Player Features and Ideas Discussion

You already know that would not be a perfect solution.

That said, I like it, simply because it would improve gameplay all around.

IF, it can be considered that constellation chat is useless to promote AFK cloaking, since noone would know WHAT system any other pilot was in, it could then become balanced as well to introduce a means to hunt cloaked vessels.

For once I support this idea. Besides if people want to know where the pilot is they don't need decloaking system to counter this.

All they need to do is enter the name of cloaked pilot to a locator agent and find out in which system he is.
After that you just watch gates or rinse and repeat.

That gives a little more danger to nullsec while keeping the security at the same level if people are willing to :effort:

Simple. Effective. I like it.

Nullbears gonna scream about it since an afk cloaker can shut down an entire constellation tho

I don't think this would be the final solution but this could be a band-aid while CCP try to fix this issue

Thanks for looking at this issue from the other end of the discussion. Very refreshing....

I have to agree with Trii, the rewards would have to go up to match the rise in risk. Or possibly including some way of detecting what system the person is in, even if cloaked. Note, just detecting the system, not where in that system he is. At the constellation level, and given how such a detection mechanic works, it could be a fair amount of work. Or possibly both an increase to rewards and some form of detection...

Still, nice job thinking outside the box on this one.

possibly a SOV module that can be anchored at a gate acting as an alarm. When traffic goes through that gate it pings in constellation chat. If would give indications of what system someone just passed through. Maybe depending on system level could be more or less accurate.

I always thought something like this would be cool anyhow. Like an early warning system. Something that could also be knocked out by the enemy. I could see alarms going off that the eastern perimeter just got knocked out, the invasion force is coming that way...

Now what would ever give you that idea?

Kinda funny, the more intel you give someone sometimes makes it less usefull

If you play with jump range like in market trading you should be able to balance making cloaky intel useless and hostile presence detection

too far and the intel is too unfocused to tell where ppl are while too short gives accurate predictions of ships in nearby systems

It could be argued that with a bit of time and effort the entrances/exits to a constellation can be control the same way they are in a WH. The only real difference being that more people fly around in nullsec than WHs so you would need more people to control the gates.

I do however disagree that implementing this change will force people to dock up sooner to the presence of hostiles two or three jumps away. People would never get anything done in nullsec, and everything would grid to a halt if this happens. People will learn how to use dscan, and post scouts at the gates in their system. Then it will be business as usual with constellation chat basically ignored in nullsec the same way Local is ignored in highsec.

I also disagree with your assertion that a solo cloaker could cause the entire constellation to shut down. I agree that it will stop some people, but I doubt it will shut down the whole of the constellation. This is not a practical solution, and just like we bait cloakers and hotdroppers now with bling ships we will just have standing fleets and cheaper ships to continue our business. Right now we allow a system to be shut down because it is one system, and others are close by that do not have the solo cloaker. If we had constellation chat instead, and a solo cloaker managed to enter undetected we would continue our business as normal being extra careful. Not many alliances can afford to have a whole constellation shut down, so they would adapt and prevent the shut down from happening. If they can't adapt they will leave nullsec crying the whole way about how CCP wronged them. I say good riddance. Life is adapting to changing situations, deal with it.

As for closing a gate, it is not that hard in nullsec. Warp bubbles and a big enough fleet camping the gate with the experience to not let anyone through. Is it a problem that it cannot be done by a single person as in a wormhole? The only real difference beyond the number of people required is that once the gate is effectively closed it doesn't disappear and reappear somewhere else leading to a totally different system. This may be what you mean by not being able to close gates, but realistically it is just adapting once again to a new situation.

In the end any change will affect other aspects of the game. The question is which aspects are acceptable to change, and which aspects are we dead set on keeping in place. Add this with the pros and cons, and we will start to get an idea if it is a good idea or not. I personally am for change, change is good for the mind and keeps things interesting. The only change I am really against is change for the sake of change.



To clarify...

A single system is like an individual... you disrupt a few individuals most of the group doesn't notice and therefore most do not care...

A constellation is more like a group... you disrupt the group everyone notices, and they will start caring...

Hmmm, I just spent a month in NPC 0.0, objective belt rat in areas controlled by -DD-, gather salvage and modules and refine, plus ISK bounties, hauler spawns and of course the very rare faction spawn.

Before going to the area I had a good long look at teh kills around the area, and found that the people at the top of the food chain relied very heavily on Black Ops drops to kill people, they would pre-probe sites and sit in them., Due to the use of covert cloaks ratting in a system with anyone else in local was too risky.

I chose two rubbish systems with about 10 belts in each, I placed cans in them, they were in the same constellation as the systems where the Russians were based, both had two gates, I had two toons, so impossible to cover the gates.

I had a munin with a salvager and a cloak, plus a Maller as tank ship with cloak, losing DPS but it was meant to web and get in under guns. I would often have the maller in the middle of the asteroid belt, which as you know is risky. When salvaging the Munin would also be at risk. The Maller was fit with a scram too, so that I would try to hold the enemy ship away from the more expensive Munin if caught.

The Russians never changed their tactics, it was all the time come in with a recon or T3 and just wait for me to start doing things, I would just wait them out, and after a while move to the next system, they never varied their strategy by sending in fast tackle, and nor did I expect them too.

Now your suggestion would mean that I would not even try to do what I did for the last month, because it would be impossible to operate, it is as bad as removing local. Personally I would like CCP to open up a new mega large region which has a single gate entry point and it is too far from current space to cyno there. And lets see how that develops.

I take risks, but cold calculated ones, sorry but your idea would leave me doing missions in High Sec.

Yea this gets thrown around all the time. WH's don't have them correct. But it doesn't really matter if you can sneak in your fleet of covert ships to kill the ratter you want. At that point does it matter if the ratter died to a fleet of a half dozen cloaky T3's or from a hotdrop of ships?

And connection control? It's not like WH control is perfect either. In 0.0 you at least have a static gate you can watch all the time. Unless you are going to keep someone logged in 23/7 you have no idea what has been happening in the WH. It was one thing when you could get jump statistics for Wormholes. You could check a resource like dotlan to see if any jumps occurred, which would indicate someone may have come in (and maybe did not leave). But now you can log in at some point and have no idea if someone had come in and decided to stay awhile.

Bottom line is we can go round and round nitpicking about 0.0 vs WH. But I specifically made this thread and it's idea based on the idea that the "just kill all local" is not a feasible solution.