Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I was thinking about clones and I'd like to present a couple ideas to make clones serve as a resource that players can manage rather than just a method of travel and that thing you have to remember to update all the time.

The first step is to remove the distinction between the clone you revive in after a pod killing and a jump clone. I think this is one of the huge problems with newer players understanding how clones work. In order to remove them, I suggest the following changes:

• Raise all characters' maximum number of clones with no skills to 1.


• Convert all current medical clones to jump clones with no augmentations. That clone becomes the primary clone and the player revives in that clone on death.


• The player can now designate any jump clone stationed with a medical facility as the primary jump clone for the same fee that moving the medical clone had previously.


• Additional jump clones (to a maximum of 6) would still require Infomorph Psychology.


• If you do not have a jump clone and are pod killed, you are revived in the nearest medical bay with a free clone and an apologetic mail explaining your skill loss.

All right, so now that we have combined medical and jump clones, why go to all this effort? Here is the second set of proposed changes that add a feature that I've heard some older players been asking for.

First, creation of a jump clone would involve a new interface that allows players to select specific skills for that clone. While using that clone, skills that are not included are retained but do not provide bonuses, allowing characters with many skill points to use a much smaller clones for small ship PvP in without having a clone more expensive than the ship and fittings. If the player wishes to regain those skill bonuses, they should have a more expensive clone to jump back into.

An example to clarify my aims:

Bob has been playing for a while has 150 million skill points. Bob decides that "hey, these new guys flying suicide tacklers are having a lot of fun" and wants to do it himself. The problem is, Bob's clone costs far more than the less than the ISK required to fly said suicide tackler. So Bob decides to buy a clone with 10m skill points, only activating skills relevant to flying a frigate. While in that clone he could still train the same skills and have the same character sheet as before, but if he wants to reship into an Armageddon because his gang tackled a capital, he'll have to go back into his "main" clone with all those skill points.

The idea is to make clones an actual resource rather than just a method of travel. Of course, the player could always opt for the "select all skills" option and jump clones would function similarly to the way they do now, but I think adding a way to "turn off" unneeded skills would be a great quality of life improvement for higher skill point characters. I would also make the skills within a jump clone update-able (but not create-able) at any time from anywhere in the universe, provided the player either has room in the clone for the skills or pays to upgrade the clone.

All that said, I do have one last suggestion that I think should go in regardless of any of the above changes.

• Changing clones within the same station no longer triggers the jump clone cooldown timer.

That change would balance the "I'm in the wrong clone and can't do anything about it" while not allowing the player to be wherever he wants to be all the time. If the clone you want is 36 jumps away, fly there and switch. If it's not worth it to you, wait out the cooldown.

Whether my ideas are actually feasible I have no idea (I do not have experience coding much of anything beyond 'hello world'), but I would like to see some discussion/feedback about them and improving clones in general.