Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Since I'm not sure how much more server load that would mean I'll leave that part to you guys. I'd be interested nonetheless.

So:


What would this mean for missile users and their opponents ?

First of all, more effective range for missiles in case of the target not changing trajectory.

It would allow slower missiles to hit faster targets more easily.

However, the target could also try to outsmart the missiles, but I doubt that would make a big difference for missiles, just because there are most likely multiple volleys coming.


What would this mean for missile users and their opponents ?

It would be alot harder for fast ships to get rid of drones. Not only would drones come into weapons range more often, they also would not follow the target in a straigt line unless the target itself is moving in a straigt line away from the drones.

It would allow slower drones to occasionally get into weapons range with fast targets and get off a shot or two.


What would this mean for kiters and their opponents ?

This is trickier. Intercepting approaches, would make it easier for the slow ship to land tackle. On the other hand, smarter "orbit" or "keep at range" manoeuvres make this harder. It would probably make agility much more important, as both ship's computers would struggle to adjust to the other's vector.

However, it would definitely make it easier to outmanoeuver turrets with the orbit function, because the computer would try to avoid sharp manoeuvres for which the ship has to slow down and runs the risk of getting hit.



I think overall it would make the gameplay more appealing. Manual piloting would be fun with a joystick, but I don't enjoy it with double clicking in space. So right now, I mostly view it as annoying. Of course, seeing the "pathfinding" AI making dumb decisions is just as annoying, which is how I came to think about this in the first place.

The approach mechanics are mind numbingly stupid. They simply pick a point, and accelerate towards it. Orbit is no different; it just picks a point x distance from the target. That's why it's so easy to slingshot someone that's orbiting you and why all good pvper's manually orbit instead of using the built in orbit button.

This is core EVE behavior and I don't think it'll be changed any time soon. Legacy code and all that. It could really use a complete overhaul of the entire ship movement system, though.

+1, I'm sure I've got a smartphone floating in the pod with me, it's powerful enough to compute better courses.

Nice idea, now here's a riddle.

You're in a Battlecruiser, and you get attacked and pointed by an interceptor. The interceptor begins to orbit you at a range just outside the reach of your scram, and if you don't get the scram on him you'll die a slow and embarrassing death.

Your maximum speed in the BC is 400m/s. The interceptor is traveling at 4000m/s. Your position is being relayed to the server once every second.

What do you think would happen if your BC was being told to turn 180 degrees every second?

It may be an extreme example, but it serves well to highlight how this can be abused without trying. Just imagine what would happen if someone tried to abuse advanced pathing.

Orbiting needs more functionality everyone can agree. Everything else? Don't touch it, for the sake of everyone's sanity.

So much horror.

It definitely needs an overhaul. I think that orbiting should be relative to your current velocity. If you're going in a certain direction toward your target anyway, your ship shouldn't suddenly change direction to go in a pointlessly different orbital path. This would improve orbital adjustments while still giving the advantage to the one that can manually pilot their ship effectively.

I see huge performance issues with that, just saying ... even if the calculation would be clientbased, you still would spam the server with new waypoints to set and that will have an impact in huge fleetfights :/

However for smallscale it's an improvement, I agree.

Possible solution:
Turn improved pathfinding off during Tidi ?

How is that situation different from what is currently happening in that situation when you give the order to approach or orbit the interceptor?

Calculations are already made every server tick. Perhaps they are a simpler formula than what is proposed, but if CCPs client can't handle calculating a relatively simple formula, they are in the wrong business.

This NEEDS to get done. My buddies who recently started playing the game always ask why the ship acts like a ****** when they hit the orbit button. The response is that ccp is too lazy to put a decent flight computer into the game.

There is no legitimate excuse for it being so bad other than poor management, which if you read the mittani, we all know exists.

We also know why links are so overpowered; they want people pumping that extra 15 a month because CCP is having major financial trouble, due solely to incompetent management, but I digress.