These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Assembly Hall

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

[Proposal] Station Warehouse Management and Security (theft)
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
D'Tell Annoh
Machiavellian Empire
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#1 - 2011-12-03 22:41:46 UTC
I propose that when characters eventually walk around stations there be an actual location (station vaults) where your inventory is stored. In these vaults, you will be able to see the items that you have there, move the crates and pallets around and organize them as you see fit (or have drones auto-organize it for you if you don't care). You will be able to walk around in your warehouse, get a conception of the volume your items take up, and generally marvel at your growing hoard. This is not a proposal to replace the inventory list by any means, just to give that list more dimensions.

Further, you could have to pay rent to stations for storage. Perhaps the station would charge more for larger and/or more secure storage facilities? If this is implemented, I would recommend that whatever fees on basic, unsecured storage be very minor.

I would also suggest that players be able to try and hack their way into other people's vaults. Once inside, there could be a way for them to steal things (reprogram forklift drones to move the goods to a waiting vehicle, or transport tube). There could be an array of security measures purchased by the owner (automated defense guns, detection grids, etc.) put in place to protect the vault. If you want to think ambitious, some commodities like slaver hounds and militants would naturally serve as vault defense. I would suggest that station security (roving security drones, cameras, etc.) scale in accordance with the security status of the station; the security patrols in the dark hallways of a losec station would be less frequent than the well lit halls of vaults in hisec. One thing to consider is what happens to those who get caught? Death and a new medical clone seems relatively light punishment if you have a thief jumpclone. Can an owner insure versus theft? Could this lead to insurance fraud? Is that a bad thing?

These additions would accomplish the following goals:

  • Give players a greater feeling that things in their inventory actually exist. They take up space and would be easy to see how much (volume and quantity) of something you have, not just a number on a spreadsheet.
  • Encourage hoarders to put items on the market rather than paying for storage indefinitely.
  • Indulge those players that would enjoy being overly anal in organizing their gear.
  • Facilitate player creation of station security theory. People would talk about effective anti theft strategies, and evaluate the various countermeasures' usefulness. Thieves would film their crimes, blog about their techniques and gloat about their biggest hauls.
  • Offer a new challenge to capsuleers, and possibly even introduce a whole new occupation of people specialize in station theft. This could lead to a new type of mercenary who targets assets of corps and individuals.
  • More skills to learn. Hacking a station vault would require a whole new set of skills. Maybe thieving gear/clothes would have to be bought with AUR?


I appreciate your input. This is a big can of worms and admittedly it is a huge pipe dream, but what do you think?
Tahna Rouspel
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#2 - 2011-12-04 04:01:25 UTC
D'Tell Annoh wrote:
I propose that when characters eventually walk around stations there be an actual location (station vaults) where your inventory is stored. In these vaults, you will be able to see the items that you have there, move the crates and pallets around and organize them as you see fit (or have drones auto-organize it for you if you don't care). You will be able to walk around in your warehouse, get a conception of the volume your items take up, and generally marvel at your growing hoard. This is not a proposal to replace the inventory list by any means, just to give that list more dimensions.

Further, you could have to pay rent to stations for storage. Perhaps the station would charge more for larger and/or more secure storage facilities? If this is implemented, I would recommend that whatever fees on basic, unsecured storage be very minor.

I would also suggest that players be able to try and hack their way into other people's vaults. Once inside, there could be a way for them to steal things (reprogram forklift drones to move the goods to a waiting vehicle, or transport tube). There could be an array of security measures purchased by the owner (automated defense guns, detection grids, etc.) put in place to protect the vault. If you want to think ambitious, some commodities like slaver hounds and militants would naturally serve as vault defense. I would suggest that station security (roving security drones, cameras, etc.) scale in accordance with the security status of the station; the security patrols in the dark hallways of a losec station would be less frequent than the well lit halls of vaults in hisec. One thing to consider is what happens to those who get caught? Death and a new medical clone seems relatively light punishment if you have a thief jumpclone. Can an owner insure versus theft? Could this lead to insurance fraud? Is that a bad thing?

These additions would accomplish the following goals:

  • Give players a greater feeling that things in their inventory actually exist. They take up space and would be easy to see how much (volume and quantity) of something you have, not just a number on a spreadsheet.
  • Encourage hoarders to put items on the market rather than paying for storage indefinitely.
  • Indulge those players that would enjoy being overly anal in organizing their gear.
  • Facilitate player creation of station security theory. People would talk about effective anti theft strategies, and evaluate the various countermeasures' usefulness. Thieves would film their crimes, blog about their techniques and gloat about their biggest hauls.
  • Offer a new challenge to capsuleers, and possibly even introduce a whole new occupation of people specialize in station theft. This could lead to a new type of mercenary who targets assets of corps and individuals.
  • More skills to learn. Hacking a station vault would require a whole new set of skills. Maybe thieving gear/clothes would have to be bought with AUR?


