Alanea Winddancer
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Posted - 2009.10.01 21:06:00 -
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Just a really wild revamp suggestion of many features which hopefully would make some of said features easier and other harder.
Local:
Remove local (omnipotent/instant knowledge of who is in a system is just plain boring and restricting save for those who are on the defense). Right now it's a rather stupid "Excuse me, mister gate operator, could you please announce to the whole system that magnificent I have just arrived here" scenario, which doesn't make much sense for those that want to stay hidden for whatever noble or sinister reasons they might have.
Finding others should take at least some effort. An alternative would have to be introduced obviously, which require some effort from the player in figuring out who's in a system, but without making it annoying. More on this later.
Gates:
Revamp the gate system - aka remove them and have an alternate, more free method of traveling between systems - basically making it harder to predict from where people may enter. "Chokepoints" if you ask me is a design that I personally would avoid at all costs. Regardless of how high the rewards in low-sec/0.0 may be, people just won't go there if they know that the only way there is most likely camped. In most cases even 1 camper is enough to scare off people. The ability to sneak inside a system would open up quite a few gameplay doors that are currently closed to both new and more experienced players.
There would of course however be no "safety cloaking" anymore when entering a system. If you are unlucky enough to warp in at a point which happens to have other ships nearby that aren't too friendly...too bad - better start running, praying or fighting. Have to keep some risk in the game after all - although the likelihood for this happening would be slim unless it's a relatively big group of people covering a broad area.
Directional scanner:
Revamp DS so that the newly created cat/mouse game won't be something that's too frustrating for those that want to see if there are any other ships in the system. Maybe tweak the DS so that you keep it on at all times if you want (it cycles every x seconds - no more clicking, hooray!) but you still decide the range and angle and the results are directly fed to the(an) overview(tab). Dunno whether it'd increase the calls to the server to the point that it'd cause lag or whether it would actually free up some room but whatever. You could basically have it on all the time and if you were to happen to catch an interesting signal you would still have to tweak the scanner around in order to identify what it is that you picked up.
Also, give PoS's some kind of scanner structure which aids the owners in detecting ships in the system it is on. Not something which replaces local outright, but makes it even easier for the owners to locate and identify misc presence in the system. Home turf advantage basically.
End result would (hopefully) be that you would have a much easier time roaming freely anywhere you want since it would be a bit harder for campers to camp, encouraging anyone to explore more dangerous space without the dangers being overkill. If you are detected however you may end up being hunted.
Those that want to control/defend/camp systems would have to put up some more effort/organization in order to detect/catch other players in said system.
Random fleet encounters and combat in general would hopefully increase as a result since it would be harder to immediately figure out that opponents are present.
Miners would obviously have to keep an eye on the DS and play around a lot with it in order to locate threats and it would be up to them whether they will want to dock up the moment a new signal is caught or whether they will want to try to identify it first. Pirates would have to do the same obviously although I suspect that they would hold a general advantage.
Discuss/flame/whatever - I know there are many holes present so feel free to bring them up...I'm low on characters as it is :P
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