CB Radio for traders

[-NEXUS-]

• same number of channels that real CB has
• range would be your max FSD jump of the current ship * 4 (like pulsar jump boost)
• possibly you'd have to get a special module
• possibly the feature would be linked to your trade rank (maybe this would govern range, number of channels etc)
• mute feature with a light that would flash when someone is speaking on your channel
• would work in tandem with the current user blocking system
• only works with push-to-talk

This could be developed into an immersive feature for explorers - where the signal would take a believable length of time to reach anyone listening to the channel(s).

Constructive comments only please. Negativity will not be responded to by the OP.

 

[MBaldelli]

Sounds like an interesting idea, and something I might even enjoy out in the Deep Black when I have nothing to listen to...

But the downside is I can tell you based on what I'm seeing of the idea here the coding for this would be a nightmare and won't probably be incorporated into the game at the present time or the near future.

You might want to look into a third party utility in the mean time... Discord for example has the ability to force players that try to use a channel they HAVE to use push to talk when they enter the channel. It might not be with delayed time between locations, but it's definitely better than nothing.

 

[Bartizan]

Not to nerd this out, but conventional radio signals travel at about the speed of light so even the turn around within a system will lag immensely. One of my favorite sci-fi writers Joshua Dalzelle, addressed this very thing in a series of books he wrote. Ships communicating with each within a star system took hours sometimes for the turn around. Ships would wait till the lag was less than 15 minutes just to have a conversation. With super cruise, you would effectively be travelling faster than the radio signal.

 

[Arry]

Errr... You said for traders? This would be used by every type of pilot out there; from traders to griefers and exploited to the max.

Not that I don't think it is an excellent idea.

 

[MBaldelli]

Not to nerd this out, but conventional radio signals travel at about the speed of light so even the turn around within a system will lag immensely. One of my favorite sci-fi writers Joshua Dalzelle, addressed this very thing in a series of books he wrote. Ships communicating with each within a star system took hours sometimes for the turn around. Ships would wait till the lag was less than 15 minutes just to have a conversation. With super cruise, you would effectively be travelling faster than the radio signal.

I'll give the man some leeway... We don't have any sort of communication in this game and so far we've been working on the assumption of it being instantaneous thanks to all the news sources and radio stations currently part of the third party interactive experience going on.

When it comes to actual delay that he's implying -- I can tell you even using something of the delays we saw during the Moon Landings, it's going to take some pretty hairy coding based on how this game runs client/server-to-peer-to-peer load balancing. The kind of hairy that would put a Wookie to shame.

@Arry on the other hand makes a point; particularly with griefers and gankers.

 

[-NEXUS-]

Hi guys!

Thanks for your engaging replies!

To further clarify this concept:

A delay would not have to be expressed using network. It could be cached on the client. Quality could be very low and noisy for further immersion.

Realistic delays need not be used, all that would be needed for immersion would be a wait of a few minutes.

I'd personally want this to be something only traders and explorers were interested in, hence the module idea.

Yeah, we have discord but efficient commd isn't really the premise here?

 

[Flatkat]

I love the theory of this, it'd be great for long distance lonely trips. Though I'd hate to see it get into the wrong hands, and it surely would.

 

[-NEXUS-]

If people want to replace one of their aggression engineered modules with a sub-ether "radio", I'd call that a win.

How many of the undesirable element work on an Explorer rank?