Player Features and Ideas Discussion

LOL... do you honestly believe stealth bombers were ever intended to be limited to fleet warfare?

Because right now, that is all you can do with them. (Not counting the cyno-ready AFK Cloaking bit)

Honestly, unless some confused soul is flying blind and confused, they will be out of your grasp moments after you enter a system. You are either AFK Cloaking or in a fleet, and most want no part of either.
Unless, of course, they are flying something far more dangerous, and already know what you have.

And, as to fleet warfare, they are still perfectly usable. You may have to avoid having them sit in plain sight before attacking anything, but basic tactics can carry that need very well.
Think how nice it will be, knowing that for every pair of eyes watching for cloaked vessels, one less ship can target and fire on your side.

I like the idea of no local in null it makes it a much more dynamic environment where null life isn't just a non blue enters system and you warp to station. I think to satisfy those that want local .. have active local chat as an upgrade for either the i hub or a pos structure. This would allow the null bear to have his relative safety but it would be at a price and could be disabled. I would be interested to see on SISI how a no local null sec would play out and would defiantly be willing to be part of any test.

I have to agree with something here, Local is broken, thus in turn, breaks cloaking, and the idea of null sec where it suppose to be the law is taken in the hands of the players, the ideas of patrols that hunt through each gate in mass, and if a enemy is detected, call to the rest of their fleet members who hot-drop o'clock in, or warp to him. Those days have never seen the light of possibility

Currently, I can mine in solo, by myself in a hulk or in a hulk with a hauler alt, you know why? Cause I have local, as soon as someone pops up I hide in a safe location. You know what else I get? Total immunity to any threat of an attack.

Here what I can't get:

I can't have the thrill of cloaking into a system that's full of reds and disrupting their supply chain by killing off some hulks. They just move as soon as I warp in, and I can't really afford to play chase the rat when they get deeper and deeper to their core systems

I can't get paid as a combat probe merc, why? Cause we have local thats why silly! You already know if there a target there ahead of time, and you know what, so does the other so they dock up.

I can't really get paid to be a merc as a guard, why bother? They have local, so if anyone shows up we will dock right up.

I can't run hit and run war tactics on hostile corps you know why? They warp out as soon as they see the flashing red, then warp in with a bigger fleet cause they now know we are here before we even do anything!

Local is broken, and thus breaks many possible professions out there, may the be ganking, or otherwise.

To everyone who echos the classic: remove local, just like whs, I must add, Are you willing to lose cyno and supers, just like whs? Just asking. Are you willing to have all stargates dissappear, just like whs? Since you like whs so much, does all of known space also have to be, just like whs, too?

"Just like whs" does not justify "remove local." Nor does "Wah, the prey runs away when they see me in local. wah wah wah." Turn on your two brain cells, and get more clever at catching your next kill.

Edit: And for those of you pvpers with your two brain cells on, consider the following: if you make it harder for the targets to see who is in local and easier to be caught/surprised, they will come out less. Your days of waiting in a system for the locals to become comfortable with your presence in local will turn into much longer wait times. Instead of hiding in the station, they will be hiding in high sec and then you will whine that Concord is protecting them. The trick is not to increase the risk to the target; that risk is already very high, but your brain cells are struggling with how to exploit it. The trick is to decrease the risk, get them out and PLAYING, and then turn on your own two brain cells to figure out how to get the kills with tactics/strategy. Or stop focusing only on the easy kills and also fight the hardened pvp targets who actually fit up with pvp fits to fight you.

It's like "remove local" = "pvpers whining" about no easy kills. Sad.

I'm still completely against the ability to hunt cloaked ships even if local was removed.

Basing this on how great the mechanics are in wormhole space, basically. Obviously it's slightly different with the fixed routes + cynos in null, but the simplistic "well now you can find the cloaked ships!" idea doesn't sit right with me.

With so many ideas flying around, this seemed due to be viewed once again.

Effort and rewards should go hand in hand, local is zero effort intel so there are few intended mechanics to hunt cloaking vessels. (the only one that comes to mind is proximity)

Should intel become more effort to attain, so should the ability to hunt vessels that bypass typical intel gathering techniques.

Nikk as always excellent thread.

So in the years of campaigning to remove local, has anyone discussed what to replace it with? How to improve dscan?

If so, I'm not aware of what's been suggested already. If not, that's where the discussion needs to go, because it's a prerequisite. The reasons why are correctly noted by the OP.

Brain fart, as of 5 seconds ago: highslot modules that improve dscan. Range, accuracy, detecting cloaked ships (on dscan only-perhaps not revealing ship class either), etc. They should penalize some combat aspect of the ship that fits them in return. Thoughts?

Agreed

We could always just remove local and remove cloaking. I'm sure that would be hugely popular with everyone.