Smartphones and Phone Chargers

[Migwel 3]

Smart Phones are part of most peoples everyday life. To have one of these in DayZ would be amazingly handy but also quite rare. Would be useful (only if charged) and also very sought after by others.

Possible Uses:

• Compass
• Pedometer
• Watch
• Torch/Light
• Map
• Camera
• A collection of different apps maybe?

These would all be variable depending on the type of smart phone you found.

 

Conditions would be important too, worn or damaged phones don't hold a charge for very long.

 

Would need to have portable Phone chargers too that use battery power to charge the phone. Would say, i dunno, 30 mins game time to charge. 2 hour game time battery life.

 

To make it more tricky to get a fully charged phone you could have different portable phone chargers.Example, they only fits certain phones, some charge on solar/movement, a universal charger to fit all phones.

 

Would also add more incentive for player interaction eg "Can I borrow your charger please"

 

It would also add another use for batteries instead of just using them for your torch.

 

What ya think?

[terrvik 2409]

You would also have to carry satellites and launch them into space. :)

[Twixxer 159]

DayZ is set in a post-soviet state. Smartphones, really?

[Migwel 3]

Yea I guess your right :(

[kovie20@gmail.com 125]

Gotta take selfies when you're slaying zeds don't cha know

[dimitri3p0 99]

No way to keep it charged either, unless power plants are being run by zombies. Although seeing how almost every building has a PC in it, finding some other destroyed electronics wouldn't be so far fetched.

[OrLoK 16185]

Hello there

 

I have several old smartphones Ive been given which I use regularly and not for calls.

 

If one remembers games like system shock where one could find games to play on their handheld a smartphone would work in the same way.

 

A camera.

A torch

Angry  Birds

To do list

Snake

 

etc etc

 

The caveats are...

 

How do you charge it, even with a the correct charger? Is the electricity subsystem still functional? There are still town lights working, so possibly...

 

GPS and phone sats may well be operational in orbit, but are the ground stations controlling them down/manned. Would they still function solo?

 

Smartphone use isnt out of the game's scope, but needs some careful consideration.

 

Rgds

 

LoK

[elLoCo 154]

I would like to see how they meassure "their length" like in RL.

Mine is better than yours, haha!

[Migwel 3]

To all saying about charging, im talking about adding those little emergency chargers into the game,the ones that take AA's. Not a mains charger.

 

Also i don't expect it to be used to make calls and such, i thought it would be a nice utility item.

[Mos1ey 6301]

Most smartphone apps rely on GPS/3G. I can't see them being useful for much other than a camera or light source.

[terminal_boy 860]

Zombie carrier pigeons are the way forward.

[Migwel 3]

Most smartphone apps rely on GPS/3G. I can't see them being useful for much other than a camera or light source.

 

Compass, watch and pedometer would work without GPS/3G wouldn't they? 

[terminal_boy 860]

Depends on the phone. 

 

Some smartphones use GPS track/track prediction data to give pseudo compass effect.

[Mos1ey 6301]

Compass, watch and pedometer would work without GPS/3G wouldn't they? 

 

The pedometer and watch would, but I'm not so sure about the compass. I'm not too sure what purpose a pedometer would server anyways though. :S

[terminal_boy 860]

If you know your average pace length and have a a pedometer to count paces, you have a decently accurate way of knowing how far you've travelled.

[beastoverlord 574]

GPS would work for months after the apocalypse. It relies off of satellite data, not cell towers. Until the satellites lose enough orbit (without someone boosting them into a higher plane) to fall back to earth, they should still be able to transmit data. Phone calls, other than Sat phones, would need a powered cell tower to operate.

[Migwel 3]

GPS would work for months after the apocalypse. It relies off of satellite data, not cell towers. Until the satellites lose enough orbit (without someone boosting them into a higher plane) to fall back to earth, they should still be able to transmit data. Phone calls, other than Sat phones, would need a powered cell tower to operate.

Thank you, this helps. Never thought it would be used in-game for making calls and such but deffo on things like the map and the compass.

