Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I really sat down and thought about the mechanics of local and intel in general. I wanted to think about a solution that removes 'intel' from the concept of 'local' while providing an alternative where engaging in actual gameplay is encouraged. It needed to be realistic and reward the user who correctly interpreted the information given and took the most correct action given the tactical circumstance and player's mission. As a bonus it should discourage blob warfare and encourage smaller, efficient and more organized tactics as well as increase situational awareness amongst players while increasing immersion in the game. Pretty daunting task, but if you're still reading you agree this would be 'better'.

So the first thing we need to do is remove 'intel' from 'local' itself. Local should be an empty chatbox with the total number of players in the system. People who talk appear for a set amount of time then disappear, and people docked remain visible in local. Think about it. You're in a station and there are workers in the station that would report your arrival and departure. This will help pilots who first jump into the system to quickly assess their next move. It also helps the person who doesn't have a cloaky scout sitting outside station when they first log in after ratting in 0.0 the night before. The advantage of being in space and disadvantage of being docked up may cause more players to "rest" at POS's, increasing their value.

"BUT THE PIERATS!.." Yes, this was alot of information lost, but again separate 'intel' from 'local'.

So how do we do everything i said above and regain the intel? Lets look at modern aircraft and their radar systems. I play DCS, with full on 3K$ simulation setup and it's interesting how efficient the radar systems in say the F-15C are out to 160km (atleast modeled in game, but high fidelity and realism). You have 2 systems RWR "radar warning receiver" and MFD "multi function display". These 2 systems tell you everything you need to know about what's in the sky within radar detection that you need to know. In short the MFD helps you locate and track targets. you have to manually place your radar cone to where the target is to find it and when you do it tells you direction, altitude, speed, type etc after you lock the target. Imagine the radar coming out from the nose of the aircraft forward getting wider the further you go out which scans vertically and updates whats shown on your screen after every scan is complete. The RWR tells you that there are radar signals actively scanning. You don't know what they are, or exact location, but you have an idea of direction and that they're there as well as the level of threat they are. (in an oversimplified explanation of course.)

"OK SO?"

So you combine those 2 principles into the D-scanner. First things first, though. The D Scanner range should be a slider not manually entered. The D-scanner should have its maximum range extended to a given number and refresh automatically every so often. The refresh rate and/or maximum range could be dictated by skills and/or ship classes/designs/roles. As the beam of the scanner is narrowed down on target the strength of the scan resulting in more information should be produced. So a 360 degree scan should yield less information given the ship's actual range to target on scan than a narrower beam. Using 360 scan; maximum detection range should show the type of object (ship/station/asteroid etc) and name (of the ship/asteroid/etc) as well as range narrowed to the au. At 50% of the max range you should be able to see the type of ship. At 25% of maximum range you should be able to see the pilots name also maybe corp too or alliance even. (just throwing suggestions out.) These numbers can vary depending on degree of scan and scan strength skills etc. A narrower scan for example could yield the type of ship at say 75% of max range. Since your max range is a set number, if you reduced your scannable range to half of that, then anything that appeared on your scan would atleast tell you the type of ship.

The Scenario:

You're in a mining barge hitting up some [insert expensive roid] with 4 other people in a null sec system with you. You see [5] in local and 4 avatars so you know they're docked. Your dscan is up and its updating every 10 seconds. Suddenly you get a text message. You read it and put your phone down. When you look up you see that there are now [6] people in system but still only 4 docked. You align your ship. Dscan is refreshing and doesnt show anything until suddenly you see that there is a ship 10au away from you on 360. You have no idea who or what it is, but you're not panicking... yet. You see suddenly that its range is decreasing... rapidly with every refresh. You know its heading right at you. At 5au you see its another hulk but since this is 0.0.. could be unfriendly hulk. You've succesffuly narrowed its location down and because you've narrowed the beam you see at 4.5 au (instead of 2.5au) that it's a corp mate and breathe a sigh of relief.

In an alternate reality: At 5au you see its an intercepter. A crow. You immediately warp off/log/dock whatever. "I'm not taking any chance." Had you attempted to narrow the beam and find out who it was, you would have seen it was a corp mate. You didn't want to take the risk of waiting too long and being out warped to the next destination.

On the attacker end: it helps you locate targets and their approximate locations faster. Simplifies the process of using dscan currently. Actively flying around is rewarded with good useable information helping you decide if you want to engage. Someone who is paying attention to their surroundings is hard to catch anyway, especially if you're trying to catch indies not paying attention.

Tl;DR?

Sounds pretty spot on IMO. I like it.

Its just that everything he has suggested already was in https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=216699&find=unread in one form or another, reading that again in the form of "wall of text" is not very amusing.

I'm going to go ahead and give this idea a +1. Very interesting ideas, especially with the dscanner having potential risks for its use.

I do have a question for OP though: If detecting another ship with your dscan means that you'll show up on their rwr, then couldn't you just "turn off" your dscan by lowering the range down to the minimum? Sure you won't be able to look around on your own but if someone else scans you then your rwr will say so. Right?

+1 because:

Local that has no names but does have total in system sounds like a step in the right direction (but not a step that can be done stand-alone, rather has to come at the same time as other related features receive iteration).

Being seen in local is pretty much the only way to identify a cloaked ship, disabling or nerfing dscan on cloaked ships would be an interesting balancing factor to counter them now being virtually undetectable otherwise. This also gives utility to ships that can safely scout while uncloaked (interceptors).

Not sure how I feel about being alerted that someone else is scanning you. It seems kind of unnecessary since you would already be able to scan them. However, i suppose it makes sense because your idea is to have an auto-updating d-scan which still needs to be managed to the extent that you set its distance, direction, and angle.

Here's a shameless plug of my own idea which has some overlap and some differences with your idea: link.

dscan, local, probes. Its all connected. You can't fix one independently without having a bigger picture what you actually want to do. You would have to start from scratch, don't forget that you building a scifi game and not a chatroom, find out what is already 'canon' like for example active scanners, passive scanners, proximity chat, radars and how it all would work together.

Thats why they are afraid to change ANYTHING. It would be a high risk project since you really want it to succeed.

I don't see how. My entire post focuses mainly on Local as it sits, and what or who is shown in local. If someone is docked they show up in local. The number of players in system is displayed as a number which is currently the case. Basically the only thing thats really in depth is dscanning. Which instead of you manually clicking scan, it does it automatically at a set rate depending on various factors as described. What is shown in dscan is dependent of range, which is already done, things beyond your maximum range are not shown. Items within range are shown. Distances from celestials are also shown. The change would be showing player ships range further out than what is displayed on grid. Player distances are already shown in dscan when on grid. What is displayed about the target is dependent upon how far you are from the target relative to your max range skills. That is about the only thing I would think that would take some drastic new code. Everything else is already implemented in some form or another.

It appears you either didn't a. understand what i typed, or b. skimmed through it trying to get the 'jist' and completely failed or c. didn't read it at all

Yeah, this seems like a good idea. And it's a fair enough compromise on things like local showing player counts but not names.

+1

I don't think the D-scan should ever provide as much information as combat probes. That's my 2 cents.