An alternative to local voice chat.

[NathanIsOnline]

There has been a lot of discussion on Discord about adding local voice chat, however due to both the complexity of such a system and the fact many players would mute it most of the time I am doubtful effort would ever be put into a voice chat system, at least not until well into Early Access. (That and people on Discord saying they want voice chat so they can call people retards probably aren't helping it's chances.)
I do believe there is an alternative system that would be both (relatively) easy to implement, and would probably get far more use than voice chat if voice chat is ever added. The secret is stealing ideas from other games. In this case, Apex Legends.
Those of you who play Apex Legends probably already know what I'm suggesting. Apex Legends has voice chat for it's squads, but its rarely used due to Apex's other system, it's ping wheel. The ping wheel lets you point to an area and say a per-recorded voice line. Things like "Let's defend that area" and "Enemy over there".
Starbase would probably benefit off of a similar system with voice lines like "Surrender" "drop your weapons" "would you like to trade" "move your ship" etc. Being able to point to things would be helpful when working with your group, though perhaps letting people to put pings all over your hud at stations would be a poor choice.
Even if the voice lines are generated by a simple text to voice program, I think a system like this would be tremendously useful.

An example of the Apex ping wheel: https://gfycat.com/flawlesslonelychinesecrocodilelizard

 

[Amos.37]

Another option, that would at least be easier to do than a local voice chat and less abusable (less, no 'un') would be basically a squad speak function. Select a visible player, or just type their name and it sends them a chat request. Then if they accept, you have a direct line to them. Can be ended at any time. Easier to implement than a local chat at least. Can be expanded to groups. Could have limited distance, although players can just use discord to get around any distance limitation anyway.
Yes, I realise you can already do this with discord, but it would be nice to have an in-game solution that doesn't me require to add everyone I want to briefly talk to on discord.

Although, I totally think Nathan's idea should also be implemented, as it would greatly help people that don't use mics, and be more convenient than sending an invite, either in-game or on discord.

 

[NathanIsOnline]

If you just want to have brief voice discussions, why don't you join a voice lobby on the Discord server?

 

[Amos.37]

Because it would be simpler to have an in-game solution that doesn't require me tabbing out, finding or creating a lobby, ensuring the other person has found the lobby, and so on.
As I already said, I'm aware you can do this with discord already, but it would be simpler (if implemented well) for most players to have an in-game solution.

 

[Vexus]

Apex Legends has voice chat for it's squads, but its rarely used

Indeed, it is rarely used, but not because of another option. It's rarely used because there's little point talking with a few random people on the internet for a 5-15 minute game session. People aren't that interested in talking with random strangers all the time who they will never see again. Therein is the reason voice chat doesn't need to be a priority - as people form groups and factions and become more familiar with each other and become friends, they will invariably go to Discord or other 3rd party apps to chat, instead of in-game where any eavesdropping spy will overhear their plans. No in-game solution will be better than the third party solutions who have dedicated dev teams of their own solving all the problems that come with voice chat over the internet. I agree that the devs don't need to worry about this feature just yet.

I would love voice chat in game as a personal 'want' however I recognize that it is not worth the development time and doesn't add as much here, in Starbase, because it is an MMO, not your single-map arena-fighter game like DayZ or Apex and so on. Voice chat is amazing, and brings a lot of fun to a game, but isn't critical. As Starbase is an MMO, some random player running around spamming meme music all the time - and I LOVE this, don't get me wrong - is not conducive to the MMO experience. Starbase stuns me with its scope, its potential, and what it has created already; there are things I'd want, but I want more than anything for the game to succeed, and so stepping back from anything I'd want, I consider what would be best for the game first, though there's little I can do about it except voice my opinions. What leads to it being a success - this is my line of thinking, not what I want as a feature. I don't see in-game voice chat as being that critical of a feature, and if anything, Joe talking in his human accent coming from a robot body isn't too inline with the fun and immersive 'voices' we see from Dr. Bolt and Bob in the Boltcracker videos.

Just like Dr. Bolt and Bob from the Boltcracker videos, I think the dev time is worth it expanding on those voices and emotes and things players can do in-game to keep the experience constant across all players. It will make the game better to have those systems fleshed out, dynamic, and full of options. Even those will be infrequently used overall, however simple waves, dances, standing emotes and gestures do get utilized quite frequently especially at range where voice chat wouldn't reach anyway. So a 'voice wheel' or emote wheel, or something akin to that kind of solution, does work, has worked in other games as NathanIsOnline has pointed out; they get used, and have a positive impact on players' experience in the game. That should be the focus until (or if) the devs see a real need for in-game voice to solve some big problem in the game, though I don't see the lack of voice chat arising as an issue (and again, keep in mind it brings another set of problems of its own when a game uses it).