Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I propose an overhaul to the directional scanner to make it more of an intel tool, possibly good enough to put local chat into delayed mode throughout the game. This idea will make scanning out targets more interesting and character-skill based, as opposed to moving your eyeballs over to look at the local window.

Extend the range to 50au: Because 14au isn’t far enough to allow time for determining contacts (see below).

Add an autoscan toggle button that automatically scans the area every 4 seconds, and switches itself off after a minute (to prevent people leaving it on all day and lagging up the node and because some player interaction is a good thing).

A visual display, client-based, that puts in a little 3D sphere graphic on the display that shows the scanner ‘pulse’, and the general location of contacts as they appear as dots, adjusting for the current camera angle. When selected on the contact list, the relevant dot is highlighted by a pulsing circle surrounding it (or something else that attracts attention). This would replace the current ‘smell-o-scope’ approach to determining direction of contacts.

Audible contact noises that inform the pilot when something enters scanner range. These could be adjusted to ignore allied contacts of course.

* The scanner will report the distance of the object, though its accuracy beyond your current grid will diminish with distance (out near maximum range, the scanner might report it as “>40au”.

* Another column labeled ‘signal strength’ appears to the right of ‘distance’, showing the degree of accuracy of the contact, much like with the current probing system, colour coded in red, yellow and green as signal improves with scanning time, distance and skill.

* When targets first appear on the scanner, they are classified as ‘Unknown Contact’. As more information is gleaned, they become classified as their type, be it Battleship, Frigate, Small tower etc. Finally, after further scanning/getting closer to the target it is identified as its actual type (Huginn, Drake etc). Once identity is established, the ship’s name is brought up along with any further information that would show up on the overview, such as standings, low sec status etc. so that a determination as to the nature of the contact can be made.

* The speed with which more information is gleaned is determined by signature size of the target, sensor strength of your ship, time spent scanning the target, and skill level. New skills could be added (Sensor filtering, Advanced sensor filtering) to aid the speed at which a fix can be made, and possibly a skill (Sensor baffling) to impede the skill of others trying to detect your ship.

* Cloaking devices would impede the effectiveness of the scanner while they’re active, although covert ops cloaks would minimize this.

So the scanner would work something like this;

You’re hunting prey in a star system, and you have your scanner pinging away as you warp around, and finally get a contact out beyond 40au. Moving the camera around you can see a red dot on your 3D spherical space radar display (or DRADUS for short ). Information about the ‘Unknown Contact’ appears in the display showing the low signal strength, general distance of the target. With each pass of the scanner, a little more information is gleaned, and the signal strength slowly climbs.

You think the target is close to planet 5, so you warp to it and as you approach, the signal strength increases enough to determine that it’s a cruiser. The display shows its distance is now around 13au, and after a few more sweeps with the scanner you get a good fix on it; the sig goes to near 100%, and you see all the information you need: ‘wtfpwnage’ / Tengu / 7au / 88%. There is a blue star next to the ships name, indicating that it is an allied ship, so you say hi in your alliance channel and go on your merry way.

All this time, the target had you on his scanner too, and was trying to get more information to determine if you were a threat. Had the target been neutral, or an enemy of your corp/alliance, a chase would ensue (or not).

Optional idea: This might be overpowered, but I was considering replacing combat scanner probes with the ability to warp directly to the target once you have it at 100%. The accuracy of warping in this fashion would be determined by distance, and a skill called ‘Warp Navigation’; so you could end up from 10km to 50km from the target when you land on it. But this might be a bit much, so I’m not sure. My thoughts on the current probing system are that it’s great for probing out plexes and the like, but not so great at the ship probing thing.

The overall effect of this would be to remove the need for local to be a proxy intel tool, and if the direct warping feature is implemented, would result in more contact points, or places where ships can meet up to fight each other. There are big implications for this idea though, so it needs to be thoroughly vetted.

Discuss!

No.

Not a bad idea, but I would suggest a couple of tweaks that might help...


I can help with this detail in specific.

We are using ships here that have both active and passive detection.
Active means they send out an energy wave, and their sensors interpret the feedback they get, giving them a range where they have awareness. Best analogy, you are in a dark room using a flashlight. The flashlight sends light out, and your eyes report what the light shows them.
Passive means the same sensors, possibly aided by specialty items to boost sensitivity, detects energy coming from all other sources in range of the ship. This would tell the pilot if someone near them sent out an active scan wave beyond what it would tell the actual sender! (The sender is relying on reflected energy coming back to them, which means a scan wave that goes out for 50AU, could only tell them about ships 25 AU distant, since it needs to make a complete round trip to reach the sensors on the ship sending them)
Best analogy: You are in a huge dark room, and you see in the distance someone using a flashlight. The flashlight is too far away to let them see you, but by using it they advertise their presence to any direction the light can be seen from.

What would this mean? Your overview or visual display should tell you of the presence of this scan attempt. You won't know who is scanning, just that someone is attempting to over there somewhere. You might be given the option to align towards this pulse, or even scan in this direction yourself. Try to keep in mind if they were out of range, you might be too, and you will just tell them someone else is there.



The autoscan button time limit won't be as necessary when you consider that by active scanning, you effectively broadcast your own presence to twice your effective scanning range. This will make people less likely to leave it running, as it would become a beacon to home in on for others.

Cloaked vessels need no penalty to their own range using this system. They give away their own presence every time they scan.

Refinement: An active D-Scan in range of the sender's ship sensors for feedback, would also tell other ships where the sender's ship was, since the signal strength would be above 50% and clear enough to backtrack.
(If they see you, they expose themselves to you by scanning so close to you as well.)
However, you will just see their location, not who they are, or what they are flying.