Department and government communication is available only through eligible faction ranks. Rank access, faction duty, and the chosen channel are separate conditions: department radio can work off duty, while badges, megaphones, and government announcements require both duty and their own rank permission.

Check role access and duty

Use /ranks when you need to understand the current rank’s permissions. Seeing a command in help does not prove that the current faction, rank, or duty state can use it.

Before using a badge, megaphone, or government announcement:

  1. Use /duty to enter faction duty. Where the faction runs an armory, and for any rank allowed a service uniform, do this on foot at an active armory the faction owns, with an eligible uniform selected.
  2. Wait for the confirmed duty result.
  3. Retry the intended communication only after duty is active.

If entering duty is refused, check the location and uniform conditions above before anything else. A rank with no duty permission at all needs a role change from faction leadership rather than a repeated command. Duty resets when the session ends.

Department radio is different: an eligible rank can use it without entering duty, and it does not currently require a carried radio item.

Choose a department-radio audience

Department radio can target every eligible department or one current organization tag.

  1. Use /departments to review the eligible tags and current selection.
  2. Use /setdep to choose all departments or one displayed tag.
  3. Recheck the list if the selected department changes or disappears.
  4. After reconnecting, select a targeted department again if needed; the session starts from the default all-departments audience.

A targeted transmission reaches eligible listeners in the sender’s faction and the selected faction. Selecting the sender’s own faction is valid. Do not guess a stale tag when the current department list can be reopened.

Transmit on department radio

Use /dep for an ordinary department-radio transmission. Remote listeners see the source and destination tags together with the speaker’s faction rank and character name. Nearby characters hear a local roleplay echo of the speaker using the radio.

Use /deplow when the physical local echo should reach only very nearby characters. The remote department audience is unchanged; only the local speech range differs.

The sender also receives their own remote transmission while department radio is enabled. Messages remain subject to the ordinary roleplay and communication rules even though they travel beyond local speech.

Toggle incoming department traffic

/togdep controls both reception and transmission for the current session.

  • When disabled, eligible incoming department traffic is suppressed.
  • A member with radio disabled cannot transmit until it is enabled again.
  • Reception returns to enabled after reconnecting.

If another eligible member cannot hear a transmission, confirm they are online, in character, still hold the required rank access, and have not disabled department radio.

Show official identification

An eligible on-duty member can use /badge to reveal their character name, faction, and rank to nearby players.

This is a proximity roleplay line to the surrounding scene. It is not a private target card, issued badge-number item, or guarantee that nearby characters must comply. Keep the display consistent with what the current character and faction can legitimately represent.

Use the megaphone

/megaphone sends a wide local public-address message. It reaches substantially farther than ordinary speech but remains tied to the nearby scene rather than broadcasting server-wide.

The action requires an eligible rank and active duty. Use it for public instructions or scene communication without treating the wider range as control over another player’s response.

Make a government announcement

An eligible on-duty member can use /gov for a server-wide announcement labelled with the member’s faction. This is distinct from local megaphone speech and internal department radio.

Announcements have visible spam protection. If told to wait, allow the current wait to clear before retrying. Keep announcements concise and confirm that the message was visibly delivered before assuming players received it. There is no player-side government-announcement mute.

Recover when communication fails

  • Not in an eligible faction: these role-specific channels are unavailable to the current character.
  • Rank cannot use the action: membership or duty alone is not enough; review faction rank access.
  • Must be on duty: enter duty and wait for confirmation before retrying badge, megaphone, or announcement actions.
  • Duty cannot be entered: return on foot to an active armory your faction owns and select an eligible uniform. If the rank itself holds no duty permission, resolve the role assignment through faction leadership.
  • Department radio is off: enable it before transmitting or expecting incoming traffic.
  • A department tag is rejected: reopen /departments and choose a currently displayed target.
  • A selected department disappears: accept the reset to all departments or choose another current tag.
  • Another member cannot hear radio: confirm their rank access, connection, character state, and radio toggle.
  • The character is incapacitated: retry after recovering through the appropriate health flow.
  • A message is refused as not plain text: department radio, the megaphone, and government announcements accept plain printable text only. Remove braces and percent signs, then send it again.
  • An announcement is not visibly delivered: do not spam retries; shorten it if needed and wait for any displayed restriction to clear.
  • After reconnecting: duty is off, department reception is enabled, and the radio target is reset.

For choosing the right speech channel, see Roleplay and chat fundamentals.