Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I eagerly await Observatory Arrays and Gates, as they will make GREAT additions to Eve Online.

I would love to hunt down those pesky afk cloakies! In space, nobody is truly safe.

Covert Ops cloaks should be immune to the observatories but the prototype and improved cloaks should be susceptible to varying degrees.

All K-Space local should be set to delayed mode before any ways of finding cloaked ships is implemented.

I'll add an idea to this thread that I proposed in its own thread. The Observatory Array should include a module to scan cargo of ships it detects. Such a module would allow criminals to better identify lucrative targets, but in exchange they would be fielding a structure that would be vulnerable to anti-gankers/"law enforcement" players.

There should also be a module to block/confuse this cargo scanner that can be used by smugglers.

Rather than a dedicated counter, how about giving the structure a modest scan resolution, say 200mm, so you counter it simply by webbing or cloaking.

Personally, I like it....

I was thinking specifically on ways to manipulate the Intel, to provide a real false-positive. For example managing to remove your hostile fleet from the local list (assuming it's still active) while still allowing a smart player to catch inconsistencies and find out that there has been tampering. Maybe not the extent of completely knowing what was tampered, but still being able to catch it.

Example: hiding fleet from local list.

Player A comes to the system in response to an entosis or structure attack. The notification only lists 1 person or does not actually list. Without doing any cross-referencing, player A blindly warps in to kill what he assumes is a troll, and dies to the waiting fleet.

Player B sees the same notification, but decides to check starmap data, or other data provided by the listening post or a nearby, likely unaffected one (counter-counter play opportunity?) sees an average of 50 pilots in space in the last 30 minutes, and determines that a response fleet is necessary.

Kind of like a ship scanner, it's not always 100% accurate, but double checking and rescanning can still give you almost all the important details.

What was the story called? Patton's "Ghost Army"? A contributing factor to the outcome of the D-Day invasion iirc.

Imagine being a blue team scout. You're information will give your commander Intel on whether or not to retreat or to continue operations (assume it's a structure timer with lots of assets on field). You set up your own observation tower in range of the system, and with yourself cloaked there, you provide very solid Intel on any fleet movements and compositions.

What you don't know, is that a red team scout (or likely CI professional) found your tower. He doesn't necessarily know it belongs to you, but he makes the assumption that it will be used to blue team advantage. So he hacks it. Now, trying to pretend a fleet is not there when there are dozens of other signs saying that it is a false positive, he chooses to manipulate it into saying that there is a large number of players docked and active in your system. So you are assured that you are in the right place to spot a threat.

What you don't know, is that the red team is aware they are being watched, they jumpclone everyone they can to a secondary system that has back up ships (considering destructible citadels this won't be a bad idea) luckily, outside of the observation tower's range. They form up there, however they leave a very important person behind: Fleet Commander George $. xXPattonXx420. Well known to the blue team as a capable and cunning commander and adversary. George $. xXPattonXx420 stays behind, and undocked with a few remaining reds, and begins playing games off the undock, and generally dicking around, shipping up local chat. To our cloaked, blue eyes, it appears as though red team isn't even concerned about the hostile a nearby. And checking his tower Intel, he's sees the structure still has plenty of people docked and active.

Now, our blue scout reports this to his commander: situation normal, NSTR. Commander takes his word, trusting in the competence of his intelligence section. However, our scout has made a mistake. Had he looked out further on the map to the surrounding constellations, using publicly available information, he would have seen the small anomaly of docked pilots not too far away (assuming red team was quick on their feet, they wouldn't have left a large footprint for too long). And furthermore, had our scout checked jumps in the last hour (or set his tower to report it), he might have seen the anomalous spike in traffic that is making a beeline for his commanders main fleet.

Our blue commander is not a total fool, and has still placed scouts 1-2 jumps from his operating system, with visual on gates, to ensure there are no absolute surprises. However what he least expected was to hear one of those scout report 100+ red team battleships burning frantically to his system, with tackle breaking off to cover the ground quickly. Blue commander has dreads in 60% siege and has little hope to jump out before they are tackled. He sends his defense fleet to the gate to delay red team as best he can, however the tackle is off the gate before they arrive, and the battleships make quick work of the arriving fleet.

Meanwhile, our blue scout is hearing the frantic commands and confusion over comms, and sees in local chat,"[22:43] George $. xXPattonXx420: lol good job pubby scout"

The rest is history.

E: forgive me I splurged.

But rather than just entosis male it need distant tools for different jobs

Say you want to siphon or alter intel you need to first hack it (higher meta level structures have better anti-virus)
Or maybe you want to stop is ability to detect ships you use ECM or you just want to alter it's speed or range of detection (harder to notice is being tampered with if it's still sending intel) you use a sensor damp

Hello,

I have some questions about Observatory Arrays and how they will work:

1. Will owners be able to tweak their effective range (with some imposed cooldown between changes ofc)?
If yes, will the range affect their functionality like probes (bigger range = less resolution, which means you need to set up more if you want to cover a bigger area)?


2. What information will be available to pilots currently in the system?
If the effective range would be visible on the map (similar to probes) a clever pilot could set SS tactically in order to avoid being spotted. Maybe the epicenter of the signal could be set to an arbitrary point at X distance (tweakable with modules) from the Observatory Array itself, making it harder to pinpoint such structures, since I think showing them on the map would basically give away their position.

I think such information would add more depth and could be prototyped quickly, since some of the UI tech could be taken from already existing mechanics (probes), but that's just a silly speculation from my side.


3. Will ship's Sensor Strength play a role in countering Observatory Arrays capabilities?

I mostly do small fleets roams with friends, and would like to understand if the presence of such structures in a system would completely stop us from fighting there or just hinder our capabilities.

Thank you for our time.