Was thinking that maybe a passive broadcast (not sent out, but just there to read for anyone who scans for it) would be better since you'd have to actively be looking for signals. Perhaps clogging up the chat window with broadcasts wouldn't be such a good idea, so I propose a 2 block system; a broadcaster and a scanner. The broadcaster stores a message, and the scanner (we could even use the existing scanner to save on block ID) would pick up signals and display them in a separate tab in the scanner window.
I'm a little surprised
Bench hasn't put his 2 cents in on this subject, thought he'd be interested in something like this.
maybe if you could mute certain people or other factions
you realise you just solved the issue right? "recieve" beacon broadcasts by using the tag "[Beacon]" in the display screen...
if your "in range" it places messages on the screen
if you connect MULTIPLE display's together, each one simply reads a different broadcast.
allowing us to have WALLS of "dynamic" content... or just two displays...
the catch being, is each display MUST have the exact same "[Beacon]" tag.
the beacon broadcast also reads the faction ID of the attached structure, hence transmitting FROM that faction.
and the player who editted it get's set as the "speaker"...
even though it does not say "Faction:user:blah blah blah" it does say "blah blah blah"
by muting either the faction, or the user. that message is not recieved.
to "increase" the range, you simply use more beacons tied in. since the system is effectively a part of the chat system,
you can report a person for spamming the same way. (if the system don't flag them first)