Combat Communications

[Senyu]

With the Hex territory system I feel like communications could be applied to the game in the sense of a tactical tool. Things such as communications requiring Hex control to give faction or squad wide messages or towers increasing the distance it can travel. Yes I know Vent, Skype, or Teamspeak can completly negate this in alot of ways but I'm still going to say it.

Indivuduals within Hex's faction owned Hex's can receive all communications. IE Commanders orders, outfit leaders, squads and such. If the Hex has a base then the communication benifits bleed over into adjacent Hex's. Some bases has supieror Comm modules and can bleed over multiple Hex's. Another method of having Comm is vehicles with the ability to have leadership module s. These modules would be able to act as Comm towers giving communications over a decent size area and connect it to the rest of your faction. These modules would also allow leaders to utilize tools such as leader maps to create missions, waypoint, and other tactical things. (Provided that they aren't already able to just press a button and do that from anywhere)

If you find yourself in a place not in faction communications range such as behind enemy territory, then you would only be able to communicate with local same faction players such as your squad. However you would be cut off from other squad/outfit members if they are still back in faction owned territory. Unless you bring of course a vehicle with communication module or high ranking officers are allowed deployable communications mini tower.

Again I realize vent could destroy on outfit size communications but over the entire faction this could be seen effecting game play. Just love the idea of communications being a tactical tool and not a given commodity

[Ailos]

Interesting proposition.

PS1 had a very rudimentary attempt at this: the CR chats. Starting with - what was it, CR2? - you could chat with other CR2s in a given radius that increased with your rank - in CR4 you could chat with any other CR4 on the continent, and at CR5 you could, of course, talk to anyone anywhere.

What I thought was kind of cool - especially when I first started playing - was the sitrep command - which basically would send a one-way message to the next CR up chat window. Used to send those all the time, 'till I got to CR5, where I promptly ignored most of them because any sitreps I cared about came from my outfit anyway.

I think what would be a very cool and tactically useful addition to the game is a way to manage high-level communications.

I am quite confident the normal limited-radius local chat which everyone can hear/read will be in the game (or at least it should be), as will the SOI-wide secure broadcast to your empire. But realistically, most of us will communicate in squad, platoon, and outfit chat/voice channels. Beyond that, high-order communication should happen between outfit leaders and continental commanders themselves, but I think we are all smart enough to figure that out ourselves, even if we have to resort to whispers. Still, it'd be nice to have a proper tool for it though.

However, here's another idea: communications sniffing as an infiltrator certification. Basically, this would be an implant, a piece of equipment, or some other kind of a transmitter that would allow you to listen in on secured enemy broadcasts while you're in their territory: everyone can read the local chat log if they're within the radius, but the hex-wide secure broadcasts (including any commander globals) require this special skill to see/hear. Perhaps several levels of this specialization allow snooping of different levels, too (maybe going as far as allowing to snoop on everything short of outfit channels and whispers?).

[Kipper]

I don't think you can turn in-game communication into a play mechanic, mainly because you don't have to participate using the in-game methods, or at all.

The first time anyone thought that the other empires were reading/listening to their tactically important chatter, they'd take it to Teamspeak or Ventrillo.

[Graywolves]

I believe in PS1 you couldn't broadcast communicate in enemy SOI.

[The Kush]

I don't think you can turn in-game communication into a play mechanic, mainly because you don't have to participate using the in-game methods, or at all.

The first time anyone thought that the other empires were reading/listening to their tactically important chatter, they'd take it to Teamspeak or Ventrillo.

Good point

[Timealude]

However, here's another idea: communications sniffing as an infiltrator certification. Basically, this would be an implant, a piece of equipment, or some other kind of a transmitter that would allow you to listen in on secured enemy broadcasts while you're in their territory: everyone can read the local chat log if they're within the radius, but the hex-wide secure broadcasts (including any commander globals) require this special skill to see/hear. Perhaps several levels of this specialization allow snooping of different levels, too (maybe going as far as allowing to snoop on everything short of outfit channels and whispers?).

that would be fun, but i think it would just push it back to 3rd party communications. However I do like the idea of what your saying, maybe instead of like chat and stuff it could be icon on your mini map to show troop positions, like level one communications hacking is seeing infantry only, level 2 is ground vehicles and level 3 is aircraft.

[Ailos]

I don't think you can turn in-game communication into a play mechanic, mainly because you don't have to participate using the in-game methods, or at all.

The first time anyone thought that the other empires were reading/listening to their tactically important chatter, they'd take it to Teamspeak or Ventrillo.
I was thinking more along the lines of such an implant allowing the enemy to see your commander's global text broadcasts… or empire-wide missions that they post for others to complete (outfit stuff needs to stay secure to the outfit). Not literally hear your VOIP chatter. Otherwise, yeah, everyone would just instantly switch over to TS or Vent.

that would be fun, but i think it would just push it back to 3rd party communications. However I do like the idea of what your saying, maybe instead of like chat and stuff it could be icon on your mini map to show troop positions, like level one communications hacking is seeing infantry only, level 2 is ground vehicles and level 3 is aircraft.
I think that's already in the game in the sense that there is already an infiltrator class with their specializations... if such specializations for the infiltrator aren't already in the game (or aren't currently being worked on), then it's not much of an infiltrator class, now is it?

