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If any changes are made these are the ones that need to happen. I have to argue though that the passive bonus for the T2 modules should be equal to or greater than the active bonus for the T1 modules. You can't use the T2 modules without having lvl5 in the related skill and taking those skills to lvl5 is a very big investment since they're x5 or x8 skills. Spending 3+ weeks training for the T2 modules should get you a significant improvement over the T1s, if not the T2 modules should be changed to only require lvl3 or lvl4 of the associated skill.

Also, the active bonus for these modules should be greater than the passive bonuses they currently provide. If you're forcing us to be vulnerable while using them then we should get a greater benefit than we currently receive. Risk vs Reward...increasing the risk without increasing the reward isn't how the system is supposed to work. The scanning changes and these modules have been in play for a very long time now, some experienced players may not even know there was a time they didn't exist. They've been on your list a long time, but clearly they weren't a priority so they couldn't be overly imbalanced. Small changes may be warranted, but making them active isn't a small change it's a huge one.

Excellent suggestion. The exact numbers could do with some tweaking (the tech I modules are too weak compared to tech II, also a problem on tq now, perhaps a 3:4 ratio rather than 1:2), I don't think the passive modules are powerful enough to nerf that much and the active bonuses could be larger because as people are rightly saying nobody sane would decloak to get the current bonuses, and they probably wouldn't for 125% of the current bonuses either. Maybe nerf passive to 75% and buff active to 150%.

The T1 Exploration Frigates are typically used by new players, who can't warp while cloaked anyway. They can't fit tank and scanning modules well - so forcing them to decloak to activate the module and scan puts them at an unnecessary amount of risk. A new player will have fairly low scanning skills, so it's going to take them a long time to narrow down the signature anyway. Couple this with having to watch DSCAN closely (which they won't be used to doing either) and it makes them easy targets. This change would unfairly punish new players getting into Exploration.

CCP Fozzie & CCP Soniclover:

I now have enough time to fully articulate a reply, so I'm going to borrow from the Greyscale Style Guide and do so.

The proposed solution to "combat scanning is too easy" is in fact not a solution that works in an isolated fashion, but instead is a "fix" that will instead lead to other presumably unintended game design problems. I am assuming unintended because you did not specifically mention these unintended consequences as design goals. I am of course open to being told this is intentional, which will of course change my argument since these being intentional would be of even greater concern in my mind. I instead propose a "scalpel" fix rather than what I perceive here to be a "chainsaw" fix. In short, if you wish to reduce effectiveness of combat scanning, you should reduce effectiveness of combat scanner probes.

The proposed fix does have the intended effect of reducing combat scanning effectiveness. I am also disappointedly aware that you did in fact discuss this with my corpmate and friend James Arget and he is or was in support of your proposed approach. Understand that James is someone I greatly respect, have spent a lot of time with, and love to fly with. Understand also that he is first an FC, second a game mechanic. If he says these modules are a bit OP, he is probably right.

However, James is not a scanner. I can't remember the last time he was driving chain scanning. He creates content by leading fleets and theorycrafting. He doesn't do it by scanning for hours. I do.

Your proposed fix is in fact a nerf primarily to cloaking, not scanning. It comes at the expense of cloaked operation (an effective imperative where I live in wormhole space, as others have mentioned) and at the expense of site probing. It effectively gives wormhole dwellers a Hobson's Choice - which is to say no choice at all. Wormhole dwellers will simply not use these modules - cloaking is too important. Therefore a presumed secondary goal - creating PVP opportunities - and a presumed tertiary goal - player choice of approaches - will in fact accomplish neither. PVP will either stay the same (because everyone will remain cloaked) or be reduced (because prey will see the hunter coming and POS up). Player choice is no choice - wormholers will remove them and use a point and web instead.

In addition, as many have outlined, this is a direct impact to lower-skilled players, making them less effective by an order of magnitude rather than a linear amount.

The only thing you will accomplish for wormholes is to make the most time-consuming thing we do - scanning systems of 5-30 signatures - even slower. While it accomplishes your goal it is primarily a net reduction in fun per hour.

