EVE General Discussion

Guys, please make the difference in between "complex system" which is interesting and the current probing system that has nothing close to complex but everything about tedious and boring.

Yes find sites must require skills (toon skills) and some awareness but the current probes and hit scan thing is just mind blowing.
You like it? -fine

I don't. Because there's nothing complicated on training high lvl skills or even decent ones and launch probes, however fapping probes manually for an hour to find all sites in interesting systems is just BORING TEDIOUS and NOT FUN.
It's not really complicated to change the probing interface so I can save several probe comps.

CCP Punkturis on that interface would make an awesome job, I'm sure she understands the words tedious, boring and mind blowing.

I can quote an exact process here.

1) find configuration online
2) launch to new location
3) move to safe spot
4) launch probes (enough for configuration)
5) move all to center (using shift drag)
6) arrange into configuration
7) center probes around blip (using shift drag)
8) size down probes (shift drag and alt drag) so they look smaller
9) scan
10) if less than 100% goto 7
11) get bacon

Not a lot of thinking in the above. It's not like the locations fight back or change the parameters as you scan. That's tedium. It's playing the same chess game over and over again when you know how your opponent will move. Maybe it has more than one move set, but once you've seen all the possible moves, it's the same each and every time. That's the very definition of tedium.

What needs fixing?

I have my graphics on the minimum also. Was just replying to the poster above who was complaining about the graphics.

Would graphics improvements mean getting rid of the damn clouds in missions, anomalies, and exploration sites?

They're probably also going to do the work they've been discussing about on the battleships, making them work along the lines of all these tiericide changes as well, but no, I doubt that the clouds and such will be gotten rid of, though perhaps they will be made shinier :)

lol

Exact process:

1) launch probe, move to place x 8
2) scan
3) move
4) resize
5) scan
6) bookmark / warp to location

You scan faster with experience and dealing with doubles, rings and spheres requires at least some thinking. Good scanner finds a route in matter of minutes, bad scanner wastes 45 min to the same job. It's not just dependant on character skills. I've seen level IV scanners struggle.

D-scanner separates the good from the bad even more efficiently.

Both tools could use serious usability improvements, but simplifying the mechanics themselves is really difficult while still maintaining the importance of player skill.

Also fix sites please, nothing more annoying then getting to a radar site and all nodes empty.

I think it would be epic if we could script our probe search patterns. Like a little text box where you can put in:


**1**
*131*
**1**
:10


To describe a 7 probe pattern with 1 up, one down, one in 4 directions with 10 percent of total AU overlap.

Or maybe a 4 probe pattern with 20 percent of total probe AU overlap:

*1*1*
*1*1*
:20


Such things would allow us to share probe patterns, and maybe even be able to run a sequence of scans, with different patterns.

Of course there's the dilemma that people who can think would have an advantage over those who cannot (but that's been a feature of the entire game for the most part).


Overall, automating the scanning procedure and some way to automate the sweeps of D-Scan is not going to be a game killer except to those whose killmails depend on it. So perhaps some decision will have to be reached if there is going to be a value in mechanics that allow people to outwit each other, or simply out-knowledge each other, the latter basing victory on someone making a mistake; perfectly valid in a tactical sense when we forget this is a game.

The Hacking Skills only improve the chance of the can opening per cycle, not the contents.

Otherwise, post source for this information.