I appreciate your input. This is a big can of worms and admittedly it is a huge pipe dream, but what do you think?


Talking about Theft and first person shooter mechanism in EVE seems a bit premature. Your idea of thieving seems highly unfair though. Training a thieving skill and stealing people's stuff like you do in Skyrim simply doesn't work in EVE. The risk and potential of retaliation should be equal to the potential gain, and to me, your idea just sounds like a quick isk grab without risk; you target a player that's offline and steal their assets without any chance of them fighting back.

The idea of limited cargo is interesting though. I know a lot of people hoard material to make a profit later on. It would be interesting if Stations had limited space and extra space had to be bought with isk.
I mostly like the idea because it's an isk sink, and most of the time, only the wealthy player have enough stuff to justify expanding the station cargo.
D'Tell Annoh
Machiavellian Empire
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#3 - 2011-12-04 04:13:06 UTC
Tahna Rouspel wrote:
[Talking about Theft and first person shooter mechanism in EVE seems a bit premature. Your idea of thieving seems highly unfair though. Training a thieving skill and stealing people's stuff like you do in Skyrim simply doesn't work in EVE. The risk and potential of retaliation should be equal to the potential gain, and to me, your idea just sounds like a quick isk grab without risk; you target a player that's offline and steal their assets without any chance of them fighting back.
I agree. I know a few people who would go absolutely insane at the idea that anyone could steal their stuff. Perhaps though, there is a way to balance the risk and potential for retaliation with the gain, as you say? Oh, and I wasn't thinking about this as turning into Splinter Cell; I was imagining a mini-game (maybe similar to how they handled hacking in Bioshock). I don't really have a mental image in my head about what it looks like in the vault, or how anything works beyond that point.

Is is totally broken, or is there a way to make it fair and fun?
Tahna Rouspel
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#4 - 2011-12-04 06:00:03 UTC
D'Tell Annoh wrote:
Tahna Rouspel wrote:
[Talking about Theft and first person shooter mechanism in EVE seems a bit premature. Your idea of thieving seems highly unfair though. Training a thieving skill and stealing people's stuff like you do in Skyrim simply doesn't work in EVE. The risk and potential of retaliation should be equal to the potential gain, and to me, your idea just sounds like a quick isk grab without risk; you target a player that's offline and steal their assets without any chance of them fighting back.
I agree. I know a few people who would go absolutely insane at the idea that anyone could steal their stuff. Perhaps though, there is a way to balance the risk and potential for retaliation with the gain, as you say? Oh, and I wasn't thinking about this as turning into Splinter Cell; I was imagining a mini-game (maybe similar to how they handled hacking in Bioshock). I don't really have a mental image in my head about what it looks like in the vault, or how anything works beyond that point.

Is is totally broken, or is there a way to make it fair and fun?


No, stealing in EVE shouldn't be a mini game. There's already other more appropriate ways of stealing from people; you blow up their ship, ninja salvage, destroy their POS or scam them in some way. Those are appropriate ways of stealing in EVE.

Stealing cargo and commandeering ships is the sort of things you can expect from Dust 514, but it doesn't necessarily have a place in EVE. If there was a hacking mini-game, it should be kept to PvE encounters.
Intar Medris
KarmaFleet University
#5 - 2011-12-05 07:14:30 UTC
NO!!! A well thought out idea though, but criminal scum already have enough things to grief with and brag about. If they want to steal millions or billions of ISK worth of item or ships they can do it the hard way.

I try to be nice and mind my business just shooting lasers at rocks. There is just way too many asshats in New Eden for that to happen.
Iosif Dzughasvilli
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#6 - 2011-12-05 09:03:36 UTC
I dislike the idea of theft.

But building on your idea of cargo allowance in stations you could open a new medium for traders. For example, if all players receive a certain amount of cargo allowance (which can be increased/decreased with standings, skills, etc.) at each station you have to balance whether it's worth keeping all your items. Allowing players to buy excess cargo allowance will serve as an ISK sink and allow for players to trade these cargo allowances will create a new market. Obviously cargo allowance has to be capped somewhere and a realistic price point will be extremely hard to determine as ships require tremendous amounts of room but do not necessarily sell on par with most items m^3 wise and, as such, could damage the ship building/trading market.
Samillian
Angry Mustellid
#7 - 2011-12-05 09:54:46 UTC
The only way I would support this is if I can leave my hanger and vaults open to vacuum at all times and there was an automated clean up service to deal with the mess left after an attempt at theft.

