Dead Air

Extra Special Studio presents Dead Air: radio towers become station nodes you tune with built-in T1/T2 radios & cross-dim Link. Collect notes, craft upgrades & panels. Requires Apocalypse Structures, GeckoLib & ESC.
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Description

Dead Air:

Turns radio towers into broadcast nodes. Each tower can broadcast a different station. Examples include Bedrock Radio, Creatopia Radio, Jukebox FM, Remix Radio, optional internet streams, and dynamic stations from expansion mods / autoDiscoverModMusic.

2.0.0 ships its own radios — T1.Radio and T2.Radio (Walkie Link) with animated GeckoLib models. No third-party walkie mod required.


Progression & materials:

  • Static Notes drop while listening (one active radio: T1 15% / T2 30%); nine Notes on the ground merge into a Resonant Chord
  • Craft Dimensional Relay, T1 / T2, Signal Upgrade, Disc Compendiums → Jukebox Upgrade, and a Radio Panel recipe (when RadioTowers is present)
  • Install Signal Upgrade on a panel to unlock T2 Link: listen to that tower across dimensions; the link follows if you re-assign the panel’s station
  • In-game Field Guide covers Intro, How To Play, Materials (recipes), Current Expansions, and Planned Material

You can create custom stations and playlists:

Custom stations: put .ogg files in config/dead_air/custom stations/<Station Name>/ (one subfolder per station; restart).

Extra tracks for built-in stations: set customMusicPath to a folder with assets/dead_air/sounds/music/custom/*.ogg.


How it works:

Dead Air uses Radio Panel blocks (Apocalypse Structures / RadioTowers) as broadcast towers. You can craft panels for your own bases.

Emergency Broadcast (88.5 MHz) can come from any powered tower.

Signal is shown as 0–5 bars (distance, line-of-sight, weather). Bars use 75-block steps: 5/5 within 75 blocks, 4/5 at 150, 3/5 at 225, 2/5 at 300, 1/5 at 375, none beyond that.

Discovery: with the radio on, being in range of a tower unlocks its station; unlocked stations stay available.

Tower types: Standard towers work immediately. Fenced and Overrun need one Radio Panel right-click to activate; that state saves.

Audio: music plays from your one active tuned radio (hand, hotbar, or inventory—configurable). Volume follows signal. Weak signal or bad tuning adds static. Cross-dimension travel resumes the same track near where it left off when Linked / in range again. Dropped radios do not play.


How to use it:

Hold a T1 or T2 Dead Air radio and press N (default) or right-click to open the tuning screen.

The screen has a retro dial (88.0–108.0 MHz). Tune with the slider or by picking a station. On T2, Link Selected Station / Unlink Station locks onto a Signal-Upgraded tower in range (no need to stand at the panel). Ping Location sends your name and coordinates to chat.

Further options: dead_air-common.toml and the in-game config (ranges, volume, overlay, radioAlwaysOn, etc.).


Server commands:

/dead_air spawntower <type> [x] [y] [z] — spawns a tower at your position or the given coords. Types: standard, fenced, overrun. Spawned towers are active immediately.


Current expansions:

Optional companion soundtrack packs — work standalone or plug into Dead Air as stations:

  • Dead Air - Wayfarer Radio — adventure / RPG
  • Dead Air - Frontline FM — high-energy battle / combat
  • Dead Air - After Hours FM — Lo-Fi / chillout
  • Dead Air - Block Beats FM — Hip-Hop / R&B
  • Dead Air - Broken Youth Radio — pop punk
  • Dead Air - Iron Rain FM — metal
  • Dead Air - Zero Gravity — pop rock / indie pop

    Special Note: If you would like your own music turned into an expansion, drop me a message :)


Dependencies:

  • Required: Apocalypse Structures: Radio Towers and Airdrops (RadioTowers), GeckoLib 4.x, ExtraSpecialCore (ESC)
  • Optional: Berezka’s Library + Berezka’s Zombie Waves API (full airdrop / wave flows with RadioTowers)

Dead Air does not replace RadioTowers — it adds broadcasts, stations, signal, music, radios, and progression on top.


Music rights:

ALL CUSTOM MUSIC TRACKS ARE OWNED BY ME AND MY TEAM. You may use these in any modpack, and play these tracks in YouTube videos / Twitch streams and similar. DO NOT distribute the music files individually.

 

The Dead Air Team

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Just a rising mod dev, still very new, and learning as i go, but full of ideas! I currently don't get a lot of time for dev work due to my chef work, but will activley update, and push code to github when i have the time spare :)

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