[1 Dismissal] Big radio rework of 2460.

[Juani2400]

Hello everyone.

What I am going to write about has already been suggested before, with unknown results. However, I will try to make it a bit different, and allow for a more immersive and realistic enviroment to prosper in the station.

So. What's the problem?

So, as we are all aware, currently, it would seem that thanks to the wonders of bluespace, some magic information that our headsets transmits or Skrell-like minds that every crew member posseses, we are able to distiguish who is talking on the radio, even if we have not met them before. The behaviour of using this information to reply, or to modify your acts goes unpoliced most of the times, because it is not explicitly against the rules. This suggestion, however, will not be about how to fix an issue with the rules with mechanics, but using this issue to expand an idea onto, and create a more immersive experience when playing the 2D spessmen game.

I'm interested. What do you suggest?

We could just remove the names from the radio, but I will go a step further. When you are working with a radio, you don't have two frequencies set at the same time because, for one, radios only work with a single channel, and you require duplicated systems to make it work with other frequencies simultaneously (these exist, but not on most portable units, which can listen/transmit into a single frequency at the time); but we are four hundred years into the future, so I will not use that as an argument. We could mostly agree that the common radio has not much utility, other than being a way to call for help or assistance, and annoy people.

What I suggest is, we remove the common frequency from the headsets, and leave it as a thing only for intercoms and station-bounced, for those who wish to carry one with them and listen to it. You only have your departmental frequencies in your headset now. But what if you need help? Or need to call a janitor? How will you make sure they listen to your request, if they are probably not near an intercom or wearing a radio? This is where we start expanding the idea. We add the ability to make calls to headsets.

With this, you'll be able to contact everyone on the station, directly, through an interface in your headset. You'll make a call, and they can answer it, or not. The headsets would also include the ability to turn calls off. This would add to the already immense ways to communicate already present on the station, like PDAs, holopads and request consoles. But. What about calling for help, or calling an entire department?

This is where yet another part of the suggestion comes in. We will add a dispatcher, or call center operator. This center, which you contact through a button in your headset and employs a single person, would have access to all the departmental radios -except Command- in the station through an intercom, or a piece of equipment yet to specify, and act as a middle-man between the caller and the required services or departments. This person would have their little room, with their camera monitoring consoles, and console programmes designed to allow them to organize the calls as required. But. What happens when there is no one to handle the calls? The calls get then redirected to the AI, instead, which will handle the calls as required. If there's no AI, then there's no one to respond to the calls, and you must use an alternative mean of communication. About the restrictions of the role, as it would be a job that requires certain degree of responsibility, I suggest -so we have no shortage of players- that we put it under a timed blacklist (similar to what Security has, but maybe longer times), or we require certain number of played rounds in order to access the role. Alternatively, if the community is willing, it can be put under the Command whitelist.

To top off the suggestion, and to cover the topic with which we started this thread, we no longer show the names of the people in the radio messages. Instead, everything that will appear in front of the message will be similar to [(gender) (species) voice]. Additionally, for those of the same species, and to be defined by the species lore masters, the characters will be able to detect the accent of their same species' individuals, which will be added to the voice description. Say Jane is a Mars human. All other humans will know that she is from Mars, because of her accent. The accent will be chosen from a list, similar to the nationality.

Wait. I'm confused. Too much information!

Tl;dr

• We remove Common frequency from the headsets. It will only be present through intercoms and station-bound radios.
• We add the ability to make calls through headsets, to individual persons, or the call center.
  
• We add a call center, and an operator role to handle the calls, with the console programs required to properly organize the calls.
  
• We remove the names of the people from the radio logs, and instead add [(gender) (species) (accent) voice] in place of the name.

 

I expect anything from insults, to praises, to an ethernal wait until it is done or even dibsed by a coder. So feel free to post what you think of it down below!

Thanks for reading!

EDIT: I forgot an important part of the call center thing. It's now highlighted in blue.

[Sytic]

A call centre seems needless for such a complicated station. Most likely, your radio would just change the encryption (and not require a more advanced radio device) and the telecommunications system would decide where to bounce this radio message to based on the encryption used. You could just make it so it doesn't broadcast your name.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

This seems like it would only be marginally better than playing a deaf character. If we have a week where we removed the common channel just to see how it goes, I am almost certain quality would degrade, but I am unsure.

[Sebbe]

This seems like it would only be marginally better than playing a deaf character. If we have a week where we removed the common channel just to see how it goes, I am almost certain quality would degrade, but I am unsure.

 

I am certain that removing the common channel will not do anything other than to force the neets on our server to actually move their spaceman from their hidden broom-closet of their job to other people to RP, it is also in my opinion a good way to solve the everlasting ";help getting succ maint! " problem. I see the drawbacks but it would be interesting to see if our playerbase are able to handle change as well as the medical guys did when we hit their medbay.

