Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Actually, that's what I meant by Outposts, since I see them called that quite often. These are the ones you dock in with the captains quarters.

POS is the structure in context for the moon goo retrieval around a moon, ship building arrays, etc., that you can interact with when inside the shields, but don't actually dock in.

Just make constellation-local. Compromise all around

How do you define "vessels which are not capable of interacting with ships and objects directly"? I would think they need to meet the two following requirements:
1.) They cannot target anyone, eliminating their ability to directly interact.
2.) They cannot activate modules, eliminating all AOE means of interaction too.

So, not only cloaked ships and ships in a station, but all pods, shuttles, and a freighters too.
Unfortunately, a ship in a POS can target and attack someone by utilizing POS weaponry. Should they really be excluded?

On another note:
Sadly, your suggestion makes covert cloaks WAY to powerful. I can enter system and cloak up, merely flashing for a second or three on the local intel. Then I can fly around and locate my target, decloak, and tackle them before they have time to react. This is simply too powerful in my opinion.

I could support your proposal if all cloaked ships, including covert ships, receive a 20-30 second recalibration delay that prevents them not only from targeting something, but from lighting a cyno too.

*edit* Now that I think about it, simply adding the 20-30 second recallibration delay to all cloaky vessels would do the trick without even messing with local mechanics. At the same time, since AFK cloaking is a tactic employed to limit the reliability of the omniscient local chat, it is only fair to nerf local at the same time.

I think it would be more entertaining if the pods, freighters, and shuttles were removed from local too!

Your cloak hunter is not a good balancer to the increased power this provides cloaked ships. If you remove cloakers from the intel system, you'll need a bigger nerf than some gate-campers wet dream for catching cloaky ships. Frankly, surprise has a HUGE impact on combat and battle outcomes, and needs to be brought inline.

The most appropriate compromise, is to create an activation delay between when they decloak and when they can actually attack their target.

For starters, I would point out that this is a balance means, specific to creating the least impact while making it reasonable to detect and consequently hunt down any cloaked vessel, excluding the gate cloak effect itself.

I am sorry, but throwing in ships that are neither docked, cloaked, or within the shields of a POS is outside the intent of this, and I see no reason to include them as such.

And regarding surprise, the hunting method effectively kills AFK Cloaking, as well as any long term cloaking, so long as competent players are ready and available. A defending player will have the option of balancing surprise out of the equation, if they think about it and plan accordingly.

The gate camp itself is a special consideration, and can be detailed in the other thread.

I certainly understand your view, and appreciate the reasoning behind it.

That said, pilots hiding behind the shield of a POS are in effectively a safe zone.
(The obvious exclusion of an AWOX'er bumping out allies notwithstanding)

I feel we need to have this internally balanced, as well as providing a balance aspect to permit the sister thread idea regarding hunting cloaked vessels.

If we remove POS sitting ships, along with docked vessels, then even a hostile in your space will respect that they have limited and imperfect intel, making choices risky.
The same way that only live ships outside of such protections can only see other such live ships.

Each side knows that others might be present, and local is a tool, not an absolute solution with complete answers.

Ok, I agree.

I like the fact that this creates different levels of "stealth", and encourages people to use all available intel tools (local, d-scan, guest list) :
1. Cloaked = not showing up anywhere at all
2. Docked = not showing up in local and on d-scan but in stations guest list
3. POSed = not showing up in local but on d-scan
4. ScanInhibited = not showing up on d-scan but in local

Since my own thread was locked by ISD as redundant, re-posting here:

Modified Local Suggestion

High-Sec & Low-Sec: No changes. All traffic is monitored by the Empires/Concord, all ships must have an active transponder, thus all pilots are displayed in Local Communications Channel.

Null-Sec: Local Channel continues to exist, but with modified rules for who shows, and when, as follows:

1. The player will always see themselves in local as they do currently.

2. The player will always see Alliancemates/Corpmates in local (RP: Alliance encoded transponder communicating only with others in the Alliance/Corp.), same as they do currently.

3. The player will see a no-portrait, no-name “Contact”, when other non-Corp/non-Alliance players enter local. Show Info will provide no information on this pilot or his ship.

4. If the player visually sees this “contact” on-grid, local is updated automatically with the normal, current, name of that pilot (basically once you visually see them in system, your local shows that guy as it does currently, portrait, name and show-info available).

5. Players in your Corp/Alliance in the same system as the player also get their local updated once you (or any Corp mate/alliance mate) sees that player. Again, automated intelligence processing and data exchange within an Alliance.

6. In Sov. Null Sec Space, a Sovereignty Upgrade would be available that replaces “contact” in local with “Ship Type” instead, i.e. if a non-Alliance Rifter entered local, the Sov. Holder Alliance would see “Rifter Contact” in local, instead of “Contact”.

7. In the future, should “treaties” ever be implemented, one possible option of treaties would be shared local-intel functionality. I.e. your blues would also update your local if they visually saw a “contact”.

The above system would provide the best (and most logical) version of local possible, and provide a balanced system that reduced the use of local as an effort-free intelligence tool, but retains local in a more appropriate way as an intelligence tracking tool once you’ve made the effort to find/see the contacts.

So what you're saying is that being cloaked would hide my presence in local even if I wasn't AFK?

Yeah, alright. I'll support that.

Keep in mind, you would not see anything in local's player list at all. (Fully delayed mode, like a WH)

You would need to rely exclusively on the overview, and your sensors.
And the moment you DID decloak, you would be immediately listed, as well as resume seeing the list.

Now, add to this, the sister thread to this idea details how to hunt cloaked ships.
This thread balances that ability.

If you are willing to play the game, really play it, this is a great opportunity, in my opinion.