Player Features and Ideas Discussion

The ideas you guys have come up with are pretty interesting, but there are still a few things you need to account for before you can reasonably replace local. It is very important to retain a balance between the different entities this will impact.

Local is an extreme mechanic, but it balances the risk created by other extreme mechanics by causing stagnation. Here are the ones i can think of.

Local - Cloaking - Cyno - Star Map Info

Local: Extreme Intel (immediate threats)
Cloaking: (More specifically Covert Ops Cloaking) Extreme impunity + free intel
Cyno: Extreme force projection
Star Map Info: Extreme Intel (target prospecting)

Without Local, the synergy between Cloaking and Hot dropping would be an unmitigatable threat. This would cause a major increase in risk. Also the risk generated by Star Map Info showing every pilot in the game at a glace where null sec residents are active would go unmitigated there by increasing risk at least slightly.

Of course on the other hand these other mechanics in unison balance Local by cause stagnation.
Without Cloaking, systems can be cleared of hostiles. Major decrease in risk.
Without Hot drops, the maximum force a cloaked pilot can project is 1 ship. Major decrease in risk.
Without Star Map Info, pilots would have to do a lot more ground work resulting in less frequent random hostilities. At least a slight decrease in risk.

To fix any of these things you need to fix the rest. All of these mechanics are too extreme to be healthy for this game. They all need to be altered (nerfed) in some way. And i personally believe that Local should be the last of these changes.

On the flip side though, how hard would it be to find targets without Star Map and Local? Do we really want to empower the meta-game? These are some tough issues for sure.

Guess what CCP, allready did something about that: Mobile cynosural Inhibitor.
Can't hotdrop if you can't cyno.

When it comes to the free intel, i can see your point. So only allow cloackies to gather passive intel (hey look, there is a ship).
And disallow the minigame while cloacked. From a lore perspective. The minigame requires actively using the sensors, which you can't, because you're cloacked.

Just my opinion, but...

I always thought that local updates should be dependent on the sec-status of the system, for example every point of sec status under 0.5 should add 10 seconds or so to the update interval.

Simply put-

1. You enter a 0.2 system.
2. You local updates with the current list of known people in the system.
3. The update interval passes (in 0.2 it would be 30 sec and this would be system based, not 30 sec after you enter)
4. A new local list is compiled, adding new visitors and removing ones no longer present.

As a note, talking in local would still have the same effect as adding you to the local list instantly.

It would giver people a chance to catch the inattentive, but should aid against people loitering in system cloaked (and I use that in the lightest tense, anti-cloak threads are a menace)


Addition:

I really like this idea, however I see it as trading one evil for another. As soon as a fleet enters a region, miners and ratters will know to just dock up and wait for them to pass, giving even less of a chance for people to catch them off-guard (constellation chat would be better, but its just a mid-point between the two)

Haven't had time to read all these awesome responses yet but I love this suggestion! It makes so much sense too! I see the covert ops cloaking gameplay as allegorical with modern day submarine warfare (indulge me). In submarine warfare, passive sonar is used to gather information because active sonar (i.e sending out a ping) reveals your position. Surely this suggestion by Arwin makes perfect sense: a cloaked ship can't actively scan so must be content with a lower tier of information.

I would suggest some aspects which evolved from past discussions. Here are the basics from a thread I made, for reference.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=112964&find=unread

Automated D-scan, but cycle time is based off of a combination of sensor strength combined with the range being used.
(Low sensor strength with maximum range resulting in longer cycle time, reflecting the burden being offset by processing time)

D-scan results being added to the overview, which is already your ship's list of known items sorted by player preference.

Sensor use being defined into three aspects, probes, active and passive.
Probes are as is currently, with the addition that they send out an active pulse like a ship does, to the specified range when activated.

Active use sends out a signal, detectable by other ships, to a range limited by your ships overall sensor strength and skill combination. (Higher skills letting you understand results from greater ranges)
The active pulse can be detected at 150% of range by others in this distance, further if they have higher sensor skills.

Cloaking ships cannot use active sensors without disrupting their cloak. The broadcast of energy being opposed to the needs of stealthy operations. Recloaking possible after normal delay by existing ship details.

Passive relies on existing signals reaching the ship, such as found from celestial beacons or other ships / probes broadcasting in active mode.

Active scanning can detect the simple and undefined presence of a cloak in use, within it's range. This is limited to the existence of such cloaking as a yes or no limit, not relating size, number, distance, or any other location detail except that it was within range of the sensors.

For areas where anchoring is possible, the placement of active broadcasting points calibrated to be readable by friendly ships as if they had broadcast the sensor pulse directly. Non friendly ships can locate the broadcast points, as if they were celestial beacons, and warp to them. These are destructible, requiring either defense or replacement to maintain as needed.

Really interesting idea Lloyd. Gate-fire registering on D-scan would certainly do something to offset the removal of Local. I'll add it to the OP

Yea that was my idea, that some aspect of clicking Scan on your D-scanner would be detectable by the passive scanning of other ships.

Wow! Great write-up you made! Am truly loving how you worked it out.
Except for the dscan results being added to the overview :p

We allready have a dscan window, so imho it's best to show all shipcontacts in that window, and not clutter up the overview.
Added bonus, if you click on one of the contacts, the camera swings around, to show you the direction of the contact on the overlay ;)

It's almost like an ideal opporunity for some sort of mobile unit. a mobile unit in a system will open up a chat window to those in corp/alliance. One window will report each system that contains a mobile unit. Mobile unit can be placed anywhere in system including a pos. Unit is a small destoyable item (no reinforce) and has small HP. Things that it will report:
Name, standings (excellent, good, neut, terible, bad, war target), corp, alliance, Ship, location (belt x1-v...), and warp to.

Intention is to create bring back the hit and run fleets.
Replace local and the number of intel channels
Provides corps/alliances at war intel on targets
Provides SOV holding alliances info on incursions
Provides attacking fleets positions of ratters/miners and also numbers in system perhaps
Can be although not inclusive to, placement in a pos

Perhaps unit also has a timer? higher anchoiring skill increases duration of unit... meaning the actual gathering of intel becomes a task.

This is basically an automated sensor buoy.

I would spin it to be divided into two types, an active that broadcast sensor energy for more information, in exchange for being easily spotted as a beacon you could warp to and destroy...
Vs a passive one, that relied on things entering grid with it, or detecting energy broadcast by others using active type detection methods.