Player Features and Ideas Discussion

A dream...

In the depths of space, simply finding your target can be the most difficult task of all. As it is now there is only two detection states: cloaked an uncloaked. It's too linear, too predictable. I envision detection mechanics looking more like naval warfare, and stealth/cloak ships filling the same niche as submarines.

It also strikes me as silly that a frigate using a cloak is using the exact same rules as a battleship using one as well.

So here is how I would change things:

Cloaking would no longer be a 100% yes/no equation. Instead it would be a contest between the cloaked ship's signature radius against the sensor strength of the vessel searching for it, and very much range dependent. The actual "stealth rating" would be a combination of signature, speed, and distance between the cloaked ship and whoever is searching for it. Smaller ships with smaller signatures would be harder to detect. Large ships with more signature would be easier to spot. Moving faster would reduce the effectiveness of the cloak, while moving slower (or stopping) would increase it's effectiveness.

This would eliminate the arbitrary speed reductions we have now. Instead the cloak used would have to decide for themselves what a "safe" speed would be for avoiding detection. Furthermore the cloak animation would not "break" when the ship is detected - the only way to know that you've been spotted is when someone actually starts targeting you (the break animation would be moved over to "first incoming weapon hit").

Likewise, all cloaks would then be able to operate while in warp but powering up a warp drive would then translate into a massive signature spike, pretty much ensuring that the cloaked ship will most likely be detected.

The current grades of cloaking devices could then be replaces with a more linear form that offer progressively better performance but all following the same rules.

So where do stealth bombers come into this? As with warp drives, their weapons would no longer be a simple yes/no variable to cloaking. Instead they would be, again like warp drives, a massive spike in the ship's signature that would most likely give it away... unless your target is very far away. Again, chance comes into play. And with chance comes more excitement for everyone. Do you sacrifice your chances of evading detection by closing for a better shot, or fire from maximum range to stay hidden but carry a high risk of simply missing your target (or having your bombs shot down)?

Here is where it gets deeper: Making all ship detection work like this, cloaking devices or not. The cloaking device would simply be a powerful enhancement to evading detection, but by no means the only one. A tiny frigate parked motionless in an asteroid belt might very evade the scanners of a passing battleship simply by the virtue of it's own stats - tiny signature, zero speed and poor scan resolution from the battleship. The cloak would simply be a "force multiplier" to this contest of electronics. You can also do away with the "cloak break if comes to close to something" mechanic entirely, because that would be made redundant by the new mechanics.

And that's where ECM gets overhauled. ECM would no longer be something to blind your opponent entirely. Instead it would be a system to simply reduce your chances of being hit by your opponent. This is not the same as sensor damping or weapons disruption: those systems reduce the aim of the victim as a whole, meaning that if Ship A is hitting Ship B with weapon disruption, then Ship B is penalized with it's fire against everyone, not just Ship A.

My idea of ECM isn't like that. Instead it would be a directed debuff between the ECM user and their attacker that would not effect any other combats going on. ECM would not copy the effect of weapon disruption or sensor dampening. Instead it would replace it's current "jam" probability with a "miss" probability. Meaning that if before an ECM has a 20% to jam a target (and blind them entirely) now it would get a 20% chance to make each shot fired at the ECM user to simply miss. Missiles, guns, lasers, etc, would all be effected equally. The shot simple does not connect. However, the target remains locked and the other ship is not blinded.

Now this may seem like a step down but the balance/gain that ECM would get in return is that it would no longer have to actually be aimed at someone in particular. Anyone targeting the ECM ship would suffer the random miss chance, based on their own sensor strength relationship to the ECM using target.

In other words, ECM would (gasp!) actually be a defensive module instead of an offensive one. Scary, huh? It also means that there may well be good reasons to pack cloaking & ECM onto the same ship, so as to improve your odds of surviving to warp should you get detected.

"But wait, this ECM could be exploited to make a ship unhittable!" No ship would ever truly be unhittable, and someone flying around and running six ECMs is someone who doesn't have crap for shield modules. Eventually something will still hit it, and when that happens it's going to hurt a lot. Like everything else, it's a trade-off of one thing for another.

Note that this also has the potential to cure the much ado'd "AFK cloaking" issue. While a stationary cloaked ship would indeed be incredibly difficult to locate, it wouldn't be impossible like it is now.

It also opens up new strategic options based on the environment. CCP can then add bonuses or penalties to detection based on the local environment. Asteroids between two ships? Detection penalty. Inside a nebula? Could go either way, bonus or penalty, depending on the type (charged gas, for example, would actually make you easier to spot). Hiding behind planets and moons would be worthwhile.