EVE New Citizens Q&A

I won't argue with you too much on this point. But humor me on this:

Some game mechanics are the way they are for gameplay reasons.

Because EVE is so intel and information heavy, automating intel work is not really a good idea from a gameplay perspective. It makes things too easy for players.
Picture it; with an automated D-Scan you will be able to know who is within a general location as soon as they come within range. Now if you are an experienced veteran like me, this means that it will be VERY easy to hunt or avoid certain players. Because you would know right away if there is a threat or target nearby.

By keeping D-Scan as a "manual" function the onus is on the individual player to balance vigilance versus laziness. And don't disregard laziness as a factor. It is part of the reason why there are...
- price differences between different areas of the game (that are the same security level).
- groups of players who earn money hauling stuff. Yes... EVE has "trucking companies."
- scams (prey on you fellow man's ineptitude, greed, and/or laziness to read between the lines).
- Mercenary corporations: Some people can't be bothered to defend themselves. They just hire muscle.
- Logistics operators: as the size of any organization grows, so does the need for them to have organizers and "paper pushers." Few like being in this position. But some do. They make a killing doing the work no one else wants to do. Sometimes they take advantage of their status and either dictate the actions and future of the organization. Or they simply embezzle everything and run away.


At the end of the day, gameplay reasons will always trump immersion.

Hell... I could list a number of things that "don't make sense" from a purely immersive point of view but are what they are to ensure a more healthy gameplay environment. Here are a few off the top of my head;

- Bigger ships lock smaller ships slower: This doesn't make sense from an immersion standpoint because the bigger a ship is, the more powerful and sophisticated its sensor suite should be. Ergo, larger ships should be able to lock targets faster and more accurately than any smaller ship.

- Bigger ships are, in general, slower than smaller ships: This also doesn't make sense from an immersion standpoint. Bigger ships have bigger engines, a bigger powerplant to draw from, and the capacity to go at "full throttle" for longer than a smaller ship can without taxing its systems as much. So they should be able to warp and go in a straight line faster.
However, larger ships in EVE don't. In fact, they are some of the slowest ships in the game. In return for this massive penalty (among others) to have the much greater firepower and significantly better flexibility in fitting modules.

- CONCORD insta-spawns whenever there is a criminal act in high-sec and doesn't attack NPCs: This doesn't really make sense as high-sec space is supposed to be full of cyno-jammers to prevent players from "teleporting" their ships into it. Moreover, why do the police turn a blind eye to NPC incursions into high-sec space while simultaneously caring and enforcing high-sec rules for player on player violence?


My point is... there are always going to have to be some things you have to ignore. D-Scan not being automated is one of them.


Also

Heed this advice. You don't NEED to spam D-Scan all the time. Just use it when you are in a entering a situation. And even 5 to 10 seconds is more than enough most of the time.

Except in FW complexes.

There you are kinda required to be on your toes all the time. After all... the system was (and still is) intended to be a way for players to actively fight and kill each other. Making money is supposed to be a "besides the point" incentive.

What I wish the game had was the equivalent of a sono-bouy. Something I could drop in a sector of space and give me a real time view of what comes and goes within its scan radius. Give it a life of a hour or so. They could be targeted and destroyed (thus giving the owning player a clue that 'something wicked this way comes') or have the most advanced versions have mini-cloaks but not live as long, maybe only 15 minutes.

I also agree that immersion is nearly impossible in this game. So much of it is game mechanic laid bare that you can't even cover it with a fig leaf to ignore it.

EVE is NOT a real space simulator/simulation at all... or even close. It's a fantasy space simulation and pretty much an economic/ship simulation en total. It's good at what it does, but it's not real or even close to it.

I'm not certain what you exactly mean by this but to me it would seem that both business contracting and spaceship piloting would be very mechanical in execution. Meaning having strict rules and predictable outcomes. As in if you do "A" then "B" will happen etc... so just having access to the rules of how things are supposed to function does not seem immersion breaking to me.

I'm not saying that this game is the most immersive I've ever played or anything like that. I'm just saying that knowing how "the computer on my ship" will respond to various inputs and situations, or knowing the engagement rules in a regulated market, or knowing the rules of entering into a contract with someone are not where this game looses it for me. In those respects the game seems very realistic to me.

I had this big ol' long response with lots of examples and it was just a wall of text. The short version is I'm from a harder Sci-Fi mental state. Immersion is really difficult for me with the game mechanics as the way they are, how the game is displayed and presented, and the technologies involved are just passing functionaries for the reality of the tech. Now, I realize that makes me sound snobbish, however, none of that means I don't enjoy playing the game or find the game unplayable in any measure.

It just means it's a game to me, like chess, cards, or a board game. Just a very complex and challenging game.

Immersion would require a much closer path to what far future science realities would present and that would cause problems for having a workable game. Could it be done... yes, would it be worth the effort, likely no. EVE is fine as is, but it's just not immersive to me and really can't be in it's current form. That's not a knock against the game, just a fact for me.

If you can immerse in it, my kudos to you... that's awesome.