Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So lets move on to the anti-stealth modules. There are two and they can be used separately or together. Each doing something completely different.

The first is a stealth detection Suit (sweet) duh!
Basically space has predictable background noise, a stealth ship hides all its presence by either mimicking the back ground noise or nullifying reflected or produced emissions. Knowing this you can judge weather the ambient noise is too much or two little. The Stealth detection suit is just a gauge of normal. It can tell you that there is a little deviation or a large deviation. Skill at using the mod is not trained in a skill book. the player needs to judge what the dial mean. Furthermore the dial goes Zerk when in a system with a pulsar or when on grid with a wormhole. This unfortunately renders the suit useless. It works like this, You undock from a station, and now you have a new dial above your mods button. The indicator will act differently when other ships or objects are close by. You need to consider that when deciding if its detecting a stealth ship. Also it detects you if your cloaked, and it detects your friends who may be cloaked. So to use this mod you need to be away from objects, ships and friendly cloaked ship. I'm not saying you have to be solo, but If your registering a 2 on the dial when your 30km from your fleet then you need to stay 30 from your fleet while your detecting. If the dial suddenly goes up to 6 0r 7, well you have to consider what the increase might mean. Is it 5 cloaked stealth bombers at 100km or is there a smart bombing battle ship cloaked next to me on this gate? Yes sadly it only detects the presence of a cloaky within 100km. The dial will increase if you approach the cloaked ship, but this game of hot or cold can take a long time. Best to get the fleet moving when you suspect that you have been scouted.

down side. This is extremely sensitive equipment and any attempts to jam your ship while this is equipped leave you absolutely vulnerable to being jammed. But at least you knew he was there!

The second module is like d-scan.
Its called a gamma burst detector array

Basically you shine your flash light in the dark and if something lights up well there it is. This is a forward facing detector, you fly around in circles till the indicator dial increases, this means the cloaky is ahead of you someplace within 100km. Again it only says that is that direction, it doesn't actually uncloak the ship or anything. Down side Again. This is extremely sensitive equipment and any attempts to jam your ship while this is equipped leave you absolutely vulnerable to being jammed. But at least you knew he was there!

So now you can see that the 2 systems can function separately, one to detect if there is something is about and how close it might be, and the other to determine the direction to it.

Now for the new ship (stealth hunter)

I would like to think of it as the Van Helsing
A hunter for the things in the dark.

This would be a sisters of eve ship (for story line purposes) that has 2 advanced Pod Launchers. The pod launchers are basically variants of the bomb launcher. Yet they don't shoot bombs, but can be fitted anyplace a bomb launcher can. This Helsing can fit 2 at once. What makes these special is the 2 types of ammo they can be loaded with. The first is a cluster of micro smart bombs. These disperse over a large area doing very little damage. Although they can hit a fleet of ships the damage is very low. Better for hitting and uncloaking a stealth ship. When used with the two new mods you can determine a ship is present and then its direction. Having some idea of the range and direction is what makes the cluster bomb an effective stealth hunter. The down side is that the cluster bomb salvo uses a lot of cap. If you fitting skills are not so good, then you probably won't be able to warp off or cloak or activate mods afterwards. With better skills and some cap batteries or a cap charger, well then you probably can. However, not if you fire both salvo's at once for sure. So the cluster bomb shoots out to about 20km and that star bursts in to a large field of smart bombs. Its not a total saturation of the area, so with some luck you can do a little damage to any cloakies out in the 10km diameter field of effect. If you damage it, it uncloaks!
The pod launcher also can be loaded with a 2nd kind of ammo, quad of torps (4 torps bundled to fit snugly inside the pod launcher) You can pick and choose wither you want two of the same ammo types or just one of each. The quad of torps is a large alpha strike. Obviously 2 pods with this ammo would be 8 torps. Perhaps it should be a rocket pod... Both are attractive ideas with vastly differnt pro's and con's. Regardless the pod launch dps is not even close to the destruction of a stealth bomb, but its a decent alpha strike for a small cloaky ship. In addition the rocket or torp bundle would be usable in highsec (laws permitting). Since the pod launcher can replace a normal bomb launcher, ships like the hound can can also equip one with the same fitting requirements. A good first volley without concord jumping all over you would be nice :)

The reload timer makes it so you get your alpha strike and then cloak and run like usual for the bomber. If the capsoleer says on field to finish the target off with his secondary weapons, the reload timer should be long enough to eliminate multiple launches per engagement. With the cluster bomb, that likely will not be allowed in hisec . It would also be useless at close ranges.

