I know I've suggested something like this before, but I would just like to revisit it because I believe this game neds more immersion into RolePlaying. The original idea was that input or output on chat would be impossible if in an ion storm unless you were in radar range. On this thread it would be cool if people could put together and organize all the RP chat ideas they can think of. I will start with a few that probably have been suggested before:

More official channels like an official Ion Storm report channel, A distress channel, etc..

Other related RP ideas will be welcome such as: an NPC automatic distress call answerer that would demand a large sum of money after the fray. (This is just an example).

But I feel that this game lacks a lot of RolePlaying immersion... The easiest place to start fixing it would be in the chat. Suggest away.

the most rp this game has had was player-driven.

most usually, some background piece was written on the forums. the rp-ers would contribute or get involved in one way or another and a thread would usually culminate into some sort of pre-announced in-game event.

this works for those who care about rp and those who just want to see action in-game.

a lot of times, personal emails were exchanged between rp-ers involved in a specific thread to help organize the event or the story line. sometimes, a single post could be co-edited via email or chat.

recently, with the departure of some rp-ers, this kind of activity seems to have dies down but we can also attribute this to the usual summer-slump vo suffers every year.

try it yourself. think of some nice in-game event and slowly bring it up via rp threads and sporadic in-game intervention. works like a charm. and i'm sure you'll have fun with that.

not being involved in anything right now, i could help you if you want by giving you tips or guidelines for making this work. others can help too.

until the game system has more goal-related or task-related or quest-related mechanics built in, user-driven events are your best rp bet.

automated chat message (storm reports etc) are pretty much icing on the cake and can probably be achieved using the (darned) lua hacks (wich i'm totally against but hey... i'm a purist)

I'll be honest, I find RP in VO lacking. Besides chatting and shooting (pew pew), you can't do much in the way of active RP.

So to sum up, more RP gameplay elements, less RP chat elements, imho.

i always though an in-game link with the rp forums would help a lot. through the pda.

i dont think it would be terribly difficult to achieve. it would give players and rp-ers something more than just the station news feeds (wich is really under-used).

if we had player-driven new system, it would help too.

imagine some half-guide level on vo with the possibility to create simple objects (with no or little value) and news rights, it would give a little more weapons in the arsenal of rp-ers.

but all of this has already been suggested in one form or another.

until latency is resolved for me, i'd make a comeback in vo in a heartbeat if we had such control. it would occupy me for a while i'm sure.

How much latency do you get upper case?
cos my ping is typically 150 (138 on a good day, 180 on a bad day) and it's OK.

edit: discussion about that would be off-topic i suppose.

RP chat sounds nice... unfortunately with stuff like cap ships, personal convoys, and all the glitches along the way that give some people ridiculous advantages and seriously hinders others (the dashed license glitch would fall under the former), this wouldn't be seen as quite a priority and implemented for at least a few months. Perhaps within a year, which is I guess why these are called suggestions rather then orders.

Oh and my average ping is about 80-90 :D, high speed pays off... but when its not good, its not usable.