Player Features and Ideas Discussion

:Edit: The design for these structures has been iterated on with help from your feedback. This original post has been updated and the most recent set of changes from January 9th can be found here. The current list of known bugs on Singularity with these structures can be found here. :Edit:

Hello one and all. Happy New Year and I hope you all had an enjoyable and fulfilling holiday season.

Today we're updating Singularity with its first version of the patch that will one day become Rubicon 1.1. With it comes working versions of the first two of the 1.1 Mobile Structures that we're ready to tell you about and start collecting feedback for.

I'm very excited about both of these structures and the new creative options they will open up. Both were intentionally chosen to provide the most open ended gameplay possible.

The versions described in this thread and on SISI are of course still open to change, and it is very likely that a lot of specific stats will be tweaked between now and release. We will also be announcing more structures for 1.1 (and more for later patches) at later points.


Mobile Micro Jump Unit

This baby does pretty much exactly what the name implies. When active, any player within range can use it to launch their ship 100km in the direction that the ship is travelling when it makes use of the structure. It has no cooldown or limit to how many ships can use it at once, but it does have a spoolup time just like the MJD module. This spoolup duration is not modified by skills and on the base structure it is 12s (just like the MJD module would be if you could use it without skills).

The actual Micro Jump effect works exactly the same as the effect from the module. So during the cycle you go full throttle in one direction with a sig radius penalty, it can't be cancelled, scrams prevent you from jumping, it preserves speed on landing, all that jazz. You only have to be within range of the structure at the start of the micro jump cycle, not at the end. If the structure is destroyed during your spoolup time, you do not get launched. Since the MJU has no cooldown, a player can start the jump cycle from a Micro Jump module or MJU immediately after finishing a previous jump facilitated by a different MJU.

There will be mass restrictions to prevent caps and supercaps from using it, but everything else is fair game. We are currently planning to set the mass restrictions such that freighters can use it but anything larger is blocked. Like I mentioned above, it is usable by everyone and is not restricted to the owner or their corp/fleet. This means you can feel free to use it to try and escape, but your assailant is also free to use it to follow you.

Like the Cynosaural Inhibitor and the Siphon Unit, the MJU is a single use structure. Once dropped it can never be scooped and will stay in space until it either gets blown up or finishes its lifetime.

Right now we have the base version set to 60s module activation time, 48hr lifetime, 5k ehp (mostly structure), 50m3 volume and a build cost of about 1m isk.
Micro Jump spoolup is 12s like an unskilled MJD.
Current activation range is 5000m.
It can't be placed within 20km of gates or stations, within 40km of a starbase tower or within 10km of another MJU.

Please note that the version on SISI at the time of this post has a few known defects.


Mobile Scan Inhibitor

This is the structure that caused the biggest buzz from the recent round of Chaos observation, time for some details that I think will significantly change how you all see it.

This structure prevents anything inside its 30km radius from appearing on either DScan or Probe Scans. The Scan Inhibitor structure itself however does show up on both types of scan and is very easy to probe down. So you can prevent people from knowing what is inside it but you can't prevent people from knowing that something is there.

Players inside the radius of the structure will also not be able to use their directional scanners or scan probes to find enemies unless they leave the radius.

Another single use structure, no rescooping.
Current stats are 60s activation time, 1h lifetime, 45k ehp (once again mostly structure), 100m3 volume and a build cost of ~15m isk.
Like I said above, it has an effective radius of 30km, meaning that even if you're at the edge, someone warping to 0 on it can still catch you fairly easily, especially with inties.
Can't be deployed within 75km of gates, wormholes or stations, or within 40km of control towers. Can't be deployed within 100km of another scan inhibitor so you can never use one to mask the central structure of another.


Like I said above, we chose these structures as part of our second wave because we think that they have a lot of possibilities for creative use that will enrich the sandbox. We'll be announcing more as we get closer to 1.1 and the future Rubicon point releases but for now thanks in advance for taking the time to provide us your feedback on these first two structures.

Both of these structures are currently live on SISI with the first public version of Rubicon 1.1. For a general list of changes available on this SISI build please take a look at CCP Habakuk's thread here. To learn how to set up the SISI test server for yourself and get a sneak peak at the future of EVE, take a look at the guide here.

Thanks!
-Fozzie

Seems interesting, the scan inhibitor looks great for traps.

Some of those might be planned for 1.1 but we're not ready to announce them, some might be planned for releases beyond 1.1, some might be experimental test categories that have been in the database for a while and may never go anywhere. Afraid I can't tell you which (beyond these two) quite yet.

Usual test server disclaimer applies.

So... Lets get the MMJU train going. jump, spool, jump, spool, jump, spool, jump and I'm 400km away in 48 seconds.

please make the scan inhibitor structure trivially easy to probe down. good job making them actually show up though when i first saw them announced i figured it'd hide you from scan completely which would suck mega chodes. capital mjd seems cool.

thanks fozzie love you babe

MSI inside complexes - you can't directly warp to it and you don't know who is inside. best trap ever

How big an increase of the activation range of the MMJU would you say you'd be ready to go for?

so send in a covert ops and get visual intel you babby

Sounds good, thanks Fozzie! I cant even begin to imagine what people will end up using the MJU for, and I like that the scan inhibitor is a baby step towards more gameplay-driven intel systems :)

so what you're saying is every ship gets a free module slot and in it is an mjd

that's the dumbest thing i've ever heard



probably the only reason it isn't completely and utterly stupid, but seriously whats the point? why put this in the game? if it's just for the cool another mobile thing i'm really not buying it