Wormholes

If you really would like to make wormholes more fun and pvp oriented CCP Fozzie then please change the mechanic where a wormhole doesn't spawn on the other side till its warped to. Change it to spawning on both sides the minute it appears on static side. This is a much better change than delaying it on the k162 side.

These proposed changes concern me

I do live in a wormhole, and I have traveled into other parts of wormhole space. As of right now, from my experience, I do not feel that there is "little risk" without consistent and careful scouting of your own wormhole. I don't believe that those who actively plan ahead and run recon should be penalized for their play style because roaming fleets looking for pvp can't catch the well organized corporation off guard.

We have come across wormholes plenty of times where people where running PI and doing their own thing and never even noticed that they had an incoming hole. Why? because they aren't actively keeping an eye out. As of right now, you only know you have an incoming hole if you've scanned everything else down so you know which is the new signature that has shown up on scans. Then you still have to scan it down to find out if it's a wormhole or just a gas site that has spawned. Womhole dwellers who actively keep their Combat Anomaly's clear can make spotting sigs easier, but they still have to track and label their comsic signatures.

But to be fair, here are a couple of suggestions that might help with those who are of a different opinion:

• classify all ore and combat sites within W-space as Cosmic Signatures so that everything in womrhole space MUST be scanned. This away there are many more signatures that must actively be accounted for.
• Disable the Sensor Overlay in W-Space without changing the Probe Scanner mechanics
• IF you change the timing on any of the Cosmic Signature apperances, make the timing relevant to the level of the wormhole. For istance, C1 and C2 are not effected by changes, but C3 and C4 have a slight delay (less than a minute) while C5 and C6 can have a larger delay. HOWEVER, I an personally not in favor of changing this mechanic at all.
• Increase the reasons for people to come to W-Space in the first place. Higher traffic through W-Space equals more chances of PvP

Allowing active detection or not during the delay is a valid debate, but my response above was aimed at the apparent misconception that k162s simply cannot be found...or something. The person's concerns I was addressing seemed to be based in misunderstanding.

I'm still in favor of even a probing delay, but I understand that it represents a significant risk increase and perhaps everyone wouldn't care for that. There are still things you can do to be better prepared for any chain rolling fleets though, so it isn't totally without counters.

Having a PVP fleet on standby incase you are dropped seems like one of the counter options I'd imagine you are eluding, however this requires numbers, and smaller groups won't be able to achieve this counter. This idea will make lower class wormholers struggle to find any reasonable counter to a gank.

This idea is great to catch the C5/C6 capital escalating farmers and would definitely harm their game, but the other wormhole residents throughout the area, and the larger picture has to be seen. What other counters could be considered that would make this change viable?

TLDR: dislike

I'll preface this by saying I'm all for shaking up W-Space. Be it through added randomization, new content or just changes to mechanics considered stable.

A two minute delay essentially provides two minutes of near-absolute(except for the split-second Dscan) cover for intel gathering and preparation for the entry side. In order to turn this into an advantage you need unfriendly people in space, assuming day-to-day business. This mostly influences ganks or gives the entry side a chance to quickly roll the hole if they end up connecting to entities they don't wish to.

W-Space often doesn't have enough targets, which seems to be a stated by many people from all areas of it, except for carebears and daytrippers. If this change does increase the amount of ganks in the long run anybody who doesn't like the new risk/reward pattern will pack up and leave. They don't necessarily have to be carebears. Ex: If a C3 corp can't fund its activities anymore because they lose too many assets to ganks instead of consensual or at least interesting PvP they leave. This will generate a new equilibrium where you'll probably end up getting a similar amount of PvP compared to now, just more holes will be empty. I'll let the C5-C6 guys speak for their own thing but farming in low-end WHs take quite a long time, where(assuming C3) sites only generate ~45M in loot. I sincerely believe that getting more corps into W-Space is the answer to the "not enough action" problem, which IMO can only be solved through making W-Space more interesting.

As for the opportunity to quickly roll the fresh hole: if you get connected to somebody you don't like, too bad. Deal with it or actually risk your battleship(low class) or dread(C5-6) to get rid of them.

I can add 2 more ideas off the top of my head:

System size and celestial layout are already considerations when choosing a home. If you get a small system, it's easier to have a single character using D-Scan looking for new scouts. Bigger systems make it harder to find your ratters, but also harder to find their scouts. It's not unreasonable to think that anyone running sites would spread their alts out to be mashing D-Scan. This is EVE, and people go to pretty impressive lengths once they need to.

The other thing is that a capital escalation fleet can still be fit and positioned to be a force to be reckoned with. Mobile depots also help so your whole capital group doesn't have to sit on top of each other for carrier refits. You can shield tank your dreads instead of the single rep armor setups that die in a fire when dropped. Foolproof? No. But to say there's nothing that can be done isn't true either.

As for smaller class holes, I admit I have no experience there. I'm sure the same principles apply, but maybe that's a good argument for the sig delay scaling with wormhole class.

If this change goes through, then I suspect that most WH dwelers, myself included, will start spamming combat probe scan, but more importantly combat probe scan for ships.

This most definitally forces the residents / farmers to be active and on the ball, it adds the extra hassle of having to ignore you own fleet and whatever towers are on Combat Probe Scan at the start of the farming op and then forces them to actively combat probe scan the entire system. Any new ship appears on combat probe scan forces an ivestigation if you wish to remain safe. This methot would work for any non-covert ops ships, which would probably change the ganking wormhole meta to cloaky T3s, recons, and the SOE frigates and cruisers. Ships that don't have as much fire power then the defenders.

In short I like the proposed change, I like what new ganking meta this would introduce and I love the fact that defenders whom are on the ball would actually be rewarded for being on the ball, vs the current "laissez-faires" attitude that the current mechanics promote. The only thing I ask is that ship / POS / POS module names (as in the names the players give these items) be displayable on the combat probe scan, which would make the job of ignoring ships signatures a lot easier but still require a non-insignificant amount of work.

My personal view is if you are actively looking for sigs (have probes out and hitting scan every 20 or 30 second). Then you should see new sigs appear. I don't like the idea of a delay on it appearing. I do however want them instantly appearing on the overview gone. You should have to work for your intel.

Phone posting, excuse any typos.
I feel this goes too far the other way. Before odyssey, a "defending" Corp could watchfor new wormholes, but they'd need to have a dedicated prober (or probes launched, at least) and actively scan for new signatures. With odyssey, the need for probes or to scan was removed, meaning the little effort involved was essentially gone (though you still need to watch the result window) .This proposed change means the "defending" Corp now has 0 way to identify a new incoming wormhole. Not even with a tonne of effort, there's simply no way to find it. It's gone from being too easy to literally impossible. Unfortunately the only solution Ihave is to disable the discovery scanner in wspace outright, reverting it to pre odyssey (this is something I've wanted for a long time regardless)

My 2 cents.

Those willing to put in effort should be rewarded. Right now, it's too easy for people to sit back and PvE in peace while watching for new sigs that appear the moment a potential hostile initiates warp on their side. Someone actively probing should see it immediately. That's the difference: active vs passive.

It's also too easy for the ganking entities to fly to the random ore sites because they no longer require scanning. I very much like not having to scan the Grav sites anymore, as it cuts down on time to categorize all the sigs in a system, but it throws a major advantage toward the prospective ganker.

Things are out of balance in both directions.

- Sigs should be delayed by 5 minutes from appearing in the scanner window, but visible immediately via probes
- Ore sites in W-space should be returned to signatures instead of anomalies

Let people in W-space be punished or rewarded based on the effort they put into the game.
It's W-space, not Nullsec. Things are different here.