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This is a bad mechanic.


This is a good mechanic.


This is a bad mechanic.


These mechanics are fine.


I was ready to say this was a bad mechanic, but with the caveat that the previous position and formation is restored on deployment this mechanic is fine.


And removing DSP and any indication of signal strength on the scan overlay and in the window is an absolutely awful, awful mechanic that requires much better justification than what we were given. Justification (and mention) strangely absent in your devblog.

And I'll just quote this here:

Nah, this is a bad mechanic.
It will impact the probe market for no needed reason. The warning message when leaving probes out was already there for wormholes to remind people of their probes.

I don't see the point at all. This will not help new players in any way, unless the same mechanic is applied to everything we deploy. CCP, I want my drones automatically recalled when I jump or dock, thank you very much for implementing this ASAP.

Edit: oh, and the "polishing" of the scanner window now requires to R-click, then L-click to activate/deactivate the probes (instead of the current single clicking). So add this to the steps we'll have to perform to use a custom number of probes/set our own formations. If you frequently online/offline probes, enjoy!

please consider expanding the range of combat probes to at least 128 to compensate for the removal of dsp...

Faction POS structure BPCs will drop... does that include towers?

Yes.

Yes, the towers are included.

Better buff high sec

I would really like to see the 'auto-recall' a feature that the player can toggle by himself and being set to recall by default.
There's a lot of possible applications in leaving behind your probes in a solar system.


Also, i'm slightly sad about the skill changes applied towards Astrometrics and the specialisations.
If you are currently a dedicated prober, you make a huge investment in time to get Rangefinding to V - after all, it's a Rank 8 skill that provides a significant bonus. After the change, it will still be a rank 8 skill that however is by far less important to max out, especially with new scan-strength modules.
I'm not asking for a reimbursement of SP here, however, maybe you should consider the 'nerf' of this skill and reevaluate.
A solution to this might be, for example, tweaking down the efficiency of the modules that grant scan strength, and have rangefindiung to provide a 7.5% bonus for example, so that the skill-time investment allows you to reach equivalent scanstrength with less mods.
Or whatever you feel like. But investing (and have invested) ~1.7m skillpoints (what is this? 40 days?) for such a small bonus that can be circumvent with new fitting possibilities just doesn't feel right.

Also, with the ability to launch several probes at once, it would also be very enjoyable to remove the reload-time of the module completely, just like lasers have none.




Rest looks fine to me

Deep Space Probes were very useful for filtering out signatures that we weren't interested in paying further attention to. Most of the functionality of DSP is now lost: the system scanner display only shows the presence of "stuff", the signal strength having been removed from that display. The DSP was previously useful for saving time, and was in itself a decent reason to train Astrometrics 5 (the other very good reason being that more probes in space means better quality probing, faster pinpointing, and bragging rights).

The automatic recall of probes means that there is less chance of people being stranded in unknown space and having to find their way out by contacting locals, asking for help on the forums, or suiciding their way home. You are actively removing consequences. Sure, you have lots of new players complaining that the consequences are too severe: this is a reflection on their unreadiness to face loss, rather than loss in the game being a bad thing.

So with each little hand-holding exercise you undertake, you are going to remove the opportunities that players have to learn about loss and failure, meaning that their first PvP loss is going to be all the more traumatic.

EVE needs the little niggles to help people cope and learn to stand on their own two feet and/or establish friendships with people who complement their skill sets: everything from leaving that distribution mission cargo 6 jumps away, losing probes when jumping through wormholes, through to forgetting to insure their combat ship before heading out to look for a fight.

If filtering out signals using a DSP wasn't an intended mechanic, a better solution would be to randomise the signal strength of the signatures present in space, and to review the signal strengths of signatures that explorers have tabulated over the years. If you notice that there are only 12 categories of signature, perhaps that's an indication that you need to smear the possible signature strengths over a larger potential signal strength range.

Deep Space Probes were also useful for quickly narrowing down groups of signatures in very large systems (anything larger than 30AU radius). This functionality is partially replaced by the system scanner overview, so I'll hold my judgement.

Ultimately though, I feel your attempts to "simplify" content and make it "more accessible" are going to end up dumbing the game down, removing the consequences of failure, and turning EVE Online into "WoW in space."