Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Yeah, I'm not saying that they can;t defend it. I'm saying that if you own a country for example, it's unlikely that anything besides a small guerrilla force would be able to assault it from the middle. In this case, a full fleet would be able to suddenly appear in the middle, and the fight would be over before most people have even seen it started.

Do you have any experience in major null sec combat? It doesn't sound like you do, as you would know why I am saying what I am saying. A 1000 man fleet could reinforce a station in under 10 minutes. No alliance could form up a defense against a sudden force that big in less time than that, then get there and win.

As long as the scout did his job, a blops fleet could jump into systems that are less used, and out of range of d-scans, working their way through the space. As they don't need to use gates, they could theoretically travel any distance without being seen.

I would say protection is the null sov holders responsibility, but if they are paying billions a month to own the space, they should get a fair amount of intel to enable them a realistic defense. Simply hoping you manage to scan out a cloaked vessel is just not good enough. You expect an alliance to have like 50 people constantly moving back and forth through a system earning no isk, just scanning over and over? Who's going to opt in to do that job?

Look at the situation from more that just the viewpoint of an individual. It may sound great if you are in a 10 man corp wanting to own your own system, but it would simply not work for alliances, or even larger corps. Basically, people like BL would win overall as they live in NPC null, and would just keep hammering away at people until they left.

It is unreasonable.....

You don't own space to gate camp it. Owning space "should be" primarily about opportunity: Opportunity to mine, rate, build stuff, etc, etc.

As for the "drop 1000 pilots onto a target"... That is the point of RF timers. You cannot react to that type of force without preparation, and having a 1000 pilot fleet on standby to defend yourself just "in case" that enemy stops by doesn't work in a gaming perspective. Every country in the world needs time to mobilize their troops, usually only have a moderate contingent on duty.

The problem with our game is local doesn't allow a small guerrilla force to infiltrate a country. Local is too omniscient, allowing you to instantly identify a new pilot in local. This should be what is addressed, where a new pilot coming into local starts off as an "unknown" entity. Expend the effort to find out if it is friend or foe, and you suddenly introduce that anonymity back into the game!

The other problem with our game, is that owning space isn't about opportunity. Using your space is generally an afterthought to owning it. I'm a big fan of "nerfing" the sov system, so the number of RF timers you get on your structures is directly proportional to how much you use your space. Unused space should be easily headshot... as in you lose all RF timers in the system so anyone can destroy your claim on it. The only question is, how do you define "using your space" in a manner that isn't easily gamed or exploited. Solve that, and you'll majorly improve nullsec.

I am fairly certain, feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but a surprise attack is supposed to be... wait for it... a surprise. Which means if done properly you shouldn't be able to to quickly for a fleet to counter it. Just sayin'.

Back when I was in NCdot we could form a fleet, get cynos in place, and be on the move across the entirety of Eve in a matter of minutes. That kind of organization takes a significant amount of resources to implement. Tidi, despite its drawbacks, also helps give you time to form fleets. And if you can't implement that kind of organization you have RF timers which you get to set to come out at a convenient time for you. All the SOV structures have RF times. So surprise attacks are limited in effectiveness.

As far as stopping a small roaming gang looking to kill your ratters you have a lot of strategies at your disposal. Most, if not all, region of space have pipes or bottlenecks. If you camp these systems with eyes you are probably going to catch a majority of solo and gang roamers. And scanning a system doesn't mean you have to relocates 10 times to find people. Most gangs and soloers go gate to gate when they roam. Which means you probably only need to use your D-scan along a similar route to keep track of a majority of those. A handful of people could lock down a region so they would know who was moving where.

And you know the best part: People will willingly keep track of these gangs. There are people who love fights. What is better than a fight that is a few jumps out and coming your way? They don't know where you will be, how many you have, or what you are flying, so you have a significant defender's advantage. In addition renters/carebears who don't want to lose their ships will be motivated to help find these gangs and pass on the intel or even form up defense fleets of their own. So don't try and use a "No one has an incentive to put in effort to find these gangs/soloers." You and I know that isn't true.

If it is worth it to find out where these people are and where they are moving you will find a way. You may start with an inefficient system but over time new tactics and more efficient process will take over. All told it will be a minor amount of effort compared to what most nullsec alliances do now days.

Take your precious Branch as an example. 7 alts stationed at the 7 entrances to branch and you will know who is moving in and out. Throw additional sets of eyes at BKG, BWI, Z-K, AH-, C-4, and maybe V8W to keep track of movements. So for 13 sets of eyes you can track movements in 94 systems. That is under the assumption you use all 94 systems. If you don't and sacrifice some you can drastically reduce the number of eyes you need. That isn't much effort for the 5500+ pilots SMA, LAWN, and FCON can have at their disposal.

I think it's reasonable that space with infrastructure should be able to detect the presence of ships (including the number of logged off ones).

It's also reasonable that friendly ships would carry IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) equipment, allowing everyone in their alliance and coalition to identify them when in local.

But hostile/neutral ships ought to show up as just that - a ship. I don't see why the pilot's name should be broadcast through the local telecoms network unless that ship has been visually identified by a player.

I am sure it could be argued that a gate will have equipment on it to identify ships as they travel through, but this would not be the case with wormholes and cynosural fields.

Would that be a reasonable compromise?

I hear you, and I would prefer to be able to hunt in 0-sec like I do in W-space, but we should not deny the possibility that a future society has the wherewithal to build automated sensor arrays and communications infrastructure.

I think it's reasonable that that infrastructure would be built, but it's also reasonable that there might be some means to defeat or circumvent it, or reduce its effectiveness.

I'm actually in favour of d-scan being optionally automatic in the same way as a ship/aircraft radar is. There would be a price to pay for this though, you'd be emitting EM radiation so would yourself be easy to locate.

10/10 time for ppl who run and dock when i enter local to start fearing whats on dscan.

Well, we already have an IHUB upgrade to increase the number of wormholes spawning in a given system, so why not an upgrade to decrease the number of wormholes?

No they aren't. Simply reducing the frequency of wormholes spawning in your system will reduce the risk. It is them up to you to bubble the hole or shut it down. A covops lighting a covert cyno will show up on d-scan or ship scans. You don't need local to tell you who is there, but a warning from a system-wide scanner that there is someone out there will give you all the warning you need.

What kind of mass limit do you think will prevent blops fleets bridging in a swarm of bombers? How would that not be trivially bypassed through the use of multiple blops battleships?

It's not ad hominem, what you are saying is simply impossible logistically. Being a miner in null doesn't mean you know anything about the logistics of holding and defending null space. They don;t need to locate you, they are targetting your infrastructure, and that's always there. Gates aren't the only entrance, so watching them is useless. How do you not get that. If gates were the ONLY method of entering a system, then much like WH space you could watch those and the whole argument would be less of an issue.
It's easy to say "have a strategy", but not so easy to just do. You can't just "have a strategy" and that is it, a 1000 man fleet can't get you.

As for "If they reinforce any of your towers, you will know exactly when and where to be in order to defend them."
So you are saying the only method of finding a fleet is wait until they've already done most of the damage?

I think that would make sense if you owned the gates. But I think the back story of eve is that the jump gate infrastructure was found rather than built? I assume they're owned by someone else, long gone?

But I see no reason why sensor arrays could not be built next to them, those same sensor arrays could come under attack of course.

A lot of RTS style games have this concept - uncovering of the map by the use of radar units etc.