Signal

When you're subscribed to a carrier, you probably have a signal. You can check it using /phone. It will display the strength, and the type of signal. These both depend on the tower you're connected to.

Type

The type of signal comes from the type of the tower you're connected to. It is used to determine the speed of messages. You will always connect to the best type of tower available, if you have permission to connect to that type. You can check available types using /tower list.

Strength

Calculation

\[ r = \text{Range of the tower type}\\ d = \text{Distance between the player and the tower}\\ b =\text{Value of shadowing that the current block has}\\ m = \text{Multiplier of the tower type}\\ n = \text{Amount of blocks that need checking} \\~\\ signalStrength = {r\over d} - \sum_{i=0}^n b*m \]

The strength is a value between 0 and 1, with 1 being the strongest value you can get.

The strength of a tower is determined using several factors. The main one being the distance between you and the tower. The farther you are, the less signal strength you will have.

Signal shadowing

Another cause for losing signal strength is signal shadowing. This is when your line of sight to the tower is blocked by some blocks, and affects your signal.

This isn't always enabled for all tower types, it can be disabled by setting the type's shadow multiplier to 0.

The calculation happens using 2 config values. One is the per block value in config.yml, and the other is the multiplier set per tower type. The product of these 2 will be then subtracted from the current signal strength. Repeat that for every block in a straight line to the tower, and that gives the final strength value.