This was brought up WAAAAYYYYY back when 3.1 first came out and we got our mitts on a shiny new party chat system, but it needs to be brought up again.
It's hard to discern between someone speaking in party chat and someone speaking in crew chat.
This often leads to hearing one side of a conversation as two members of the party on the same ship converse, one through crew, one through Party.
And sometimes it's just good to know how people are communicating to you.
The simple solution in-game is this: If someone is speaking to me over party, I don't need to know what class they are, replace the wheel/bullet/spanner with a little party hat.
And, hell, make it purple.
The problem sometimes persists in-lobby, and that solution is even simpler (unless there's some weird coding involved).
When someone uses 'x' to chat, have their little speaker appear next to their name in the lobby .
When someone uses 'z' to chat, have their little speaker appear next to their name in the party drop-down menu.
While, yes, I DO realize that you can just say 'party-party' or something of the sort before everything you say in party chat, that's a little unnatural and easy to forget.
At least for me.
DISCLAIMER TO THE MODS: I know topics just like this are out there deep in the history of the GoI forum, but they're too old for me to find.