Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I meant look at the map where there's actually active upgrades. Level 5 mining systems f.ex are sure-fire to be active, combine that with seeing when there are people active there and you've got that part of the intel down.


Sounds like something you should spend some time gathering. This seems slightly incompatible with your "it must fit within 2 hour chunks" demand.

Leaning more and more towards "I want cheap miner/ratter kills". vOv


No, surveillance lasting more than 2 hours tells you that.


Patience is a virtue if you're going to be a good covops pilot. vOv

So let's see, here.

You don't want to spend more than 2 hours a day doing recon, and you don't want people to know you're there because that will "change their behavior" because that'd mean you might have to expend more than a few hours for a day or two (instead you might have to expend a few days where you leave the client running and just periodically take a look around or take a peek at it). And yet you want to make sure that people who try to make a living in null have to expend a lot of time and energy, constantly, just to try to avoid getting ganked.

Fair and balanced.

You are making an assumption that someone "AFK Cloaking" is actually ignored after a period of time.

I put it to you that they do not genuinely resume standard behavior, but a guarded compromise if they at all partially resume.
Many will simply not risk exposure as they feel their assets are too valuable to risk with ANY hostile presence.

>>>>You are making an assumption that someone "AFK Cloaking" is actually ignored after a period of time.[/quote]


>>>>I put it to you that they do not genuinely resume standard behavior, but a guarded compromise if they at all partially resume.
Many will simply not risk exposure as they feel their assets are too valuable to risk with ANY hostile presence.[/quote]

Effort free: Ah, I just popped in, I did not need to sneak through X number of gates, or do any research to select a system. Ooops, my bad, that is the level of current effort they need to know I am present.
Risk free: Hmmm, sounds more like the current PvE pilots who can use local to know instantly when any hostile enters the same system, so they can get safe.
I seem to be suggesting they go to more effort than casually glancing at that chat roster to know of danger... things like using sensors and intel channels. I seem to be at the same, if not more, risk than ever before, if they actually make the effort.
Unnoticeable: Hardly accurate at all. They will be able to notice it quite well, when they see the gate fire. If the devs actually balance it with the ability then to hunt cloaked ships, they can certainly notice with proper effort.


I am hearing:
You MUST "AFK Cloak" for intel, otherwise they might actually be surprised when a stealth ship shows up, or gives information to combat vessels rather than have them derp around while you zip off to safety. You make it sound unreasonable that someone sent to scout should actually be able to give them information that allows a hostile force to intercept them.

So, you suggest it is fair that the cloaked pilot should need to keep a client online for days on end, while the local PvE pilots gradually become jaded to their presence in the chat roster.
And you see the gaping discrepancy in effort here as normal and balanced.

But if they need to match the level of effort used by the intel gathering pilot, that is somehow unreasonable.

A ship that will let me go anywhere in space with no risk of being detected?
I'd be all over that like white on rice even if I didn't have any interest in military recon for that space.

Sure, it sounds like a lot of fun, just no real depth of strategic value if it can't be used to at least provide a warp-in.
This is a warp-in here, not a hot drop. One of the primary jobs of a scout.

So the no local bit is less about intelligence gathering, and more about ganking after all?

Not at all.

Your characterization of this as ganking suggests the target has no means to guard against this. I say that is highly misleading, as the intent is to allow individual and group effort to provide intel needed. Cloaked vessels are not an absolute in a balanced environment being described. The removal of local, to be balanced, includes a means to detect the presence of cloaked vessels, if not hunt them directly except by equally specialized means.

Intel gathering includes all activities short of directly firing on the target ships with damage causing weapons.

It is the information gathering aspect of a strike force.

Intel gathering includes acting as a warp in. That specific location to be arrived at is valid as a form of intel.

It is all activities supporting the arrival of a strike force at a predetermined location, where the presence and composition of targeted forces influences the details of this response.

You described a lovely tour bus.

Intel is meant to promote PvP. Not ganking, which by definition denies the target opportunity to respond. You won't be able to catch alert PvE pilots who pay attention any more than before.

It DOES create the opportunity for them to forget, become careless, or simply make mistakes. Local Chat is so easy that it makes such awareness a no-brainer.

TL/DR: "Many ratters and miners want to keep local because they might have to actually play otherwise"

Fixed it for ya.

I must point out I am also a miner. That is what I participate in normally when I am in game. I want everyone to need to work harder for intel as a miner.
I want to know that the other guy somewhere is spoiling the hunters by failing to pay attention, and gives them easy kills.
Because of him, hunters will go elsewhere for easy kills if they have too much trouble catching me.
I don't need to avoid the hunters, I just need to be harder to catch than the others.

Why do I spend so much time mining right now?
Something about my scouting ships finding their current greatest value by probing out grav sites for the better ore.