Player Features and Ideas Discussion

No.

So, you want to launch a secondary craft from your ship, that allows you to go through a gate and see what's there... and when its destroyed or run its course, you reappear back in your ship?

You're taking the risk to your ship and pod, and moving it to a 'probe'.... I just don't see this as appropriate.. especially since there is a much better and viable option that maintains the risk paradigm: Get in a fast moving and moderately tanked ship and go through the gate to see what's there. If it is safe... continue on... if it is NOT safe, power back to gate and leave the system. Many, MANY ships can safely scout a gate with little danger. And if you want to move your big or shiny ship..... then get someone else to scout you.... Why do we even need this???

Oh, that's the easy part. And in answering that, I define the logic for your previous points.

We need this because scouting is about taking a low combat value ship, and looking ahead of a group in order for them to plan on problems. Battleships won't be using it, nor will most desirable targets.
What logic dictates a scout ship can probe an entire system, but can't see the other side of a gate?

It is complicated, this odd acceptance of gate camps. Cheapest tactic around, yet it is accepted more by tradition than logic.
Being honest, you can look at gate camps in one of two ways.

One, it is spawn camping, taking advantage of your ship appearing unexpectedly in harm's way. You do not appear in range to gate out, you must instead give the campers a free shot at you.
Two, it is a bypass to cloaking ship penalties. After all, until you pop up in the new system, you cannot see these ships, they are not in a local list to be warned by, and they have no penalty to targeting caused by decloaking. Add to this, you are flat-footed, and need to orient yourself and decide on a strategy before your token cloaking effect wears off.

Either way, it gives the camping side an overwhelming advantage. For whatever reason, it is the accepted cheap source of kill mails, and the main block to solo play for many, which reduces the number of players in null sec.

I'm trying to understand your reasoning:

1.) "We need this because scouting is about taking a low combat value ship, and looking ahead of a group in order for them to plan on problems." --- We already have this... Scouts take low value ships through a gate, and look ahead of a group in order for them to plan on problems. We don't need a probe to do this, as again, we already HAVE SHIPS to do this.
>>>Ok, Allow me to clarify, I mean the T2 ships, not anything designed to spot problems by running into it headfirst. The scout ships are intended to have great sensors and probes. Same with the recons. Make it skill intensive, but scouting is not meant to be high risk on the same level as sticking your head in the door, and hoping noone hits you with a gank bat.

2.) "What logic dictates a scout ship can probe an entire system, but can't see the other side of a gate?" -- Oh, I don't know... perhaps it's because a system is typically under 300 au's wide, whereas different systems are LIGHT YEARS Apart.
FYI, 1 LY == 63,000+ au.
>>>That distance is trivial, thanks to the communications tech in the background story of EVE. The same thing that allows chat rooms for pilots, jump clones, and even medical clones. They explained it, briefly, as some type of synchronized force connecting two points, allowing any distance between them. A warp incapable drone is hardly taxing on this level.

3.) "One, it is spawn camping, taking advantage of your ship appearing unexpectedly in harm's way. You do not appear in range to gate out, you must instead give the campers a free shot at you." -- And in exchange for this "free shot at you", you currently get full intel on how many pilots are in system, their alliances, the number of ships on grid, and whether the force you're scouting for can effectively engage the targets. That's a pretty fair trade off for intel, especially since there are MANY SHIPS that can easily navigate either through the gate camp, or return back to the gate with an extremely high success rate.
>>>A determined gate camp will catch nearly anything, and pop targets the moment the token cloak expires. I am sure you have run into some casual gank attempts at gates, those are not worth even discussing.

4.) "Add to this, you are flat-footed, and need to orient yourself and decide on a strategy before your token cloaking effect wears off."-- oh, how terrible... you get a full minute of free cloak, with no decloaking delays, to assess the situation. Yes some people are initially caught flat-footed, but they have adequate compensation for this IMO.
>>>The term of the cloak is there to remove the advantage gained by delays in game clients loading. I am sure there are many who have more time than they need, but scouting is not about sticking your head into an oven to see if it is hot. You can do that better in a battleship.

