Personally I don't really like the current comms system we have. I have an alternate system to suggest and I would like everyone's input.
Firstly, I like the idea of using wall comms more than the headset for speaking to the whole station. There's so much that's said over comms that really would make for better RP if people just found the person and said it to them directly. I mean, imagine how crazy it would be if on the SS Enterprise every time anyone wanted to have a talk about something they used the comms and spoke to the whole ship. One way to cut that down is to make talking over comms a bit harder, you go up to the unit, click it and type what you want to say (much as you do for adminhelp) then that's broadcast to all comms units (and headsets) set to the general frequency of 145.9. It also gives those things a use beyond interesting spy devices that hardly ever get employed as such.
The second point is the headsets, I don't think everyone should have one. I don't think it adds to the RP that everyone at any time right from the get go can communicate with anyone else. I think they should be handed out as equipment to people who might need them, and for those people to set the frequency to something specific, like the security team using headsets set to a security frequency (that they decide in game) so they can actually discuss important stuff without the bad guys hearing it because everyone just uses the same global comms frequency... but without forcing them to then miss important announcements over the regular comms (because they're presumably in a room where an actual comms unit is present and it's being broadcast through that). This would then give people who get hold of a headset some really interesting options, tuning into frequencies trying to find one that's in use by the enemy, or indeed the security forces trying to work out what frequency the syndies are using, etc.
The AI. Now, the AI is already a powerful role and giving it too much power unbalances the game. So I've discarded my first thought about the AI being able to listen to all comms units across the ship at once because it would make it too hard for anyone to work against the station. As the AI I have on occasion used the wall comms, set their frequency to something else, one of my 3 comms units, disabled the mic on the unit set to 145.9, and used it as a two way radio to a specific room. But that is just so much trouble it's painful! I'm an AI, presumably a super computer... why does operating more than one radio feel like I'm trying to drive a car without an engine? Or any wheels?? So I have a revamp idea for the AI when it comes to comms:
Firstly, the AI still has it's three comms units, but one would be marked differently than the others and instead of having to click on it to send a message (as the new comms units would need) this one would continue to opperate as they do right now. That is, it has a mic active and anything the AI says in the normal chat will get broadcast over it. This allows the AI to communicate over general comms normally. The other two radios would require you to click on them then type the message you want to 'say' over the comms, and it would then get broadcast over the frequency it was set to, but not said out loud in the room thus not also broadcast over the general channel. This seems the most convenient way to make this sort of thing work for general replies over specific frequencies without a lot of <move back to AI room, deactivate mic on general comms, activate mic on specific radio I want to use, use it, switch mic back off, switch general comms back on> which really takes a long time. Also, when it receives a message from any comms unit, this isn't simply broadcast in the room so that it gets re-broadcast over the general comms, but we can assume it receives the message directly.
Secondly, I suggest that the AI's camera's be capable of listening too (if the camera's shut off, so too is the mic), when viewing the station through a camera that camera's mic is active and the AI hears anything said in the room/vicinity of it as frequency [CAMERA]. This would allow the AI to listen in on things, I mean, even if it doesn't have ears, it's a super powerful AI and I'm sure it would be able to lip read in most cases that it could see lips... (and let's assume it can always see them in the same way we assume people have eyes in the back of their heads currently). Now, obviously it would want to reply to people, which moves onto the third idea for the AI and comms:
If the AI clicks any wall mounted comms unit, (not it's own, as those just broadcast over a specific frequency) it can send a message to that comms unit /alone/. If the captain asks the AI something (maybe we should set up a default AI frequency, 145.7 or something, so people can tune their comms into that frequency to ask the AI something private--this would only work if the AI's other radios don't simply broadcast the message aloud so it gets fed to the general comms unit and rebroadcast globally), maybe asks the AI to keep an eye on someone suspicious, then the AI would be able to click on the comms unit near the captain to respond directly with the captain and only them. It wouldn't get sent out over freq 145.9 the same way it would if anyone else simply clicked on the comms unit and typed a message. A special clause checking if the player is the AI when using a comms unit would make this possible.
As an additional idea, though this one is optional, you could allow the AI to talk directly to the headsets of any staff who are wearing one, in much the same way it can use the wall mounted intercoms. Click on the person, if they have a headset, the option to send them a message is present.
That's my idea. I'm quite confident having looked over the code that I could implement this change myself if the rest of the community felt it was a worthwhile addition.
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Topic: Space Station 13 *READ RULES ON FIRST POST* (Read 824219 times)