Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Like this idea

NO, this is an utterly terrible idea! No structure should provide a direct non-consensual warp in mechanic on arbitrary ships. This is what the damn combat probes and scanning skills are for after all!



Starting on from this much more feasible idea i would propose the following:

Introduce Cloak Dissolution as a new mechanic that comes with every cloaking devise. Once a cloaking device gets active, it starts accumulating cloak dissolution (either visualize it as another circle around the module or as a "timer" icon in the upper left screen corner that starts to fill up) at a fixed base rate per minute. Once a critical value of cloak dissolution is reached, the cloak deactivates and starts its cooldown phase.

The actual accumulation rate and critical limit can be influenced by ship bonus (like e.g. 33% less rate for covops or 100% more limit for recons, etc...) and by the cloaking skill (like -10% per level to make it meaningful).

Interaction with the new OA structure could then work like active sonar pings that incur additional cloak dissolution on any ship either in range or system wide (maybe depending on size of the OA or rigs/services/whatsoever) and with a varying intervals and dissolution strength (again depending on configuration/size). However, there need to be certain constraints like say no overlapping areas of effect for non system wide OAs and at most one system wide OA with this "sonar" effect.
Furthermore I imagine a few rough limits on the amount of time it takes such a system to decloak a freshly cloaked ship by means of cloak dissolution:

• no combination of effects should be able to force a decloak on a covops at max level in less than 30 minutes
• no covops ship should be able to stay cloaked longer than 3 hours at max level
• regular ships without inherent cloaking bonuses should not be able to stay cloaked very long (maybe something below 1 hour)

I think this mechanic is exactly what could solve the "afk cloaking" disaster. For every active pilot it should be trivially easy to watch his or her cloak dissolution level and either recloak after a forced decloak or simply reset the timer at a save or when in warp in deep space. An actual afk-cloaker on the other hand will be subject to being probed down as soon as his cloak dissolution level reaches the critical point and forces him to decloak. A win for everyone complaining about current cloak mechanics ;)

Gates that let you get from A to B quicker will possibly just allow large null blocks to defend large amounts of space again as well as enable null powers to import and export to and from empire.

having them improve travel in general sounds like a step back. I thought we were trying to make it harder to get around. (Although creating disruptable choke points may create interesting gameplay)

Just have them spawn WH's? Perhaps even manually?

Observation Arrays.


If delayed local does somehow show up (and no it shouldn't, works fine for WH, but not for normal space) then this system is a must to have to give local back. However the OA should take fuel to run, and based on what it does is how much fuel it takes.
So providing Local should be its basic function at no cost other then putting the array up in the system (remember people this is one of the XL things and is quit massive). From there the upgrades would be for Cloak Detection, Intel Denial, Pilot Intel Denial, ect ect. Fuel costs could be from a Small POS rate to a Large POS rate based on how many functions the array is doing. So for example, the OA is providing Cloak Detection on top of the Local (which is free) so fuel costs would be 9 Fuel Blocks (of any kind) per an hour. The fuel bay should be very large (since this thing is big). If for any reason it runes out, any function past the basic one, ceases to work, but the array itself doesn't stop running, just the extras do.
I would assume these things would be up-gradable via the new fitting system. 7H 5M 7L and 4 Service would suffice for protection and upgradbility. Rigs would range from Local Upgrades which would give a PING to all allied pilots (+10 standing) with the number of enemy's in system (No standing to -10). The ping would be to all pilots in the current system, and any adjacent system that also has at least an OA running (densest need to be upgraded). Others would be Cloak Pinpoint Rig which based upon how many of this rig is placed, would give you an accurate approx to where a cloak is being used (within 50km for 1 Rig, within 20km for 2 rigs and 1km for all 3 rigs being used).






Player Owned Gates.

I would assume these would replace the current Jump Bridge we have now. Would act and behave as a slandered gate does now, only would be able to be upgraded with Guns and Mods. 12H 4M 8L and 5 upgrade. Gun size limitations would be needed for this particular Building, with Large Guns being the biggest it can use (I assume the others would be able to use XL guns). Services this could provide (system wide): Extended Jump Range, all ships in system would have an extra 50% more LY range to there jump Drives. Reduced Jump Fatigue, all ships have an extra 50% reduction to Jump Fatigue when using a Jump Drive. (with those two alone I would think Jump Freighter Pilots would rejoice).
Base LY range would be the normal 5 LY as JB's are now, however, this could be upgraded via the use of Rigs, 5 LY more per a Rig, and BOTH Gates would need to have the Rigs in order to connect to one another.
Other rigs could expand more on the other services that Gate provides, increasing the LY% by 10% more per a rig installed, same would apply to the Fatigue one as well.


So there are a few of my ideas for Iterating onto what you Devs have shown the direction you have thought of with these two structures.

I hope this isn't just another carebear buff/ganker nerf in the line of 4 years long line of nerfs to hunter types of gameplay.

This is a neat idea. HOWEVER:
IMO there is way too much "HYPE" with the structure rebalance at this point, way too much. It is impossible to give good feedback when when don't know what is pub crawl speculation and what is "likely coming in 2015." I really think we need another dev blog detailing what is likely going to come in 2015, how those ACTUAL changes will likely work, and then we can work to give feedback on them. Because, to be realistic, probably 50-80% of what you described in the original dev blog probably will not come in 2015, simply because of limited dev time, and most of the replies in this thread and others are pure speculation about things that likely won't come until 2016, if ever, so it would be nice to start working with what we can expect to see first, and only then branch out to further iterations.

