Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So watching Stargate Atlantis last night i was forced to wonder, with eve being the superb space simulator thingy that it is why dose my ship not have a distress call option allowing other ships to look on to my signal and warp to me, like in every sci-fi movie/series ever.

How?

Just as you right click your ship to self destruct you could right click and "activate distress call" This would a) Make your ship show up on the on-board scanner (the one u use to find annoms not the directional one) b) send out a message in Local saying "halp im being violated"

Why?

Why not? i cant really see my self using it for other things than trolling corp mates or something (will get to that later) . However i can see the lone care bear in his epicly fitted carrier soloing 0,0 sites all of a sudden getting jumped. He would then start by activating the "oh-crap button" since ofc he was not in any standing fleets and "amagad warp to the annom" usualy never works.

Restrictions?

Yes there would have to be some, seeing as Jita local and scanner would be flooded. perhaps shield below 50% or something like that to be able to activate it

Other thoughts?

One might maybe add a message to the distress call, "attacked by NPC's" "attacked by pirates" "ship abandoned, return to XXXX for reward"

However usefull/useless this feature might be i think it could add to the overall feel that is the space-simulator Eve Online :)

Which is exactly why this feature would become another pointless white-elephant (like bounties) that never fulfils its intended purpose.

People don't just put their own ship in danger and warp into an unknown situation to help a random stranger unless they're a complete moron.

the distress signal should give you information about the situation otherwise nobody would warp to it.

for example, beacon -> show info
Foo Bar triggered a distress beacon in his deep space transport
ships on grid: 2 frigates, scrambling, webbing
ship status: armor damaged

It's a trap!

If it's not a trap, join in on the gank.

+1 I love it! Still needs some kinks worked out but it increases the possibilities for PvP encounters, so it cannot be bad. That and it will be epically cool to send out a distress call... and actually be saved. I can see distress beacon patrollers being the new anti-pirate calling.

I agree that if you have standings, a cyno-like beacon on overview would be nice but probably too easy-mode. There should definitely be a message (coloured mission text so it can't be faked) in local and in the combat log of those on grid that a distress beacon was activated. This way, random do-gooders in local know to scan for it and the attackers know they need to watch for reinforcements. Perhaps some drawback against the caller as well, i.e. ship has to come to a dead stop like cyno/siege mods until they deactivate the beacon or explode. This ensures responders land on the action and will help to deter unintended use.

This is so awesome they might have to integrate a tutorial for it in the NPE. I imagine a line from Aura mentioning "just because you activate your distress beacon does not mean someone will come to help you. But, they might."

Remember the Butterfly Effect trailer? That scenario might happen a lot more often with this idea.

Hail to the sandbox.

Im not so sure about the standing idea.
It could make it kind of one-sided for carebears and trash any chance for small gangs and sometimes provide even more targets for people with a much larger fleet waiting for the expected support. Really only beneficial to the greater masses and basically just a trap mechanism because after a while people wont bother trying to do small engagements, they'll just send in bait and with enough of that people will stop using it as well.

Im still for adding it though, there's no telling where it will go. These are just some guesses.

If it didnt have standing, everyone would abuse it and no one but people in recons and such that were looking to get in on a mail or finish off the lone survivor would come after the majority learned to distrust it.


Maybe it could be a module you fit in your high's. Like a cyno or a probe launcher. But only certain people see, since you're now sacrificing a high fori t. Be it alliance, corp, +standings, contacts list, doesnt matter to me. This would add some moderation to it and keep everyone and their favourite pet rock from using it constantly.

Worth consideration in the future. After some other features are implemented.

Not a bad idea at all.

I like how its effect is neutral: it could be good or bad - it could summon help, or it could attract more pirates.
I mainly see it being used in low and NPC-null.
In PvE, it lets other people into your site without scanning-> could attract ninja salvagers, or competitors to a plex.


I'd say to prevent spamming, someone with a criminal flag must have aggro'd you (ie someone "illegally" shoots at you, or an outlaw shoots at you even if you can flipped him or shot at him first). After all, if this is in high sec ... well concord will help you. If concord isn't helping you, then the players that respond can't really help you without being concorded themselves (RR excepted) unless it is low sec or the guy has a global criminal flag.

So this would primarily be a low/Null thing. It could go off in high sec during a gank... but are players really going to respond faster than concord will?

The above condition still leaves some things out: maybe a dumb noob go can flipped, and would like some RR.
But is anyone really going to come? the tarps will outnumber the "real" help requests at least 10:1.
You get jumped by war targets, and want some RR -> again, is anyone actually going to come help?

So I'd say: unrestricted in Null
For High and low: someone criminally flagged must have aggressed you for you to send out a distress call.
If other players can't attack the "bad-guy" without concord intervention or a sec status hit, then you can't send out a distress call when attacked by the "bad-guy"

And then there is one last scenario: you are getting your ass kicked in PvE.

I don't like the 50% shields idea, because the armor tankers could still spam it.
They could spam at 50% armor too, if their tank is plenty for the mission, they just rep to 50% and then stop.
I'm tempted to say you'd have to have 0% shield and armor, and being aggressed by NPCs in order to use it - but then it will likely be too late for actual mission runners, while those with elite hull tanking certs may lulz hull tank low level missions and spam it.

Should we even worry about it being spammed?
Why not allow a "boy who cried wolf" effect.

Of course, there are other possible anti-spam options: a 100,000 ISK fee for using it. Or a 12 hour wait period between uses.
Or 1 "free" use every 24 hours, with each subsequent use charging a higher fee and resetting the 24 hour timer.
ie:
First use: free
2nd use within 24 hours: 10k ISK
3rd use within 24 hours: 20k ISK
4th: 40k ISK
5th: 80k ISK
...
10th: 5.12 million ISK
No more spamming that, the next one costs 10.24 million to activate!