Radio and PA - what is your experience?

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

(I'm on vacations in Moscow so I can't play 1.06 yet, which is why my topic doesn't pertain to it).

Recently, I spent some time toying with DayZ sound systems and trying to figure out what I can get out of them. I was always interested in the possibilities of radio (if there is one absolutely fantastic feature of modern Fallout games, i.e. F3+, it's definitely radio) and wanted to explore the many options to broadcast sound, from good ol' music to RP-style communications. Here's what I did:

1) As I have started to learn Spanish, I decided to join a Spanish-speaking forum, found a car battery and headed straight to the PA system in Elektro. Once there, I played some music (simply put my cellphone to my mike) and then started to talk in a faux-transmission about how I'm a local DJ and I invite everyone to chat and eat (I had planted some veggies around the house). Although the server was high-pop PVP-heavy, several guys quickly turned up and showed no hostile intentions (would you really kill a foreigner trying to speak your language and handing you food?). We talked some, we attracted some zeds, I died. Great evening.

2) In order to introduce radio to Chernarus, I headed to a low-pop server and borrowed a friend of mine's character. I took him to my base, put a field radio in his hands, again put my cellphone (with Fallout radio from Youtube) to the laptop, and then I started to play with my main character, a walkie-talkie on my backpack. And how it works! This is the closest to an actual in-game radio you can get and I felt like I invented an analogue mod. :D. Pretending that there's an actual radio station while I looted and hunted was one of my best solo sessions in a long time.

One drawback - you're constantly on the hunt for more batteries, as they only last for some 1.5h. Luckily, vanilla zeds do drop some every once and then.
A field transmitter operates for under 3 h on one car battery, but these can be charged with just a generator and a charger.

More fun facts - a field transmitter works when put on the ground (has a radius of several metres), in a trunk of a car and even when you put it in a waterproof bag and bury it! You can bury a working radio in someone else's base and have a lot of fun at their expense. I have yet to check how a buried radio works as a transmitter, I only checked that it receives.

So my question to you is - how do you use the sound systems and what do you make of them? Do you care about them at all? If so, how? If not, what could change your mind? Do you have any wishes which we could ask the devs for? A separate question - do you use hand-held radio for communications with other players?

My dreams:

1) Access to some/most/all the PA systems across Chernarus from one station like Zenit. Like, a common transmitter for Elektro+Cherno or Novo+Severo, something like that.
Right now it's kinda hard to reach people who don't carry receivers on their backs, and being limited to one city is a huge restriction.

2) Make it possible for the in-game radio to pick up not only the microphone of the sender, but also all in-game sounds around the radio. As it is right now, if you talk over the radio and shoot, the recipient wouldn't hear it. This is also one way in which I could finally hear myself when I play music for people, i.e. I could leave a transmitter at the PA system and connect to that unit with a hand-held device while looting.

Any more ideas, comments, remarks?

[Tarkules 153]

First, let's just list a few things that makes radios a bad experience in DayZ:

1. The static noise is VERY annoying and constant and very not realistic (no Squelch and adjustments).

2. Can't recharge them. Small batteries drain too fast (as you mentioned), and since 1.06 they drain even faster.

3. You can't control the radio while driving or climbing.

4. Field Transceivers de-spawn (no persistence) when you leave them on the ground.

5. The voice quality should be lowered.

 

Just for fun - My friends and I like to take a car, one of us puts some music on (phone + mic), he also carries a field transceiver in his backpack and we turn our radios on.

This way we can hear music while driving around and look for settlements.

 

We have a public server with some regular players which most of them are friendly. 

We try to encourage them to obtain a Field Transceiver and store it in their bases, in case somebody needs anything.

We set-up a main base in a pretty exposed location, brought Field Transceivers, radios and what not, waited for contact.

For months, the radio was silent.

 

So we decided to occupy Altar's Broadcast Station as well.

We fenced it, set-up generators, projectors on the roof and inside the building.

Put a barrel with small radios so people will be able to take them and use them.

At nights (once or twice a day), on of us logs in just to turn up the lights, leaves them lit until morning and logs out.

Since we realized that the radio inside the station was bugged, we used Field Transceivers instead, just to broadcast some music to our community, in hope someone is listening.

And yet - the radio is still silent.

 

When we asked players about the radio - they say they can hear it sometime, but it takes too much to maintain it.

You either need many batteries or a complete base with renewable energy.

 

So radios are a must for the DayZ experience, but they are almost useless in the current version.

* Note: The bug in the broadcast station was fixed since 1.06.

 

6 hours ago, Kirov (DayZ) said:

My dreams:

1) Access to some/most/all the PA systems across Chernarus from one station like Zenit. Like, a common transmitter for Elektro+Cherno or Novo+Severo, something like that.
Right now it's kinda hard to reach people who don't carry receivers on their backs, and being limited to one city is a huge restriction.

