Missions & Complexes

I've actually been prototyping some additions to Hacking as part of a small side project in my "20% Time".

The first is a distance indicator that tells you how far away the last node uncovered is from "good stuff". This helps with second by second decision making by letting you follow trends. This also helps determine which Defense Software to attack first. On top of which it generally needs less clicks to complete a hack. I'm experimenting with definitions of "good stuff".

The second is to help with having more strategic decisions whilst actually hacking. I added multiple cores which unlock explicit bits of the loot in the container. This gives the hacker the ability to balance more of the risk vs. reward themselves as they go rather than it being an all or nothing thing.

Both of these changes give scope for more interesting Defense Software and Utilities. I'd like to alter the Restoration Node substantially as well to make it less overpowered and generally more interesting.

I want to make clear that there is no real ETA for when these changes might hit TQ but I wanted you to know that the state of Hacking is definitely something I and others care about and something someone is actually working on.

The current implementation is functional but shallow and misses some key features of the original design as well as the ideas we had for improving things as we worked on it. I'm working on it as part of some self-determined time we get to work on these sorts of projects that otherwise fall further down our priority list.

Can you be more specific on this 'key features of original design"?

Sure, it's also worthwhile reading through my older posts from this time last year for more context.

Originally we planned for Utilities to be something you could harvest from Hacking attempts, sell on the market and then fit to your Hacking module. This fitting decision and harvesting is pretty important for adding strategy to the original design but not sufficient I think. There is also a greater number of Utilities and Defense Software that do more interesting things that have been designed out but were cut from implementation to polish other areas and help keep balancing straightforward. In particular more 'things' would help out the easier systems with more variety as well as posing different problems.

Indeed some of this was mentioned before. Are you planing to implement some of those in the future or just scraped it and starting from zero? Harvested tools and improving hacking modules are promising. I was digging in hacking minigames lately, EvE has original concept of it but if it required less clicking with more strategy it would be great. Luck factor is also needed but let's not make it prime for every hack attempt.

I actually quite like the idea of remaking the AI to be used in EVE, dumbing it down a bit and slowing it up so people can choose to fit an Auto-Hacking module. You'd be less successful overall but it'd be nice for people who don't want to Hack themselves.

I also think there is a lot of room for giving high skill level Hackers something else to do.

I'm basically tackling things in the order of what makes the most sense to improve Hacking the most with the least effort. To that end I'm mostly restricting myself to things that wouldn't take much additional effort on behalf of our team to bring forward.

We actually have an AI we use for testing which does a lot more than clicking quickly and doesn't cheat. I'm not going to say there is a huge skill ceiling but there certainly is one particularly in the harder systems. I've not yet seen a guide online that hits all the points we use. Granted they get the majority of really meaningful things correct and Hacking in hostile space is a bit different to a computer crunching.

I actually quite like the idea of remaking the AI to be used in EVE, dumbing it down a bit and slowing it up so people can choose to fit an Auto-Hacking module. You'd be less successful overall but it'd be nice for people who don't want to Hack themselves.

I also think there is a lot of room for giving high skill level Hackers something else to do.

I like seeing Dev's active in the forums even though I may not believe* or agree with what they say.

I've actually been prototyping some additions to Hacking as part of a small side project in my "20% Time".

The first is a distance indicator that tells you how far away the last node uncovered is from "good stuff". This helps with second by second decision making by letting you follow trends. This also helps determine which Defense Software to attack first. On top of which it generally needs less clicks to complete a hack. I'm experimenting with definitions of "good stuff".

The second is to help with having more strategic decisions whilst actually hacking. I added multiple cores which unlock explicit bits of the loot in the container. This gives the hacker the ability to balance more of the risk vs. reward themselves as they go rather than it being an all or nothing thing.

Both of these changes give scope for more interesting Defense Software and Utilities. I'd like to alter the Restoration Node substantially as well to make it less overpowered and generally more interesting.

I want to make clear that there is no real ETA for when these changes might hit TQ but I wanted you to know that the state of Hacking is definitely something I and others care about and something someone is actually working on.