Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Fidelium-

A key point in my design is for *all* ships to have the capability of being configured to be 100% capable of hunting down targets all on their own. I'm very solo-PVP oriented and the last thing I would want to see happen is solo players being nerfed.

Specifically, I envision ships being able to be customized/tuned for specific roles, so if you're in a ship designed around solo PVP then perhaps you configure your sensor suite with more advanced active sensors, or you design your passive sensors to be better suited for sniffing out targets in a directional manner with longer range but less omni-directional capability. It would be easier for other targets to sneak up on you (less early warning) but your ship would be better equipped to search for targets at a longer range and with more precise info instead. Does any of this make sense?

The opposite would be defensive players where they would sacrifice active search capabilities for improved early warning/automated omni-directional detection. Key types of players that might use this configuration would be miners or mission runners, for example.

At one point you mentioned stationary measures that could watch over entire regions. I like this idea, but wonder if that range might be too broad. Constellation level seems more reasonable. Stupid ideas I had while reading it:

The ability to relay info received to fleet/corp/alliance members in system to remove their need to fit extra sensor equipment
The ability to relay info to out of system ships using specialized equipment or ships with specific roles that could rebroadcast it for friendlies in nearby systems
The ability to interfere with information collection directly (range reduction or degradation of info reported) or transmission (jamming relayed info)
Restricting access to types of info based on various criteria (can think of a few isolated instances this could be useful)?
And decoys, just because?

I would absolutely design it so that players would be able to "hide" without being cloaked. Basically, the existing situation is like this:

Jump into system, if you see any targets in local, scan/probe them out, warp to their location, they're dead. OR, they're cloaked/docked/at a POS and you can't kill them.

My proposed changes:

You jump into a system, there's no local so you don't know who is there, or where they are. Your passive sensors can detect ships at a very limited range, so you can fly around and look for ships passively, or engage active sensors and look for targets, but you're going to possibly give yourself away.

Defensive ships could be hiding in the gravity "shadow" if you will of planets/moons/asteroids etc. and only by getting closer to those objects would your sensors be able to resolve the different sensor contacts and the user (you) be able to get a clear picture of whether or not there's a ship there as well as a moon etc., and if so, how many ships, what types etc.

Ship activity would increase one's signature: moving (the faster you're flying, the "hotter" the signature), mining, shooting targets, salvaging, deploying drones, tanking etc. Anything you do will increase your signature.

Defensively, ships could post up active probes to alert them of incoming ships at long range, but any ship that was hit by the probe's ping would know that someone is actively scanning for incoming ships. Depending on the attacking ship's configuration with regard to how stealthy they're set up and/or if they're a special case ship (CovOps, Recon etc.) then they might be able to sneak in without activating their own sensors and find the target without giving themselves away.

Conversely, the defensive ships could use passive omni-directional sensors, but in this mode the sensors are very short ranged. The range would be increased exponentially as the viewing cone is decreased. Think of a more tightly focused and powerful flashlight, vs a bare bulb illuminating a room. The flashlight will have a very narrow view but much greater range of detection.

Depending on a passive sensors detection of a ship's signature, a skilled operator might be able to discern what type of ship it is, what it's doing (mining laser emissions or asteroid dust would deliver different values to the sensors than autocannon fire and plasma from destroyed NPC wrecks) etc. without having to use active sensors to get an extremely accurate ID.

The more careful a ship's pilot is, the closer they can stalk their targets, getting very close before they strike, allowing their sensors to collect a large amount of accurate information about the target. Note that all of this would take minutes and seconds, not hours and hours, for a skilled pilot. But at the same time, it's not the current situation of "push button" results with little to no skill involved.

And smart defensive pilots will be able to "stack the deck" in their favor by flying ships that will best hide in their surrounding environment. If a system is in Minmatar space for example and there's lots of Minmatar NPC ships as well as player ships, a player could configure his ship with Minmatar spec MWDs or other various systems, even "spoofing" systems that would allow his ship to emulate or mimic other types of ships at a distance (signature wise, imagine a mining ship "smelling" like a Vagabond at 15 AU out for example).

The goal is to provide a wide variety of options to both offensive and defensive players so that the person with the most creativity and cunning wins, instead of just aimlessly flying around until someone happens upon another player in local like there is now.

Tyberius:

I envision a massive, multi-layered strategic sensor approach. Allow me to provide more detail on my vision:

Every bit of information will have cost. The more precise the info, and with greater coverage comes massive MASSIVE increase in costs. Everything will have operating costs- information will flow to everyone in the organization, but it will be able to be controlled via standings or roles or some other mechanism so that for example certain corps will have access to alliance level assets to give constellation or regional level real time intelligence. Every member of these authorized corps need only look at their galactic map to view the composite view of every sensor they have access to.

From a tactical perspective, you can set gang permissions so that if anything pops up on a gang mates sensors, all gang mates have instant access to that sensor data. Basically, once in a gang, your view of the system is a composite of every sensor suite of every gang mate in your gang: a big array of sensors thousands of times more powerful than yours alone.

From a strategic perspective, it works much the same way. Any corp deployed assets could relay sensor information to the alliance level intelligence picture. All corps in the alliance would benefit from all other corp deployed assets, if the assets were configured to send that intel up the chain. Alliance level assets could be configured to distribute their intel to corps or individuals etc.

All of these strategic level intel sensors/assets, whether at a system, constellation or regional level, will have massive operating costs in terms of fuel. Information isn't free. You mention constellation vs. regional level sensors. I absolutely agree with you: constellation will be plenty large for most organizations, and indeed, most will only be able to afford constellation level assets. Regional sensors will be so expensive to operate on a continuing basis that only the richest and most powerful alliances will be able to operate them. And even then, it may be more cost efficient and provide better and more accurate intel to build multiple constellation level assets instead of a single regional sensor array. Additionally, regional sensors (as I envision it) won't allow for the same level of resolution and cycle times that a constellation or system level sensor would.

