Player Features and Ideas Discussion

+1 for CSM jumping on board and publicly voicing their support of a great idea.

Not sure if this was mentioned yet, but have certain modules not work in them, things like tractor beams, boosts, WEBS AND POINTS, and other projecting effects. Obviously different effects for different clouds, but some clouds should be so dense that the effect one ship has on another is limited to only physical objects (slugs, molten metal, missiles, and i guess lasers, but just because you kind of have to for balance).

Consider this as core mechanics:
- All WH mechanics should be applied and i mean it literally. Make this new area like a WH without a Wormhole to enter but no sun, no planets.
- No Dscan, no probing at all in or out, just overview
- No "warp to" possible, if you want to travel fast with a/many slow ship/s use the MMJU
- Pods can warp out but not in.
- Bookmarks are possible, but as no "warp to" is possible they are kind of personal beacons.

Add this:
Any grid inside this area is random mass limited but the player has no way to check it. (A WH in a WH) And/or use acceleration gates/Wormhole beacons with ship restrictions and random mass limit. You can always enter the grid with any ship the first time, the first time a ship enters the grid the random mass limit does not apply but it will reduce the mass of the grid after entering.
Example:
Grid with only 10,000 kg mass
A BS with 100,000,000 kg is able to enter but after that the grid shuts down for anybody else.
(Capitals and Supercapitals allowed to enter are not a problem as the travel time to another grid would be hilarious, in case someone is going to abuse it make so that only the outer grids aka "warp in grids" are enterable for Capitals and Supercapitals )
Why is that needed?
Without an unknown random mass limit all bigger alliances/corps be it RvB, CFC, N3 etc etc. can just bring 50, 100, 200 players into this area and farm it without any trouble at all.
The unknown mass limit is working in both directions, if the orginal explorer want to abuse it to shut down the grid in case he found something shiny to farm, he won't know when the mass limit is reached and can't be sure he can enter the grid after the xth time.


PvE Aspect:
Fill in randomly any PvE stuff Eve has to offer, always use the highest difficult and reward level. Again i mean it literally, if you enter the area you can't be sure what to expect, could be a zerozero LvL1 to LvL 5 mission kind of difficulty or anything else.


PvP Aspect
Again use the WH mechanics, nothing more to add.

I think based on how people would like these to work that they would be quite unfarmable. Since you have no idea what could be inside them. Even if you did get 200 guys in there you still need to slowboat your way through looking for potential targets and if you make them huuuuge they would be forced to split up. Making them more vulnerable.

I really like this idea, mainly as to be effective in small groups you would have to create diverse fleets that support one another whilst in them.

Also, I think that these should be semi-permanent, perhaps lasting for a couple of months so that you have chance to really explore them.

I like this idea a lot (wish I could +1 it endlessly), but:

how do you prevent that a cloaked alt outside of the sphere provides intel for those in it? Especially concerned about 0.0, where corpies might abuse their alts to farm those things with relative safety (someone shows up on local --> alt outside of the sphere reports it via Convo or Corp/shared Chat-channels).

The cloaked person doesn't know if the guy in local just passed through or is also cloaked and heading into the region.. If they cloaky guy sees people coming in? He can warn the corpies someone else is on the way but once the new folks enter the DDC all bets are off. The people who just entered system also know that there is someone else there (the cloaky guy still shows up in local if he is outside the region) so know to be prepared. If anything the cloaky guy actually warns the new entrees that someone is already in the DDC

Want to mess with the cloaky guys head but not interested in the DDC this time? fly in and out of the system a few times and nip around a bit :D

It think if the regions are implemented correctly it will cut both ways, you know that a large fleet is inbound and can prepare...hit and run guerilla tactics would work very well here to whittle down or drive off a larger force and could change what you expected to be an exploration trip into frenzied purist combat...Meanwhile the large fleet that is confident in its numerical superiority could be in for a *very* nasty surprise...

The consensual element of comfortable risk is something very attractive here.

It creates an environment where players with less time can find the competition so often denied them, since they don't have the time needed for typical longer events.

Agreed. The risk cuts both ways.

The more I think about it, the more I think it should be zero warp ability, but MJD drives and MJD deployable units should work, but with limitations.

Assume the cloud is 5000 km across (smallest I see being useful, and 20,000 km across just being too damn big). To get to the center, you would need a maximum of 25 jumps. Assume a perfect chain of them. If I understand the specs that Fozzie has drawn up for them, a pilot can activate 5 per minute = 500 km / minute. That would mean that a ship, like say an Orca, could get to anywhere in the cloud in 5 minutes.

Now, these MJD units act also like breadcrumbs to any bad person who might happen across them. It is unwise to leave a trail of raw steaks from some place in the forest to your campsite, if there are bears around. So there is the risk if leaving out that trail for your friendlies.

