Pilots talk over their ship radios. A voice on Local comes from the other ship's direction, grows thin and noisy with distance, crackles when you're jammed, and cuts to static if that ship blows up. Syndicate voice reaches every online member, anywhere, clean and centred. Voice is off until you turn it on, and your mic is only live while you hold a key.
Steps
- Open Settings → Audio → Voice. Show mePlay to try this
- Switch Voice on. The browser asks for your microphone once.
- Hold V to talk on Local.
- In a syndicate, hold B to talk to every online member.
The two channels
| Local | Syndicate | |
|---|---|---|
| Who hears you | Pilots in the same system within 30 km of your ship. Docked: pilots docked at the same station. | Every online member of your syndicate, anywhere in the Reach. |
| How it sounds | From the ship's direction, fainter and noisier with distance. | Centred and clean. |
| Key | Hold V, or voice activation | Hold B, always |
| Voices at once | The 8 nearest pilots with voice on | Up to 12 members, recent talkers first |
Talking on one channel never leaks into the other.
Push to talk or voice activation
- Push to talk (the default): you transmit only while you hold the key.
- Voice activation: Local opens when you speak above a threshold. Set it with the Sensitivity slider and the live Mic check meter. Syndicate stays push-to-talk, so an open mic never goes out across the galaxy.
The same section picks your microphone and output device, and sets mic volume and voice volume.
On the HUD
- A comms indicator shows your mic state: off, standing by, transmitting on Local or Syndicate, linking, blocked or no signal. It also shows your input level, a jam warning and who's talking.
- A small speaker light pulses next to any pilot who's talking, on their bracket and in the Local member list.
Mute and block
Hover a pilot in the Local member list, or long-press on a phone:
- Mute stops you hearing them. Only you are affected.
- Block cuts both ways: neither of you can hear the other, enforced by the server.
Settings → Audio → Voice lists everyone you've muted or blocked, so you can undo it.
Jamming and distance
A slip scrambler or disruptor on your ship, or being within 50 km of a Choir shrine, fills every voice you hear with crackle and dropouts. Distant Local voices sound thin and far away. A talker whose ship is destroyed mid-sentence cuts to a burst of static.
Nothing is recorded.