Player Features and Ideas Discussion

For lack of a more familiar reference, players need a radar screen.
(Radar screen fails to explain the concept properly, but most will get the basic idea)

TL;DR: Add passive / active D-Scan information to the overview as an option.
Passive would be no effort, active would be toggled on to give a possible chance to detect if a cloaked vessel is in range, as well as boost effective range

Ships have sensors. USE THEM.
People want a convenient heads up display for important information, and without a doubt this should be considered important.

Here is a simple tip: Use the overview. It can do this surprisingly well.

Just add a category of items to the overview, call them sensor items. Highlight them in day-glo green or something so they stand out.
Your ship's sensor strength and your detecting abilities combine to give your current ship it's sensor range. You can't see whats outside your visual range, neither can your ship.
If you commit resources such as boosters, your active scan range will be more than your passive scan's, and may be invaluable to remember to use.

Got a cloak? Is your cloaking skill higher than their sensor skill? They can't see you until you get closer then.
The passive default scan will never see a cloaked vessel.
They will be warned a cloaked vessel is in range if they do active scans, just not details about how many or how far.
Active scans can be toggled on, but need to be reset after anything that moves you off your current grid, like undocking / changing systems / warping to another spot in system.

Logic: you must make an effort to detect someone making an effort to hide. If they are better at hiding, then they can get closer to you before you can know they are there.


I believe ships in your corp / alliance should automatically ID themselves once in range too, based on the friendly IFF concept.
This means you know if something is unspecified beyond ship type or model, you should be wary if in dangerous space...

Most pilots have just gotten so used to the idea that local hands them free intel, that they are simply resisting change.

A lot of them would probably like it, once they got used to it. It's a lot more realistic to use ship's sensors than to rely on chat gods to dispense intel wisdom...

CLARIFICATIONS:
First, two notes to keep in mind.
1> This won't let anyone hunt cloaked vessels. It has no means of locating or hunting them in a practical sense, just a proximity warning under the right conditions. Hunting cloaked vessels won't be recommended by myself unless local is delayed or removed entirely.
2> This does not remove local. It makes it obsolete, but it can be left in place.

1.) I won't push to have Local Chat removed here, but I have no problem making it obsolete by providing genuine intel tools. Chat needs can be easily met with local in delayed mode, in my opinion.

2.) Passive scanning is slightly more than the overview is right now. It just adds in all friendly ships in your sensor range due to IFF, and alerts you to others performing an active scan.
Active scanning is similar to the current D-Scan, except it should be able to auto-cycle at user set speed. You are broadcasting a signal based on your ship's sensor type visible to twice the range at which you get results from. Only results from unknown contacts will be given, as the IFF mentioned above will cancel returns from friendly vessels.
(If you want to scan without broadcasting your presence to the passive crowd, use probes. Just keep in mind the active users will see them and know someone is hunting)
Neither active nor passive gives warp usable information.

3.) Cloaking vessels, if not handed out by local, get to play cat and mouse more.
I follow the base logic that it takes effort to counter effort. Cloaking is an effort, so must the ability to be warned of it.
A cloaked vessel can certainly launch probes, once in a system, the same as they do already. They can use these probes the same way too.
A cloaked vessel can active scan, but at the cost of disrupting it's cloak the same as though they had manually toggled it off. Any penalty time applies before they can restore it, on top of which they would have broadcast their presence to every passive ship in range. For obvious tactical reasons, most will probably avoid doing this.
Detecting a cloaked vessel is only possible by active scanning.
The range it can be detected is based on a set of factors, listed in order of importance:
A> The skill of the cloaking pilot with cloaking verses the skill of the detecting pilot with sensors. (Electronics or better)
B> A bonus appropriate to the sensor strength of the detecting ship.
C> A bonus appropriate to the signature of the cloaked vessel, (smaller is easier to hide).
D> Number and quality of modules fitted on both ships that are involved.

The cloaked vessel is not in more danger of being decloaked at any time with this idea.
The potential target could be warned by local, or by active scanning and detecting probes, then finally by the means described above.

4.) Wormholes are a unique experience in EVE, and I have not spent enough time in them to say whether or not this would be a good fit for them. Unless CCP felt otherwise, I would leave them as is.

SEE post #4 for further details below!

Dradis - BSG

also

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I think you may be right about it being easy to put in, only the guys coding can say for certain though.

I don't think calling it a cycle makes sense in this context. It is a constant active item. Folks in wormholes think in cycles because they manually trigger it, like a camera taking a still shot. This is more like a live video feed than a still image, to further that analogy.

I think ships in your corp / alliance should automatically ID themselves once in range too, based on the friendly IFF concept.
This means you know if something is unspecified beyond ship type or model, you should be wary if in dangerous space...

Support.

I'm all for short-range burst sensors instead of system-wide realtime sensors. A nerf on local, definitely, but not a complete lack of intel.

Adds difficulty (which despite the protests of so, so many people, EVE needs.), and doesn't completely destroy any intel gathering. infact I think it makes intel gathering more useful, which it SHOULD be. Intel is one of the main components of war, after all. having easy intel just makes it a bash eachother until we're all dead game.

Also, the D-Scan could use an overhaul to make it more intuitive, anyway. This could be a cool addition.

plus BSG is pure awesome.

PS: Radar is a much more logical, realistic approach to this game. Local is outdated and overabused. and i'm all for more realism to games.

I keep hearing arguments on different threads, things that imply EVE players hate taking the effort to do things.

Some might say players want a first person shooter, where they can look at a menu roster and see everyone on both sides at a glance.
In some games, it even tells you what kind of role they are playing.

WH pilots have shown we can play without local.

Is everyone else trying to say these pilots are that much better, and only they can do this?

Updated OP

Bump for a great idea

I love this!! And supported, a few things i can see as add ons..

Passive scanning and someone is active scanning, you might depending on senor strength of ship and how far out they are, get a ping from a general direction. Won't give you range.

ACTIVE Scanning causing your Sig to bloom, and/or Destabilize your cloak, (You have a good chance of being picked up on radar even if you are cloaked, its like screaming while you are in the shadows). When active Scanning you send out a ping link subs do in the ocean, and waiting to hear the bounce back to deter man general direction and range.


Now where is the Good stuff for this. Advanced Skill module for this.
IFF Newtorking. US airforce using something similar to this to create a battlefield view.

You put on a module that sends information to your Squad, of what you see while you are Scanning,Either Active or Passive. Since this is D-scan and limited range. You spread forces out. Think of it like this Your Ships become the probes themselves. But Do not give you enough information to ever Warp to. just gets you down to about 1AU.

Once you get updated Radar information from the network drop probes have fun ;)..

Soo you get 2-3 Active scanning ships supporting your cloakly fleet. So cloakly fleet gets and idea of where to put eyes. Since Active scanning in from a Cloaky would basicly Say, "OHH HEy i'm here, please shoot me" when on grid. Remaining Passive on cloaky would help you maintain your cloak.

> D-Scan as a module

Yes.

The cloaking/scanning change would have to be evaluated more closely. Specifically, this would severely impact the effectiveness of the Pilgrim due to its short engagement range, and would practically render cloaks on black-ops, tackle stealthbombers and haulers as useless.