Player Features and Ideas Discussion

We see a lot of changes going on these days - for better or worse. But I would like to propose that the mechanics of targeting see a change that I think would have an effect on fleet engagement, blobbing, and ship arrangement.

That is, such a simple approach to one thing would ripple outward.

In my experience in working on RL radar and tracking systems for fighter aircraft, we would see a lot of funny things happen in the field. While today's fighter jets can burn through ECM (without a module har har) and track more targets than most Eve ships, one thing that was noticeable was how the lock would fall off if there were too many aircraft locked up on a target.

Mind you this was not supposed to happen. We had to troubleshoot these systems. But it did happen. But I recall it happened more with smaller targets.

One thing that would affect this game towards more interesting engagement would be an incorporation of mechanics that consider these factors:

Size of the ship performing the lock (this is already done, hence the battleship takes a while to lock a frigate)
Number of ships locking up a target.
Size of the target.
Scan res of target and signal strength (as already with item 1).


So given that the mechanics partially address this, by what mechanics or logic then makes it possible for scores of ships to successfully lock and maintain tracking on a target?

Hence the "fleet -F1" monkey stuff that I see being complained about often.

Imagine if there was a limitation built into the considerations and factors that ruled out the "blobbing/primary" effect such that in large fleet engagements, wings and squads would have to go up against wings and squads?

In smaller engagements 20 frigates locking one frigate would not be possible but maybe a "few" (hey more use for the target painter). This would also give us more accurate statistical reporting as well since there will be no jumping in on kills. And if you have frigates on frigate and a cruiser with it's more powerful signal locks, the frigates get less reliability maintaining it (falls off) or maybe even entirely loses it.

Whether there would be intermittent lock loss, or total loss, or perhaps simple degradation in tracking, would be left up to the math I guess.

So the bigger the ship the more ships can lock it, the smaller the less. Attributes are already in place. I think this would make for more interesting engagement and less mindless blobbing.

so discourage group play in an MMO?

Interesting reasoning behind this. I don't think it would function well in eve though. The largest issues is that that game can't differentiate between allies an enemies for this, so a fleet with more logistics ships not only would have more potential reps, but also prevent as many enemy ships from targeting that ship.

I can't say for certain because I don't know who you work for or even your nationality, but talking about the limitations of real world military radar systems on a public internet forum is probably not OK, m'kay?

Additionally, making something more realistic does not necessarily make it more fun or more balanced. This is a game, not an aerial combat simulator.

first off all the locking mechanics are fine, no change needed in that department, and realistically speaking there would be no radar on spaceships, just a bunch of IR receivers.

the background temperature of space is about 3 degrees kelvin, meaning an Ice cube is going to flair up like a blow torch through a FLIR.

pretty much space is the most sensor friendly environment imaginable, there is no stealth, and you can be seen for several AU out.

Actually they differ by race.

Fixed that for you.

There are 25 squads in a fleet in EVE and they mean nothing because there is one FC and everyone does what he says. That's not group play.

so logistics, hero tackle, support, anti support, E-war, scouts, and spies are all actually F-1 jockeys.



not to mention in the late 70s when the voyager probe was somewhere around jupiter, it could spot RCS thrusters around earth.

just sayin there are lots of issues to deal with in space, targeting is not one of them.