Radio

The radio is a chat-box located within the game where players can chat with other players from all over Skytopia, or, if they wish, just players from their faction or wing. The feature first entered the game at the beginning of Skyrates 2.1 and, alongside the Skyrates Forums, it is the most popular form of communication amongst pilots.

Keep in mind that Skyrates is a family friendly game, so keep language above reproach.

Color Key
The names of the players chatting in the radio are displayed when they type a message, appearing in the color of the faction to which they belong.


 * Red font represents members of the Crimson Armada
 * Blue font represents members of the Azure League
 * Green font represents members of the Jade Hand
 * Purple font represents members of the Court of Violets
 * Brown font represents members of the Earthen Order
 * Yellow font represents players in Flight School
 * Orange font represents Independent players
 * Gray font represents Devs

General
The General tab is for unstructured, all-around chat. Feel free to talk about anything you like. For example, some players offer up trivia questions and award Ratings to whomever provides the first correct answer. The Devs will also pop-in sometimes to discuss development happenings.

Help
The Help tab is for those seeking help with any aspect of Skyrates. Try to keep on topic, and give meaningful answers.

Faction
The Faction tab is for your faction chatting and plotting. Only members of your Faction can access the same Faction tab. Creating an Alt to "spy" on faction chat and forums is frowned upon (see The Seven Deadly Sins of Skyrates).

Wing
If you are a member of a Wing, you will see a Wing tab as well. This tab is for members of your wing.

Roleplay
Volumes of player created content exist for Skyrates, and the RP tab is great for creating more. If you're unsure about getting started, read the Roleplay page, and perhaps the Advanced Roleplay Tips page as well. Feel free to ask in RP chat using /ooc, but try not to create "walls" of off-topic discussion. That is better handled in the Help tab.

Slash Functions
Slash functions are used by including them at the beginning of your comment. They do not work if typed halfway through a comment.

/b
Makes your text appear in bold. /b This entire line should appear in bold.

/{color}
If you have one of the Happy New Year titles active and it is within a short window of time provided by the Devs around the holiday, you can make your text appear in the color specified. Valid color names are: aquamarine, azure, blue, brown, cerulean, chamoisee, champagne, charcoal, chartreuse, chocolate, cinnabar, coral, cyan, denim, ecru, eggplant, flax, fuchsia, gamboge, gold, gray, green, grey, heliotrope, honeydew, indigo, jade, khaki, lavender, lilac, magenta, maroon, mustard, navy, ochre, onyx, orange, peach, pear, pearl, periwinkle, pink, puce, purple, red, saffron, salmon, sienna, silver, tangelo, tangerine, teal, thistle, umber, vanilla, wenge, xanadu and zaffre.

Specify "/random" to have one color chosen at random.

/gray Gray skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face!

/em, /me, /emote
To convey emotional content or an action, type the following in the chat window: /em Action or /me Action or /emote Action

/fiesta
If you have one of the Happy New Year titles active and it is within a short window of time provided by the Devs around the holiday, you can use /fiesta. To have your text echoed in multiple colors, use the following: /fiesta I'm a double rainbow!

/h, /help
For a quick-reference reminder of what slash functions are available, type the following. Note that only you will see the echoed text. /h or /help will work.

/i
Makes your text appear in italics. /i This entire line should appear in italics.

/ignore
Players insistent on using offensive verbiage (or just being really stupid) can be ignored by typing the following in the chat window: /ignore PlayerName Or, if there are spaces in the player's name: /ignore "Player Name" This will prevent anything that PlayerName (or Player Name) types from showing up in your Radio.

/ignore is case-sensitive.

"Repeat offenders" should be reported to a Moderator via PM on the Forum or to the Devs by email.

/unignore
Intuitively, /unignore cancels an /ignore command. It the same syntax as /ignore. /unignore PlayerName Or, if there are spaces in the player's name: /unignore "Player Name" /unignore is case-sensitive.

/ooc
When talking out-of-character (OOC) during a roleplay (RP), typing the following will enclose your text in double-parenthesis, like this: ((text)). /ooc I've been playing too long and need to get outside.

Alternate Channels
In May 2015, some players began advocating for a shift from using the traditional Radio (found in the the Skyrates web client) to using an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel for similar communications. Two IRC channels have been established, a general chat at #skyrates and an RP chat at #skyratesrp. Both are hosted on the Freenode servers at irc.freenode.net (port 6667). Neither are Dev-approved, monitored or moderated beyond what the community itself chooses to enforce. They are Unoffical Skyrates IRC channels.

One way to access these IRC channels is via this web client. Otherwise, you can use any number of downloadable IRC clients. Although there are many, AndChat is one option for Android users, while mIRC is a popular choice for Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/7/8 (albeit with some registration nags), and HexChat is a completely free multiplatform (Windows, OSX, Linux variants) client very similar to mIRC. For Firefox users, ChatZilla integrates nicely.

Currently, one of the best ways to try and reconnect with past Skyrates members is on Discord. Our semi-official server can be found on Discord under Skyrates. Be sure to mention that you are a Skyrates alumni.