@djensen Steam chat is buggy, and the Steam interface isn’t integrated into 1942 Online yet, so I don’t think players can send one another friend requests - besides which 1942 Online IDs may be different to Steam IDs.
I think players need to be Steam friends to use Steam chat.
On the other hand, if you find a pickup game on Discord, you already know other players involved use Discord since you found them on Discord, then it goes from there.