NBSI shall be the whole of the Law
D'Tell Annoh
Machiavellian Empire
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#8 - 2011-12-06 16:25:04 UTC
Samillian wrote:
The only way I would support this is if I can leave my hanger and vaults open to vacuum at all times and there was an automated clean up service to deal with the mess left after an attempt at theft.
I don't see why that couldn't be arranged. It would limit what you can store there, of course, but why not. The person hacking into a vault that has no atmosphere would have to bring along special gear to be able to move around in such a place.

This idea is a big reach to begin with, and I don't expect it in the next patch, but conceptually, I still like it.

The unease about theft revolves around risk and consequences. Risk is all of the cybernetics and melted nanoribbons and little things that are worth millions. Consequences is the thought that someone can start an alt, train them for theft and then transfer the loot to their main, and avoid the ramifications. I want to try and focus on those two ideas a little more.

Risk. Obviously there have to be limits. Someone who successfully hacks into Cribba's station vault can't walk out with ninety bajillion tons of veldspar and a hanger full of ships in his back pocket; there should be a limit to the volume that can be taken in a single theft. A volume restriction is ineffective if the thief is trying to steal the valuable little things, which are much more valuable in every respect. How do you keep people from being robbed blind? Here are some ideas.
Idea Time restriction on a theft. Once inside, you have a finite amount of time until station security responds. This could be as little as a few minutes, and a big vault will be hard to dig through to find the valuables.
Idea Volume restriction. The thief came in through an airlock, and has to get his loot out in some way. It would be easy to say that he can only take things out that fit through the door he came through. Other means (transport tubes, etc.) can come into play, and can restrict volume to a set value.
Idea Tiered security. Secure cargo containers could be a good place to store valuables inside of a vault. They could provide a second hackable barrier.
Idea Theft insurance. If you lose stuff to theft, you get a payout. Not sure how to prevent insurance fraud here.

Consequences.
Idea Loss of gear. If you get caught by station security, your thief gear is confiscated.
Idea Execution. If the vault defenses kill the thief, they have to get a new medical clone.
Idea Loss of skill points. To prevent further crimes, station security erases pieces of your memory, removing the skills needed to steal (like T3 subsystem skill loss).
Idea Sec Status hit. Perhaps you can even be blacklisted at a station for a period of time if you're caught there. Maybe you can be branded a thief on show info and in space for a period of time? Outlaw status?
Rina Asanari
CitadeI
#9 - 2011-12-07 07:56:16 UTC
Not supported. Mostly because you can simply target people who are known to be offline at a given time and thus defenseless. Even POSes and similar structures have some means to enforce a confrontation with the defenders.

Make something dependent on skills works only for so long until players regularly train to Level V. Then it is "either it works or it doesn't" without anything in-between.
D'Tell Annoh
Machiavellian Empire
Test Alliance Please Ignore
#10 - 2011-12-07 16:11:02 UTC
Rina Asanari wrote:
Not supported. Mostly because you can simply target people who are known to be offline at a given time and thus defenseless. Even POSes and similar structures have some means to enforce a confrontation with the defenders.

Make something dependent on skills works only for so long until players regularly train to Level V. Then it is "either it works or it doesn't" without anything in-between.
I was imagining something that you being online or offline would have no bearing on a theft. Imagine it more like tower defense if that helps. You have a station vault, you upgrade the locks on the doors, you buy and place defense guns, detection grids, sentry robots, traps, put valuables in locked station containers. You're off in space, in a mission or logged off when someone hacks your vault, it would make no difference. It is the plans and traps you set up versus the person.

Unless you are in your vault when they hack in, I don't see how you could be directly involved. At least that was how I saw it.
Rina Asanari
CitadeI
#11 - 2011-12-08 10:47:29 UTC
D'Tell Annoh wrote:
Unless you are in your vault when they hack in, I don't see how you could be directly involved. At least that was how I saw it.


And that's where the second part of my posting comes in: As soon as you have the skills trained to V - and people WILL do it - it's either "it never works" (if defensive skills are stronger) or "it always works" (offensive skills are stronger). And people robbing me blind just because I'm offline and can't retaliate?

No thanks.