CCP Ytterbium,


Can't we add gate gun bunkers? limt how closer and were we place them same for MINES!

The problem is that by pure reason it is logical that if an observatory is scanning the system and gates know who passes through you will have a system where there is a local like now. The combined information would be enough to know who is in the system.

The questions are
-will gates without an observatory be able to create a local?
-should there multiple sizes of an observatory with differant effects?
--how about an M-L sized version gives a delay of 10-5 minutes and the XL does it with only a few seconds delay.
-what should it cost to run a system with local like today?
-is there a differance between jumping in by a wh, cyno, covered cyno or gate ?
--gate instantly in local
-- cyno some delay as the observatory sensors have to align on it
-- wh also some delay but as it is stable not as much as with the cyno
-- covered cyno having a huge delay as the observatoy needs more time to find it and to get the information who is coming through.

also if you send a message in local you should be instantly in local for obvious reasons.

Ability to pinpoint cloak users.
I carry spare cloak and a depot in my ship because of the RL.

Don't take this away.
If you want AFK campers gone try to do it different way.


Don't create one way jump gate.
You will lift again the ability to "HERE WE STAND!"
Ground control is also fun, keeping 1 gate to secure a constellation or even half of a region provide also fun and content.

These structures and all the structure changes overall are going to change the way EVE is played in pretty much every fundamental way. I think in conjunction with these changes we need to start looking at some of the most fundamental aspects of EVE.

I am wholeheartedly not a fan of another player or entity being able to disrupt information flow on a large scale. Because intel and information gathering (outside of local) is something we as players have to work for and perfect already, allowing other players to interfere in that process in a direct way wouldn't be the way to go.

We should start looking at the fundamental systems these new structures are going to be affecting, and start figuring out ways to better those game mechanics before these structures and changes are put in overtop of already poor game mechanics, UI etc.

Any new gameplay features, structures, mechanics, etc, overall need to be geared towards one specific objective: MORE PLAYER to PLAYER interaction.

With that in mind, I think we need to take a look at EVE's intel gathering interfaces and figure out how to make them more VISUAL instead of technical and menu based.

We in the EVE player community base need to grasp the full extent of these coming changes. THESE ARE THE BIGGEST CHANGES TO THE GAME SINCE CAPITAL SHIPS.

Understand that these changes are not just cute little gimmicks that are adding in some cool feature here or there. These changes are to compete with Star Citizen, they are to make this game more interesting, and they should by extension IMPROVE the game. This will not happen if the changes are put in on top of pre-exisitng infrastructure that really needs to be fixed first.

RANT DONE.

Moving on then, lets talk about the proposed features:

Observatory Array:
Being able to increase, decrease or block Star Map filters in the solar systems they’re deployed
- STOP. WHY? People rely on statistics and information to figure what they're going to do and when in this game. This could go either decently well, or VERY BADLY. Think about it hard first...

Act as solar system wide D-scan blockers
- Meh. Why not looking at iterating on the current dscan system andcome up with something different?

Disrupt ship intelligence in the solar system
- This is really vague, but I'm assuming it would somewhat distort results from dscan. That's cool but again, why not do something a little different than dscan? It's just another overview, this whole game is overviews...

take over player tracking capabilities from NPC agents or be able to affect or pinpoint cloak users.
- GREAT FEATURE. What would be even better is network tracking, kind of like GPS. These structures could be placed throughout multiple systems, and you could keep track of player movements region wide through an interface instead of through player communications. AMAZING.
- Instead of pinpointing cloaked pilots, how about preventing them from warping cloaked? Or how about a decloak mechanic that will EVENTUALLY figure out your position if you're not mobile (10 minutes or so?) and then decloak you and broadcast your location system wide?

We are considering basing their effectiveness through a network coverage (like cell phones) so that a single one may not be that useful, but maintaining a bunch of them in space could give a significant advantage.
- BEAUTIFUL IDEA. You can go even further and as I mentioned above, connect them and network them across solarsystems so that data stays consistent throughout a specific constellation. This would allow certain corporations and entities to project further than just their own solarsystem. With the SOV changes coming, this would allow you to see and actively collect intel on players trying to take sov or that are taking structures in systems in other constellations or in another part of the region.

Overall great work, but some changes I feel will be a little to much and would do more harm than good.

SOME IDEAS:

- SECTOR SCANNING: A scanning system that divides and subdivides space into a grid and assigns structures, planets, any in space object a SECTOR &subsector (for further division). Present these sectors to the player in a visual way kind of like the updated industry menu (could even use the unused f11 browser) and combine their results into the dscan window (spreadsheet view).

- Collective Intel: Intel can be shared and communicated between players in a visual way instead of just vocally or through text.

- CAMERA DRONES: Ability to view a remote location within the system from the safety of an observatory array. No more need for "cloaky scout go follow them" all the time. Also gives the defenders a HUGE advantage over the attackers.

- BIG DATA: Because we are talking about intel, we have to talk about data. We WILL need an interface for organizing, understanding and communicating all the data that the observatory arrays will be picking up. This cannot be another "OVERVIEW". More spreadsheets in space is bad. VISUAL communication of data is going to be crucial. Again, if this is another POS management tab, the corp management window, or even remotely resembles the market window, it's going to be JUST ANOTHER SPREADSHEET... Please no more spreadsheets in space...