Ships & Modules

from http://poeticstanziel.blogspot.ca/2012/12/local-cloaking-bringing-mining-back-to.html

Mary Titor recently described lowsec as Fight Club, and as a Fight Club there's no way for industry to ever take hold. It's simply too difficult to defend industry operations. They are instant targets of the Fight Club once they become known. And knowing of them is relatively easy, they show up in local like a beacon, and from there it's a simple process of d-scan.

Of course, industry in this context refers entirely to mining. All other lowsec industry is simply a function of hauling (planetary interaction, moon mining, POS manufacturing, etc.) and hauling through lowsec has always been a fairly safe affair (that's why blockade runners and jump freighters exist.) Mining, on the other hand, is a highly risky affair. You're exposed via local and d-scan. You have to remain in one location for long periods of time, because efficiency at the task demands it. Being a particularly boring task means players lapse on necessary defence mechanisms (d-scan.)

There are large swaths of empty lowsec to mine in. But all it takes in one ship passing through, a d-scan or two, and suddenly that miner in the "empty system" is either on the run until they dock, or destroyed. That affects their efficiency, because if you're on the run or docking you're not mining. So even in empty areas of lowsec, mining remains too risky for the potential reward.

How might this be solved in some small, simple and useful way? What might entice miners to return to lowsec to ply their trade? Give them enough of a "defence", yet nothing so powerful that it protects them from the determined?

Perhaps a low-slot module that hides a player from local. A passive module. It doesn't hide you from d-scan, but most players, if they see nothing in local, generally won't bother to scan.

In a small systems, mining continues to remain risky, especially if a d-scan can be done on the entire system on a gate-to-gate warp. In much larger systems, especially those 100AU and larger in diameter, mining becomes a much safer.

Now, there's the possibility that being able to hide from local permanently in a ship is far too powerful. If that is the case, then some defects can be built into the module. For instance, a T1 module might give a 5-second burst of local visibility every 5 minutes, whereas a T2 module might give a 5-second burst of local visibilility every 15 minutes.

Perhaps the ability to hide from local is too powerful for nullsec, thus the module can be made to work only in empire space (highsec and lowsec). Though, if it can work in nullsec, perhaps it becomes to "solution" to AFK cloaking -- if you can see them in local, then it's not a problem.

Perhaps it's a module that can only be fit to certain type of ships, in the same way that a T2 cloak can only be fit to certain types of ships.

Thoughts? The power of a module that allows local cloaking is not lost on me. Perhaps it is far too powerful a mechanic. Or perhaps moving scouting back towards the effective use of d-scan is the more desirable trait of such a module. Anyhow, as always, curious to read your opinions.

What I think.

* War Target Fleets using Locator Agents and Neutral Cloaky Scout Warp-ins will pick off Targets easily without real effective warning.
* Stealth Bombers and Recon Fleets will be guaranteed to ability to pick off whatever they they can catch and kill before help arrives and they will only pick targets they are sure they can kill before help arrives..
* Pretty much no one will have a full invisible fleet active on or near enough to grid so one guy can PvE. Even if someone does set a trap it is one in a hundred, most enemies will escape and it is just not realistic deterrent odds for easy ganking.
* Low Sec Minerals are just not valuable enough to even be a factor in this idea.

Whether that is the way you want the game to go or not is your opinion but the above happening within current game mechanics is a absolute certainty.

What a stupid idea. And no, I'm not reading your blog to hear the whole faff behind this idea. The stupidity of it is apparent from the get go.

People mine in lowsec. There are 2 areas they mine in:

One - really, really large systems (>60 AU across) where distance fom gate to belt allows you, in a few cases, to even finish a laser cycle before having to leave, and certainly allows you to align out before the enemy lands. You die only when you are AFK. Which is as it should be.

Two - in dead-end systems. In these systems you place a single scout in the adjoining system, cloaked on gate, and get a giant mob of people on to suck the belts dry quickly. Organised gangs of miners in these systems do very well without being wiped out every five minutes.

That there are not vast numbers of dead-end, gigantic solar systems in lowsec is neither here nor there. People who want to mine can do so, if they get the right location and can sort out the politics with local pirates/PVPers.

Thus there is no need for a lowslot module to remove you from Local.

Finally, grav sites do occasionally spawn in lowsec. These can be safely mined. So, too, do wormholes spawn into lowsec. Many of these contain gravs, which can be mined by people from lowsec who daytrip. AMAZING!

Can I fit this mod to my cloaky loki so when I sit in a system where I've scanned down some juicy plexes and sigs I can happily jump on the face of the hapless explorer trying to make a decent isks living?

*edit yes even if I'm uncloaked to activate the module it's still a pirates wet dream.

This, entirely. Mining in belts in lowsec is unsafe as a general rule, and so it should be. Lowsec belts in your average system are not even the only source of lowsec ore.