Wormholes

I've had a little more time to think about the proposed change and realize it's an even worse idea than I originally thought.

CCP needs to decide what W-space is actually about. Is it about exploration, ganking, PvE, PvP, all the above?

For me it's about exploration. I've was doing it before with quests, sifts, an combs. The thought of exploring the vast expanse of space and finding new experiences. The current system has removed any of that wonder. Sigs magically appearing without any effort? Basically only one probe to drop? No significant changes to sleepers in 5 years? T3 subsystem imbalance? Data and relic loot piñatas?

Now this change is proposed, probably due to a vocal minority complaining they can't get ganks. Your challenge is to actually decide what W-space is and develop it so players actually have the tools to create content instead of removing tools in the name of simplicity. I don't play Eve because it's easy. I enjoy a challenge.

I find it hard to believe that an Interceptor gang could not catch anyone on K162 spawn if they're organized. It might actually mean you need to be in fleet supporting your scouts, instead of sitting on the couch watching TV and waiting for the jabber ping.

The proposed change is bad and just trying to cover previous bad decisions.

I'd like more to shoot as well, but this mechanic change really isn't offering that. All it would do is increase ganking of PvE fleets. That type of fight is crap. What should be addressed is altering the PvE content so that PvP ships are viable. Also give different tools to players to allow to generate content.

I think they are heading in a good direction with deployables.

The fact that all sigs show on entry or spawn is crap. There will always be those that run. At least make it so they need to have probes out to detect sigs. People make mistakes in scanning. The way it is now is too passive.

at least, make ewarp able to be stopped by bubbles (at least when inside a pos).

being evicting ppl this weekend from a wh, tower is fully covered by bubbles, yet ship kept just warping in and out when ppl logged in / off this is infuriating.

if it is trapped, it's trapped, way too easy to just login in your pod, hop in your shiny and logoff to evade loss of said shiny.... this is broken (indeed, a strat with the correct sub and intys should remain able to do it tho)

actually, i do play eve because it is NOT easy, like probably most of the subscribers.

tbh, regarding the past 2 years i would really be curious to know how many ppl play this game.

while there are +- the same numbers connected, i see a big trend around, which is less players, and player remaining having more alts, so they can multibox to plex their game time.

and ultimately, they just do that, and participate less and less to fleets and whatnot, resulting in the current emptyness of low / null. then they get bored, and consider more and more leaving the game

I'm all for not providing free intel, but not being able to get that intel at all is very bad.

It would make ganking PvE fleets waaaay to easy.
Just roll static, jump through, hit d-scan, warp cloaked to combat site, tackle stuff and then **** them with your main fleet.
Unless they hit d-scan during the exact moment when you switched from gate cloak to CovOps cloak (and are in d-scan range of the hole) they would have no chance at all.

I fear this might lead to people only doing PvE in very large fleets to be able to defend themselves against gank fleets. I doubt anyone in w-space would want this place to become the same N+1 zerg that we currently have in null.

you forget something, CCP introduced a new deployable, making an area able to be "off" dscan, in that kind of context, this deployable make sense to be used don't you think?

without having this deplyable, i would agree about the imbalance, but since it does exist, imao it's balanced

I'm adding my voice to the idea I've seen pop up a few times of the K162 sig spawning with the "entrance" hole instead of needing the "entrance" hole to be scanned down. I see that as having several specific upsides:

1. Increases the connectivity of W-space on the whole, making it more likely that people who are looking for trouble will find it.
2. Crashing down your holes and not scanning the new ones is no longer a viable defensive tactic, in fact it can put you at greater risk. Putting your hole critical still works, of course, but increased connectivity might also make it harder to keep your farm system totally locked down.
3. Rewards vigilance. You're going to see a lot more new signatures in not just your home hole, but any hole you connect to. You never know who might drop in if you don't keep an eye on things.
4. Reduces predictability. You could warp yourself to your new static and find a fleet already waiting for you. If you find a K162, you don't know if someone has already found it from the other side or not.
5. Doesn't just reward chain-rollers, in fact it's a slight nerf to chain-rolling for ganks but it looks like it might be better for finding PvP that isn't as one-sided.
6. Unpopulated systems are more likely to be connected to, either from their ins or their outs.

I would give this serious thought. Even making it so the K162 spawns a few minutes after the entrance spawns (but independently of whether the entrance is scanned down) would grant most of these benefits, and that would be less of a nerf to chain-rolling for the people who care about that.

I think this would make w-space a more dangerous place without just benefitting one group of w-space residents, and that's something I'm very much in favor of.

Sums up my feelings as well.

By all means, delay showing up on the discovery scanner, but allow active probing to pick up the K162 immediately.

The issue that is trying to be addressed here is that as soon as someone warps to a newly discovered WH a couple of things happen. First, the connection get's populated. Then the wormholes other end appears immediately on the Discovery Scanner of anyone on the other side of the hole providing them time to say "Eeek someone's coming! Run!" And get out, arguably before the first guy even lands on the hole. And to top it off, they don't have to do anything to get the info, just ignore a handful of preexisting signatures and wait for a new black line to appear in the display.

Is that correct?

Assuming so, I will venture to state the the solution for this issue doesn't lay at the discovery scanner level but at the layer below. And will say that I believe the problem is that the current mechanics associates WH generation with player activity. AKA. A new wormhole appears in the system and because of that you KNOW that someone is about to enter your system.

So lets hypothetically break that connection. Let's assume that both ends of the wormhole are created at the same time. The decay timer starts as well. I don't have the statistics, but I'm guessing that if all WH connections had an active timer that the majority of connections made would be due to the wormhole decaying and not someone rolling a hole.

Now, the Discovery Scanner shows a new signature pop up in your system. What does that tell you? What would be the effects in WH life?

Short term, I don't think there will be much effect. After all, running away is what they are trained to do. Mid term, the frequency of new holes showing up in their system will begin to have a noticeable impact on their ISK generation so they will begin to ignore it. Lon term... ? More reliance on the directional scanner then we already have?

Fozzie - As written it's far too simplistic. I'm with James here - if it's simply a 1/0 equation I don't like it as written. That said, I do like the root of where you're going here. I see two options.

1) Return to pre-Odyssey state. New sigs show up on probes, but not on the scan overlay. This rewards the vigilant and punishes the careless, and that makes Bob smile.

2) Implement a more nuanced and consistent approach to your suggestion. To wit:

• Newly spawned K162s do not appear for either overlay or probes until one of the following threshholds is reached:
• x time passes with no ship jumping in. Initial suggestion: 5 minutes.
• y amount of mass crosses the hole. Initial suggestion: Mass of one heaviest cloak/scan fit T3 cruiser plus a hair more, but not enough for another frigate beyond that.
• z number of total ships pass through the hole. Initial suggestion: 4 ships.
• This applies to ALL K162s in ALL space types, not just wormhole space.
• The above rule threshholds also apply to appearing in Local, along with probe and scan overlay. That is to say, when you jump through a hole into Brothers Bubbles of Tangra space with a lone CovOps as the first ship within the first minute, you don't appear in Local.

This is a consistent, nuanced approach that is in my opinion better balanced.