Please keep in mind that hisec gankers don't usually fly 50-60mill isk ships. The helsing would likely cost much more and thus would make a terrible gank ship ( as It should ) Fun Fun, hunt me some solo bomber scouts! or better yet form a group and hunters and listen to all the stealth bomber pilots grief!

It's a long read but it's a few really nice ideas, might get more feedback if you broke them down to multiple posts

I like the idea of the Assault Stealth ship. With one exception. I think that the assault cannon should do a percentage rather than a flat damage output. That way it would not be abused as a next-gen noob destroyer. Because with flat damage it's either going to be able to destroy most smaller (new pilot) ships, or it simply won't do enough damage to anything larger to be considered worthwhile.

As for your ideas on stealth detection I like it. It reminds me a bit of dscan and how it's just something you have to know how to use rather than train for. I believe that the use on stealth detection modules should be limited so not everybody is going to have one. Perhaps make it take up a good chunk of cpu or power.

And finally the stealth snipers. I like the idea and it sounds good. But it also strikes me as one of those things that would have to be extensively tested and tweaked to make sure it would not be too over/underpowered as I could easily see it going in that direction.

Learn EVE mechanics. Stationary ships have no facings for a start. Also Frigates with BS sized weapons already exist.
Try again next time.

I agree totally. Trying to jump a hisec station camp might work once, but only unlikely twice. Being visible for a period of time before you volley is a good balance i think.

As for the rest of you guys, thank you for you criticism. Yes there are a lot of issues and views with cloaking. But if your following the game lore you starting to see more cloak tech introduced into the game. Stealth stations? etc...

I joined eve and was pushed into stealth bombers with no supporting skills. I was so disappointed with the role that I quit for over 2 years. What I posted above is more in line of what I would have hoped to find. There is room for improvements and more skill (not skill book) styles of play. The ship ideas i proposed are ships that you have to dedicate yourself into learning and how to utilize their capabilities, not ships you just go skill level 5 and getting easy ganks on newbs. The hisec ganking obviously happens regardless of what new or old ships are available, but more often with inexpensive ships. I would hope these new ships are more than 10c isk per dozen.

The tank of the assult and the delay of the sniper are balancing issues. I considered adding weakness into the designs and use of the ships. Honestly you could just make a longer range weapon and a short range weapon for a stealth bomber and call them snipers and assault. That's no fun! I don't want one ship that does everything half ass, I want a ship that does its job and requires more than a skill book level to do it well. There is the obvious uslessness side of the spectrum and the over power side. I'm no wizz on balancing but it could be done effectivly. And if its done well these ships can be fun and yet not op. I'm not trying to introduce a game breaker, I'm trying to introduce variety, flavor and style. Its what I would have hoped to find. The game is going to evolve weather we want it to or not, but this is just my vision of what I would like to see in the next few years.

lol @ this. talos/nado ganks on killboards all day

edit: To be more on topic, your ideas are solid, but definitely need some fine tuning to be justifiable. Stealth detection equipment, I think, will eventually find its way into EVE. The only crazy idea I see is the stealth hunter ship. It really wouldn't make sense and I would honestly use it to gank . 8 torpedoes at once is nothing to sneeze at. A good SB can already alpha for 5k+. 8? Dear lord.

Quoting because this needs to be emphasized.


The server does not see your ship as a ship... it is a sphere (whose size/"colliding box" is based on your signature radius).
Until you have a trajectory (i.e. you are moving) that sphere does not have a "front."

This makes it impossible with current game mechanics to shoot "only straight" because there is always a massive variance in flight trajectory between any two ships (even at close range)... unless both ships are exactly aligned towards the same thing and basically on top of each other.

NOTE: this is the core physics engine of the game you are touching on. Changing it means changing EVERYTHING regarding space flight and weapons mechanics.
You might as well start making a new game at that point.

It is no doubt :)

Thanks for reading it~

Thank you all for your constructive criticism.

As for the game engine details. Yes I did not know this as your post clearly outlines the specific issues with my idea's. But now I understand and agree that it would be a problematic feature to add into the game. Although the game engine has been modified before? Perhaps the idea's could be implemented in part, sort of a compromise from my original idea. The basic idea was for a long range stealth and a short range stealth. The facing ideas were for flavor and play style but I suppose that can be achieved in other ways that I have not considered.

That was YOU that was being inneffective. Bombs are made for large targets. 10 SBs, all with 1 target painter, should 1 shot a destroyer with a single salvo of torpedoes. Possibly 2 shot, if noone has precision torps available. The problem is that you didn't make adjustments to your tactics based on your target type. The bombers themselves are just fine. Stop asking for new features/buffs just because you don't know enough about the game to make the existing mechanics work.