Let's modify how common radio works.

[Faris]

Right now, it's my belief that in common radios current iteration, that it cheapens interaction and more or less makes other methods of interaction as redundant. Let me list what things we have right now for communication.

1- PDA. It's most likely the second most used method of communication. You can just use the common radio to speak to them.

2- Holopad. It's very rare to see holopad calls. You can just use the common radio to speak to them.

3- Request consoles. Again, very rare and used by a small amount of people. You can just use the common radio to speak to them.

4- Personal interaction, walking to people. You can just use the common radio to speak to them. 

5- Intercom. You can just use the common radio to speak to them. 

6- Bounced radio, setting up private frequencies to chat with friends. You can just use the common radio to speak to them. 

Not only that, it cheapens the feeling and sense of risk. A person teleports a tile in front of you with lethal weaponry? Before he has the chance to even threaten you or do anything, these words are usually heard over the radio. "; Help. Intruder. Science."

So here is what I propose. We can make the common radio listened to by everyone but only broadcasted on by command headsets, re-branding it as a frequency that is used for emergency coordination instead of chatter. I'm unsure on how possible it is code wise, but we can add another emergency thing to swipe for by adding the option to permit everyone to broadcast by command if there's a need, this'll still make it rare.

Through this, I hope we can accomplish a more interactive environment, getting people to use more personal methods of interaction and making the station a bit more lively.

[Scheveningen]

I love this as an idea, as it was initially pitched in DMs. I want nothing more than the common radio to be squelched. Let people be goofy in-character and actually interact with one another in physical proximity and roleplay interactions will be far better.

This does create the inadvertent problem where antags can prey on people without bounce radios but I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.

Also it removes low-effort comms heckling entirely. Is good idea.

[Faris]

1 minute ago, Scheveningen said:

I love this as an idea, as it was initially pitched in DMs. I want nothing more than the common radio to be squelched. Let people be goofy in-character and actually interact with one another in physical proximity and roleplay interactions will be far better.

This does create the inadvertent problem where antags can prey on people without bounce radios but I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.

Also it removes low-effort comms heckling entirely. Is good idea.

People can call for help, it'll just require more effort. There's still departmental radio, running away, calling the holopad for the AI to look in and so on.

[VTCobaltblood]

I agree completely. We are a high roleplay server that should place a higher focus on character interactions. 

Also, you've forgot another method of communication, which is the NTNet Relay. In a perfect world, that should replace both the PDA and radio.

[Faris]

2 minutes ago, VTCobaltblood said:

I agree completely. We are a high roleplay server that should place a higher focus on character interactions. 

Also, you've forgot another method of communication, which is the NTNet Relay. In a perfect world, that should replace both the PDA and radio.

I think this speaks to how forgettable and redundant other methods are. 

[TheOrleans]

It's very interesting. Not good, but interesting.

 

Roleplay-wise it's totally stupid. Why would you make 'calling for help harder'? It makes sense to have headsets. If you remove this, everyone will carry a station radio everywhere.

-1 

[Ornias]

8 minutes ago, TheOrleans said:

If you remove this, everyone will carry a station radio everywhere.

do you carry a radio around your work at all times irl?

[Brutishcrab51]

3 minutes ago, Ornias said:

do you carry a radio around your work at all times irl?

Yes, actually, and I work at a car dealership.

[Ornias]

20 minutes ago, Brutishcrab51 said:

Yes, actually, and I work at a car dealership.

neat! because your workplace asks you too, right?

i haven't met anyone that carries around a radio at all times if they weren't made to by their company. if we remove the common radio, people creating their own would be unjustified (as it doesn't happen IRL).

i place a level of trust in our community not to forgo how people act to powergame a better defense against antags.

Edited June 14, 2019 by Ornias

[Brutishcrab51]

All provided by my place of work, all employees carry one. It's rare to see any sort of business that's larger than a dozen employees not utilize radios where I live, which is Arizona, USA.

[Carver]

I only predict a nerf to radio would lessen interactions, as seen in telecomms outages when a lot of people just don't give a shit and go silent for however long. The other methods of interaction you mentioned do currently have a far greater place above common radio, privacy. But I'm not against seeing a test merge for a week or so of how the station might work without radio as a whole.

