Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Yes, I have read your links. I dont agree with all of them. Sorry

loving this. also id like to see a communication array being a hackable structure. so hackers can hack it to turn it off/on.

so how about we all compromise?

what if you only show up in local if you get into the system though a gate due to some eve related automatic autoconnect from the gate at moment of jump, but if you jump in though a WH no such thing happens unless you get within say 1AU of a gate while uncloaked or within 100,000km no matter what. (also if you log well you ship only warps 1,000,000km so if you went in to the system via gate logging off shouldn't count cause thats a very quick workaround)

make cloackers scanable. (just not easily) say t2 probes and time plus involve the whole afk thing too. (like scanning the down becomes easier so long as they stay within a certain radius say 1000km or maybe time the cloak has been active or ignore that as the whole AFK thing is dumb)

give recons a role bonus that allows them to find cloacks on dscan so long as its within 10km (or any ship of choice maybe make the ability for a module i dont really care)

this way we
1.) justify why hi lo and null have local that works
2.) take away the 100% certainty of local everywhere (gankers rejoice)
3.) introduce some new mechanics to the game
4.) finally have a reason to think of recons as recons
5.) have something to do while our favorite cloacker is insystem
6.) make the scan go up really slowly and say make it go though 16 stages (arbitrary number use whatever feels appropriate)
7.) hmm maybe make the ship scannable at say stage 9 for cloak skill lvl 1 10 for 2 and so on +1 for faction,deadspace or officer

make the scan last say 2 minutes (again arbitrary use whatever feel appropriate) and make it take 1 less scan for every hour that cloak has been in the 1000km radius or maybe for every hour its been active making you want to recycle it or move. heck this might also make more varieties of cloaks possible like shorter lock delay for say fewer scan levels just some idea for meta cloaks


besides how is afk cloaking an intel tool the person aint there to report anything at all.



i dont know about 6 and 7 just an idea.


and no i am not impartial

my favorite system has been regularly camped by a cloaker for the past half a year. its rather ridiculous (no i have not died as a result of this, there have been no tears involved) 5 out of 7 days that guy has been there on weekends he roams for a bit looking to hotdrop

no i dont have a problem with cloacking

do not give me this **** that moving is the counter that is not a counter that is giving the **** up

also do not give me the **** about afk cloaker is harmless because they aint there. mine is a hotdropper. so icant play in my favorite system ever. keep reading for my justification

but point is there is no defense other than have my friends waiting to counter. I will not make my friends wait for god knows how long for someone who will eventually come back and maybe decide that today will hotdrop day or just go to sleep i wont make my friends wait for who knows how long for a maybe that is about as boring as it can possibly get, hell it sounds worse than actually mining.

or in other words my cloaker is an immediate threat the entire time without exerting any effort, while my defense must have constant effort as the fecal matter can hit the fan in a matter of an instant as there is no warning. so no effort vs max effort that feels unbalanced to me.

in the meantime i am just elsewhere i have been playing long enough to have carriers to move my **** anyways, but i think that takes away content and i am not willing to playing Russian roulette if i don't have to.

EDIT: on another consideration this would make black ops god damned terrifying as cynos dont count as gate jumps either.

All this ruckus, when we ignore one of the key details itself.

The PvE ship, which is both the expected target as well as the ship being 'denied' activity.
(I put quotes around denied, as this is not true for all players, only those who choose or are compelled to choose avoidance)

Make the PvE ship competent in a fight, against this cloak using threat.
Whether this means making mining ships into Ishtar level drone fighters, or some other combat enhancement.

Make them too slow, or some equivalent penalty, so they are not used for front line combat or in roams, just for PvE.
(We have PvE ships used as novelty items in PvP, that will always happen. I am pushing to avoid making them a popular choice for practical reasons instead)

That cyno threat?
Give it a spool up issue, so that it wants to avoid being on grid with it's target.
If spool-up get's it locked down and held in place for 30 seconds or a minute, that gives it's target time to react either way.

(Spool up would only have a beacon on-grid, not system wide. System wide beacon would be visible after spool up, when ships would also be able to travel to it)

Added with: Ships landing by cyno in a hostile system have no cap, and must recuperate it.
(This could be an upgrade, like the jammer, or simply a scripted variation to it)

People seem to be worried over issues they cannot predict, not so much the name they can see itself.

Eve is a sweet game, it's exactly what I imagine space would really be like if filled with a bunch of immortals looking to kill some, or a ton, of free time. The best part is that the game is balanced in such a way that even though your death is pretty much certain at any give time no matter where you are, haters are going to hate, there is ALWAYS a counter to someone else's advantage. Guy has a huge ship? Tackle him in a small one. Guy being a jerk in high-sec hiding behind CONCORD? Suicide Gank... Gal jamming your targeting system? Skill up sensor skills and/or load a module. Etc.