[Toppopia]

There was an idea for infiltrators to beable to hack enemy terminals to see mission set by the enemy,so that would really add value to an infiltrator, could see where enemies are heading, and maybe you never get 100% of the message so you can either hack multiple times or try for 1 long powerful hack which has a higher chance of being detected by the enemy. That would add a new gameplay value to infiltrators.

[Noivad]

In PS1 you has C2 - C3 - C4 -C5 chat and u also had SL and PL chat channels. Few people used them though, maybe because they did not know they were available with just the / command except the C5 channel.

[TerranTitan]

Dolby Axon - It's free - 500 people in one server.

Win.

[Sentrosi]

If someone were to spec in a recon-type of class (say infiltrator or light assault) and had a sidegrade to broadcast from an enemy SOI, that would be a really nice feature to have. I could see something like Rangers or Marine Corp Recon units infiltrating the enemy SOI and broadcasting troop concentrations and/or activity within it.

[Pyreal]

You put some good thought into that, but I don't like the idea of limiting communication.

As a player I would see it as nothing more than a limiting hassle, rather than a nifty piece of game mechanic.

The outfit I'm in is using TS3, but I still don't see a point in limiting communications within the game. Heck, their ingame voip might work better than TS3 in certain situations!

[Rozonus]

I hope that the in-game voice chat system I remember reading about lets us speak to all friendly players in my local vicinity rather than just my own squad.

It's really annoying in FPSs on PC such as Battlefield 2142 when I can talk to my group mates who are at the other end of the map but I can't talk to a friendly player who's standing right next to me. Emotes are rubbish compared to quick vocal info!

For example, in PS1 I'd be sniping next to a couple of other friendly snipers who aren't in my squad. I notice an enemy cloaker and run out of range of the boomer he just placed, but the other friendly snipers are still sat there. By the time I've remembered the correct combination of emote buttons to press to warn them, they've been blown up.

In another example, imagine that a friendly player has spotted some enemy players hiding who are about to attack. You've just turned up and you don't know that they're there. The only option the friendly player has in PS1 is to use a general emote to say that there are enemies in the area, but by the time he's whispered you or written something in general chat, the enemies have already ambushed you and killed you.

Programs like TeamSpeak are great but I'd like to see a more robust integrated voice chat system.

[Senyu]

While I know some don't like the idea of limiting voice chat, I still want to see other features in the game that are used in tactical and are play mechanics besides fighting. Intelligence, communications, sabotage, and more. Things that aren't combat focused but are still gameplay mechanics and requires tactics and logistics.


On regards of last post, having voice chat in game effect close people would be nice. I would imagine it would be set up as follows.
Players may enable or disable player voicechat in local area. This is a range of 30ft. If enabled you will hear your faction allies voicechat directed to the local area. Should you choose to disable you will not hear it. All players that are speaking in the local area will pop up little voice talking icons on whichever side of the screen you set your bar at. Or a collapsable bar that only requires a click to fold it out showing all the names speaking currently. With that you may designate which ones you want to mute. They will become permamuted and may be removed later at an options screen that saves all your mutes.

Additionally players of high command rank may bypass other voices to make sure their orders are heard. They may use a special voice chat button that muffles other players who are speaking so his voice can be heard and thus give orders. Of course high ranking players that abuse this can be reported and lose this ability. So don't abuse!

To incorporate this to allow local voice chat and squad voice chat there would need to be two seperate chat buttons which of your the player can rebind the keys for them.

And another last note is that if there is a location that high ranking players use to view the battlefield or perform higher functions like, monitoring troop movements, calling in Orbital Strike, what-have-you, they may also zoom into a area of some troops and send a long distance overide message that muffles the local chat in that area so they can say something like , "Tank Platoon heading to your position. You have reinforcements closeby coming soon." And with that feature I will let your minds imagine all possible counters or sabotage from Infiltrators >:)

[MrBloodworth]

IF there is no V - V - V in the game, we have a problem.

[Sentrosi]

If we use PS1 as a model of the soldier - squad - platoon rankings I could see ingame voip being used very well. For those new to Planetside you could have a total of 30 people in a coordinated unit lead by a Platoon leader.

The Platoon leader could give permissions to Squad leaders who then could give permissions to their soldiers under their command voice. Now you could have a Platoon leader who segments all of his chatter through to his SL or you could just have the PL open comms to everyone within their platoon. I can see some segmenting the voice comms so that their recon units get voice priority during a part of the operation.

[Noivad]

Dolby Axon - It's free - 500 people in one server.

Win.

Not True - This from their website.


Guild friendly: You can invite up to 150 of your guild mates to your chat room and chat with 50 of them at the same time. Customize your chats by dividing them up into four channels to have separate conversations in one room.

big difference between 50 and 500. Also its meant to run from your computer, not a good thing if you like your own Frames Per Second. :evil:

[Toppopia]

As long as you can structures set up so that outfit leader talks to everyone, platoon leaders talk to their platoon and other platoon leaders, squad leaders talk to their squad and other squad leaders, and people in the squad only talk to their squad mates and squad leader, or does that sound too much hassle? Unless it can be done so that you don't need to change chat windows all the time, but so it can be set up before hand. Or is that not possible?