the sto default chat options arent the best. new users are often seen chatting into a channel they didnt intend, and are often unaware of what channel they are even chatting into. the more daring of them are left to find their own way around the chat settings, but we figured we could make things easier for them. we will take a few minutes to do two things:
- join a global chat channel
- set up chat to be a bit more user-friendly
this is the chat window. along the top there are tabs that allow you to group your channels. below is the area where you select your broadcast channel (currently set to [local]) and enter your text.
lets join a global channel:
there are both private and public channels. private channels require an invite and are beyond the scope of this guide. lets look at public channels, which are joinable by anybody and require no invite.
forward slash ‘/‘ prepends the majority of all commands entered via chat.
type into the chat- /channel_join NoP Public Service
since this is a public channel, you will be automatically added to the channel and will be able to immediately send and receive messages on the channel. but, due to those dodgy default chat options, its likely that you will not be able to readily see which channel messages are originating from, or even which channel you are posting to!
lets make the chat better to use:
put your mouse over one of the tabs and right click. you will be presented with the following screen:
this screen isnt nearly as complicated as it may appear at first.
section 1. these are the tabs that are present along the top of the chat box (section 3)
section 2. these are the channels available for placement/removal from any given tab. you can also choose a channels text colour here.
in essence, all you do is select a tab and then select/deselect channels visible in that tab. you then pick a custom colour for a custom channel. note that the channel colour doesnt need to be picked in every tab. if you pick a colour in one tab, that colour will be used in all tabs.
finally time to change some under the hood options:
while still in the chat tab configuration window, click the ‘chat options’ button in the lower right corner.
in the resulting screen, set the options as pictured above. this will make it far easier to see which channels are being chatted from, and which channels you are chatting into. note that once these options are set, you can change your broadcast channel by clicking its channel name in the chat entry bar, or by clicking the chat bubble to the right of the text field.
once you have set your options, click the HUD tab at the top of the window:
unless you know what youre doing, dont play with these options just yet. instead, look toward the bottom and you will see ‘save UI’ and ‘load UI’. this is a fast way to save your chat config (and most everything else) so that you can load it on an alt. its also useful to ‘load UI’ if you bork your tabs and whatnot.
some chat shortcuts:
here are a few things that may make your chatting easier in sto.
copy & paste: in sto, anything you highlight is automatically copied. to paste, hold ctrl and press V
to focus your chat while in mouselook or in space/combat, simply press ‘enter’
to quick-reply to the last person that sent you a tell (pm), press backspace
to repeat the last thing you said, while in the text entry field press the up arrow on the keyboard.
mt means ‘misstell’ and is often used after accidentally posting something to the wrong channel.