Under NO circumstances would any strategic asset be a viable replacement for tactical sensors. In other words: having a strategic sensor would never give you enough information in a timely manner that would enable you to be protected from hostiles at a reasonable level of protection. For that you will and should always need "boots on the ground" tactical sensors and awareness.

In even simpler terms: static strategic sensors deployed by individuals, corps or alliances etc. would never be good enough to replace "ship sensors", allowing people to basically ignore the job of maintaining their own awareness for the safety of their ships. Strategic sensors would simply add another layer of information over and above what would be available to the player. The smart players will be the ones who will be able to easily avoid detection to do their PVE or mining etc. and conversely, the smart players will be the ones who will be able to sneak past an enemy's defensive perimeter and kill the miners/PVE players that aren't paying attention.

I like your idea here, I really do. I don't like local and I hate mashing d-scan. Though I think you are approaching the problem a bit more from the view of a hunter rather than the hunted. (That is perfectly understandable.)

The old saying, "The best defense is a good offense," is true in EVE just as in everything else in the real world. Even with local and cloaking the best the hunted would ever be able to achieve is a complete stand-off, with the hunted actually losing out more than the hunter because whatever he or she was trying to do is now impossible until the hunters go away. I mean it's not like a group of pies lost their ships because some mission runner safed up and cloaked. :)

IMO, the ideal situation would be that if the hunted was on his toes and didn't make a mistake he would be a "safe" as he is now (warping off and cloaked) with a greater possibility of actually being able to do what he is in the system to do. In such a case the hunter would only get his kill if he got really lucky. Now before you say that makes things to easy for the carebears, keep in mind that eventually everyone makes mistakes, even the best players. (Bad players are going to make mistakes all the time.)

The other way around (which is where I think the current proposal is pointing), would be that if a hunter was really good he would be able to get his kill much more often than not (unless he got unlucky). I think that would be bad, because from the hunted's point of view it wouldn't matter how many inept hunters failed to catch him if all it took to lose his ship was for a good group of hunters to sweep through the system.

Regardless I think the current system could use some work and I like the basics of your idea. Hopefully CCP is think about such things too.

One other thing, if cloaks disappeared then something would have to be done about jump gates (I personally like the idea of celestial to celestial jump drives on sub-cap ships) because without cloaks there is very little getting through a competent camp.

This is so true... but in the RL jungle the wolf pack with the most wolves usually wins as well.

It would be however interesting to have more zones where small, flexible groups thrive. The fact that Eve warfare is centered around choke points most of the time I think is the problem. Static choke points are predictable and anticipated, so small, flexiblity, and mobility isn't as productive...

... I've got some ideas cooking that may grant a little more variety to low sec PvP, but they would grant some fundamental changes to low sec and I haven't matured them yet to survive the flamers/trollers... most players on the forums are afraid of change.... WIP.

Eve brings something to the gaming world that isn't seen anywhere else, warfare. Sure, you can PvP in just about any other game out there, but Eve has real warfare, with tangible goals and rewards.

Unfortunately, because of the near-perfect information available to anyone who wants it, the tactical aspect is turned into a matter of have more numbers or GTFO. The strategic aspect is watered down as you have no way to hide where you operate, how well you've upgraded your systems, or how many stations and POS's you have. Changing this will make the game a lot more fun.

You're ideas are probably the best I've seen for this. They may be a bit much and cause a lot of "screw that, too much work" but that's why we have empire space, where each empire has a communications array that every capsuleer has to register(fluff for current local mechanics)

Forums tried to eat my post again. It failed again.

Forgot something. Strategic sensor arrays for sov holding alliances sounds like a proper benefit for various sov levels. If you're on the approved list (blue) you are registered with the sensor system and are not reported. If an unknown ship is detected and does not respond or does not respond properly to interrogation (this can be automated), you get reported.

Its basically a military grade IFF system. In Eve it would be based off of the alliance standings. No need to make it any more difficult for the players than necessary.

Reporting can be done in a variety of ways. Eve mail would kinda suck and get missed a lot. Plus it would generate all sorts of spam. Designing a new UI element would require all sorts of DEV time and effort. Another 18 months?

How about integrating the sensor results with our in-space brackets and/or overview? This is basically a telemetry feed from another system. It would also tie in rather well with one idea posted to have shared telemetry and targeting data similar to that used for indirect fire. The shown result would not be warpable. But it would give a rough bearing and strength of the detected signal. Mouse over the report and you could get some more detailed info like signal racial type and strength.

This system could also be upgraded and customizable for better accuracy, detail, and/or range, leaving the actual benefits in the hands of the operators. These sensor arrays could be part of the IHUB. Or they could be indepenent things to shoot in space. Personally, I would not put all my eggs in one basket. Powerful sensor suites should not be easily defeated by direct countermeasures, nor be difficult to destroy by conventional means. Hiding from these sensors should be the preferred method of infiltration. Covert cloaks / black ops ftw.

While this would allow for extreme long-range combat, it can also be easily defeated by a single jamming ship. Might give Kitsune's or other EAFs like the Hyena a real role in combat. I can imagine supers launching salvos of limited AoE bombs from across the grid, or something like that. The same effect could be garnered by using remote sensor boosters, except supers are immune to EWAR and can no longer gain these bonuses.

Oh, yeah. CCP, plz give bombs an obvious AoE graphic like torps. That would be epic.

Except - 3rd Party VOIP negates this idea

Nice idea, Local chat always bothered me a bit. It would certainly spice things up in 0 sec.