EVE General Discussion

Snipers getting dropped on from off grid would be no different, but that's no different from anytime in the past 10 years. The issue is on grid peeps that you were shooting at 150km then warping directly onto you in the 5 secs it takes for the probes to hit and the fleet to align, then they are on top of you. At least if they have to yoyo there is a timeframe for the snipers to reposition themselves, clear tackle, whatever.

Best thing is that it's a relatively simple change to make i would think, and worst case it'll lead to some new tactics and shakes things up :-p

Scanning for basic anomalies should be simple, probing for other players and more difficult signatures should be challenging (especially other players).

I believe there should be tactics a player can use to make scanning them out more difficult other than perhaps fittings.

The first thing that comes to mind is positioning. It should be more difficult to probe out players that are cleverly positioned at moons, planets, and especially the sun than it would be if they were at a safe spot or on the move with warp engines blazing.

This type of thing adds a much higher level of interactiveness between the players, a game of cat and mouse, and adds a nice (and sensible) tactical element to locating your enemy.

I feel you are making a corelation between convience and dumbing something down. I really don't see how not having to press F1 7-8 times in two second intervals and draging probes across a map is "dumbing" scanning down. I for one will love CCP for each of those 30-60 seconds they save me in every system I jump into and deploy probes.

I cringe everytime I see dumbed down in this discussion. As if jamming a button and dragging balls on a screen required some high level of intellect.

I'm also with this.

as a WH pilot, saving myself 7 clicks and 6 drags will be bliss. God knows what I'm going to do with all the spare time. probably start a second account and start faction warfare

Slight tangent.

Query about the new System scanner and it showing up "Ore" sites.. will this be the same in all space?

IE Miners in Low/Null&WH space are going to have a very hard time mining?

I think this is the problem here. Because a lot of players actually enjoy scanning, where as it seems some people regard it as a thankless, boring and repetitive task. Actually the reality is that there is a "BIG" difference between someone who barely knows how to use 5 probes correctly and someone who is skilled, some people may not understand that but people who are really good at scanning will know what I mean. If you don't know how to use deep space probes then trust me when I say you barely have scratched the surface of the current scanning mechanics. Obviously I am talking to other commentators here and not CCP Greyscale. :)

When I say dumbed down, what I really mean is will it be possible to use all the old techniques which scanners have built up over the years? And if not, then will they replaced by new techniques.

For instance at the presentation there was news regarding having preset formations for 7 probes. I wonder if there will still be options to use probes outside of the pre defined setups which CCP gives us?

Also there are current methods where you can arrange 8 probes in such a way to do a initial scan of the entire system very quickly picking up the signature ID's. From that you can have a good overview of the entire system within a very short time, obviously this technique is pretty important for WH dwellers. Will this still be possible under the new system?

Also will there be preset formations for 8 probes? Right now I have a method in which I can setup 8 probes just as quickly as 7 probes. This is more effective for scanning, but takes some skill to learn the method of setting up the probes. I think these setups should also be included in the preset formations to reward those who have astrometrics at lvl V.

I hope I explained it a little better there. And I am appreciative of the work you guys are doing with exploration and everything else in general. But as someone who has used the scanning system a lot and enjoyed using it too and learning its intricacies, I am concerned about massive changes causing some of the enjoyment I get from scanning to be lost.

All existing "Gravimetric Signatures" will become "Ore Anomalies". No changes to static belts are being made apart from the ice changes.



You can still break probes out of the formation and manipulate them manually, which I think answers most of your questions?

The functionality of the deep space probe should largely be replaced by the new scanner overlay doohickey, which gives you a nice visual overview of what signatures are present in system, and their *approximate* location (give or take a reasonable number of AU).

I don't know if you're being ~edgy~ just to be an arse, but it should be fairly obvious that people don't play on test servers like they do on TQ, so testing actual balance for a proposed 350km minimum warp distance would involve scenarios that simply do not happen in normal play on test servers. Even a mass test would produce artificial, broadly meaningless results.

How many roaming gangs are there on test? How many of them actually care about loss enough to play as of it matters when everything costs 1 ISK? Most of the people on the test server are just playing with disposable supers.

You have a really low bar for "skilled". The only actual skill with scanning is ninja probing ships and even that is stupidly easy to learn.

Just say you like using the swift and bitter DSP guide to dumb down what you're doing and consider it "skill". From what I heard there is nothing in the new system to stop you from using manual formations so...

Like I said not everyone will understand the difference between a skilled scanner and a not so good one. Ninja scanning ships are certainly part of that arsenal, and unless your pvp targets are incredibly stupid, then they will easily detect your probes if you don't have high skills. I suggest you should probably find some more challenging pvp targets. Also using DSP guide is another tool in a scanners arsenal, I don't see anything dumb about using that and pretty much anyone who is serious uses those techniques.