Player Features and Ideas Discussion

First for all TL;DR
A new module (in medslot for example) that, when active, picks up signals sent from other ships in the system (d-scan, scan probe positioning updates/scan commands) and shows the direction of the signal.

Sounds interesting? Read ahead!

Behind the idea.
I am guessing the directional scan works like radar/sonar by sending out a signal and analyzing the echo bouncing off ships/planets and stuff. Same way any ship must send a signal to active scan probes to update their position or tell them to scan. Should it not be possible to "listen" to other players signals?

The mechanic behind the module.
By passively picking up directional scans and probe commands from any ship you can (like the d-scan) narrow the angle down to where you get a certain direction to the source. It does not tell you the direction right away, you will have to receive several signals to narrow the angle down. And it does not tell you the range or type of ship, only the direction. So you will need at least two players in different angles of the source to be able to pinpoint the origin of the signal. In your fleet you may link your "Signal Trackers" and together pinpoint the source. HOWEVER, you can not actively pinpoint another ship with this module. It is up to the ship sending the signals to give up its own location.

So what would this do?
A covert ops ship can still remain hidden forever by not sending out any signals, but that way it wont gather any intel about locations either. Only who is in the system. (This together with no local would make the non-scanning cloaker useless) And players in the system (having the module) would be alerted as soon as the afk-cloaker would become active.
While standing still, scanning often and updating position of scan probes, he/she would flood the surrounding space with signals making the ship shine like a light bulb and ending up being an easy target. A good covert ops pilot would not remain in the same spot long enough to be detected, instead scan from several locations within the system.

Sorry. I did search and could not find any post with same type of module. Guess I seared for the wrong things.

Your search was too specific. The gameplay effect would be to affect cloaking without balancing this change.

It is not that cloaks should not change, but this stalemate effect is countering the free intel being given out by local.

We have right now, a case of: "I know you are there, but I cannot find you"
(Absolute presence awareness countered by absolute location concealment)

You cannot change one side without the other, and still have balance.

Orbiting isn't exactly predictable. If I orbit something at 149 km while moving 10 m/s, it would take you a VERY long time to determine the pattern of movement.

I had a similar idea on the ability to detect dscans and such (because it does make a lot of sense), but that so completely breaks the ability to hunt down ships. Every PVE player in low/null would just listen for dscans and safe up at the first sign of trouble. It would make system security and piracy much more difficult to practice.

If we can track down cloakers, what is the point of cloaking?

Cloaking is fine.

Did you guys see the fanfest coverage about the changes coming to cloaking and afk cloaking?

*snicker*

How about instead of relying on dscan pings, i'd propose that the module detects multi-verse distortions (if remember correctly cloaks wrap the ship up into multiple dimensions meaning it becomes invisible to the current dimension or something like that), and that when activated it it scans a 1000km radius around it and pops up a flashing beacon on on the overview (or screen) to show the direction of the distortion.

This means an active cloaker who is doing there job who is on the move will be able to avoid ships closing in on the beacon they got, but an afk cloaker who just sits still will wake up to a new clone in station.

This could open up another module for cloakers, a warning system that flash's the screen red when a multi-verse detector has been unleashed nearby (say 50km range) and gives a warning sound to the cloaker. And for those true hunters/explorer's a new probe ammo that is built for that same thing so that they can scan a system for cloaks and then warp to the bookmarked location (would drop them at a random distance from the cloaker (between 50-250km range) so the multi-verse detector is needed then to find the final location or to track the cloaker).

The probes could be said to not work in wormholes due to the signal distortion from the wormholes/sleepers etc same for the multi-verse detectors. That would keep wormholes the dangerous places they are without taking away a cloaky hunters prey away from them.

Too much focus on how to remove AFK cloaking. You are addressing a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself.

If you want to remove AFK cloaking's game impact, remove cloaked ships from displaying in local.

When this is done, it becomes reasonable to consider means to hunt cloaked vessels. NOT before this happens.

So long as people in a system magically know cloaked pilots are present with them, cloaked vessels should not be vulnerable to being hunted effectively.

Cloaking will be earned when cloaking awareness is earned. Balance must be maintained.