditions, ect ect...

[Silvercloud29]

I love the idea of needing a radio man (Backpack portable radio station that runs off of a power cell) in telesci zones till you find the comms array of some kind. Also makes the communications officer viable in not just manta but other maps too.

As for cellphones and how to not make them useless:
Well for right now. The problem is that radio comms outclasses everything. And there wouldn't be any reason to use cellphones when even in other z levels you have cellphones unless there was some form of way they play into the communications system.

Here are my thoughts:

NT Radio headsets only work with NT radio equipment that has been approved by a NT comms officer. On the station we would have the best transmission since it's our station, once you leave the station you lose touch with it. On other Z levels. If you find Nt approved gear, modify gear that lets headsets connect to the NT comms network, or fix old relays. You can chat again with your headset. but only within range of that relay. (example, say a comms dish in the space diner has a transmission range of 12 tiles in a circle around it. outside of that, nada)
The best man to modify or restore relays would be a comms officer, but if hes not around or dead. a engineer or mechanic can probably do it less effectively.

Now, onto other forms of communciation.

So here, the idea is that radio headsets are the instant, generally reliable (till someone breaks the comms array on station) always on, easy to use communications method with a way of expanding some limited function into other Z levels.
Where as Messaging and calling are alternate forms of communication that are always available, but they aren't generally cheap or instant to use. And really help tie their devices together.
When it comes to station side Messaging, it should be instant and very, very cheap. Well in a comms relay activated area. or cheap and near instant if the relay is broken (Like bouncing a message off a sat dish the station may be near) Example would be like, Relay active, NT charges 1 - 5 credits per message. using a Satcomm dish on station would be like 10 credits for a 2 -3 second delay. And this should scale up depending how far you are from the station. (Depends on how the admins want to set this up since it may effect lore a bit) For example, trench to oshan or manta. Little delay for almost no cost to message. Being out on some telesci locations, at least a good 200 - 1000 creds per message with a good 30 - 60 second delay. Are you dying and need help fast? Use the premium NT quantum messager beaming service. You're looking at paying a good 1.5k to 10k credits for at least a 10 - 20 delay. That's fast! hope you got deep pockets though.
Add a feature to the messenger to give out group messaging invites so you can have a messenger group like you do for departments, with accept and deny in the links. And we could have a nice alternative for when the radio relay goes offline.

Calling: Different from messaging, it might be cheaper in the long run to call someone or someplace rather than message them all the time. Calling charges you a forward connection cost and possibly a streaming fee surcharge. (Thats NT for ya. Again This should be something that is effected by distance from station. Say on some z levels it might be an upfront 500 - 2000 credit charge, with a 10 - 50 cred per min rate, but you are connected for as long as either party wants. Or money runs out.) However it's only a 1 on 1 connection. You could put the person on speaker phone. or privately talk to them with your headset. There are ways to lose and drop your call. Like being tasered, arc shocked, emp'd (by grenades or the singularity) teleported, ending up in some areas (Some telesci zones might have poor signal unles you got a radio man with you.) If a call with someone gets dropped you can reconnect to that person for a 50% reduced charge though.

So with these ideas. Messaging and Calling have their strengths and weaknesses. So what about the devices? Well a lot of the stuff in this post is just idea extensions of the main post, expanding on them and probably using 4 different types of devices. Most devices are going to need your ID to register that device to you, so not only can you be charged for your usage fees, but also tracking reasons. The secmate terminals might even be able to see who owns what devices. (Or other things.)
With that in mind. Here's what I was thinking.

PDAs should still be kept in the game and still be a thing. However their messenger will be upgraded to the new messenger idea posted above but generally keep about the same functionality as they already have. Being a great utility platform for crew members with their high storage capacity, being able to use pretty much any application and can use the old data carts. However people don't generally start with these anymore, like most civilian department. only some jobs will. Since there will be new toys to take over. Also PDAs should be a decent mid teir price, not too cheap but not too expensive 2000 range maybe

Burner Phones. Very cheap, like 50 - 100 credits each. You can choose to pre load them with a number of credits when you buy them from the vendor though they have the option to scan your ID into them, but thats not why you want to use them (Since well. you want to use them to threaten dept heads. Set up the bomb. etc) Very cheap, throw away POS flip phones. Clowns start with this, maybe a handful of other jobs.

The NT Standard 1. The first of its kind intelliphone (What a Smartphone would be) in production across the system months a go. and only NT now started to give it to some of their employees. It's a sleek, mid range phone that can not only make calls, but can function partly as a crewmans PDA as well. Letting them take atmos reads, and doing other functions. It might not be able to load carts like a PDA and doesn't have nearly as much storage space as one. It's a great multi device in the palm of your hand (maybe can even give some links to the wiki about your job and stuff with it too) Most crew should start with this instead of PDAs. (or an option of either or since they are priced about the same)

(Some high teir expensive phone name) This phone does it all and then some. Only the captain, (And maybe other job roles can start with it, or you cna use space bux to start with the bigger phone) Phone just that just came out and is the next biggest top of the line intelliphone, it can do anything the NT phone can do and more! More storage space, can load PDA carts. Can do speaker phone calls. great for your long distance corporate conferences! All for the low price of 8000 (?) credits! (Probably add more features to this phone as well)

I hope anyone likes some of these ideas.

[Anticheese]

What if cellphone functionality were a PDA module you could get? If you wanted/needed to tie that in with PDA functions, maybe it could come with a cart as well with a PHONE program.

[aft2001]

Alternatively, replace the PDA with a smartphone? Retains the GUI and functionality of the PDA but has the phone capabilities.