[Faris]

1 hour ago, TheOrleans said:

It's very interesting. Not good, but interesting.

 

Roleplay-wise it's totally stupid. Why would you make 'calling for help harder'? It makes sense to have headsets. If you remove this, everyone will carry a station radio everywhere.

-1 

People are free to carry station radios if they want to speak to their friends. As I said above, an implementation where only command can speak into the common frequency unless they swipe to make it available for everyone. Calling for help is an aspect of these changes, if that's your entire focus here, then you aren't looking over the whole change. Nobody is talking about removing headsets, you still have departmental radios. I advocate that headsets are present for everyone due to how our setting is portrayed, I simply not a fan with the common radio, and I feel we would benefit by some measure of change to encourage others to interact. Additionally, there are a plethora of ways for people to call help without counting the common radio. 

 

I disagree with your assessment that roleplay-wise, that it's stupid. As it stands, the common radio can make the station feel like a huge VoIP lobby. 

 

18 minutes ago, Carver said:

I only predict a nerf to radio would lessen interactions, as seen in telecomms outages when a lot of people just don't give a shit and go silent for however long. The other methods of interaction you mentioned do currently have a far greater place above common radio, privacy. But I'm not against seeing a test merge for a week or so of how the station might work without radio as a whole.

I attribute it to the fact people are simply used to the availability of common radio. I've played on a server that makes radios extremely rare, more rare then what I propose and people simply adapted to it by walking to people, sending messengers and so on. When I inquired and even played, it felt like there was more life in there. It's possible I'm completely wrong and that this implementation does the reverse, while I am doubtful this will be the case, we should give it a go, even as a test.

You're also not wrong about the privacy aspect. But beyond privacy, is there a reason? I want to compare to scenarios. 

1- You use the common radio as a Director. "Cargo, order food for the crew." They most likely will reply with an aye, maybe ask how many. It won't be a long interaction, and to me, it feels lifeless.

2- You use a holopad as the Director to call cargo. You step on it, set the destination and the call is picked up by somebody there, maybe it's a technician, maybe that person is enough for you, so you place the order, you converse on a more personal level as you're both committed to an interaction.

Alternatively, maybe you'd like their superior, a Quartermaster, it takes time but they show up, you run through the motions with them of what you need and so on.

Maybe no one answers, that can happen, we call people irl and sometimes they don't pick up, maybe no one was around to accept the call or maybe they were ignoring it, so you walk down to cargo and you find a reason on why you were ignored. It could be that they were goofing around, lazy or maybe they just weren't around. Regardless of what you found and why, you have a number of actions you can take. Maybe send IAA after them. Maybe give them a stern talking to. Maybe speak to their HoP? Captain? Maybe they apologize and take your order, no harm done right? 

I feel like in the long run, with some form of implementation that puts value into more interactive measures, we'd benefit. 

 

40 minutes ago, Ornias said:

neat! because your workplace asks you too, right?

i haven't met anyone that carries around a radio at all times if they weren't made to by their company. if we remove the common radio, people creating their own would be unjustified (as it doesn't happen IRL).

i place a level of trust in our community not to forgo how people act to powergame a better defense against antags.

The reason I'm not too bothered about people making private frequencies to chat with people is because we lack a proper alternative of people communicating at range. A miner goes out to the rock and has a radio set within his suit to talk to his buddy in the kitchen? I don't see the issue with that. I think we're at a point where we can trust the community not to just use station bound radios 

 

To clarify to people. I'm not asking for headsets to be removed. I'm asking for the common frequency to be limited.

[Snakebittenn]

I'm in agreement, I think it would spur better interaction, especially if you have someone in your department go out and bring word to Engineering and such. It'd give department front desks an actual purpose in receiving people. But, what to do with intercoms?

[Contextual]

I absolutely adore this idea. With the removal of convenience, you introduce more legwork, which is directly equivalent to more gameplay. 

