Walkie Talkies and Radio, so much potential!

[pat_sajak 4]

Hello Gang,

 

I've played about 6~7 hours of DayZ standalone so far and it looks like it has a lot of potential.

 

I was very excited when I saw the walkie talkie object in the game. Of course the first thing I did was start hoarding batteries and sat on a hill in Electro trying to contact people.

 

The more I thought about it, after running from town to town scrounging for stuff not really bumping into anyone zombie or otherwise, I started to think of how much of an impact the radio could have on the game.  

 

Some think of the game as sort of a pre deterministic sandbox which has a few human players stumbling around, a lot of zombies, and some canned goods sitting around. In this tiny microcosm, we're entertained by interacting with said players and zombies. As of right now that's accomplished by literally laying your eyes on these entities and going from there.

 

Throwing radios into the mix adds a whole new dimension of interaction to the game. It would add exciting new role-playing opportunities as well, here's just a few I can think of off the top of my head:

 

• You could size someone up over the radio before meeting them, of course it could be a ruse....

 

• You hear someone crying for help at some location, are they really in trouble?

 

• Some guy has barricaded himself in a room on a highrise and is babbling bible verses over the air.

 

• A radio with a girl crying is actually taped to a crude booby trap.

 

• One could listen in to others planning something, maybe you'll be waiting when they decide to meet....

 

• Bandits could use it to attract victims, Dudley Dorights could use it to render aid, the possibilities are endless!

 

 

The first thing everyone does however is winces in anticipation on how it will be used by jack-holes to just clutter your speakers with audio spam. But here's the great part, it's a radio, you can turn it off! Or better yet change frequencies!

 

The other great thing about an in game radio system is that it frees the player from having to install the latest voice chat software du-jour. I can't tell you how many times I've met up with folks and I've had to install Skype, TeamSpeak, Dolby Axon, Roger Wilco, Ventrillio, it's a pain in the rump, and it's not very in character.

 

Not only that, but one might just want a single serving friend, someone to hook up with for an hour or two then part ways. When you relegate yourself to installing a third party communication system more often than not it makes you available later to be contacted. I don't want every person I play with  hammering my Skype screen name every time he sees me on, with an avatar of Tubgirl I might add.

 

Now that I've made a few points on how the radio could enrich play, let me get a bit technical and kind of flesh out the little walkie talkie we're currently equipped with and make a few technical critiques.

 

From a first glance it appears that the walkie talkie in game is of the FRS type, this is called "Family Radio Service" here in the states. These are the radios you see in just about every box store now, or outdoor store. They make wild claims on the box that they have a 50 mile range and whatnot.

 

These units work in the FRS frequency of 462 ~ 467 megahertz. They are FM modulated and have a bandwidth of 12.5 kHz. FRS radios are limited to 1/2 watt of output power.

 

Now if both radios were in line of sight of each other, then yes with 1/2 watt of power and even that horrible rubber duckie antenna you'd be able to communicate about 25 miles or so line of sight! Once buildings and hills and trees and other things get in the way however all that's off the table. I think the current range of the radio is about 900 meters, or about 1 kilometer. With the current FRS radio I'd think that at least 3~5 km of range would be a decent and realistic target to keep things real with the current terrain.

 

The last thing the development team wants to think about is radio propagation code.

 

So at 3 kilometers you're heard, and as you go past three to four and five, there is a per press of the microphone button that the link isn't established. So if two people are standing apart at 5 kilometers, the quality of the link is very low so many of the mic keys are missed due to the range. In other words, you need to repeat yourself often to get the message across.

 

The above is only one possibility on how radio links could be handled, I certainly know Bohemia has bigger fish to fry. 

 

The other thing the coding team could do is establish zones on the tops of buildings or smokestacks where the range of the radio goes from 5km to 30km, because if you're on top of the tenements outside Cherno you're got a pretty good shot at most of the map in terms of line of sight. The big radio tower at Green Mountain would be another good spot. This would another way of extending the range of the radio without having to code a bunch of complicated radio propagation code.

 

On the roof of building 30km range. Off the roof of building, back to the default 5km. Easy Peasy.

 

They could also include other radios which are more powerful, a step up from your little FRS walkie talkie could be a military radio like a Harris 7800 series. Of course they'd be more rare than a cheapie $25 dollar FRS radio, but they could say cover 25~40km reliably. Then finally you'd have a large desktop radio that could cover the whole map but would be in fixed locations like airfields and military bases.

 

Oh and players!  If you have a walkie talkie by all means turn it on and leave it on the first channel! I believe it's 87.2 MHz it's the lowest frequency on the dial. Every time I come across a radio I power it up and listen, every few minutes near a city I make a few calls and I don't hear anyone.

 

These are just a few ideas I had flying around in my head, and there's so much a functional radio can bring to the game. I'd be a shame if the radio system wasn't developed further.

 

Zombie apocalypses and creepy transmissions coming over the radio are like peanut butter and chocolate they just go great together.

 

 

 

 

 

[Duenan 226]

I just found one of these walkie talkies too but the problem is its unlikely to hear anybody on the other end. Theres a bunch of channels so unless you periodically talk with it you're not gonna find someone unless they're periodically checking it even on a full pop server. This would be different if we had like radio tower at green mountain usable like a walkie talkie. Then you could actually have a better chance of picking up someone on the other end

[pat_sajak 4]

Yeah, I mean if the little FRS radio's were made more popular like flashlights, then more people would get in the habit of using them. And if you leave the default frequency on the first channel I have a feeling you'd hear more folks because they're unlikely to change the frequency. With a few coding tweaks in regards to range they'd become really popular. I still keep them on whenever I find one however.