Suggestion:20081227 Walkie Talkie

20081227 Walkie Talkie

A Big F'ing Dog 02:34, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion type
Item

Suggestion scope
Survivors

Suggestion description
Hello everyone. First off before you Dupe, I know walkie talkies have already been suggested and are peer viewed. Here it is. What I am suggesting is not the idea of walkie talkies themselves but a specific way of limiting their power, and thus improving on the base concept already in peer review.

Walkie talkies would be a portable item found mainly in firestations, and rarely in PDs and mall tech stores. WTs let you broadcast a message two blocks, to cover a 5x5 area. Everyone with a *powered* walkie within range will hear your message.

Walkies can either be powered or unpowered. Only powered walkies can be used to transmit messages, and only powered walkies will receive messages. Each time you use a walkie there is a random chance of it becoming unpowered, like a spray can getting used up. However unlike a spray can, an unpowered walkie stays in your inventory.

To repower a walkie you would need a walkie charger. This item would be found in the same places as walkies, and could be set up in buildings. In buildings containing a running generator and a walkie charger players could click on individual unpowered walkies to recharge them for 10AP.

So what's the point? The purpose is to send short messages to people in your immediate area, while remaining mobile. Unlike radios or cell phones you can't talk endlessly because you'll use up your battery. Walkie power would need to be conserved like ammunition.

Why not use radios, cell phones, or metagaming? Swiers' already approved suggestion explains that already. In a nutshell what you get is:

• Ability to contact strangers (radio frequencies require prior agreement on channel, cell phones require you be contacts)
• Relevance - It's close to you, not from someone six suburbs away
• Less spam - Less range also means not hearing every jackass in the city, only jackasses in your immediate area.
• Mobility - Radios/phones require you be in a powered/transmitter equipped building, and that your suburb have a transmitter. Not too good if you're on the go, or in a dangerous suburbs where powered buildings get ruined fast. There's a reason in real life that police and firemen use walkie talkies during operations, and not ham radios or cell phones or AIM. That same reason applies here.

What this suggestion adds to the approved one is:

• Even less spam - Limited battery means spammers use up their charge fast.
• Ties it to generators - Balances it out. No free power. Transmitters and cell phones need a running generator. This doesn't need a currently running generator, but requires that you have spent 10AP per walkie while one was running.
• Makes power a finite resource - Like ammunition you'd need to store up walkie power, and be smart about when to use it.

Voting Section

Voting Rules

Votes must be numbered, justified, signed, and timestamped. # justification ~~~~ Votes that do not conform to the above may be struck by any user.

The only valid votes are Keep, Kill, Spam or Dupe. If you wish to abstain from voting, do not vote.

Keep Votes

1. Keep Not a dupe! This is the old suggestion. Its creator, Swiers, approved of these additions while I developed it. You can read all the debates here. This adds a great deal to balance the walkie talkie concept, making it more likely to maybe, possibly, perhaps get implemented. Thank you for reading it all - I know it is long, but I try to be succinct and clear as possible. Please feel free to ask any questions. --A Big F'ing Dog 02:37, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
2. Keep I like the idea and the batteries concept seems reasonable and well thought out. Legion8 05:16, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Kill Votes

1. Kill - Mobile Phones, Speech, Flares, and Radios cover all communication needs that need covering. The arguments behind this are the very same behind the Radio. Almost this exact suggestion was even proposed before, with slightly less detail as to how power would be achieved. At least twice The common problem with most all of them is drawing a line between usability and restrictions. However I still don't think this specifically requires insta-spam, others will disagree. It needs better balance, find out a way to do that then we will talk, as is it's a new communications strata that will replace the four other and has no notable downside, a random chance isn't good enough unless it's 15% or more. If you do end up revising it again Charge for a number of AP and amount of time with whichever happens first.--Karek^maps?! 09:54, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
   • Re I disagree that there is no downside. When I compared it to a spray can I meant a similar amount of uses, a very high chance of using up the charge. Unlike the other modes of communication every 3 uses or so you'd need to spend 10AP to charge your walkie. To broadcast regularly, even just once a day, would require a significant weekly expenditure of AP on recharging (not even counting the cost of finding a charger, or finding a building with a charger). As for replacing the other forms of communication, I don't think a short range high AP cost device will replace modes of communication with unlimited range and unlimited broadcasts. It just has different uses thanks to its mobility. But I'm not really trying to convince people to vote keep on walkies. They're already peer reviewed. I'm just suggesting that if they were, hypothetically, to be introduced this recharge system would be an ideal way of limiting their power. --A Big F'ing Dog 15:47, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
     • You're significantly over-hyping the costs outlined in your suggestion. 13 AP for three uses is by no means bad, it's better than a normal transmitter in a less than safe area and certainly has a leg up on a mobile phone, which are what you should actually be comparing them too anyway. You're giving survivors a means of ranged communication free of the chance of zombie interference, it shouldn't be easy and it certainly shouldn't have a chance to go 50 AP without a single recharge, no matter how small. If you want the costs you claim in your RE to be more realistic a time limit for how long a charge can be held would be an actual step towards that. So would a limit on number of uses between charges, especially with the RNG tendency to trends.--Karek^maps?! 16:04, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
2. Kill - I don't really care for the idea of walkie-talkies in the first place. --ZsL 02:45, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Spam/Dupe Votes

1. Double Dupe - Of the walkie talkies, link supplied by author, and the ingame precedent. There may be batteries in Urban Dead, but there are no charger cables. -- . . <== DDR Approved Editor 17:23, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
   • Re Walkies don't use charger cables like video cameras. Instead they have charger brackets. I suggest adding those brackets as a findable item. --A Big F'ing Dog 17:50, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

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