+1

[DeadLantern]

I do not like this idea as it is because I feel as if a general radio is still useful for addressing a large amount of people on the station that's not with antags. I suggest that you can only access the general comms via the intercomms on the wall, which means you actually have to stand by one and speak there to use general comms. This certainly limits the use of general comms but still has it in for when you need it.

[Faris]

7 minutes ago, DeadLantern said:

I do not like this idea as it is because I feel as if a general radio is still useful for addressing a large amount of people on the station that's not with antags. I suggest that you can only access the general comms via the intercomms on the wall, which means you actually have to stand by one and speak there to use general comms. This certainly limits the use of general comms but still has it in for when you need it.

We have station announcements to address large amount of people. Regular crew can petition Command/AI for large announcements.

[DeadLantern]

1 minute ago, Aboshedab said:

We have station announcements to address large amount of people. Regular crew can petition Command/AI for large announcements.

What if you are an antag trying to address the whole crew with important information? Or just want to tell people about a minor thing "There's a party in bar for now if you want to come!", stuff like that.

[Faris]

1 minute ago, DeadLantern said:

What if you are an antag trying to address the whole crew with important information? Or just want to tell people about a minor thing "There's a party in bar for now if you want to come!", stuff like that.

For the antag:

1. Steal a command radio.

2. Outsider antagonists can get access to common by default.

3. Steal an ID to give you access to station announcements.

4. Make demands to command/AI that they announce what you want announced or else.

5. Traitors could potentially buy those kind of headsets.

6. A mechanic could be introduced to illegally modify headsets.

I could go on, the limit is your imagination.

For the minor things:

What's a party without inviting people? Spread flyers? PDA people and have them spread the word? Let command use the consoles that are spread everywhere to advertise the party? Maybe convince them to make an announcement about it? Again, the limit is your imagination. 

[DeadLantern]

Alright, then it's fine. What is going to happen to the intercomms that only broadcast in common in the hallways?

[Brutishcrab51]

I actually just used Holocomms, and people were left flabbergasted and amazed at it. "YOU CAN USE THE HOLOPADS?! I THOUGHT JUST THE AI COULD!".

Pretty cool. Don't know why it's not used more.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Without a common radio information will only be disseminated after the fact. For many roles that are physically isolated or not involved with antags it is their only way to be tapped into the flow of a round. The telay requires you to come to a conplete stop and sit at a computer. The pda is only for 1v1 conversations in private. The radio just needs you to glance to the chat bar we already have.

It will make many people more lonely.

[Conspiir]

This will make mining suffering. It's already suffering anyway, but at least you can still hear what's going on and get a general sense of how the station is doing. And if need be, you can just make a comment and have some people respond to it. PDAs are dangerous to use out there and time-consuming to take out and type with (plus is only targeted to one person, for a specific reason. It'd be kind of weird to PDA a stranger and be like "Found some neat stuff out here! Haha!"), there are no holopads, request consoles, intercoms, or other people out in space, and carrying a stationbounced is yet another piece of equipment you have to figure out where to put on your body. Miners, as is commonly memed about, would actually become separate from any station issue ever, not by choice ("I don't feel like bothering with the station today... time to play mining!"), but because they simply would have no idea what was going on ever ("What do you mean there were three xenobiological horrors smashing through the station? I did not hear about this.").

 

And I can firmly say that this:

5 hours ago, Aboshedab said:

1- You use the common radio as a Director. "Cargo, order food for the crew." They most likely will reply with an aye, maybe ask how many. It won't be a long interaction, and to me, it feels lifeless.

2- You use a holopad as the Director to call cargo. You step on it, set the destination and the call is picked up by somebody there, maybe it's a technician, maybe that person is enough for you, so you place the order, you converse on a more personal level as you're both committed to an interaction.

would not happen. The second scenario would actually play out like this:

You use a holopad as the Director to call cargo. You step on it, set the destination, and the call is ignored for several minutes because no one is in the lobby at that moment. If you keep trying, someone will pick up, maybe it's a technician, so you place the order, and the technician says "aye, how many?" so you tell them. And they say "Ordered, it'll be here in a few!" and you hang up, because that was the purpose of your call and a technician does not care about your life story.

