I live in w-space so I fully understand the challenges once the API data has gone. But to be fair its pretty easy to work out whether a system is occupied or not from eve-kill.net (and aggregation services like wormhole.es and its successor).

If you want to work out the daily ratting times of w-space carebears then I think it's only fair that you (and I) are forced to watch them physically

In my view w-space is far too advantageous to the aggressor. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy having the advantages but I think we have had such an advantage for so long that we have driven most of the carebears back to k-space.

Discovery scanner = safer carebearing (almost impossible to catch activity site runners) and nanoribbon prices have dropped 0.5mil over the last 2 months. Both of which confirm carebearing in wormholes has never been easier.

What's the use case? Easy noctis ganking?

... and nanoribbon prices have dropped 0.5mil over the last 2 months. Both of which confirm carebearing in wormholes has never been easier.

This is not a causal link as you suggest. Nullsec alliances no longer use huge blobs of T3s. Command ships now make better boosting ships than T3s. Tengus are no longer able to run 4/10 DED sites, Tengus are no longer considered the end-game for level 4 missions. The number of uses for T3s has fallen drastically.

When demand falls, what happens to price?

I mean I know that the price of an item is dependent on supply/demmand, and that it will fluctuate with time, but this is not a point i'm trying to get across.

What I'm trying to say is "carebearing" in W-Space will become easier, rewards will outmatch the risk and there will be less content to W-space with the NPC api change because it will be harder for entities to find each other's active players. What we need is a deployable device or game changing mechanic to encourage and reward player interaction in W-Space through combat. I think the OP is proposing a way of gathering in game intel about sleeper kills over the last x amount of hours in response to this dev post.

For me W-Space should be dangerous and unknown, but the intel that you can gather should give an indication of active players to be hunted or stalked. Too many times have I scouted wormholes and finding POS's with no-one home. I agree with CcpFoxFour that a 3rd party service should not give one side an unfair advantage, but I also believe something should be done to make up for the "content" that will be removed from W-Space with this change.

TL;DR W-Space needs some lovin'

To address the first thing I bolded: Carebearing becomes significantly more complicated when you can't determine when the locals come out to play. If you roll into a hole for a static run that is ACTUALLY loaded with USTZ PvPers, you bet I want to know this right off the bat. Good thing that the API could tell us when they typically farm their sites!

To address point about it being harder to find each other: Not even remotely. Holes roll the same way they always have. Why do you need to know when NPCs were killed to know if there is something to fight?

Hell, you know RIGHT AWAY if someone possibly lives in a hole based on towers alone.

Yes, I won't deny that Wormholes need some love, but saying that the solution is "Make it easier to gank people" is the same logic that people use for "Remove local" in Nullsec.

1aa. YES: This is occupied!
1ab. NO: This is probably yet another abandoned system. Consider rolling it immediately.
1b. NO: This is probably empty. Contemplate rolling it if they don't have a decent number of holes for moving around.

What's the use case? Easy noctis ganking?

I live in the E-uni's C2 with C3 and high-sec statics

1. I don't like the idea that you need a combat launcher to use it. So many scouts use covops/bombers and would have to gut their ship to fit it on.

2. I would want the "debris" detected to show up on d-scan as well, at least for a short time. That way you can jump in a system, see if it's been active RECENTLY, and if it hasn't drop the probe and get a more detailed history of the system. This wouldn't be giving you any more information than see wrecks on d-scan, except it gives you a bit of backlog - in case you jump in just after they finish a site.

I'm not interested in log-off traps or anything like the big guys. I just want to know, has this system been active recently? Which answers my next question (are these guys floating in the POS at their keyboards?)

Lots of intel = needs a really, really big probe.

We want this probe and historical data because, due to the sheer nature of WH space, very few entities have pilots online through all time-zones. If I am a US pilot and I find a system with towers, and those towers belong to an AU/RU corp, or even 50% of EU corps, guess what? It may as well be empty to me.

Or it could simply be a weekender farming corp that only has a handful of pilots log in for a few hours each week. Again, might as well be empty.

The glimpse probe would allow us to quickly gather a rough idea regarding the times when there are active pilots in this system.

This is why you're looking for forcefields, not for Towers alone. People don't live in towers without forcefields. If there's a forcefield, it's being fueled, which means someone lives there.

Stalk your prey from there out. Why /must/ you know historical data about NPC kills? Scout your targets like everyone else who wants a juicy kill.

Just to clarify, the debris that is being discussed is left over from sleeper sites/pewpew can be detected after wrecks have been salvaged?

I live in w-space so I fully understand the challenges once the API data has gone. But to be fair its pretty easy to work out whether a system is occupied or not from eve-kill.net (and aggregation services like wormhole.es and its successor).

If you want to work out the daily ratting times of w-space carebears then I think it's only fair that you (and I) are forced to watch them physically

In my view w-space is far too advantageous to the aggressor. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy having the advantages but I think we have had such an advantage for so long that we have driven most of the carebears back to k-space.

A few years ago you only had to roll a few holes to find a blinged-up solo ratting tengu in an anomaly. These days it can take all night!

I'd rather have more opportunity because of increased players in w-space, at the expense of having to physically observe a system (which I do anyway).

With this post you admit that there is no way to get the data the api now gives .
Because no one can be online and scouting for 48hours.

I think the glimse probes idea comes to a good compromise, that you can't have the data from a full 48hours ago but rather 12 hours ago or less could be sufficient and that the accuracy in pinpointing the time the last sleepers/stuff got pewed could be so crude that you would have to do manual scouting anyway to determine exact hours of activity.

As far as i'm aware the only way to logoffski is to scout a system over 23.5 hours to keep an eye on ship composiition, pilots, play times, alts, Sleeper site strategy etc. The probe idea shouldn't make this any easier but should give an indication of whether or not a WH is active with players interacting with the environment or each other so you as to stick around to observe.

I, personally, don't like the idea of an anchorable structure for this, simply because it goes too much against the whole "free intel without being present" idea. Plus, how would these things report the data back to you? Surely not through a wormhole.

Although, a giant, shootable probe launched into space for 5 minutes is pretty much the same thing I suppose, lol. I just prefer the probe idea since:

1: that's what it is doing, probing.
2: Only the pilot that launches it gets the intel, not everyone
3: It's active, and requires pilot interaction to get data
4: It makes the pilot vulnerable by screaming "I'm here, I'm looking for farmers to kill"