Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I would say that given the importance of your reputation in this game this is working correctly.
If you're The Dread Pirate Roberts then it's not surprising that, given you never leave survivors, people put your flag to their stern.

The new deployables which might fudge Local in various ways are going to change the meta in a huge and drastic manner anyway - perhaps best to wait to see how they change things before suggesting more significant underlying changes. It could be that everyone starts behaving more like WHers, ignoring Local and spamming D-Scan constantly, because Local ceases to be sufficiently valuable as an intel source once these structures have been anchored about for a few months.

How about another suggestion that would also kinda fit with the lore?

If you enter a system via a gate, you show up in local... If you enter by "other" (WH, Jumpbridge, Cyno) means, it would take some time to show up in local?

This is a good post Khan.

1 - Local

Does it work both ways?

For example, if i'm a scout whizzing through systems looking for targets, do i instantly see nullbears that have been ratting in a system for more than 10 minutes whilst they cannot see me? Would it not be better if local did not list anything for players that have newly arrived to a system until the specific timer has expired?

Preferably id prefer no names show at all below a certain sec status save for Fleet, Corp and Alliance members. Not even a local player count.

2+3 - Watch List and Locator Agents

I like your idea of differentiating the Locator agent levels and make their power about information rather than range.

But I'd overhaul and combine both the Watch list and Locators using Observation Arrays and making them a player asset. An OA could be set-up to watch a certain number of players for a corp and also provide locates on selected players. The level of detail the locate provides would depend on the distance of the character to the closest OA that corp owns. so a well placed netowrk of OA's (with locator mods?) matters.

There would be no need for locator levels.

4 +5 - D-scan + Scanning

I like the gradual increase of intel depending on focus and distance.

Does D-scan provide pure intel? or would it be possible to actually get a warp in with only d-scan if you get a strong enough signal?

As well as boosting the D-scan of battleships, what about Command Ships? and what about d-scan range as well? The 'Legolas' scenario you describe seems better suited to a command ship than bringing a BS on a roam.

Does a ship about to/in the middle of/exiting warp provide much of an engine bloom?

6 - Cloaks

Would be great with no local

Originally my idea called for nuking local and replacing it with a series of columns sorted by your personal standings, and just listed as numbers. So, a blue comes into system, and the blue column would up a notch. A neutral comes into system, and neutral goes up a notch. Someone leaves...down a notch. But you wouldn't have a name or corp associated with that target unless you were on-grid with him to see and click him on your overview. I felt this was very important because just knowing someone's name means you can start putting information into killboards and other intel sites and getting a whole lot of data on that person's capabilities. Eventually, if you got enough of a rep, for an example, as a covert ops hot dropper, everyone always scatters when your name enters system. That's NOT a good thing for the health of this game, no matter what the scenario is.

But, I digress. You asked a direct question and deserve a direct answer. I hadn't thought about it before you asked, but I would imagine the system would only work if the timer were mutually exclusive. As in, you as a scout roll into a system, and you can't see local targets and they can't see you for 10 minutes in your example.

I also like your idea of no names at all below certain sec status, but that starts to infringe upon wormholes, and I like them having more unique space and I would want to preserve that. So I'd like to hear some dedicated wormholers discuss that idea :)


2+3 - Watch List and Locator Agents

(I'm going to cut out most of the quoting to simplify the formatting here)

I like your idea. More player structures and reasons to hold sov = excellent. Just a quick question: under your idea of observatory arrays providing locates...would you still have locator agents for highsec corps that still need some sort of locator function? If so, does anything about them change, other than "no more need for agent levels"?



4 +5 - D-scan + Scanning

I was imagining D-scan to only provide intel. If you want warp-ins, you should have probes out.

You make a very fair point about which ships (if any) should get boosts to d-scan as a role bonus. Over the weeks where I was refining the idea, there were several forum threads about the lackluster state of battleships, so I felt the need to give them a bone. It was a knee-jerk reaction of sorts and not well thought-out. But command ships having a role bonus does make sense and it is certainly an area worth discussing and debating the merits of.

The warp thing...I really wanted to propose a warp engine bloom but decided against it because it would probably wreck havoc with the code of the game and for not much benefit.


6 - Cloaks

Agreed. But that's just a dream at this point.

So, youre okay with , "open map show me where ships are lightyears from my current location", why?

I cannot see whats on the market in the next system over because its not in my region but i can tell where a ship is clear across EVE, stupid.

I'm okay with it because gameplay-wise, finding low or no-activity systems and having the slightest bit of a clue about potential gatecamps is important. The info you get isn't specific to an individual, but rather polling data. I can open up Google and find out census, crime, and income data for any city in pretty much any first-world city on Earth. Yes, in EvE, I should be able to find out general information about what's been going on in a system for the past 24 hours. Eliminating that intel source is stifling to gameplay and undesired.

I have no idea what you're referring to Thomas.

But a generic answer to your unspecific post would be; Players working together should be more powerful than solo players.

in eve this means alts.

you do as much as possible with alts before ever including more actual people.


As a note locator agents currently list if they are docked or not. If docked it will give the station name if undocked it will only give system name. to find out what people are flying it requires slight on them. If a group is always using a certain ship maybe its cause its the only ship viable for the job they are doing.


null sec like more security so the dock up when a +1 neut enters local as people dont just wander deep in someone else sov without a reason. Low sec has more people staying in site because there can be alot of traffic though a system and none of it be interested in hunting someone in a site. Those in low sec would also be using dscan and set up to gtfo very quickly.

Delayed local: according to truesec? Or just displayed sec status? Also, 1min of not appearing per 0.1 missing is way too much... When roaming, we never stay more than 2-3 minute in a nullsec system if we're not fighting, which eans we'll be moving risk-free.

About the DScan residual signal: if scanning for let's say a 90° angle, i think residual signal should only appear in the scanned area, as no signal would have been emitted toward the rest of the system.

Good start.



Just about stopped reading there. But continued because the guy just said it shouldn't be easy.



So local will still trivially give away anyone who didn't fly straight through.

Stopped reading then, bad idea