Player Features and Ideas Discussion

It's not a bad attempt, but honestly nothing is going to go anywhere with this topic.

The pro-afk crowd will not yield in any way that threatens their access to easy kills unless it comes with a change that grants them even easier access to easy kills. There is no amount of proactive effort to locate a cloaked ship that will make it acceptable unless they have their "win" button replaced with an even larger version.

I applaud your valient attempt, but you should either run now before they fire up the flame throwers, or prepare to defend yourself against the EVE equivalent of religious zealots who trust faith over reality under direct observation.


You do seem to be under some misconceptions however.

Under current mechanics a ship with an active cloak cannot be targeted at all by any means. You can force them to drop their cloak if you can get with in 2000 meters, however they don't show up on Dscan, overview, or even in space as a ripple. The only way to know a ship under a cloaks location is to watch it cloak and hope he does not move before you get to that spot.

The only real difference between cloaks are the prototype and improved versions can be fit on any ship and don't allow warping while cloaked, where the covert cloak allows warping while cloaked. All of them reduce the speed of the ship while cloaked, and do not allow any other modules to be active. They all have a delay after deactivation before you can target another ship, though the Covert hulls have bonuses to reduce that. You can use probes while cloaked, so long as you break cloak long enough to launch them. None of that other than warping matters for the most common combat tactic involving AFK Cloaking, as a Cyno does not require a target to light.

If *you* want that sort of competition, then the sandbox has an answer. Fit up your miner, go shoot rocks, and don't sign into your intel network, cover up the local window, and fly dangerous.

congratulations, you have now achieved your wish without destroying the game for the rest of the PvE players.

The two links in your sig are 30 more pages to grind (ffffuuuuu) - and appears to be the be more or the same cirklejerk we have here already. In short: that didn't exactly paint me a clear image, sorry bud.


Now, this "automated scanning device" of yours sounds a lot like DScan, minus the clicking. You want cloaked ships to show up on DScan or did I fail to comprehend? Because, you know ... there is such an automated scanning device, that tells you which players are in system with you: it's called local. Are you asking for something we already have?

I'm sorry and I don't mean to be an asshat ; but I simply do not understand which "proactive effort" you're talking about. Either we can know who is surrounding us, or we can't. Under the current mechanics, and not counting clicking DScan as active effort (because, you know, any monkey can click a button... it's not like you can "outclick" your opponent to demonstrate superior skill), an alliance intel channel and active gatecamps would count as effort.

Awaiting clarification - I shall inject another possibility of proactive effort: finding somebody requires scanning, triangulating, narrowing it down while the player being scanned sees your probes close in on him, as has to set up another safe/rolling safe/deep safe/GTFO/whatever. Sounds to me like you would like this process to be more involved on BOTH parties -- as in: the one being probed sets up a puzzle to be solved by the other party.

I could imagine every ship has a transponder code of sorts - say a 6 digit number. The prober needs to narrow this number down in Mastermind style, while the cloaker can see these attempts being made and gains the ability to cycle one digit in his transponder code once every minute. Thereby creating a situation where the cloaked ship can outsmart his opponent, and vice-versa. I suppose this is not what you had in mind; yet it goes to show what I would consider "active effort on both sides".

How does removing your presence from local, which is what I assumed "nerf local" meant, promote active gameplay? To play with someone, you need to be aware of his presence. One might limit this intel to the point where you get to see who's in local + the number of cloaked pilots; but that still doesn't give you anything to work with.

It's really simple: if you know there's an unknown entity in system, you'll dock up. And maybe grab a PvP ship, access your OA and try to play with it. If you do not know there's a stranger, there is no need to take action against it. Either way: the first action taken will still be to get your marauder or hulk off the field and reship.

I'm very confused about your post, in regards to "automated warning trivialises cloaks" (...not really, but let's roll with it) -- versus -- "an automated scanning device which you NEED to activate". Okay, so it's like a damage control: we undock and activate our auto scanners. What changed exactly? Where is my active effort? What options did I now gain I do not have under the current mechanics? This ...... sounds like a load of good intentions but does it really change anything?

I hope that, by posting these kinds of question, you will understand which part does not go into my brain, so that you can fill in the blanks or explain it more to-the-point. Maybe even a screenshot, if that were helpful.

However, CCP decided the opposite is the norm, that is it is not up to the player to decide all of these things. Your problem Mike is your starting assumptions are wildly at odds with the fundamental nature of this game.