-Sebbe

[LanceLynxx]

I think the call-function would be too much complication. but I do like the removal of common from headsets

MY TWO CENTS:

Remove common from Headsets

and make COMMON be called EMERGENCY channel, for distress signals.

[Asheram]

MY TWO CENTS:

Remove common from Headsets

and make COMMON be called EMERGENCY channel, for distress signals.

Seconded.

It would also promote the use of request consoles.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

How do we call for help when we are pulled into maint, or otherwise attacked?

[Bauser]

Replace the common radio channel with the ability to call one specific person at a time (Juani suggests doing this on headsets, I'd like to see it on PDAs, either way could be functionally identical to the other), and let intercoms be used for general paging that shout out to all other intercoms (or to a specific one, if you choose, like calling currently works on holopads). This way, the ability to shout out to the whole station (which is valuable whenever anybody needs to make a general announcement) is not erased, just made a little inconvenient (gated behind sticking to a specific location, next to the intercom) so people don't use it like a party line.

Adding a call-operator role would be a step in the wrong direction, I think, both from gameplay and RP perspectives. It wouldn't really interact with other jobs in a meaningful way, since people would only talk to them as a middle-man for getting through to someone else. Plus, in the scenario that no one is playing it (which would be often, since people don't typically want to play a job without much player interaction (see: virologist)), it gives the AI more work to do.

Replacing names with sound descriptions over radio seems like a pretty massive undertaking (moreso than any other part of this suggestion) both to implement and to refine in-game... because I foresee a terrible future where 50% of the radio discourse is every single newly-spawned player asking every. single. person. on the station. who they as soon as they say something. And unless the voice descriptors get very, very specific, there would also be plenty of asking who's who even AFTER those first identifiers (since there will be plenty of people with the same gender, same species, same home planet...). And if you make it any more specific, suddenly those descriptors get so long that it could totally clutter up the text window.

EDIT: for alerting people that you're getting attacked in maintenance, we DO already have suit sensors. Maybe we could complement the current suit sensors with a new suit distress function of some sort, like a Life Alert bracelet, you could activate it just like your suit sensors to alert the personnel that you are consciously in danger. That way, it's still easy to tell people that you're in danger, just not as easy to be specific like telling them WHO is attacking you or WHERE, unless they're sharp on the follow-up (like calling your headset!)

[LanceLynxx]

How do we call for help when we are pulled into maint, or otherwise attacked?

 

if the common is removed from headset? use department radio and hope your department mates are humane and try to help

If common is not removed from headsets, it should be renamed Emergency and used only for such. In which case nothing would change.

[Scheveningen]

How are antagonists supposed to benefit from this? They literally use the same methods of communication as the crew to stay ahead of the curve.

The more you dilute information the harder it is to play the game. You have zero idea what to expect, and rounds tend to end in disaster when the usual forms of communication aren't viable in usage.

When I say "disaster" I don't mean "a round that destabilized in a reasonable way that ended up being fun for almost everyone", I mean "disaster" as in "everything went so horridly long that few could argue they had any meaningful engagement in the round whatsoever."

[Eve]

How's anyone supposed to benefit from this? It sounds like something that'd discourage people from using the radio at all. Rarely, if ever do people 'magically know the name of the person who is speaking' when they meet someone new, or an antagonist uses the voice synthesizer, and even then do people usually ask who that person is.

Extremely huge -1.

[UnknownMurder]

Wait. I'm confused. Too much information!

Tl;dr

• We remove Common frequency from the headsets. It will only be present through intercoms and station-bound radios.
• We add the ability to make calls through headsets, to individual persons, or the call center.
  
• We add a call center, and an operator role to handle the calls, with the console programs required to properly organize the calls.
  
• We remove the names of the people from the radio logs, and instead add [(gender) (species) (accent) voice] in place of the name.

 

---

---

 

+1

Common frequency has already become part of our culture and commonly used for stupid things. I like the thought of being able to call people across the station to say some words instead of having it lost in the sea of common channel banter. What this suggestion does essentially from another perspective is to take the communication that we all half-ass through and find a new way to communicate. We think, innovate, and then create many style of communication that either benefits or suffers this system of communication. I happen to be a kind of a person who seeks a challenge in a game and vision ways to work with others better. It also gives everyone an OOC sense of critical thinking and be able to apply to real life if that is you have one.

[Scheveningen]

Why don't you just do what I suggested awhile back and just conceal names through unique radio identifiers instead of globally removing the radio.

[MO_oNyMan]

To start of there have already been some similar suggestions here https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=10549&p=94010#p94010 and here https://forums.aurorastation.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=8947

To summarise my own opinion on this: yes.

It's a very interesting idea that would help out antags, make people interact with each other more and bring forth the underused features like faxes, request consoles and intercomms.

Voice recognition idea is very nice however as noted there would have to be a fair number of identifiers to be able to discern between if not every person on the station then at least most of them.

