Script author: Mmartin
Author Comments: |
Number formats | Service hotlines | Landlines a.k.a 1-800's | House & Business phones | Tracing
Operators and billing plans
Phone system is one of the major systems in LS-RP and it needed innovations. Just like the recently revamped vehicle system, it wasn't touched for a long time. Goal of the system is to induct new SAMP features and make the system more dynamic and a journey for everyone. Various required features, including burner phones, GUI, SMS inbox, radiotowers, advanced tracing, advanced payphones and basically all suggestions we received over the years were taken into consideration. Most of them made it through.
Graphic Interface:
One of the most radical changes in the phone system is taking it away from chat as much as possible. Not only because it's more appealing towards the user, but it also reduces your chat spam. This was a necessity with the phone book feature, however the call dialogue and some of the error/information messages still stay in main chat. t's made so most of the features can be controlled by both the interface and through commands, so you don't have to worry about old habits. You'll be able to call your friend through command just same as through clicking it out in menu. Arrows and buttons are controlled with your mouse. You can choose whether to show the phone or not, you can walk with the phone shown on your screen, have it hidden, just as you wish. |
Contacts:
Saving your contacts with the note system is a pain, isn't it? Well, worry no more. Your contact list will be able to save up to 20 contacts, let that be your friend's number, number of that payphone on your corner, mom's house line, taxi landline or basically any number you wish to save. With a contact saved in your phone, contacting your buddy won't be any harder than /call crisrko or /sms Mario wsup, need restock? ...
Limits:
- Gold donator - 40
- Silver donator - 32
- Bronze donator - 24
- Regular user - 16
Payphones:
72. If my second grade math skills aren't playing games with me, that's how many payphones are going to be placed over the map. Payphones come with a few new features, one of which is calling a payphone, payphone having a number, or even the ability to call a payphone from a payphone. Payphone numbers are in format: 024-[AREACODE][UNIQUENUMBER]. List of area codes:
|
Radio Towers and Signal:
Several radio towers were placed all around San Andreas. All cities and even counties. As your logic surely hints you already, being close to a tower increases your signal, which later affects the quality of your transmission (you'll hardly feel this, only if your signal is below 10%). Coverage and all towers are documented here. Lack of signal in certain country side areas (e.g. Fallen Tree) will now make people come out of their trailers on the road to catch proper signal, while downtown suits have nothing to worry about, having 10 towers covering their snob arses. |
Short Message Service (SMS):
The only influential changes in the SMS system are that they save, can be archived (if you don't want to loose them), deleted, forwarded or replied to. Delay between sending a SMS and it arriving is anywhere between 3-6 seconds, regardless of your signal. Upon the SMS arriving (or failing to arrive), you receive a phone emote. Note how the white blip turns green; it's green anytime you have unread messages. Due to SMS's being in the GUI as well, it'll make people actually pull over or pause their conversation to read their SMS.
Customization and Settings:
It was tough to come up with anything at all to make the phones more personal. We already had custom phone numbers and the ability to turn your phone off or back on and to that, we're adding several new settings: Airplane mode, silent mode, ringtones and various color schemes.
- Airplane mode & Silent mode - Pretty much self explanatory. Airplane mode disables any sort of network communication - calls, SMSs or tracing won't be possible while having the airplane mode on. Silent mode disables the ringtones (read below) and automatic phone GUI displaying when receiving a call. You will be, however, informed about your phone vibrating.
- Ringtones - Not only you and the people around you will be able to hear your phone ringing, but you'll be able to choose from around three different ringtones!
- Color schemes - You're able to purchase phones at Verona Mall of various "models". The only thing they really differ in is the color layout. The color will differ on both the object in your hand and the GUI. Some of the available colors are red, default dark grey, blue, green, yellow, purple and orange.
Number formats:
Basic number format: prefix-number.
- Private (regular) phone: 555-[number]
- e.g. 555-130888
- Note: This prefix is default and 'optional'. You won't have to use it at all.
- Payphones: 024-[area code][unique number]
- e.g. 024-516-025
- Company Landlines: 1-800-[number]
- e.g. 1-800-1236
- Note: Company landlines will be accessible for official alternative factions
Service hotlines:
Certain jobs have certain hotlines, e.g. Taxi Driver, Mechanic, Impounder, ... You'll receive calls on the job from your customers or people demanding information. All of them, including emergency 911 calls or job calls will be toggable, thus you'll be able to turn them off if they annoy you.
List of service numbers:
- 911 - Emergency Services Hotline - Shows for LEO/EMT personnel on duty
- 991 - Non-emergency, this will now work just like 911 calls. You'll be able to respond to a call
- 555 - Mechanic hotline
- 544 - Taxi hotline
- 533 - Impounder hotline
- 212 - SADoC hotline
- ??? - GOV hotline
Toll Free numbers (1-800's) - Faction landlines:
Feature designed for alternative factions which provides the members a new way to communicate with its customers or subscribers. The landline is fully customizable, ranging from color setup to ranks that may operate the line or its number. Numbers are in format of 1-800-{Landline number / text}, so for example San Andreas Network (as showed in the example) could have 1-800-SAN. The landline provides history of calls (since last server restart) and history of text messages (20 most recent messages are loaded at server restart). Landline operators may view details about last calls/texts - such as number of the player, time of the call or its duration. Landline administrators (restriction can be customized per faction) are available to open or close the line and hang up calls of other operators.
Tracing:
Tracing has been an issue. Numerous people complained about its misuse and there was a bunch of inquiries to remove the feature for civilians (civ. detective job), and that's happening. Tracing will be only available for LSPD and SASD detectives and high ranked personnel. There's two forms of tracing, private and faction-wide. While a detective can trace for himself, a higher ranked faction member can do a faction wide trace (e.g. at joint operations). Tracing will look and work different now, preview of faction wide trace is below:
Note: precision, accuracy and size of highlighted map area depends on how many towers are covering the area.
Operators and billing plans:
Competition is in the air of LS and multiple phone operators are dying to offer you best contract deal ever. You're be able to choose from several (2-3) operators for your cellular device, while each of them offers you different billing plan. There's two contract types, regular and prepaid. While regular contract offers you the standard services you're expecting, therefore you only pay for what you spend and you're billed at the end of each phone call / text message. With prepaid cellphones, you have certain amount of prepaid credit you can spend or re-charge once you run out of it. If you wish to get rid of your current prepaid phone, you can simply toss it away and buy a new one. Some of you may already suspect what's coming - yes, Burner phones!
Prepaid phone feature is mostly aimed for criminals to make police's life a little harder. All numbers from prepaid plans are in format 09X-YYY-ZZZ, where X is operator's unique code and Y + Z are unique, random numbers. These numbers cannot be obtained through police MDC, RP means, surveillance needs to be done. However, basic features, such as tracing still work for the devices.
On top of that, you're able to have both regular and prepaid contract going on at the same time, which leaves space for civilians role-players, who wish to have one phone dedicated for their personal life and second one as an emergency/work phone.
Note: This feature is optional. It doesn't require to be maintained frequently unless you wish to get all benefits of it.