I personally do not agree that combat scanning is OP, but let's assume for the moment I am wrong - I am a scanner but I am not a comparative module balance theorycrafter because :math:. If combat scanning is OP, then it is far more elegant - and controllable (i.e. able to reduce unintended consequence) to nerf combat scan probes directly. Add a penalty to combat scanner effectiveness to the CovOps cloak if you must - and you accomplish the same end without nasty side effects. You could even do it as Morwen Lagaan suggests, and have a variable cloaked vs uncloaked bonus - but I encourage you to tackle the source of your concern, which is combat probing, not cloaking, and not core probing.

Tell that to the newbie, who is jumping into a C1 with 30+ sigs for the first time. He is NOT going to have a good time regardless of scanning skills. There is still a hell lot of improvements to be gained by experience and practice.

But yeah, scanning is now stupidly easy because you don't have to launch your probes one by one and arrange them in a useful formation anymore

As for competitiveness, I see extremely bad probers all the time ...

That's simply not true. I have one char with close to perfect skills + implants and several with only 4/3/3/3, the difference is enormous. Furthermore even after more than 6 months of living in wh-space, scanning stuff every day, I still get better, faster, learning new things every once in a while.

If your claim is true that a newbie will quickly match your skills in probing, this can only mean 2 things: you are very bad at it, or I'm a (reaaaaally) slow study

Within certain confines ofc I'm categorically against any change that leads to PvE becoming more time consuming, since I rather spend my time on PvP or RL. As a member of a major WH-Corp I don't get why you would gladly accept such a straight forward nerf to our QoL (=> as few PvE as possible). Simply because you had to learn and live it the hard way? That's a ****-poor argument ...

This argument is terrible, filled with hyperbole, and baseless conjecture.

Scanning the "old way" was a major pain in the ass and added nothing to the game except to chew up more of your playtime for no other reason than to "make it hard". CCP's idea of making something more challenging typically consists of changing modules to pull your pants down and shaking your ass at the enemy while getting tiddle-dee-dum for a bonus while scanning. The other option CCP often employs to "make it more challenging" is to make something needlessly obtuse, repetitive, boring spreadsheet "gameplay", or simply tedious so it sucks up massive amounts of your time for very little reward.

(Eg,harvesting,scanning,hacking).

If you had mediocre skills (4/3/3/3) at scanning before the Odyssey changes, your scanning got markedly WORSE without the midslot modules in a covops. I know because I had **** scanning skills. Basically all this does is put a ridiculous burden on new players to dump over a month of training to get perfect scanning skills. All so they don't have to use the ****** modules that force them to expose themselves for a tiny bonus to scanning. W-space PvP is very reliant on one-pass combat probing. If you screw it up, you aren't getting a second chance.

This change is all about nullsec probers and the ceaseless bitching about AFK cloaking.

If Chitsa and James both thought that this change to scanning modules was a good idea... I am really disappointed in them.

It's easy for vets and devs to look at a problem from the perspective of someone that is charging around with perfect skills and balance things with that end-game in mind. Meanwhile gameplay takes a nosedive for anyone with less than perfect skills.

Except that combat scanning is not considered overpowered as it stands, but only in conjunction with bonuses offered by the scanning modules. If you nerf combat scanning probes themselves, you then force anyone who uses those probes currently to refit to use the scanning modules or suffer a penalty.

Personally, I use combat probes by default, because if I ever find a ship I need to scan, I don't want to waste time (and increase visibility) by needing to reload my probe launcher from cores to combats.

My choices would not be what you suggest. It is not 'do I use combat scans with weaker strength or cores with greater strength and a forced swap', but 'do I use combat scans with weaker strength or cores with greater strength and a forced swap, as well as needing to fit scanning modules I don't currently use to get the same effect as now?'

Mine aren't super either (it's on the list), but moving from 'adequate' to 'perfect' is a 3+ month train, assuming it's on-spec. Not the end of the world, but hardly trivial for a low-mid skilled pilot who will have about a billion things on their list if they're living the w-space life. Now, assuming my PC was up to running two clients, I could train an alt up, but now we're seeing the 'serious long-term player' advantage again - a newer player probably isn't going to want to train such a specialised alt on a second account (and wait 4-1/2 months for it) or buy it, and having to do so to avoid a QoL hit seems unreasonable to me.