Once the sensor log stops showing people out of radar range, sector chat should be redone with a "range" that people can set. Here's how it would go down:

-If you have no target, typing in sector chat will, by default, broadcast to the entire sector. (or default range can be set in the interface panel)

-If you have a target, typing in sector chat will broadcast to everything in a radius equal to your target's distance.

-You can override distance manually by opening the sector chat box and starting the message with "/####" where "####" is the desired radius in meters. This would operate similarly to "/####" in channel chat except this would be for sector chat and correspond to radius, not the channel.

-For infinite full-sector broadcasts there will be no prefix, for ranged sector broadcasts the persons name will be preceded by "[####m]"

Aye?

Edit: As for eavesdropping from behind an asteroid... yeah sure. Unless you guys think otherwise.

That would be interesting. But if people are trying to chat while botting, it would be annoying as their chat would keep getting limited to the radius of the bot distance.

There is also the possibility of chat limited by radar occlusion.

I'm not sure that any of this is very important right now, it might even be counterproductive (people having more difficulty finding one another), but some interesting thoughts for down the road.

I think sector chat should always be sector wide. I don't see why radar occlusion would effect chat. Radio waves make it around objects, radar just looks at what got bounced back, no reason why chat would be any different. And you can tone down the strength of a signal but it doesn't just stop at a certain distance.

But what if random letters get blotted out as distance from sender increases beyond radar range or if radar occlusion is present? So the farther you are from the sender the more garbled the message.

..actually, radio waves have difficulty getting around objects. Especially in a vacuum, where there is no ionospheric reflection or tropospheric ducting. There are groundwaves, or also the general concept that a metallic asteroid may absorb and re-radiate a signal, but regardless there will be drastic attenuation for anyone within the occluded cone.

But anyway, we're not really talking about reality. So let's leave that out and decide what's better for gameplay. Having random characters drop out based on "signal quality" would be amusing, but I don't know if it would be fun/cool or just really irritating.

I was thinking somewhere along the lines of gameplay reasons, waffles. One example is transmitting a quick pirate hail to a ship and another ship nearby it without alerting another ship further off. It also has uses if you're not sure who is in the sector and you want to sector chat with two other people (I specifically meant this for when names that are out of range are removed from the sensor log).

Check out Incarnate dropping the ill science!

"but I don't know if it would be fun/cool or just really irritating."

It would be incredibly cool! Also would be great if it was the same for long distance voice chat.

I can easily see Ion storms severely hampering all communications....all alone and unable to call for backup....

I just dont see any game play benefits from asteroid occlusion...And a rat hiding in a field just listening is in fact fairly realistic.

touche inc :P

A strange thought...

ION storms limit/cut off radio comms...

Fog hampers sensors including fritzing up the display so randomly a third of the time you only see static...

We can talk to people who are in ion storms from the other side of the universe in ion storms. Instantly. I don't think realism is much of a factor in this suggestion lol.

its the year 4000 something right? why the hell are we still using radio? eventually attenuation would make it useless at any significant distance anyway..

Not good. Using AIM/Talk to target seems a way more practical and realistic solution.

As Inc said, radio waves do not make turns, but also you cannot decide/program when/where it will stop.

And to make things consistent, we should have radio occlusion from stars, planets and roids, increasing delays related to distance from sectors and no inter-system radio, so bye /100. Not worthy.

By the way, we should use a cliche from Sci-Fi, the Sub-Space comms... no change at all except the name radio becomes sub-space comm.