But even with that inherent risk, I think no ship should be able to move at 500 km /minute through this kind of area, under any circumstances. The only viable thing I can think of are:

a. To either have some kind of mechanism in place that limits the spoolup times of these units (adds complexity and might not even be possible code-wise)
b. Some mechanism in place that limits the range of the MJD's (same problem as above)
c. A new version of the MJD that only works in these clouds, which has a longer spoolup time, and/or significantly less range

I don't like any of these options particularly, since the idea was to keep it as simple as possible, and new modules is not "keeping it simple". But I think option c is the lesser of the evils.

The only option I could come up with for limited warp capability would be to other fleet members. The DDC region could be populated with warp inhibiting areas (where the good stuff is) that you cannot warp into or out of in any way shape or form. Once outside of them however you could warp to fleetmate within the DDC but still could not warp anyone inside the DDC from outside or vice versa.

These warp hotspots would become very contentious ares of space and whilst control of one could help your fleet it by no means prevents other explorers simply flying through the clouds in a speed rigged exploration boat.

This is the area I am least sure about and think it would bear testing both ways should the idea ever be implemented.

I still stand by my view that nothing bigger than a cruiser (at most) should be able to navigate the area. Anything more would make it too easy for a fleet to control and then farm the area. These regions should be driven by small craft interactions, with speed and guile being more important than guns in some ways.

I like the idea as it creates a new style of gameplay. It actually makes exploration feel more like exploring and it provides an area that would could be profitable, but very difficult to be farmable. Also, the idea of having these spawn in all areas of space is good as some others mentioned earlier it provides a "safer" way to experience the more dangerous bits of EvE since you don't have to pass the hundreds of gate camps looking for easy kills.

However, I do have some concerns and suggestions.
1) the idea of having to manually burn for hours (maybe less, but also maybe more) to find something (potentially) is kind of mind numbing. The initial idea that pirates would set up on-the-fly bases inside the nebulas is a good one, but there needs to be some other means of finding content besides lucky guessing and MWD inties. That being said, having pirate preset up gates or MJDU's that would randomly warp you 100km-10,000km would be ideal. These launch points wouldn't necessarily lead you to anything or anywhere in particular, but would help make starting points for further exploration. These areas would also lead to player interaction spots as you would have "known" xyz coordinates.
To further iterate:
-randomly generated acceleration gates or MJDU's placed around the nebulas
-these launch points jump you 100-10,000km (predetermined, but randomly generated for each nebula)
-launch points can lead to no where, near another launch point, at a content site (PVE, hacking, etc), lead to a trap, a toxic cloud, a dead end zone (imagine the return launch point decayed), etc. Again, all of these are predetermined, but randomly generated for each nebula
-launch points provide an area where content outside of exploring (PVP) can occur

2) for those opposed to using premade launch points, there is always the option of manually setting off into the unknown. You would be able to just manually fly into a direction and hope for the best. Again I don't really like that feeling, while in its essence it is pure exploration but in a game there needs to be content. There needs to be some way to be able to accurately lead your friends or be able to return to your site or if you're PVP minded to set a trap. The ideal is simple, have a new item in game that could only be used inside the nebulas (lore it up to them being coated in a special polymer that withstands the nebulas environment but is nonfunctioning in known space and decays instantly) that acts as a direction signal. These would allow for hunting to become more viable due to smaller grids and no d-scan and adds the interesting question: do you prepare a ship for a long haul or make a route that makes you more vulnerable to getting caught?
To further iterate:
-these would be anchorable "arrows" similar to a airfield runway lights
-would require anchoring lvl 1 to use
-there would be 3 variants to anchor in space: green, yellow, and red (each player would have their own code to take the correct route)
-able to position in any direction on a 3-D plane (not sure if coding for this is possible?)
-able to stack signals on top of each other to create patterns like: >< or >|< or +
-extremely small m3 so that can carried and used frequently
-low ehp so that they can be destroyed by any players who manage to stumble upon them

2.1) updating the on board system map and d-scanner (press f12 in game and you'll know what I'm talking about) so that we can have cardinal directions and coordinates to help with navigating these new nebulas.

3) the issue of where the nebula resides in space needs to be address. Under the current proposal, the nebula would be in one system so you would know exactly who came in and out of it. That is static and boring, especially if the nebula spawns In a desolate system. The workaround would be to create a nebula similar to bridge WH's. Essentially, you would have the nebula span across multiple systems, constellations, and regions.
To further iterate:
-nebulas would have a "jump" feature to enter the nebula itself (this feature could allow for players to jump and spawn in relation to where they entered/exited; I jump into the nebula with a fleet mate who is 5km from me. He also jumps. When we load inside the nebula he is still 5km from me...also, dat coding )
-nebulas would have multiple system entry points
-nebulas act similar to bridge WH's so you can have highsec to nullsec and any combination in between
-would have restrictions to prevent capitals from jumping into highsec


Anyways, this idea has a lot of potential but I fear from a programming and coding standpoint a lot of things that would make this awesome are just not feasible or doable. But here's to hoping something good can come from this