Dispather is something i've been thinking about for quiet some time. Coordinating security officers and paramedics is something that would definitely benefit the gameflow and adding responsibilities to get calls from other departments would make it a sufficient important role.

We were discussing like not even 10 minutes ago the uninhabited huge dorm area at the tcomms (seems like a suitable location for dispatcher's office)

All in all the concept is really interesting and i would love to try it out however all other similar suggestions (links provided in the beginning of the post) all stopped at the point of "let's try it out at least for a couple of rounds and see how it goes" and subsequently died. I would really like for someone to take action on it and actually work in order to make this thing happen

[drakuba]

I like this idea, but i think we should drop the role of phone operator, i know i wont play as one, sounds boring as hell. Instead, make it that you message whole department if you request repair, medical, report crime ...and you can use PDA to contact individuals. I usualy ignore green text anyway like 90% of time since my department is more interesting to listen anyway.Hiding identity sounds complicated like someone sayed before, you will overwhelm chat with too much info. We are in the 25th century, radios can tell you who calls you, but it could be a maschine in tcoms that does it, any by destroying it noone will know who sayed what. Maschine would be called like Radio Identifier or something.Comm consoles are those things you can link your PDA to? Never used it before, this would give them some meaning to theyrs now meaningless existence.

I like this idea, especialy instead of multuple discussions betwen few individuals, this will make them to meet and talk without bothering rest of the station with things that dont concern them. Green could be announcement channel that everyone have acess to, but rules will be applyed that you cant announce you won lottery or that you got drunk off the shift or you like sunflower more than tulips, but announcement like kitchen/bar is open, engineering is vented or you want to meet with John Rambo and John MClaine and talk about exploding buildings would be ok since the conversation will be held face to face.

+1

[Korinra]

Frankly at first I thought the idea of removing common from the channels was stupid, but the more I think of it, this is my thought.

AI needs to keep in contact with everyone, but has access to all departmental channels including Command.

Command needs to be able to communicate, but they all have a specific channel dedicated for that.

Everyone needs to be able to communicate with one another, but they have request consoles that you can link your PDA to and door bells you can link your PDA to.

If we removed Common, we'd see less pointless arguments over common channel, and less spammy waste of communication. We'd see more people asking AI to "Relay X to Engineering, AI", which makes sense. Without an AI we'd see more people using request consoles in AI's place, as well as PDA usage. Additionally, laptops/tablets have the "chat channel" functionality that can allow people to make a text channel for coordinated projects. We'd have antagonists able to sneak a bit more because relaying their presence would take more effort (since usually it's, "hey I see a guy in a black suit with a white mask in Cargo", and now the entire station knows it's a Ninja round). We'd have people complaining about how it's harder to get information to places, but we'd see an increase in face-to-face communication which adds more RP chances and antag chances.

That being said, there's no long term bad for TRYING it, but it could prove to be a lot more fun. If it WERE going to happen, a few suggestions.

OP mentions the Station Bounced Radios work on a general frequency, I agree.

I think the headsets shouldn't be able to call other headsets, there are three ways you can already accomplish this (through the use of PDA, Consoles/Laptops/Tablets chat channel, and hologram pads (yes they can call each other).

I think names should still be displayed, since like OP implies, you work WITH those people, you probably know them a LITTLE bit IC.

ERT and other non-regular NT personnel (like CCIA) have access to a "Common" channel that just relays the message to all channels (except Command so that staff heads don't hear it twice). This allows emergency and higher up people who outrank the Captain to speak to the crew as a whole, where as the Captain can just make station announcements if he/she needs to alert the crew to something.

PDAs should also have an uplink to the appropriate request console so you can check the console's messages remotely (but you can only send messages FROM the console). So for instance, the QM can look at the QM and Cargo request console messages from his/her PDA from anywhere, the CMO can look at all the Medical ones, etc... That way if you link your PDA to it, when it beeps that you have a message you can check it remotely.

More holopads. I think every office should have one. This allows people to "call" departments for a chat. You'd think all offices have one but they just don't.

An auto-announcement whenever the Merchant docks/undocks with the station;

*PING*

STATION ANNOUNCEMENT

A merchant ship has (un)docked with the station.

-Automated Messaging System

[Sytic]

The Security channel is used more often than the Common channel. This is because a lot of communication goes on, and how to deal with the antags goes through the Security channel. If a loop had to be jumped to get information out, it'll be hopped through. The only people who will be at a detriment are the antags themselves, as they'll be less and less able to stay ahead of the curve, making encrypted radio a must-have item in order to get some semblance of what's going on. Just make it so it doesn't broadcast your name.

-1.

[LordFowl]

This suggestion doesn't seem to really add anything beyond the common "ree remove common" suggestions, except for adding a new role that only absolute sadists would play. I see few positives to removing the common channel in general, and I see absolutely no positive to the dispatcher role.

Voting for dismissal.