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i wasn't referring to the bugs that require more clicks to hack a node but the pure amount of dots you have to click to even reach something. Most dots just lead to the next dot and nothing else, thats what "hurts" most and is no fun either. but i'll wait till there is a playable version before i make further comments on the current alpha version.

Still waiting on those specifics on wormholes and the changes to them..?

I would like to add my vote to the topic of differentiating archaeology a little more. If not in Odyssey due to lack of dev resources (always an understandable issue), then please shortly after.

I'm not trying to be ungrateful - much to the contrary, in fact. This devblog has me grinning a mile wide, and I feel this incredibly enriches the EVE universe and will touch long-time players and newbies alike when they randomly decide to poke at this relatively obscure profession and suddenly gape in surprise at something they never expected to see. Sometimes it's not the prominently placed mainstream content that demonstrates the level of polish of a game, but rather the little systems on the side, especially if they received a little more attention than one would expect - after all, game companies are usually focusing almost exclusively on content for as broad a mass of players as possible, because of the speed with which these players consume content.

That's why I believe hacking and archaeology should be differentiated by more than just the skin of the graphics and sounds. Because they deserve to be different, and because it would enrich the EVE universe and positively surprise players even more.

Although it would be awesome, it doesn't have to be radically different - if you could replace for example the the act of combating coares with the act of repairing cores (after all, you are trying to revive a millenia-old mechanism) by something like... having to find the missing parts on the grid, instead of finding attack and defense boosts. Though there would still be hazards to exploring the grid, like accidentally triggering something that cuts an existing connection on the grid, forcing you to work around it. And then having to match the pieces to the right cores, in a puzzle-esque manner.

That way you would't have to re-invent the wheel, but instead could achieve a totally different feel (especially the reconstruct vs. hack/destroy aspect being responsible for that).

I like the fact that you're changing the passive and boring waiting for dice to roll to something that requires interaction.
Even if that interaction isn't all that complex at the moment I'm sure that with further development it can become a source of very rewarding game-play both in terms of content (variations between archeology and hacking) and final rewards.

My only issue with the current iteration of the system is the fact that jettisoned containers are going to despawn soon after being created. Like many others, I'd like to ask you to reconsider this decision. I think that having cans spread around the area should be enough as it would increase the time required to scoop them, hence increasing the risk of getting killed and decreasing the holy grail of isk/hour efficiency.

Archeology/Hacking (Radar/Mag) sites, even in lowsec are hardly worth group effort atm (wouldn't know about nullsec). It takes time to probe systems down and then to do the sites while being much riskier then any comparable pve activity in highsec. While changes to probing system and new modules coupled with removal of rats and introduction of mini-game has the potential to speed up this kind of activity, I'm not sure that the difference will be dramatic (killing rats was never a big issue really).

Also I might have missed that and I apologise if I did, but what will happen with ladar sites? Currently they are a mixture of combat/hacking/arch and gravimetrics. How will that be changed in Odyssey (if at all).

Have you at CCP considered moving analysers and hacking tools to high slots? I feel it would make sense from gameplay point of view, considering removal of rats from sites.

Finally (and only remotely related to the topic) please make an industrial/explo tech 3 ship.

CCP Bayesian,

I think the way most capsuleers see this technique is a "forced cooperation" in order to actually get the loot that was hacked.

I see what you are trying to do - and I think you guys are on the right track. But it seems like it would make more sense if the loot that is jettisoned in containers use the normal containers that despawn in 2 hours.

To "encourage" teamwork, make the cans move in all directions away from the original hacking container at a decent speed, like 300m/s for example. If there is 7 or 8 containers moving in all directions, its going to be very slow for a solo explorer (but still possible to get all the loot from the site).

This would provide the option to bring along a buddy in an inty or someone in a destroyer with tractors and an MWD.

This seems like it would provide choices to the player - and would be a minigame in itself chasing down the cans.

I do want to thank you for you activity in this forum, as it encourages those to post, knowing you actually care. Great work.

People will get used to it. Personally I think the principe that "soft skills", as well as actual personal skill at the game can increase rewards is excellent. If there's one thing that's worse than anything else about EVE's PvE, it's that it's so predictable.

Losing that predictability will be something of a shock, but ultimately for the best.

This would basically change nothing (if there was a predetermined cap on what profit per player would be) and would hardly provide incentives for group play - if I earn 20 mil per site solo or in a group of 5, what's the difference except for the fleet chat (and that I already have in channels I'm part of w/o explo). One thing that could be done is some increasing rewards mechanism stemming from group effort - chance of some very valuable loot with high virus strength, but tbh I don't like the forcing group play bit. I'd prefer exploration to be a fully fledged profession, where your skills, very specialized equipment and personal (real-life) experience make you a good explorer/hacker/archeologist, kind of like probing (combat part in particular) is right now.

The thing is, in my experience, explorers are quite often lone wolfs, doing it either full time or to get a change of pace from what they do as their primary career (PvP, industrials, miners etc). Some aspects of exploration already require group (or at least multi-boxing) efforts to get high rewards (higher end combat sites and escalations), so I see no reason for removing options for solo and/or very small group play.
Maybe introduce something akin to escalations in arecheology and create mechanics which would require group play (e.g. a site where coding of the most valuable container can't be done unless two-three other containers are actively being kept de-crypted by other fleet members with appropriate modules). However such content would probably require much more effort and coding then CCP obviously has resources for atm (considering that they couldn't develop separate mechanisms for arch/hacking).

For now, I stand by my proposal - don't de-spawn containers, rather make them float to a decent distance from inital spawn point, say 50-70km radius circle, thus increasing time required per container retrieved for solo guys. That should balance things out just fine.

I don't think that people are as worried about fuzzyness as you might think (tell me about certainty of rewards after doing 20 combat explo sites and getting decent drops from 3-4 of those).
It's more about those sites currently not being really valuable and de-spawning mechanism making them even less so.
If loot is being rebalanced too I guess we'll have to wait and see how it plays out before further comments, however - the general direction this is going to is really good and I like it .

Quick question:

What skills are going to be involved in the new hacking system? I've never really done hacking before and am curious if I'll only need the Hacking skill or what other skills will be applicable to this profession.

Edit:

Also, how common will these sites be in high/low/null sec and w-space?

I'd love to see this hacking mini-game take off...

I find it easy to imagine a future where dedicated hackers are cooking up their own personalised viruses and dueling them against each other for sport, or where you hack your own POS to fill it with nasty booby-traps that do stuff like temporarily off-line random modules, then intentionally leave it offline to see who comes along to try and steal it.

I think "perma-death" of your virus would be a lot more meaningful if you personally had to put some time and effort into assembling it. ie If losing a virus felt a little like losing a fitted ship (in terms of time sunk fitting it, not cost).