Player Features and Ideas Discussion

you ever tried the constellation chat ? No one uses it.. why add more stuff no one will use..

With this idea in place, AFK Cloaking vanishes as a tactic.

Local will again be just a chat channel, and considerations for possible means to hunt cloaked vessels could be made.

This is just a side effect, but still something to consider.

What if:

- you make local chat beacons (which authenticate, detect and show every player in - LOCAL chat - of the current solar system) to be an upgrade which can be purchased and can be anchored in your newly conquered solar systems

- you need to place more than one of this local chat beacons in a solar systems, in order to have a good coverage so you can detect and authenticate automatically any player in that solar systems. This have some flaws because there will be blind spots where you cannot be detected thus you can "disappear from local chat" as you left the solar system.

- you could scan with your covert ops frigate for some blind spots in a solar system, where you can warp in that area and disappear from local, because the local subspace beacon don't have coverage in certain areas (like behind planets, certain space clouds, etc).

- Black Ops ship will have the native ability to see the coverage of the local chat beacons on map and be able to warp to blind spots in order to disappear from local chat for some serious guerrilla action.

Later Edit:


hmm..
first you scan it and see where is no coverage from the local chat beacons;
then,let's say you send some kind of probe, launched from your probe launcher, you position it where is the blind spot, and you warp at the probe..there i fixed it.

Local Chat.

Of all the things I see it being used for, I kinda miss the part where you chat.

Chatting in local now feels like spray painting graffiti onto something meant just for display, not to really be used at all.

Unless you are in a trade hub, then it becomes a non stop set of canned advertisements for ridiculous scams.

Starmap's "users docked or in space in system" statistic much? Not only does it tell you this number in your current system, but it tells you for every system no matter where you are.

Feel the joy of local chat with no strings of concern from intel!

bad idea, people can sub to main low/null sec gate systems so they can see the amount of people in local thusly able to track where large numbers (fleets) are.

all i say is make local for H/L/N exactly like W-space. end of problems, end of worrys.

This thread wins Ten Thousand Splendid Furriers.

According to the game lore, local chat (and all the channels) work by way of fluid routers. Every ship has two of them, one which is installed in the ship and one which is installed in the network. I see no reason why we can't allow "subscribing" to this system's local or that system's local from a lore perspective.

Before you say it, I don't care if you think paying attention to lore is stupid.

However, I also see no reason why we couldn't disconnect our routers from the network too. So, I suggest that we be allowed to not only subscribe to channels, but to completely opt out of a channel as well. Maybe I don't want to hear all the silly pro-Jame315 banter going on in Brapelille, or the petulant retorts from the more vulgar of the ice miners, and so I disconnect from that system's local. Or perhaps a setting to keep you disconnected from all local channels just globally.

Since we're destroying the intel value of Local in the process of turning it back into a social feature, let's really destroy the intel and make even passive participation in the social feature completely optional.

This solution has the benefit of trying to recover the implied social aspect of the channel, while devaluing it's intel value.

If noone knows whether you are present or not, the ability to chat socially regains it's friendly nature.

Use of genuine effort to determine presence in a system gains value, since the free intel would be unreliable.

Players would need effort, and with effort comes competition.

Not to mention, devs would have a reason to raise rewards in null out of respect to the additional effort required.

Well, the channel is still considering the system it is named local chat for as it's topic and purpose.

But like people calling into a radio station, they can make comments and chatter when that station can also broadcast to their location.

Honestly, in null and some low, they should rename the channel as Local Free Intel, sine that is too often it's only use.