Well many proposals are not even really nerfs in the literal sense--i.e. it works less well than it did before. It is merely going from completely invulnerable to vulnerable. In fact, some suggestions could be seen as a buff. For example, the networked OA suggestions would allow the user, with possibly some limitations, to access intel for other OAs, say in a neighboring system (e.g. the constellation level).

So when people like Lucas and Mike light their hair on fire and run around screaming I just have to....

I've even outlined how maybe changing the nature of PvE in NS could make it so that this whole discussion is pointless or at least not that much of a big deal...but I was called a liar and a troll by Lucas and Mike.

I can totally see hacking into the enemy's network -- it would open the door for intelligence / counterintelligence, possibly even granting which pilot is in which system, flying which ship ... the strategic options are skyrocketing. In fact, a "Fleet Admiral" could simply stay docked and keep a close eye on enemy movements to direct his fleet commanders from there.

Somehow I get the feeling you and Nikk are talking about two different approaches though... I've been reading the posts in Nikk's signature and they seem to advocate delayed local, and dropping people in POS/docked/cloaked from your local chat window -- which is totally opposed to what an OA is supposed to do.

If anything, the OA would make local delayed for the "uninvited guest" (eg: the cloaker) whilst giving the sovholder complete intel as well as the ability to pinpoint cloakers. That's of course assuming your OA has not been hacked.

Another kind of game for sure - yet, I wonder if those claiming "local ought to change" are indeed all talking about the same changes.

Depending on how the OA works, it can either solve a lot of issues AND provide more immersive gameplay with an additional layer. Or it can turn all of nullsec into wormhole space + cynoes. Thus, it is very important that when we say "nerf local", we actually mean the same thing and the implications this has.

Do you now see why in-depth clarification is necessary? If Mike knew an OA would give him the ability to hunt cloakers (which he's been demanding from the start) and even gives him a view of what's coming down the pipe a few systems over, he wouldn't be panicing. The way it sounded some 100 pages ago, on the other hand ... that was gamebreaking stuff. It came across like "we simply remove local, so we can f*ck you in the butt any time we please without advance warning whatsoever". That's why he's so mad at you I think.

I have only 2 issues with counting on the OA to magic bullet this entire discussion.

1. Any and all features at this time are suggestions. It may detect cloaks, it may not. It will likely take multiple OA per solar system to be effective, but what features will be enhanced, extended, and/or enabled by multiple OA are not known. It could do a lot of things, from making cloaks scannable, making cloaking impossible, or nothing at all. After all, we still have Fozzie in charge and ISK disruption as a primary point of balance to consider.

2. It's most likely not a deployable. Thus it's 99% useless to individuals and only useful to those with alliance level support in that space, as anything bigger than a deployable will be vaporized in non-secured space fairly quickly. In a way this impacts the other side of the discussion as much if not more- I can easily imagine AFK cloaked guards warding off solo hunters who cannot reliably cloak themselves. To me, that's just as bad.

A concept for scanning cloaks that still leaves cloaks with a degree of stealth:

Make cloaks show up as a new type of signiture, "localized anomaly" or some such.

Put several more such signitures in every solar system, each spawning and despawning on a frequent basis, no more than a 2 hour lifespan similar to wrecks and cans. Maybe they are random space garbage or something. The benefit of an OA could be that such anomalies are tracked automatically, can be sorted by age, and with several they can show a plot of any movement. Thus checking out older contacts are more likely to be cloaked ships, while one that's over the maximum lifespan or moving is almost certainly your target. Coming out of cloaking and recloaking gives you a new anomaly ID.

You could go AFK for short periods with relative safety, but ongoing active effort would be needed to stay safe for longer periods. Solo operators could eliminate potential contacts one at a time with a fair degree of risk, while the OA would improve chances and an array of them would make it very risky.

Yes. I support that. Cloaking mechanics do not.

1. The OA is pretty clearly going to be the new platform for intel. Intel channels will likely still exist, but my guess is local will be getting heavily scrutinized and with the OA in game, local may very well change over to being delayed. Is it a sure thing? No, but the hints have been pretty obvious.

2. It seems fairly clear that the OA is not going to be a deployable, but NS has never really been intended for the solo player. People have done it, but usually with a number of alts. In this case, have an alt bring a blockade runner and deploy the OA(s) as you see fit. Will they become a target? Yes, working as intended. Will it be a target when it is least convenient? Yes quite possibly, again working as intended. When you start putting stuff in space, other players are going to try and steal it, kill it, set up an ambush near it, etc. I’ll give you the same answer to those who complain that they can’t solo haul in a freighter, go get some friends in game. Working as intended.