My view is that no ship larger than a cruiser should be able to fly in (gravitational forces putting too much stress on higher mass ships or something). This would mean a site could not be camped with a fleet of supercaps and then farmed. It would keep combat and exploration fast and fluid. It would also mitigate somewhat ag+áinst local since it could still be worth your time to inve-ºtigate given that ghose in the DDC will have exactly the same advantages and disadvantages.

I would be happy for ships to disappear from local upon entering the cloud though. Then anyone already in wouldn't know if the player left system or entered the cloud...more paranoia in this case can only be a good thing...

My view is that no ship larger than a cruiser should be able to fly in (gravitational forces putting too much stress on higher mass ships or something). ..

- maybe pods could warp to a celestial outside of the cloud after you lost your ship but not back in

Given that CCP has now demonstrated that they have the coding capability to create zones of non-scanability, how about creating stuff like static nebula's and gas clouds that negate the ability to scan in OR out. Where there is a perpetual warp disruption field in place.

Large areas, thousands of km across, where fleets can hide, or even get lost in.
Put items/sites of value in in them though, where people REALLY have to explore, where you operate by your wits, overview and luck.

Some place that while it is easy to hide in, be it someone with evil or benign intentions, but also makes it very difficult to hunt someone down in the cloud.

I always imagined some kind of area like we saw in the Wrath of Khan, would be a very interesting to spend a few hours, or longer, in.

Edit: Expanded thoughts:

I don't really want to dive into specifics with this initial post, that is covered on page 3 of this thread.
I want to discuss general theme.

In my opinion, a whole lot of older players are looking for the "next horizon" within Eve.
They have done pretty much all that Eve has to offer, at least on a superficial level.
They are waiting for something new, hence the excitement about CCP opening up new territory with player jump gates.

But what if they can have that new experience within the confines of existing star systems?
What if they could experience a different type of Eve, where the game is played a little differently, where things are more claustrophobic, where things are a little more random, the risks higher, and the rewards also higher, where tried and true methods of PvE and PvP operation have to be altered, or thrown out the window?

On a different tack, Eve players are notorious for being way too smart for their own good. We quickly industrialize every PvE concept, or even PvP mechanism that CCP hands us. Does not matter if it is high sec incursions, or wormhole C6 combat sites, or FW plexes, or null sec sov moon goo.
The players will take a mechanism and will test and optimize the risk/return ratio.

But what if they faced a section of space where the rules are changed? Where things are so random, or so varied in possibilities that no group could optimize for any particular circumstance. Where industrialization of sites was impossible, where bad people could be anywhere? Where exploration and finding riches or prey was significantly more difficult than today, and the rewards matched?

This is the type of zone that I would like to see CCP create, and by removing some of the existing game mechanics as described later, where you are partially blinded, you don't know what you are facing. PvE sites and PvP situations can be so much closer together, since you can't see them, until you are virtually on top of them. Whole new meta's on how to play will be created.

The happiest time I had in Eve was when Apochrypha came out. My old crew, within Eve UNI, has our 1st POS up in wh space 5 hours after Apochrypha was released. We stayed for over a year, constantly upgrading our home, from a C3 to a C4 to a C5 with a C6 static. The sense of the unknown, the learning of new game mechanics, the heightened risk of no local, all made for a great experience.

I think something like what I am proposing could bring back that wonder and excitement level, and it would be oh so easy for all to access, as these zones could spawn anywhere. And if done properly, and if CCP jams enough variation of sites and potential combat situations into a zone, then it would be very difficult to optimize for anything. I am not talking about quantity of sites being in a zone. I am talking about variation of POTENTIAL sites. If one does not know what they will find any given day, the game becomes very interesting.

...all the while watching the overview for any flickering unknown responses showing you may be being shadowed/hunted by a cloaky ship nearby...

Also D-Scan should only work out to your targeting range as well.

Edit: Or just not work at all "Interference from the local area is preventing your scanner from working"

GORRAMIT DINSDALE!!!!


Why oh why did it have to be you to come up with the perfect most sublime new feature for EvE?

This literally is the best feature to merge PvE and PvP together.

+1 for this

Though I may champion high sec these days, and PvE, I don't think people realize that I spent over a year in wormholes, only coming out for resupply and to sell stuff we extracted/made inside, plus I spent quite some time fighting PL and the DRF in Pure Blind, and other null areas. I also have spent most of my online time the last couple days in low sec exploring.

So I am not completely out of tune with the non high sec game.

Anyway, I communicated with one of the CSM, and was told that this concept will be brought to CCP's attention, but no one should hold out any hope for any grand announcement on something like this anytime soon, or ever.
But the CSM member also told me that the more people who comment in this thread, the better.

So tell your friends to comment whether good or bad.
I don't care about any +1's or accolades, but I would like CCP to see that there is indeed a groundswell behind the concept.

+1 for CSM jumping on board and publicly voicing their support of a great idea.

Not sure if this was mentioned yet, but have certain modules not work in them, things like tractor beams, boosts, WEBS AND POINTS, and other projecting effects. Obviously different effects for different clouds, but some clouds should be so dense that the effect one ship has on another is limited to only physical objects (slugs, molten metal, missiles, and i guess lasers, but just because you kind of have to for balance).

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Without an unknown random mass limit all bigger alliances/corps be it RvB, CFC, N3 etc etc. can just bring 50, 100, 200 players into this area and farm it without any trouble at all.

I think based on how people would like these to work that they would be quite unfarmable. Since you have no idea what could be inside them. Even if you did get 200 guys in there you still need to slowboat your way through looking for potential targets and if you make them huuuuge they would be forced to split up. Making them more vulnerable.

I like this idea a lot (wish I could +1 it endlessly), but:

how do you prevent that a cloaked alt outside of the sphere provides intel for those in it? Especially concerned about 0.0, where corpies might abuse their alts to farm those things with relative safety (someone shows up on local --> alt outside of the sphere reports it via Convo or Corp/shared Chat-channels).