the Future of Spectrum

[Shadow Reaper]

Yeah. And FPS is not for everyone. Team ship to ship combat is not for everyone. There is really a balance to be had I think. The more cooperatively you play, the more powerful your presence in the 'verse, but also the more you need to collaborate with others and work as a team. Lone wolves don't accomplish much. Team players pay into a bank to earn each other's confidence. Some of that is this. I am curious if we will see the FPS guys using hand gestures the way assault troops do, in order to communicate silently. That would be pretty cool.

 

[Bambooza]

It is still interesting to see this feature come and go over the years. Battlefield 2 had a similar feature natively with squad level and command level comms. Which allowed squad leaders and the commander to talk about the battlefield current strategic goals while the squad can chatter about their current situation. Given that it was native to the game it allowed who was in each channel to dynamically change and was far more flexible then teamspeak and discord.

So I do hope we can come back to this level of voice communications along with the talk of being able to voice chat with those in the same space outside of having to set up comms.

 

[Jamison]

So, I guess since almost everyone uses Discord. When spectrum actually comes online, have both up and running. Different PTT buttons for each.

Maybe organize off of that. I honestly don't see the need for much more than 2 layers on any specific mission. One being command net and a team net. Unless we're getting into really large battles with multiple groups at once... If that's the case, just shake things out as would the same way, just with more complications.

It's a great concept, and I'd like to see it implemented, but if wishes were fishes.

 

[Bambooza]

but if wishes were fishes

Its a good thing fishes are delicious, so keep wishing. :)

But I agree two channels for the most part during any sort of multi squad event is enough.

 

[Stevetank]

Yeah. And FPS is not for everyone. Team ship to ship combat is not for everyone. There is really a balance to be had I think. The more cooperatively you play, the more powerful your presence in the 'verse, but also the more you need to collaborate with others and work as a team. Lone wolves don't accomplish much. Team players pay into a bank to earn each other's confidence. Some of that is this. I am curious if we will see the FPS guys using hand gestures the way assault troops do, in order to communicate silently. That would be pretty cool.

We happen to have some of the gestures bound to the numpad already ;D

 

[Bambooza]

And here I thought drinking would be an involuntary reflex that wouldn't require key binding.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

So, I guess since almost everyone uses Discord. When spectrum actually comes online, have both up and running. Different PTT buttons for each.

I would not be surprised if they made Spectrum deliberately incompatible with Discord somehow. The problem is what happens when you die. If when you die you can warn your friends what killed you, the game loses a lot of its immersion. I think this is one reason CIG is taking on the communications issue instead of relying on Discord--to provide greater immersion. You should not be able to communicate with your team, friends, buddies, etc. when you have just been killed, wether in FPS or while aboard a ship. This was in some official ramblings a couple or three years ago.

 

[Jamison]

I would not be surprised if they made Spectrum deliberately incompatible with Discord somehow. The problem is what happens when you die. If when you die you can warn your friends what killed you, the game loses a lot of its immersion. I think this is one reason CIG is taking on the communications issue instead of relying on Discord--to provide greater immersion. You should not be able to communicate with your team, friends, buddies, etc. when you have just been killed, wether in FPS or while aboard a ship. This was in some official ramblings a couple or three years ago.

You know if they try to make it incompatible, love will find a way. Lol. I bet you there would be several dozen work arounds within 15 minutes.

 

[Stevetank]

You know if they try to make it incompatible, love will find a way. Lol. I bet you there would be several dozen work arounds within 15 minutes.

I have a PC and a laptop. Work around found!

 

[maynard]

I would not be surprised if they made Spectrum deliberately incompatible with Discord somehow. The problem is what happens when you die. If when you die you can warn your friends what killed you, the game loses a lot of its immersion. I think this is one reason CIG is taking on the communications issue instead of relying on Discord--to provide greater immersion. You should not be able to communicate with your team, friends, buddies, etc. when you have just been killed, wether in FPS or while aboard a ship. This was in some official ramblings a couple or three years ago.

whenever I see should used this way I say to myself, "There's a person about to be disappointed by human nature once again"

Out-of-band comms channels are a fact of life. If using them confers a competitive advantage, they will be used. Gameplay design that doesn't take the world's Discords and Teamspeaks into account will suffer for it.

 

[ColdDog]

I'm sure we have plenty of prior military folks in the org... and yes, it is technically correct but I am not sure the soln would fit for everyone. For one, it takes training, two it takes discipline, three takes time to master. We have hardcore people, we have people like me that play for the love of the game - come and go as we please and play when we want - and then we have casual players. I've been on missions in other games where they make this work (eve, cod, battlefield, etc)... I suppose the question is... how much does CIG want to invest when there are other products already out there?

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

So... Assuming this particular piece of Theorycraft comes to being:

Will the Ninetails Pirates and others have a similar Mill-Spec setup?

Or will the potential Mill-Spec dual channel comms be restricted to just the UEE Navy and even Players with decades of service can go an eat worms until they have earned their citizenship?

Larger ships may likely have a dedicated communications officer... if you give the job to an NPC, how is that going to work with players VOIPing at them? (It won't) Will NPC manned Comms have to be options from a list rather than VOIP as no AI is going to be capable enough to distinguish "Get me a beer!" from "Get me a medic!" unless we recruit Siri or Alexa? And if so, where does that leave our precious immersion if the option you want is not on the list to choose from?

What I think would be more likely is you have your VOIP channel for inter-ship teams as that requires immediate feedback and confirmations, and your command channel will be text that takes a prominent position in your visor, and you'll have to type back or Voice-To-Text (Or maybe just voice if the command has a manned player) back to that.

I see no issue with command channel being text as brvty cn b 4 txt 2.