Having been in game a fair bit during the recent influx of new players it is apparent that our traditional habit of saying everything on 100 is causing new folk to miss answers to questions since the chat scrolls past too quickly. I suspect many of the vets are missing the questions for the same reason.

I know the Training missions cover it, but inevitably with so much to learn folk may miss out on how chat works, so I'll try and clarify it a bit.

The following is a list of the commonly used channels :

1 : Help channel";
"11 : Nation chat (Only members of the same nation can see this chat)";
"14 : [IA] Recruiting Channel. Itani Alliance";
"69 : Planetside players channel";
"70 : German chat";
"97 : Windows Users Channel";
"98 : Linux Users Channel";
"99 : Apple Macintosh Users Channel";
"100 : General Chat";
"101 : French Chat";
"102 : Russian Chat";
"103 : Spanish Chat";
"104 : Dutch Chat";
"105 : Norwegian Chat";
"106 : Finnish Chat";
"111 : Help Channel (alternate channel in case channel 1 is crowded)";
"201 : Itani Convoy Transmissions (not for chat)";
"202 : Serco Convoy Transmissions (not for chat)";
"205 : Public Capship info Channel";
"300 : In-character Role Playing Chat.";
"411 : "
"444 : TGFT Recruitment Channel. The Guild of Free Traders";
"700 : Political (US) Discussion";
"701 : Platform discussions";
"911 : Emergency Channel";
"1111: [ONE] public channel;
"946 : Public IDF Channel Itani Defense Force";
"1313: Elite Guild Recruitment and info channel (public)";
"1337 : Off-topic chat channel";
"4357 : Viper channel to report pirate activity";

vo lets you listen to many channels, but you can only type to one channel at a time. So typing /j 444 would let you type in channel 444. Typing /j 1 would then let you type on channel 1 , but you would still be monitoring 444 until you type /leave 444.

The shorthand form /100[space] also works . Page up and down scroll the chat , and cursor keys move through the chats you have typed.

Monitoring many channels can be a good thing later in the game, but at first it can make the chat vanish as fast as it appears .
There are 2^32 channels , so if you want to have a channel for friends or family feel free to pick one.

The chat channel you are currently in shows in light blue, those you are monitoring show in dark blue.
Sector chat [T] is only seen by players in the same sector as you and appears as bright green.
Private messages [ /msg "Ecka Estenk" hello there ] appear as red and can be replied to by tab key.

Group messages [g] show in yellow and guild messages [G] show in gold . these are only visible to your group or guild if you are in them.

With the exception of channel 11 which is only seen by players of your nation all channels are universal , everyone everywhere can see them .

Hope that helps a bit, perhaps now would be a good time for the vets to use the available channels a bit more.

Ecka

Er, I meant to post this in general . feel free to delete it .