Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Here is an idea for something that would make an interesting bait ship.

Have a frigate designed to throw out a false image of a bigger ship.

It would have no actual slots, just a built in module where a crystal would be mounted.
The crystal would eventually burn out, like any beam weapon crystal does.

The crystal would be the charge used to select which ship this vessel imitated.


Give it Weapon simulators, that only do 1% of real damage, but have the appearance and effect of full size weapons.
(It will never fight effectively, but it will look like it is fighting)


The high / mid / low slots would be determined by the ship being imitated, and would allow control of the module effects displayed.

Have it use charges, like crystals in a beam weapon, that dictate what ship it can imitate.
For each skill level in Deception, you can simulate a ship size 1 step above frigate.
Skill
1 Destroyer
2 Cruiser / Hauler
3 Battlecruiser / Barge / (Exhumer requires T2)
4 Battleship
5 Orca / Freighter / JF or low end carrier

T2 variants on ships unlock at skill level 4, obvious exception being the JF, which is also the same skill as the freighter.

The frigate would seem quite durable, as the bigger the ship it emulated, the less actual damage it would take.
For simplicity, consider it to have the same shields and armor as whatever it impersonates, as more weapons won't hit the real ship as the perceived target is so much bigger.

I am considering how much strategy ant tactical preparation would go into ambushes, and counter-ambushes...

It could be the source of many stories if someone pulls off a clever deception....

See, this is where you missed a detail...

As far as damage goes, it stopped being a frigate the moment it plugged in the JF crystal, and activated it's module.

The attacking fleet would not know they had been fooled at all, unless they succeeded in killing the JF. Then, and only then, would the module go offline revealing the wreck to be not what they expected.

watisthis
just call it a hologram.

I like the concept of the bait hologram, but why have it be a ship?
How about a holo-probe? Launchable from a special probe launcher fitted to a tier two destroyer? One could be launched once every 20 seconds or so like a interdiction probe. It then puts out the signature and image of a specific ship type (battle cruiser, battle ship, etc).
They would insta-pop if shot and disappear after 60 seconds.

Think about a few of these setting up a false gate camp on one side of a system while a cov-ops fleet is cloaked on the other gate, or evac fleets using this for obfuscation of the real fleet.

Sounds cool to me.

So what happens when these become so common that no one bothers to attack people doing obviously dumb things any more?

There have been so many times in Eve when I've gone "holy ****, that rorqual can't have just warped to a planet". If this was introduced, I'd never trust such a blatant target again

This is a design intended to benefit PvP, not act as an exploit with PvE.

NPC elements can be set to simply ignore this ship, putting it last on their hate list, since it's damage dealing ability is trivial.
They will kill it, but not before trying to kill anything else they see.

I liek the idea of a deployable beacon that transmits the characteristics of a ship

so you can spoof somebodys dscan results

It is not that this is a good or bad idea, it just has limited value with such a short lifespan.

Bait ships need to appear real, or real enough to take a chance on. If it is known a fake pops after 60 seconds, then the roams will deploy scouts to watch targets. 1 minute to know if it is a trap? "AFK" cloakers scout systems for hours on end, that won't fool them.

Phantom bait?!!