Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Objects would make things more interesting from a strategic perspective but I suspect would take a lot of work on the programming side of things to impliment in the engine.

Ships, however, when it comes to EVE you always have to think of suggestions in terms of "What would I do with this if I were a complete ****?" For example: If I were a complete ****, I would block other ship's turrets intentionally in high sec without flagging myself for pvp. Thus screwing up their mission running or their attempts to fight back against my hot drop suicide gank gang.

Yes, implimenting truely accurate collision detection and line of sight would be a fair undertaking and I imagine would be a big increase in server load and data being sent to and from the client.

Personally I would very much like that. Also ships should be able to block incoming fire. As in, a missile should not fly through one ship and hit another.

I particularly liked this mechanic as it was in Pirates of the Burning Sea, a sanboxy MMO in many ways similar to EVE. Not only did you need line of sight to target, but the target could hide behind both friendlies and other enemies. For example a tiny xebec boat was very hard to deal with because it would constantly keep zig-zagging between your own fleetmates, and friendlies would constantly get in the way of your fire. Similarly a beat-up ship could be shielded by a friendly, for a while I played a Freetrader, and sailed in a huge hull that basically acted as a mobile brick wall that people could duck behind.

But as it applies to EVE, I'm afraid it might be too difficult to implement. Also, EVE has so many other problems that are far, far more serious, so that adding this stuff is probably just not cost-effective.

In short, as much as I would love to see this, it probably shouldn't be a priority when so much of the game is downright broken.

To implement los. However to make the los accurate it would be a lot of effort on the part of ccp to match up invisible boundaries with visible boundaries.

Also, the issue of friendly fire arises, which would be nearly impossible for a player to prevent with the current shooting mechanics.

If there is any one thing that would improve game play LOS would be it. It would help to mitigate Blobs as blobbing players would be easily in danger of firing on friendlies or simply lose DPS waiting to get a clear shot again.

For those that think that everything is Server side. Guess again. All graphic occlusion which is much more complex is already being handled by the client. That’s why we don’t see through other ships. (I’m pretty sure bumping is handled client side but this is a guess) the graphics engine renders things properly, a test to see if LOS is true is not a huge endeavor for the client.

Yes there is a boundary that doesn’t correspond perfectly to the shape of stations and roids but this can be dealt with by simply "stating" that stations / ships have a shield that is round and extends beyond the physical structure boundary. With respect to roids they could set the boundary as a simple shape that can be enveloped inside of the rock. If a laser comes very close to the edge it should be able to punch through since its less material.

In reality when we have such discussions, opining about what is or isn’t Server side /client side is simply a decision that CCP chooses to make and will always be weighed into the decisions they make. They are the true definers of the cost involved in implementing features.

Where we can be useful is in giving our opinion on what a feature can bring to the game. Will LOS be more fun or less? Does it solve problems or create them? Are the problems we can foresee something we feel is unacceptable. The coding problem really isn’t for us to even consider since we don’t have the knowledge of the resources available to CCP.

There are certain aspects of EVE that are in need of work. That’s why CCP entertains these forums so they can gage better what should be priorities. Since this is an evolving game with the end goal to make possible any SCI-FI imaginable condition it stand to reason that LOS will be implemented at some time. There will always be a difference in opinion in what bothers one player from another. Some problems will affect you and not me so our priorities will be different but if a feature will add to the "fun Factor" let’s get it presented considered on its merits and help CCP gage its worth. We all have other feature that we would prefer to have first. Ok...

The philosophy I prefer to use; what keeps me reading the forum and playing the game is, what has been stated as the goal of this game”

And it would make POS shooting with subcaps virtually impossible. It'd be significantly harder with caps too.