Would the service beacon itself become a physical item? Have we made a decision in that regard yet?
TL;DRThere are no known plans to make the service beacon a physical item, since it's seen as comm equipment, though effects, sounds, and notifications for jamming or signal loss could make it more engaging.
No, I don't know of any plans. To me, it's something where you're using your comm equipment. Lore-wise, I envision this as, yeah, it's like me turning on my radio. There's a receiver for it, or it's a mobiGlas, or it's part of the ship's communication hardware. It's the future, and people have the ability to send communications through their way. But to me, the physicalized part is how the comm arrays or whatever amplify that signal through space.
Now, as a gameplay programmer, I think that we could maybe do more to make that experience more interesting if we were interested in that. So we could fire off an effect and maybe some cool sound, stuff like that, and maybe when you accept something, just make it more fun. But still keeping it communication-based, but make it more of an exciting thing when one gets fired off or accepted or you receive one, something like that.
Maybe a notification on your end when the signal is not getting through. Like, if it does become physicalized and somebody does shut down the comm arrays or whatever, some notification to you so that you're not just sitting there.
Or if your signal is being jammed. Yeah, absolutely. You're going to want that.