The Relay from Deep Space

A mod for the game The Message from Deep Space that allows players to communicate over the Deep Space Communication Relay in-game.

Before you install, it is highly, highly, recommended you complete the game first! The Relay will not show up until you have, to prevent your playthrough of TMfDS being spoiled.

Basic Usage

After installing the mod, you will see a new RELAY button on the main tabs view. This is how you access the Relay.

The RELAY MANAGER, RELAY INPUT, and RELAY screens are how you interact with the Relay. Enter a callsign, in base 8, and then click SET to begin chatting.

After you enter a callsign, the RELAY screen will populate with messages. You can input your own Meteor0ese message into the RELAY INPUT screen, then click SEND to send it. When you're finished chatting, you can click LOGOUT to leave the Relay.

There is another button on the RELAY screen, RECOMPILE. Whenever you define a new signal, you'll need to RECOMPILE the output to update older uses of it.

Features

You need to set a callsign to access most of the RELAY MANAGER features. After entering a callsign, you can open the the RELAY MANAGER screen by clicking the MANAGER button, and you can return to the RELAY INPUT screen by clicking INPUT.

Hotkeys

TRfDS attaches hotkeys to many of the buttons it adds. When hovering over a button, you can see if there's a hotkey attached to it on the left hand side, underneath the currently playing track.

• RECOMPILE: CTRL+T
• LOGOUT: CTRL+L
• MANAGER/INPUT: CTRL+R
• SEND: CTRL+E or CTRL+ENTER

Sending signals that aren't defined

Sometimes, you will want to send a signal you haven't defined in your dictionary yet. You can do this by entering |-<signal>. For example, if you define -2 as "STOP" in your dictionary, sending |-2 will appear (for you) as "STOP". Similarly, if you haven't defined -246 and you enter |-246, it will appear (for you) as @-246_UNDEF.

This is useful for when you are learning a new word and aren't sure what to call it yet, but you want to ask a clarifying question without creating a temporary definition.

Adding new signals to the dictionary

Under the ADD NEW SIGNALS text, there are 2 text entry fields and a MAKE button. The ID text entry expects a negative integer, corresponding to the ID of the new signal you want to create. The NAME text entry expects a plaintext name, no more than 18 characters, that the new signal will be called. After entering these, press MAKE to update your dictionary with the new signal. You can then press RECOMPILE to update the Relay messages with your new definition.

This signal persists with your dictionary like every signal from the game does. You can edit it, add formatting, add notes, etc, just as you can with any other signal. If you want to permanently remove a custom signal, hold control and click the delete button in the dictionary menu.

Message actions

You can use this section to copy the text of a message, copy the signals of a message, and view visuals in a message. Before clicking any of the buttons, you need to select a message by entering the ID of it. The ID is the gray number to the right of the callsign in the RELAY window.

To copy a message's text, simply click COPY. To copy a message's signals, hold CTRL and click COPY.

To view a message's visual data, click VIEW. Messages with visual data are shortened by default, as you aren't supposed to read and understand the contents of them, your computer is!

Image created by astro (callsign 1574)

There is another type of data that messages can contain. Huge thanks to electraminer (callsign 3544) for allowing me to reference their implementation of this feature when I was writing mine. The protocol was created for the Relay specifically, and isn't something you'd receive from Meteor 0. If you wish to find out about it on the Relay (which I highly recommend you do), please skip this section.

Spoilers lie here, beware!

You have been warned!!

Music is able to be transmitted over the Relay. The grammar is not documented here as to preserve the creators' intentions. Once you define -577, a new PLAY button appears.

If someone sends a message with a song, you can enter the ID and click PLAY to listen to it. The PLAY button becomes a STOP button while Relay music is playing, and you can see the track's total length and your current position. Additionally, TMfDS's music will pause while you're listening to Relay music, and begin again once it stops.

Similar to messages with a visual, messages with songs are shortened to remove the contents of the song structure. You can see a song's structure by COPYing the message, then pasting it into the INPUT window or another text editor.

Channels

Channels allow people on the Relay to communicate in isolates spaces, usually so they don't clog up the main channel. Adding and removing channels requires defining 2 custom signals, if you wish to find these out on the Relay, skip this section.

How to join and leave channels

You will need to define two signals, -65534 and -65533 for joining and leaving respectively. Name them however you wish. Once you have them defined, you can join a channel by entering JOIN SIGNAL, where JOIN is what you named -65534 and SIGNAL is the signal corresponding to the channel you'd like to join. You can leave channels in a similar fashion with LEAVE SIGNAL, where LEAVE is what you named -65533 and SIGNAL is the signal corresponding to the channel you'd like to leave.

After you join channels, you can cycle through ones you're active in, and the RELAY output will update with the messages in that channel.

Channels you're in are saved and loaded from disk. You can find this file by navigating in-game to MENU -> HANDLE SAVE FILE -> SHOW WHERE MY FILES ARE STORED, then opening that path in your file manager of choice. All files this mod creates are stored in the TRFDS folder in this path. It's recommended you don't change the enabledChannels.save file, but you may view it in any text editor. If you modify it and break something by accident, it's safe to delete, the mod will save a new one when you join a channel again.

Configuration

Many aspects of this mod are configurable, you can find details on each config option in the config file that BepInEx generates. Note: It is only generated after launching with the mod enabled, so you will need to launch once to see the config file at all.

Limitations

TRfDS will fail to parse any Relay message that has a negative number lower than -2147483648 (AKA the signed 32 bit integer minimum value). This is because the Relay allows signals to be sent as 64 bit integers, while TMfDS's compiler expects all signals to be 32 bit integers. This shouldn't matter in practice, as people should never be creating signals lower than this number, but it is worth knowing about. TRfDS can parse positive integers of any value, even larger than the Relay can send.

Messages with visual data are shortened as the player isn't supposed to read the contents of the visual and understand it. However, the message is not verified as a parse-able visual before being shortened. If you find a visual on the Relay that cannot be VIEWed, it's likely either a mistake by the person creating it, or TRfDS shortened it when it shouldn't have. You can view the contents of such messages by COPYing the text and pasting it into the INPUT screen or any other text editor.