5.) "it is a bypass to cloaking ship penalties." -- But the gate campers you're refering to aren't cloaked... True, your scout doesn't have information on them before he enters system, but this is different from cloaking. They don't have information on you, until you enter system either. True, they can have scouts sentry the entry gate... but you can send a "low value ships through a gate" to assess what's there too... Your on equal footing.
>>>it's not like cloaking? True, with regular cloaking, you still have a possible warning in local, and cloaked ships cannot fight as effectively. It sounds like an even greater advantage, now that you point it out.
And it's not a low value ship, these things are pricey. It's a low COMBAT value ship, referring to how they fight poorly in exchange for being able to sneak around and scout. The probe itself could be expensive, but probably not more than a cheap t1 frigate.

6.) "it is spawn camping... For whatever reason, it is the accepted cheap source of kill mails, and the main block to solo play for many, which reduces the number of players in null sec. " -- While it is a form of spawn camping, it is the ONLY method to effectively limit the players that enter "your" systems. It's true many gatecampers are cowerdly, risk adverse gankers, but gatecamping as a whole is a low energy, strategic activity that creates flash points for escallating fights, forms the hurdles in the nullsec/lowsec obstacle course, and will be completely uneffected by your suggested probe.
>>>Who said ANYTHING about wanting to stop them, or make them easy to bypass in travel? The scouting is simply so a well prepared player can give his fleet an advantage, rather than blind jumping into an ambush. It's the whole point of scouting, from a defensive view.

I'll ask again, because you have yet to give a satisfactory answer: Why do we even need this????
>>>See the answers above for details, but it amounts to scouting should be more practical than tap dancing in a mine field, you use tools so you don't put yourself in harm's way.

Not relevant. In fact, cloaks are almost a joke if you can isolate such a small area with certainty, and know to look for them. They already paid for their cloaking ability by having reduced combat ability. This is shooting fish in a barrel, not skill.

2) Ever heard of bubbles? You're still going to die in bubble camps. Or are you going to avoid every system with people in?
A bubble on a probe will probably result in a lost probe. You don't scout for land mines by stomping your feet, you use a tool. Same idea.

3) This is null sec, it isn't meant to be 100% safe. It's too safe as it is, as long as you aren't a complete idiot.
The idiots won't be affected by this, and will still show up on schedule to hand over kill mails.

>>>ROFL, way off topic. I am not referring to ways to get past gate camps, but avoid them with the respect due something that dangerous.

>>>Cloaking solves everything? Maybe for some.

>>>No, not at all. They have other probes already in the game for this type of ship to do that.

>>>Noone needs a tool to do anything, and most people won't bother to use it. Only people who train up scouting ships like CovOps and Recons could use it in the first place. Your supply of idiots is not threatened by this, as they probably don't rely on anything involving foresight anyways.

it amounts to scouting should be more practical than tap dancing in a mine field, you use tools so you don't put yourself in harm's way.

It is not spawn camping, at least not in the generally understood sense in FPS games. You don't choose to spawn, and when you spawn in most games you don't choose where you spawn. Therefore in an FPS there is no way to avoid a spawn camp. Also, in FPSs, you usually don't start with a full set of gear, and are therefore very vulnerable until you can find a decent gun or armor.

However, gatecamps are very easy to detect, using common tools like the map, intel, or scouts. You have a choice to either jump in a camp or avoid it. Even after jumping, you have a choice to fight, to run, or to gatecrash. You have 60 seconds to become fully aware of your situation and make that decision. A better analogy from an FPS might be defending that one corridor that leads to your flag.


The mechanic you propose would completely defeat the purpose of having scouts, and the counter of killing the scouts to blind the enemy fleet.