 

 

[terminal_boy 860]

Most smart phones rely on receiving satellite constellation data over their wireless data connection for a quicker first fix as they don't store satellite almanac data.

Without this, a "cold" first fix can take up to 10 minutes and uses a lot of battery power.

[Migwel 3]

So what would be better?

 

Lets say, five different models of phones. Ranging in style and features.

 

or

 

One model of phone and it's random what features it spawns with.

[TEST_SUBJECT_83 465]

No.

Thers already walkie talkies, all there needs to be is channels that people could communicate through,and if someone else finds one and is in range of yours and your buddies channel, then he could listen in.

But thats as far as I would want to see something like this in DayZ.

[joe_mcentire 2074]

resurrecting this thread due to the recent trello update from Chris:

 

why not just introduce mobiles? since you can have and maintain a more or less functional local network by yourself. and the fact that there are certain brands which also come with built-in walkie-talkie functionality you would also have a device with additional possibilities:

• flashlight (including morse-functionality)
• camera functionality
• peer to peer wifi
• bluetooth
• NFC (being able to flash an app with simple UID on your device for high-tech base-access only :P)
• very few apps such as offline maps even?

def. worth a mod at least

 

you could really build upon some of these options and transform mobiles even to personal tokens of players. so even without satellites and functional networks we would still have small and quite powerful computers at hand.

 

also relevant reddit

Edited August 17, 2015 by joe_mcentire

[liquidcactus 719]

You would also have to carry satellites and launch them into space. :)

 

 

DayZ is set in a post-soviet state. Smartphones, really?

 

Notice that the OP's list of ideas for the phone... doesnt actually need... a sat connection  :blush:

 

I like your BIll Hicks avatar MigWel :D

 

Mobiles could be used maybe for basic things like telling the temperature, pedometer basic games to pass the time while waiting to meet a freind etc.. someone above said about how you actually need satillite connections for most apps which im guessing is true but then again I'm sure there is a shit tonne that dont need any connection at all. Tho I'm thinking we should only really be able to do basic things with the phone..

 

More for gimmick purposes but then would that even warrant dev time on something like this ? if done right maybe ? with careful consideration of course. I dare say this is something that I would prefer to see alot further down the track i think 

[Beizs 186]

You would also have to carry satellites and launch them into space. :)

 

 

Only for calls, internet and GPS. Every single other feature on the phone would still work. It does drastically limit their capabilities, but they still have plenty of uses. For example, the compass (at least on my phone) uses a magnetometer. This means that it would be functional even without any connectivity. In fact, go ahead and put your phone in airplane mode. It still has a wide range of features that work perfectly well.

 

In regards to charging, there is a tonne of different options out there. They're adding generators into the game, so that'll be one way, using a standard cable. Battery operated chargers (like, ones that take AA's) are also very common. Wind up phone chargers are also pretty common. There is PC's present in the game (obviously non-functional), all of which look like they're from maybe the early 2000's. Considering Chernarus is a poor area, it's unlikely they'd have up to date PC's. This implies that the game is set in, more or less, modern times. Smartphones are incredibly prevalent. Cheap ones would be all over the place in Chernarus. You realize that China has the largest number of smartphones in use in the world, despite the vast majority of its citizens being very, very poor? China has a smartphone ownership rate (in 2013 - it's probably increased dramatically since then) of 46.9%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_smartphone_penetration

 

In regards to how realistic smartphones would be in terms of whether people would actually have them or not, it depends on when DayZ is actually set. But even if it was around the dawn of smart phones, there would still be few rich people in the area and those people would probably have them.

 

So, in my opinion, there's no realism issues when it comes to smartphones. There's also a wide range of uses. However, the question is whether it's actually worth the development time when most of its uses can be replaced with other items. How many people would actually use one, when they'd need a slot for the phone, a slot for the charger and several slots for batteries, when they could just have a compass and map and have the most important features without half as much work.

Edited August 20, 2015 by Beizs