 2) Make it possible for the in-game radio to pick up not only the microphone of the sender, but also all in-game sounds around the radio. As it is right now, if you talk over the radio and shoot, the recipient wouldn't hear it. This is also one way in which I could finally hear myself when I play music for people, i.e. I could leave a transmitter at the PA system and connect to that unit with a hand-held device while looting.

 Any more ideas, comments, remarks?

I want to be able to record on a blank cassette and play it on loop at the broadcast station.

Actually, I would like 7 slots for cassettes in the broadcast station, one for each channel.

 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Tarkules

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

4 hours ago, Tarkules said:

When we asked players about the radio - they say they can hear it sometime, but it takes too much to maintain it.

You either need many batteries or a complete base with renewable energy.

Yep, exactly. I think there are two factors here - one is all the fuss required to put up a working radio station (even putting an extra battery in a walkie-talkie is an effort, considering you can use forgo it all and power a rangefinder), and the second is that the chance of two different people turning on their radios at the same time, no matter how easy it would be, is still a needle in a haystack thing.

Is it possible to force players to use ingame communication and drop external apps like discord, ts and skype? If it can be done, people would need to pick up their radio more often. Not sure if even I wanted it when I talk to my friend, though.

Also, what do you mean that the voice quality should be lowered? I have talked through a radio only a few times so I don't know how it sounds. So far, I was mainly broadcasting.

Quote

I want to be able to record on a blank cassette and play it on loop at the broadcast station.

Actually, I would like 7 slots for cassettes in the broadcast station, one for each channel.

 

A cassette player (especially in a car) would be a blast. Both for cruisin' around and for leaving messages. It reminds me how I miss the note writing.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Kirov (DayZ)

[drgullen 593]

"All the hits in the apocalypse! 96.9 D-A-Y-Z!!!!  Up next, Rob Zombie with Living Dead Girl!"

 

[Tarkules 153]

2 hours ago, Kirov (DayZ) said:

Also, what do you mean that the voice quality should be lowered? I have talked through a radio only a few times so I don't know how it sounds. So far, I was mainly broadcasting.

I mean voice over radio doesn't sound authentic. There is no sound effect for the voice that comes out of radios (low fidelity ?). It just sounds too clear sometimes, like the person I'm talking to is standing next to me.

[Parazight 1594]

Radios and PA, etc:  Great for attracting strangers.  Probably useful on RP servers.  Chat with friends thru Discord.

I wish vehicle passengers could use car radios to intercept these signals and broadcasts.

6 hours ago, Kirov (DayZ) said:

Is it possible to force players to use ingame communication and drop external apps like discord, ts and skype? If it can be done, people would need to pick up their radio more often. Not sure if even I wanted it when I talk to my friend, though.

Not possible.  This is the reality for every game, everywhere, forever. 

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

8 hours ago, drgullen said:

"All the hits in the apocalypse! 96.9 D-A-Y-Z!!!!  Up next, Rob Zombie with Living Dead Girl!"

 

Exactly, baby! 😄 When I played Fallout 3, I immediately fell in love with Three Dog and spent a lot of time just wandering the Wasteland with his voice and music in the background. I'd love to recreate that feeling in Chernarus (and actually I did with a spare character I mentioned above). And to those who'd say it's corny - I believe that the Fallout series, especially F1 and F2, proved that an apocalypse doesn't have to take itself too seriously to stay immersive.

6 hours ago, Tarkules said:

I mean voice over radio doesn't sound authentic. There is no sound effect for the voice that comes out of radios (low fidelity ?). It just sounds too clear sometimes, like the person I'm talking to is standing next to me.

Noted. Where can we even pass this feedback to the devs? A long time ago I used to assume they read this board, now I'm not so sure. I know I wouldn't in their shoes.

It seems to me that they didn't make sound systems too useful because we don't use them anyway, and we don't use them because they're not that useful. Stuff like a persistent field radio with longer battery could really change a lot. Charging 9V batteries would be a blessing.

 

1 hour ago, Parazight said:

Radios and PA, etc:  Great for attracting strangers.  Probably useful on RP servers.  Chat with friends thru Discord.

I wish vehicle passengers could use car radios to intercept these signals and broadcasts.

Not possible.  This is the reality for every game, everywhere, forever. 

Yeah, I suspected that with external VOIP.

Anyway, this topic helps me realize what difference a car radio (with a player) could make. Driving around with the radio on could help pick up much more broadcast than just running around. And give an incentive to set up a server-wide radio for all the commuters. And so on, and so on. Clearly, we need more options when in a car, right now you can't even check a map or compass (to say nothing of shooting).

[FunkInYourTrunk 354]

21 hours ago, Kirov (DayZ) said:

especially F1

one of the greatest games of all time in my opinion!