Player Features and Ideas Discussion

How to do it in a nutshell:

1. Put Local in Delayed Mode.

2. Tactical Location Information: Extensively modify the scanning system and build in passive/active modes, adding in rigs/modules to optimize for each. Additionally, factor in racial sensors, racial emissions (ship exhaust, emissions etc.) and various third and fourth order complexity to give evasion and detection a subtle and nuanced feel with an extreme amount of depth built into the game design.

3. Strategic Location Information: Similar to Tactical, build in the player produced/operated equipment that replaces the current "free" information streams and data sets. Strategic Location Information can be propagated through player groups via standings.

The mechanics for what I'm proposing should be viable with the existing code base. We already have variables like sig radius and sensor strength. We already have omni-directional and hyper-directional scanning capability. Now all we need to do is break the existing scanner mechanics into separate portions, add more detail to each and make it highly customizable and tunable by the players. Everything that I've thought of so far is based on existing game design/game mechanics.

More specifics:

I'll start with the most simple portion of the whole thing, the passive sensors.

All ships will have passive sensors. This will be the default sensor mode. All ships will have more/less effective base passive sensors depending on ship type and race. Some will have greater range, others faster refresh frequency (5 seconds vs. 10 as an example) while others provide more detail at greater range etc. Passive sensors will be upgradable with both rigs and modules, and all sensors will be able to be tuned to detect a particular racial type of ship at the expense of detecting other types of ships with less capability.

Ships will also be able to equip mods/rigs that will make them harder (or impossible) to detect with passive sensors and/or tuned to be particularly invisible to racial sensor types etc. Giving players the option to configure their ships for a specific threat at the cost of making them more vulnerable to others is good game design.

The larger/hotter the ship signature, the easier it will be detected: it will be detected at greater range and with more detail than other ships. No longer will a cloak be a 'one size fits all' solution, making a BS invisible just as easily as a frig.

Example: BS will be detectable from extreme range compared to a frig. As ships come closer to one another more info about the contact will be revealed depending on the power of the sensors and the type of target. Depending on the proximity of the contact with other ships and the size of those ships, multiple ships might appear as one large ship, or a large ship might mask the presence of smaller ships in its group. The closer you are, the more powerful your sensors and the less stealthy your target is, the more info you discern at a given range.

The concept with passive sensors is that they operate on the idea that they detect emissions by other ships: exhaust gas, heat, communications signals or what have you. The louder/brighter/smellier your ship is, the easier it will be to detect.

The automated nature of the passive scanner alleviates the issue of "always having to push the button" every 2 seconds. It's the equivalent of "watching local". It's imperfect information however is what gives attacking players a chance to locate other players and get within range before they can run. Which brings me to Active Sensors.

Active Sensors:

These can be separated into a further two groups: ship mounted and probes. Both systems will emit a "ping" which can be detected by targeted ships that are hit with this sensor ping. Targeted ships won't always be able to detect your pings if your active sensors are sufficiently advanced and you're operating far outside of the defending player's passive sensors. Active sensors are the equivalent of shining a flashlight into a dark room. You can see what the flashlight is pointed at, and your target can see the flashlight, but nobody else can see the light beam unless they're being painted by it.

Probes are comparable to an illumination round. You fire one up in the air and it lights up the entire battlefield, showing everyone where everyone else is all at once, friend and foe alike. This is a generalization and of course CCP should build in immense detail into this with respect to type of probe, race of probe, range, power, duration, pulse frequency, probe arrays and coverage, probe overlap and constructive interference of sensor volume etc.

[more later]

The whole idea is great, but far too complex considering the vast amount of casual players.

Local is easy, overview is easy, d-scan is easy. The complexity in eve comes from options and strategy, something you do not have to commit to unless you want to.


To an extend we already have the whole concept though. Local just indicates the presence of a player. D-scan indicates direction, distance and ship type - but it does not necessarily tell you who it is. Probes are your active version, giving you a precise warpable location.

I hate to have to say this over and over again. All these ideas boil down to this: Your proposal indicates you should get into wormholes. The lack of local makes scanning probes the only way to get accurate (warpable signature) information, but it is active and can be seen on d-scan. It can be made easier by manual skill (narrowing down direction and distance with d-scan), with actual skills/rigs (scanning skills), actively be countered with sensor strength/signature radius, and detected with d-scan. Different local mechanics as well.

The whole concept exists already, and would - if you wanted it to be exactly like your way - just need some minor modification. As such it would not be too hard to polish it, but you should not think about a solution until you exactly identify and analyze the underlying problem.

You don't solve a problem until you figure out what *exactly* the problem is (and merely remembering that many people complain about local is not a justification, it's just an indication there might be an issue (either with gamemechanics, or with people's perspectives)

I have an issue with the sensors, in that your descriptions are somewhat reversed.

Passive sensors should always have substantial range and sensitivity advantages over active sensors, which should have the advantages of precision and speed of targeting solution.

in particular, passive sensor sensitivity and accuracy should be tied directly to the size of the sensor platform (the ship), with larger vessels having much more powerful passive sensor suites than smaller ones (barring specialized sensor platforms). as such, passive suites are a strategic sensor - though one which can be used for on grid tactical use if the sensing vessel is large enough and the EW environment well controlled.

by contrast, active sensors are independent of ship size, instead relying upon radiated power and direct knowledge of signal characteristics to enhance precision over tactical ranges. as such, active sensors really shouldnt be useable against any off-grid target (indeed, a vessel's active sensor range should determine it's effective combat grid - and to a large degree it already does). being much more heavily filtered in the types of signal that they process, active sensors are also much more tolerant of EW (unless the opponent finds just the right signals to interfere with)

I touched upon this distinction in another thread regarding improving marauders, where I suggested that the reason why they are so easily jammed could be explained by near total dependence on passive suites far more sensitive than any other ship in eve (sensors capable of resolving interstellar jump navigation solutions without a cyno in the destination system).