 

This would probably cause a very nations-esque feel. Security is security. Medical is medical. Cargo is cargo. There's no reason to interact with somebody when it isn't a business call, no way to just say "Haha, here's a funny thing!" or "How is everyone doing?" and get people engaged.

 

Generally, comms outages are some of the most boring rounds (at least to me). You can't get updates on any issue, so you just kind of stand around your department chatting. And while there's nothing wrong with that, there's also the issue of "Can I do my job now, or is there still a threat of four mercs out there?" which can't get answered until someone gets around to saying so.

 

I wouldn't mind giving it a test-merge. I believe it could give us some good insight. But I agree it will likely make people a lot more lonely, and cliques a lot stronger.

[Doxxmedearly]

A more thought out suggestion than cries to just outright remove it. The command bit is an interesting thought. 

The pros, as I see it, include antags not having to worry about cries happening before they can type "Shh." That's a big positive. Additionally, as Schev said, we get the "screamers" and shittalkers off the common frequency, who treat it more like a chatroom than a series of radio communications. Also MAYBE people would learn not to yell out things on common about medical information and handling peoples' dead bodies...

On the flipside, Conspiir has some really great points that warrant further discussion. Firstly, his take on how the pizza order interaction would go is how it is 9/10 times. Doesn't matter if it's on the radio or on a holopad or in person; that interaction isn't changing much, if at all, I promise you. 

Quote

But I agree it will likely make people a lot more lonely, and cliques a lot stronger.

This is the crux of it. Departments already have an issue of "us and them" thinking, and I worry this would strengthen it. Some people are already hurting for interaction, and we can't ignore that while this would help many interact, it would also hurt others. The question I ask myself when I read this is if it helps us more than harms us. I think it prrrrobably would work out as a positive for many. An extensive test merge would tell. As it stands, though, I share conspiir's hesitation.

[geeves]

i wanted to type out a big reply but im lazy and it's late and im gonna sleep soon also conspiir summed my thoughts up nicely

1) for screamers: we have radio jammers for a reason

2) telecomms outages is literally the worst. having no feedback makes what's supposed to be a bustling space station feel deader than a supermatter set up by a borg main

3) how does removing the ability for roles that aren't always on-station to talk assist roleplay at all, see: solars, virologist, psychologist, xenobiologist, xenobotanist, gardener, (captain)

4) more legwork doesn't mean more gameplay, to whomever said that. that's why we added the canisters near the engine room and pre-set the shields. more legwork is tedium, tedium isn't very fun once the novelty wears off

5) if you want people a reason to interact in person, give them a reason to do so, most of the game is geared to roughly doing your job, to such an extent that "chairRP" has become a sort of namecalling phrase

6) "I think we're at a point where we can trust the community not to just use station bound radios" i think we can trust the community to do what's the most fun thing to do, honestly.

as a command main myself, this wouldn't affect me much, but a lot of the fun of the game comes from shittalking on the radio, then meeting the person i've been meming with for half an hour and then squaring up with them through emotes. without a thin thread connecting everyone, why shouldn't i just sit in my department and wait for the next biohazard alert to pop up and wake me from my eternal slumber as i wipe the cheeto stains out of my eyebrows.

 

edit: yes i know it's big despite my first sentence im dumb

Edited June 14, 2019 by geeves
dumb^2

[TheOrleans]

7 hours ago, Ornias said:

do you carry a radio around your work at all times irl?

I do not work in a billions-worth sci-fi space research station, you know?

 

3 hours ago, Senpai Jackboot said:

Without a common radio information will only be disseminated after the fact. For many roles that are physically isolated or not involved with antags it is their only way to be tapped into the flow of a round. The telay requires you to come to a conplete stop and sit at a computer. The pda is only for 1v1 conversations in private. The radio just needs you to glance to the chat bar we already have.

It will make many people more lonely.

I totally agree.

6 hours ago, Aboshedab said:

disagree with your assessment that roleplay-wise, that it's stupid. As it stands, the common radio can make the station feel like a huge VoIP lobby. 

The fact that common is used as VoIP may be regulated, but removing Common for everyone would just make you feel 'lonely' in the server, what about the rounds with 10 players? Nah, I don't think this is a good idea