Create Stages of Radio Broadcasts

[DoctorBoomstick]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

In my view, in-game radio has the potential to be a very powerful tool for story telling and world-building; however, it is, at the present, not utilised to its full potential. We have, apart from particular factions, very few areas and events that evolve as the game progresses: buildings don’t continually rot, streets don’t get overgrown by vegetation, etc. The radio has this same issue; all the snippets retained within can reflect various different game times with no relation to how far the player’s progressed in the world. Reports of the secession of Rhode Island rub shoulders with broadcasts from DJ Dustbowl, which are blended in with military communications from the assembly of the First Fleet. This makes it particularly hard to write consistent snippets for this category, as, while on the one hand, one might wish to write a snippet of a radio station’s last broadcast before being evacuated by what little remains of operational military forces following April 25th, one has no control over whether this snippet shows up 1 day into the cataclysm or 2 years into the game.

Solution you would like.

I propose that the current radio category should be divided into three stages that would transition throughout game-time.

• Stage 1, the early cataclysm, would play for 3–4 days after game start and reflect the final remains of official broadcasts, the last few formal radio networks going down with their ships, as it were, the military’s last consolidation of the First Fleet, some limited survivor transmissions, etc.
• Stage 2, the midgame, would play out for about 20–40 days after stage one and would retain communications between old guard units, starting survivor transmissions, small-scale communications between groups of survivors, single-person warnings, and the opening stages of establishments, like the scrapper NPC, perhaps announcing that they’re setting up places for business. These transmissions should be relatively infrequent, complemented by repeater messages left behind from stage one and the end of the world, to reflect the fact that people are struggling to get set up, establish themselves, survive, and not die. Those who manage this get to progress to stage 3.
• Stage 3, the main faze, is basically a month or two into the cataclysm, when those who would have died earlier have died, the survivors that are left have established themselves, and bigger groups can turn to radio as a realistic prospect of communications: the refugee centre and the free merchants, for example, could advertise their businesses at this time. Unseen factions that have been communicating through radio, such as holdouts in different states, can fall, be overrun, encounter singularities, have bush wars, whatever.

More personal broadcasters, like DJ Dustbowl, can have their storylines run the length of stages 2 and 3. This would be positive, as one could gate-given events to approximately happen in consecutive order. For example, currently, a broadcast from Dustbowl contains information that his pupper’s died. This makes no sense if, later, the player hears more radio messages where the dog’s still alive. With this system, the death message can come in stage 3, and anything else can come in stage 2. I think this would, if in an indirect and not strictly player-interactive way, represent some limited mobility and evolution in the world beyond the player’s bubble. I would take care to, likely, avoid directly name-dropping buildings the player themselves can visit, such as the aforementioned refugee centre, as it would be incongruent if the player could hear braudcasts from this location after they’ve blown up, stabbed, eaten, murdered, or done whatever edge lords do to those poor folks. Name-dropping the free merchants advertising faction business, for example, would be good; these could be facilities the player will never encounter in the game. Name-dropping characters the player can encounter as direct speakers in the broadcasts, Smokes, ignores the fact that these people can and will very likely die as the player interacts with them.

Describe alternatives you have considered.

No response

Additional context

No response