Communication with other ships

I have a new idea for talking to other ships and I would like some feedback from the players and team.

Unstable Space is adding all kinds of new wingmen and ships the player can hire and talk to. This is beginning to result in vast numbers of light blue "critical" ships on the contact list. The Traffic release will be even worse, with even more ships to talk to.

I have been thinking of another method of starting communications. When you press the "comm" button you get a list of ships that support communication. You select the ship you want and that starts the conversation.

The advantage is no blue ships. The disadvantage, is that the ship you are speaking with won't be right in front of you, so it won't be so clear who they are. The video of the ship will still appear in the top left corner. And I could make it possible for the player target to move to this ship.

Another advantage is that the list can be all ship within a wide range. So if there is a fence hiding on the edge, you could still talk to them, even if you did not notice right away.

Some other thoughts on how the feature might work:

A description string would be attached to the ships name, so you would know what the ship does (less wasted conversation).

Ships out of range would still answer, but tell you to move closer. The player target would set to the ship. The distance would default to much larger, with some ships, like cargo sellers asking you to move closer. (if you start out far away, you need to fly your cargo a long distance).

What do you think of the idea?

I would say all free Ships should be at a special location, like the Bar.

Where else you would be when you dont have work, at home and at some entertainment area.

The new Com menu looks good too, but when all Pilots are all around the Bar, the contact range should be limited to Radar range.
I think about the outlaw informants and merchants. i think these wouldnt answer to someone who did a local call, because the police could call

Maybe the initial list of available ships could be presented via one of the crew and a conversation. Something like 'The following ships have their comms set to 'communicate'..' 'Who should we hail?'

You could also have certain 'shady' characters only respond to a 'direct' hailing. Canute has a point about outlaws leaving their channels open and available to anyone.

So basically use both systems. We would just have to be sure that the 'shady' characters could be indentified, by their ship type, location, or faction etc. Having the player learn whom the 'shady' charactrs are based off of factions could work to draw them into the faction system more.

Yes, the menu I had in mind was really a "conversation". Something that could be done without needing to touch the mouse.