Send command

The SEND command lets players communicate from their ships. Classic Galactic Empire and ge-next provide different communication models.

Classic GE uses three configurable communications presets named A, B, and C. The setting of the selected preset determines whether a message is a public hail, a local encoded transmission, or a galaxy-wide encoded transmission. ge-next instead makes the destination explicit with ALL, TEAM, and ENCODED.

Classic Galactic Empire

Sending on channels A, B, and C

Classic syntax is:

SEND A message
SEND B message
SEND C message

A, B, and C are not three inherently different message types. They are three independent presets in the ship's communications system. Each preset can be set to the general hailing frequency or assigned a numeric frequency:

FREQ A HAIL
FREQ B 12345
FREQ C 38146

The selected preset's current setting controls how the message is routed.

Preset setting	SEND behavior	Recipients
`HAIL` (internally frequency 0)	General hail	Every other player ship in the game that has hails enabled
Frequency 1-19,999	Local encoded message	Other ships in the same sector with any one of their A/B/C presets tuned to the same frequency
Frequency 20,000 or higher	Hyperspace encoded message	Other ships anywhere in the galaxy with any one of their A/B/C presets tuned to the same frequency

For example, if channel B is set to 12345, SEND B reaches only ships in the sender's sector that have A, B, or C set to 12345. The receiving ship does not have to use the same letter; the numeric frequency is what must match. If channel C is set to 38146, SEND C uses the galaxy-wide encoded path instead.

Classic displays the sender's ship name and the A/B/C channel letter in the received message. The letter identifies the sender's selected preset, not necessarily the receiver's matching preset.

Classic filtering

A channel set to HAIL sends a FILTER-class broadcast, which is intended to obey each recipient's SET FILTER option. Classic has a broadcast-filter bug in which a filtered recipient can also prevent later user slots from receiving a hail, even when their own filters are off. Encoded messages use their frequency as the access control and are sent with the ALWAYS class, so SET FILTER ON does not hide them. A player who does not want encoded traffic can tune away from that frequency or return the preset to HAIL.

Because classic checks all three receiving presets, assigning the same numeric frequency to more than one preset is unnecessary. The implementation attempts delivery once for every matching preset, so duplicate tuning can also result in duplicate copies of one message.

ge-next

Starting in ge-next 0.3, SEND replaced the three configurable channel letters with named message types:

SEND ALL message
SEND TEAM message
SEND ENCODED message

The type names may be abbreviated to their first letter: A, T, or E.

The standalone classic FREQ command is explicitly disabled in ge-next; entering FREQ is invalid. Use SEND FREQ instead to view or change the ship's encoded frequency.

ALL

SEND ALL sends a public hail to every other player ship in the game. The > command is a shortcut:

> message

Recipients who use SET DISPLAY HAIL OFF do not receive SEND ALL or > hails. The sender is not included in the broadcast but receives confirmation that the message was sent.

TEAM

SEND TEAM sends a message to the online members of the sender's persistent team. The sender must belong to a valid team. Team messages are not public hails and are not suppressed by SET DISPLAY HAIL OFF.

See Team command for team creation, membership, and the other effects of joining a team.

ENCODED

SEND ENCODED sends a galaxy-wide message to ships tuned to the same numeric frequency. ge-next ships have one encoded frequency rather than classic's three A/B/C presets.

Use SEND FREQ to inspect or change the current ship's setting:

SEND FREQ
SEND FREQ 38146
SEND FREQ 0

Valid active frequencies are 1 through 65,535. Frequency 0 turns encoded communications off. A ship set to 0 cannot send an encoded message and does not receive frequency-matched messages.

Encoded messages are not suppressed by SET DISPLAY HAIL OFF. A player controls them by selecting a frequency or turning encoded communications off.

Unlike classic, ge-next does not divide encoded frequencies into sector-local and hyperspace ranges. Every active ge-next encoded frequency uses the frequency-matched galaxy-wide path, whether its number is below or above 20,000.

Comparison

Capability	Classic GE	ge-next
Public communication	Set any A/B/C preset to `HAIL`, then send on that letter	`SEND ALL` or `>`
Team communication	No distinct SEND destination	`SEND TEAM`
Encoded settings	Three independently configurable A/B/C presets	One ship frequency
Local encoded range	Frequencies 1-19,999 remain in the current sector	Not provided; all encoded messages are galaxy-wide
Galaxy-wide encoded range	Frequencies 20,000 and above	Every active frequency from 1-65,535
Public-hail filtering	Applies to presets set to `HAIL`	Applies to `SEND ALL` and `>`
Direct-message filtering	Encoded traffic is controlled by tuning	TEAM is delivered to teammates; ENCODED is controlled by tuning

ge-arena

Inside the ge-arena lobby, > is the lobby-chat command and is always shown to other lobby users. The full SEND command is not used there. During arena play, public and encoded ship communications use the ge-next model. Persistent SEND TEAM is unavailable because current arena modes do not use the standard persistent team database; future team modes will require match-specific team communication.