Radio's

[Defhrone 2]

Just an idea, but is it an option to set voicechat to direct chat only by default (since everyone hates people who spam the global chats)?

And for have a group communicating over a long distance (group chat) they'd have to find radio's and set channels (make a group channel) for long range communication?

And I don't know if it the engine will allow it, but batteries found (with variable amounts of energy still stored) for the flashlights, radio's and other electronical equipement. And being able to charge them at the powerstations or other points on the grid or them just being expendible goods to trade possibly.

Just some idea's that sprang to mind when watching a vid with group ops and some random guy ranting over global chat. Lemmy know if you think it has potential. :)

[zealous 13]

Sounds awesome to me, I think rocket already plans on removing anything but local chat.

Would love to see something with radios too, like you said, if the engine supports it. Would be cool to have different radio channels as groups (half as many as the max number of players?) so you could join groups and listen in to other groups, as long as you had a radio. You would have to watch what you say due to bandits listening in on your group as well, which would make it interesting, and realistic.

The default channel would also act like the current global channel for players to ask for help; but requiring players to find a radio first.

[Defhrone 2]

I dunno if you should be completely cut off without a radio, new players could need help (although a good set of tutorials linked on the site could take care of that)

It would however, be completely realistic. I don't really know if there could be 2 types of radio's. Portable that only have a group communication purpose, and placed ones, in public type buildings that give access to global chat.

But perhaps switching channels on a radio is the way to go. What would you do if you whre all alone with a working radio, right? Although I think that might be to complicated. It is just something that sprang to mind. Show interrest if you have it :)

[Pranzo 0]

Radios could be used to change the in-game music too. Kinda fallout ya know...

[Defhrone 2]

Ha!. Well I did love the fallout 3 music. Ladies and gentlemen this is 3-daawg :)

[Pranzo 0]

OOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU! And now back to the news....HOLY SHIT DUDE!!!! Make one of those radio towers a god damn ACTUAL radio tower!! Were if you talk in that tower other people that have radios can hear you! Fuck! Have god damn radio stations!

[Defhrone 2]

Haha, and have it attract alot of bandits and mutants, erhm... I mean zeds, but have a private army keeping you safe to fight the good fight :) That would be one hell of a job to pull of, but the thougher the job, the more interresting and prestigeus it is right? Party on brothers!

[prometheus111 1]

While we're jumping to more and more complex ideas...

Make two different types of radios. One that works more like a cellphone except with channels. This one would work using radio towers to transfer the audio data from one radio to another. Thus no tower, no comm. Or if you're out of range of a tower, you can't pick up any signals. And you can only pick up signals within range of the tower.

Thus say the range of a tower is 5 km radius. Any two radios within that radius on the same channel would send and receive audio data to and from each other and any other radios in that range on that channel. Also if a tower is in range of another tower, the distance is increased to include the second tower's area of coverage.

These towers would have ladders that would allow a player to hack the tower to disable it (someone else could come back and fix it). Disabling a tower would obviously remove radio comm link.

Complexity aside...the type of radio that would be easiest to implement would be this:

A radio that when set on a channel can send and receive audio data within a certain radius of itself with any other radio set on the same channel. Once this radio type is implemented I think it'd be best to remove everything but Direct chat/voice.

[Pranzo 0]

YEA!!! And than be possible to hack the towers with C4 and if someone tries to fix it, IT FUCKING XPLODES!!!!....wait...I think...I think I went a lil too far there.

[Razor (DayZ) 0]

The engine definitely supports it but who'd want to broadcast for a single server?

Pretty sure there will be a community portal up soon and people will sort this out via standart internet broadcasting means.

[Hobson (DayZ) 1]

Imagine coming across a radio somewhere, flipping through the channels and hearing some survivors coordinating. Would you butt in, offer assistance, risk having your ass shot by the strangers who want your radio? Or maybe stay quiet and stalk them, picking them off one by one.

Whether or not it's practical, from a dev point of view, it's certainly a sweet idea.

[Razor (DayZ) 0]

It is not even practical from a player's point of view.

Why use an ingame radio when there's TS/Vent/Skype/whatever?

[Hobson (DayZ) 1]

It is not even practical from a player's point of view.

Why use an ingame radio when there's TS/Vent/Skype/whatever?

Why use an in game map when there's teh internetz?

Because its immersive, obviously. Which is awesome.

[Razor (DayZ) 0]

Ingame map is much more scalable and alt-tabbing is bad for your health.

[Hobson (DayZ) 1]

Use a printer yo, like everyone else :)

Point is, people can sidestep whatever they like if they're able to, but there's plenty who'd see it as part of the game mod and so part of the fun. DayZ isn't a lesser mod without this suggested feature and there's no pressing need to add it, but if it ever appeared, it would be a cool addition.

[Razor (DayZ) 0]

Noone argues that. The more content there is the more depth it gets.

But this doesn't have enough gameplay impact to be looked at in alpha.

[Defhrone 2]

I could imagine a scenario, where a survivor would stumble upon a radio and try asking for help on different random channels. While, somewhere on the map, someone is just searching a town and happens to hear a voice with some static comming from a bin and stumbles upon a radio that happened to be set to the channel the other one was talking over. Would they become friends, would they hunt eachother. I think the idea leaves so many options to explore it'll be actually interresting to see what people come up with. I think this whole mod thing is one big psychological test. What will people do when given the choice. Thnx for the interrest, hopefully a dev will notice this and check out the possibility.

[Rico (DayZ) 99]

I love the radio-tower idea

[Defhrone 2]

So do I!

I think the radio would soon become a tool of importance. It will allow you to talk to people you don't know who you happen to find on a channel and meet up (for better or worse)

I also think that adding batteries for it and the flashlight and possibly the NV googles. Power could become a form of currency. Since I assume to powerplant doesn't actually work since the cities don't have any lighting of their own. It would add yet another layer of realism to the game imo and I truely think it would be fun to scavenge for batteries to charge my battery pack and trading power with someone for a bloodpack or some juicy beans.

How about you folks?

[trebor333@hotmail.co.uk 0]

There is already a mod called ACRE which adds this type of functionality to an extent.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?133891-A-C-R-E-Advanced-Combat-Radio-Environment-1-4-Stable-Release-Thread

It integrates with teamspeak and so those on the same TS channel have really good directional and distance based direct von and radios can be picked up tuned to a channel ect. You can also pick up enemy radios and the channel they were on will stay and so you could kill a bandit take his radio and listen to his friends. Its limited though in that you need teamspeak to make it work.

[Keunus 0]

Great idea, love it.

[Pancakes 0]

I think allowing global chat via ham radio would be an excellent feature.

I was looking around at the ham radios, and there's one on Amazon that says it's a hand-held "Two-Way Emergency Crank Radio". It's the size of a normal radio, includes a mic, and has the ability to be recharged via dynamo crank.

[BannedOpinion 14]

Sounds interesting. The developers over at Project Reality have their own version of Mumble, perhaps something like that could be incorporated into the game, but some additional items are required for it to be entirely functional.

[haviv[3rdid] 57]

Imagine coming across a radio somewhere' date=' flipping through the channels and hearing some survivors coordinating. Would you butt in, offer assistance, risk having your ass shot by the strangers who want your radio? Or maybe stay quiet and stalk them, picking them off one by one.

Whether or not it's practical, from a dev point of view, it's certainly a sweet idea.

[/quote']

If they're smart, they'll use codewords on the radio and switch channels. They may even pretend to coordinate in order to bait snoopers into being set up.