i'm sure there are tons of reasons to shoot this idea down (external chat/voice, being unable to talk to eachother, etc.) but hear me out. what if we could build communicators in starbound. the starter one would transmit up to 1000 feet, and any further than that it just wouldnt pick up. either that, or you could get some jarbled message like 'he$@o' instead of hello. I also cant see much reason to add this feature, other than to add a twist to keep your team more together.
Hmmm... I hope you don't mind my adding something to this, and nothing should be excluded because of an external program, not everyone runs one. If communicators exist in game they should have several tiers for various levels of usefulness and they would take up a tech slot. They would boost your hearing range. Everyone would be able to hear everyone at all times, except people currently hostile (assuming you have a communicator, no communicator no different frequencies, also communicators cant boost your hearing range of people who don't use communicators.) Not having one your voice wouldn't carry very far, lets say a yelling distance of ~50ft before is starts to become less coherent, quickly cutting off entirely at ~80ft (or instantly in space.) With a basic communicator you would reliably hear ~120 ft, cutting off at ~170, this would be almost instantly available via low tier metals. A mid tiered one would be created using your original and various scientific doodads (such as an antenna) and it would boost to about 500ft, cutting off at ~1000. A high tiered version (made from your mid tiered one and high grade components) would allow you to lock onto certain people and talk to them even off world reliably, and would pick up general transmissions at an impressive distance of ~2000ft, before dropping off at ~2500. Communicator related items: Signal booster and Signal jammer, both are made with rather low tier components and take up tech slots. A Signal booster would do a couple things, first and foremost it would clean up anything you can hear so your max range could be heard reliably. It would also allow you to hear the transmissions to anyone you can hear (filtering out things you already have already heard.) For example, you are a spy in a pvp game listening into enemy communications, but are a noob and only have a basic communicator, however you are within 100 feet of one of the enemies best players, he happens to have the best available communicator (and no jamming device, he needs the tech slot for more lethal gear.) The result is your signal booster piggybacking off of his signal and letting you hear most enemy chatter. The Signal jammer is a pvp counter to the booster. It prevents the piggybacking and makes everything you say jarbled to anyone who isn't allied with you. The jarbling should still be readable though, perhaps letter substitution ("Ohh god poptops!" becomes "Pii hpe qpqupqt" if you advance each letter by one.)
thats more or less what i was considering, although i hadnt considered the signal jammer/booster. another option during world creation would be to take those out alltogether, just to let all people talk to eachother