Then...there's this...

Lame-AFKer-UsingACloakInYourSystem-Can-Strike-Anytime-And-Ain't-Nothing-You-Can-Do-'Bout-it! There's also the ol' "All his buddies are logged off in system and he's just waiting to tell them all to log back in mumbo jumbo." If you aren't playing in Eve but actively setting a trap that is a huge deck stack that can't be countered.

It's obnoxious. Ya can't get a whole lot done while there's a spy hanging out in your system who can pull himself away from that giant platter of hot pockets at any time to scan down your ship and take you out then return and do it all over again. There isn't a counter to this and in the spirit of Eve "You can die anytime" mentality, I call BS...and a big fat COME ON!

The #1 retort to the my suggestion that infinite cloaking be addressed (afk or otherwise) has been that "No one has ever been hurt by a cloaked ship." Another has been that "AFK Cloaking is purely psychological." Those are both...completely out of touch with reality though the latter holds at least some truth. If a hostile ship is in the same system as you, and you cannot do anything to address that threat, then it is a significant threat and is causing damage. Saying a cloaked ship isn't a threat is like saying the enemy has a heavily armed group within the city walls but since we can't find it I guess it can't harm us. Infinite cloaking offers impunity to the cloaker; impunity and Eve do not go together. Nothing you do in this game should be doable without at least some sense of a potential threat existing.

I've read chatter about "Local Chat" being the source of the problem. "It gives the best source of intel." Uhh...no, that's wrong. I'm going against the tide on this one. Knowing that someone is in the same system as you and knowing where they are are two completely different levels of intel. The former is the quicker down and dirty, the latter is the far better. You can still D-Scan (or gasp! use probes!) to locate every ship and structure in a system...except cloakers. Local chat is a separate issue.

Now, I'm not one to complain in RL without having a solution in the hopper so here's my soon-to-be-ripped-apart "solution" to this issue.

There's not a whole lot of point in having a cloak if folks can track you down easily. So let's not make it easy, but let's make it possible. If those nerds on Enterprise can do it, then so can we!

My idea: Cloaking devices build up emissions over time, at some point becoming detectable by combat probes or some new technology specifically designed for that purpose.

This opens some interesting additional dynamics. Skills/Ship Traits that reduce cloaking emission build-up rate and skills/modules to lower the threshold. Larger ships can build up the emissions faster (sorry capital ship cloakers...), etc. How long before a ship becomes detectable is a math equation for some other 20 lb brain and how the decay mechanic works as well though I don't think it unreasonable that it be tied to the ship not the pilot.

Look, I'm not saying it's going to be easy, and cloaking is an obvious mechanic that should be in the game. I just think it's obscene that the deck is stacked so much in favor of the cloaker. There isn't any other tool nearly as powerful as the ability to be invisible FOREVER. If I know you are in the area, I should be able to track you down if I possess the proper equipment.

My $0.02.

-G

if cloak is not a problem then assigning fighters isn't either

You're talking ratting ships.

You expect to need to hot drop them, or your objection defending the ability to hot drop makes little sense.
The popular consensus implies that not just sufficient force, but overwhelming force will be used in a hot drop.

If they believe you can hot drop them, why would they stick around to risk fighting overwhelming odds?

Keep in mind, this is aimed at making MORE players choose to stay on grid, rather than 'getting safe', and hot dropping has been pointed at repeatedly as the number one concern.

Now, when it comes to mining ships, they do not pack such amazing DPS.

I want a mining ship that can take a one vs one fight, with the typical cloaked intruder.
If more than one intruder shows up, I want it to be countered by simply having a similarly numbered group of miners.

Take that wild card off the table. It might be balanced, but evidence from gameplay suggests too many decisions are made from a bias that chooses stalemates rather than resolutions.

Here's something that should probably deserve a thread to itself, but I am starting it here since it seems to relate.

Anti-Social Lockout
Rig, all sizes.
Calibration cost 300

Effect: By deliberately glitching the connection, your local chat has been disabled.
You cannot talk in local, you cannot see local, and the pilot roster is denied seeing and being seen in.

You will have no idea from local how many people, or exactly who, is in the system.
They won't see you either.

But by having an alt check local for you, you once more place a hostile appearing name in the system.
Intruder: Any targets you hoped to leave blissfully ignorant of your presence, poof.
Defender: (Oh yes, defending players can certainly use this) The hostile that had been seeing an empty system, suddenly knows someone is present to search for.

Unless of course, your are awoxing intel to the hostile.

See, the key detail that often goes missed, is that without local to tell a hostile targets are present, they have to either assume or search for.
Searching each possible system? Time flies....

With this item as a rig, they cannot simply turn it off for a moment to take a quick peek.
(Ejecting from a ship should not bypass this, but I can see possibly tricky programming becoming involved with that)

Local must die.