Wormholes

This conversation, has been doing the rounds and it is time to bring it to the forums.

We now have a significant increase in the number of signatures to scan.
Whilst there are many benefits to this, scanners, (pretty much all of us) are finding it all a little overwhelming and just too much of a good thing.

The time taken to scan down a chain has grown exponentially, and the astrometrics aquisition skill is literaly a drop in the great ocean in terms of help.

The proposal is independent of mechanic best suited to provide help, so please do not focus too much on that, but suggestions are welcome.

A modest proposal

Dear CCP we welcome all the improvements you are providing, and they bode well for the future.
We are starting to suffer from the secondary effects of these desireable changes however.

Whilst we do not expect our daily/ hourly task of scanning to be easy, we do wish that it did not require us to do it ALL our play session.

There is a significant time required for each scan pass, and with many many signatures to scan, could we please have a Significant! Reduction to this built in time delay mechanic, for Core probes and Sisters core probes? There once may have been a reason for the delays, but those reasons are lost in time, and there is no longer a need for it. Quite the opposite applies.

We are not asking for combat Probe scan time to benefit from this reduction however, as this is a far more focused and limited task.

This would be a massive quality of life improvement, as there is no benefit of the Game play by including delays in the current environment. And no harm will be caused by their removal. there is no place for it currently in such a signature rich environment, where ALL signatures have to be identified.

It's removal or a significant reduction will benefit, all players, everywhere. A small change that will have a positive impact completely out of proportion to the effort involved in curing it.

Thank you for listening.

Hi, I really didn't think anyone could find a downside on core probes, combats sure, but core?

I guess that if there is only one signature in the system, and you were lucky enough do get the person in one sweep and they were pretty casual about dscan, reducing the timer might make the difference. The probes are visible either way. But could happen i agree.

But bearing in mind that ejecting probes, sweeping them out of the plane, dropping them exactly on the site, pulling them, and warping to the victim, without them seeing them, halving the actual scanning delay, isn't going to make a bit of difference when combining a scanning expert at his best and a lazy dscanner.

You are going to get him either way when the difference in abilities is so vast, the scan delay would not change that. And he may well be somewhere else anyway, you would use combat probes if that skillful and not waste your time. And the proposal is not to reduce combat scanning delay.

But the inbuilt delay of beep beep beep then sweep sweep sweep, every time, again and again three or 4 times per sig, signature after signature, hole after hole. IS burning out scanners, especially as there is so much more to scan down.

The mechanic had it's place once, scanning was an elite, rare, expert skill, then oddysey came, everything changed, it became mainstream.

The delay does not make scanning more expert, or more rewarding, it is just an unpleasant mechanic that has had it's day.
By all means keep the delay on the first sweep, but it really is not needed EVERY time the scan button is pressed.

Would that resolve this individual possibility you identify?

Edit: the timing is nearer 10- 15 seconds delay, plus the time to reposition probes per pass.
Leaving the repositioning side aside that remains either way, that works out on a normal scanning run of 100+ sigs often 3 repositions and scan per sig, a pointless delay introduced by the wait timers of 1.5 to 2 hours! Just waiting after the damn button is pressed.

No wonder scanners are burning out!

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
We would not want in any way to lose the benefits we have received from the recent changes, they are good and appreciated.

It is a matter of balancing needs.

A HS explorer may find a single relic site,in an empty system 50 seconds faster, if he is good with maximum skills, all power to him and his weeks of training to do that, it is commended, and his reward is maybe worthwhile. Hardly gamebreaking.

Balance that against a worm hole resident wasting 90 minutes to two hours watching his screen go beep beep beep, interacting with nothing, pure mind numbing tedium. Focusing down on the signal is extra to that, that will still take a goodly time regardless.

This is a normal days experience for many BEFORE they can have any fun, how is that equitable?

Any rational person would question The balance of that equation, and we are.

We are not in any way ungrateful, naturally some look wistfully back to simpler times, but know in their hearts, they were not as much fun as we are now getting, but the scanning delay is simply an old mechanic, outlived it's days when all space is now a signature rich environment, Ls,Null,HS and wormholes too, and now the fifth space as well, removing the artificial delay for core probes, will simply put things back in balance, and KS players will simply take as long to scan their system as they did in the past.
We will still be scanning, long after they have gone on to do other things, that is as is should be, that is a major part of our lives, but we do not need an artificial ball and chain when we are already carrying that heavy load.

What are the sites are you not finding in 90 minutes of scanning? I guarantee you are finding a ton of sites to interact with in that 90 minutes. If you looking for pure pew, then take advantage of those low-sec and null-sec exits. I don't care what the mechanic is, if you think the only good fights are in w-space, then your suggested change won't balance anything.

That is my experience.

Jack, this is not about being good at scanning or not, there is nothing suggested in any way to make scanning easier, we are talking about the artificial delay built into each scan cycle, you know just how time consuming scanning the chains down is, and how not knowing your chain and who resides in it, is folly if not suicide. That part is outside this issue though.

There is no possible way to scan the wormholes identifying the worthless and important sites, setting bookmarks and identifying the POS, in system in five minutes, It may have been a while since you did that, and are satisfied to zip through looking for immidiate targets, but I am sure there are others who that job falls to.
You may be fortunate enough for others to do the grunt work, preparing things for others to benefit when they sign on, or you may be the one doing it and taking one for the team, either way you must know it is a thankless job and an artificial delay every time you press that scan button does nothing for your or their enjoyment or engagement.

There's no need for stuff whose whole reason for existing is to make things miserable and the only skill, well out of date ( astrometrics aquisition) makes bugger all difference to it.

If your scanning skills are all at lvl 5s and you can't scan any wh system in less then 10mins your doing something wrong. With HG Virtues you should easily be able to scan any system in 5mins.

If you're complaining about scanning speed and don't have all lvl 5s get out.

Lvl 3 skills -> 30mins to scan a system
Lvl 5 skills -> 5 mins to scan a system

The difference lvl 5 skills is WELL WORTH the training time!

True. Still, must needs have them! :P

EDIT: I created a thread in Features & Discussion. Please do support it :)

On the fence a bit - if you've got a decently trained character in the right ship/fit then its not too painful but if your scanning on a char that has so so skills and maybe not an all out scanning fit ship the recent changes can make it a bit tedious.

Youre complaining about a slight delay in scan cycle because you BM every single site in a system and hence believe you cant fully scout a system in 5min?
Look, no offence but saying something like 'you cant scout a system in 5min' just makes you sound like an incompetent scout, it does not show there's an issue with the cycle time on probes.
You absolutely CAN fully scout a system within 5 min pretty damn easily and saying otherwise is either ignorant or just wrong.

PS: I scout regularly and know MANY scouts just as fast. you should look to your methods before blaming the mechanics.

Also, THIS:

I like this idea alot, it would definitely stop me using combat probes by default and since this speed is pretty much the same regardless of skill it isn't 'dumbing' scanning down simply making it less tedious.