Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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The new scanner is only capable of scanning for Cosmic Signatures - if you want to probe out ships you'll still need either Recon probes or the new System Scanning Array starbase structure. The "stuck result" issue is fixed internally already :)

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Originally by: Tanis.

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The bulk of the new exploration sites are what we call "Encounters". These are small, easy-to-find sites with some combat content and the chance to spawn a Commander NPC. They can be found near most planets using either traditional probes (which will find them very easily) or the new Onboard Scanner (which will likely take several attempts to find it). Currently they're distributed in all security statuses except 0.4 and 0.5, but they'll be available everywhere in the near future.

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Originally by: Wizzkidy

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I'm trying this out of sisi too and the ship scanner isn't working, you scan and it sits on analyzing... after the timer counts down

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Originally by: Commander BlackJack

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There are only two types of signals in our region (Unknown -> Complex - Gravimetric -> Hidden belt) Gief ladar, radar, magnetometric pls.

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Originally by: Commander BlackJack

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Edited by: Commander BlackJack on 27/05/2007 05:16:02
Feedback:

About 2 hours of scanning in the new drone regions.
More specifically in the 6HL8-L region. (NOB-HD & 2FYX-H constellations)
Full scan in those constellations with the onboard scanner, multispectral probe scan and i haven't found a single encounter. Only one gravimetric signal...

So my first question is:
Are the encounters seeded equally in every region on the testserver?
(Or we're going to get a good thing implemented bad in our region again? aka. Is this the drone region exploration love what Oveur promised? :-/)

Can we get specifics on their distribution like spawning rate (after downtime or time intervalls or totally random etc.) - are they despawning after completition?

Is the multispectral probe supposed to show encounters? If yes what kind of signal?
Please add a new signal type if it's also unknown right now. Don't mess them up with normal exploration complexes...

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Originally by: Commander BlackJack

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Scanning time in a system which have 10planets:

onboard scanner: 10x30sec + warping between the planets

covertops: (with decent scanning skills & covops bonus & rigs) with specific probes:
first multispectral scan: ~200sec - deploying the quest probes: 10x15sec + warping - First scan with the quest probes: ~200sec - possible second scan with comb or pursuit probes ~200sec - third scan with sift probe 200sec... etc.

So in it's current form it takes more time to scan an encounter with a ship crated entirely for scanning. So i'd like to see a specific probe for encounter scanning or the scanning skills like astrometric triangulation, signal acquisition and covops ship bonuses should affect the onboard scanner skills.

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Originally by: Commander BlackJack

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Exploration in general in the drone regions:
There are only two types of signals in our region (Unknown -> Complex - Gravimetric -> Hidden belt) Gief ladar, radar, magnetometric pls.

..snip..

To be honest i'm really skeptic because i reported several times these things in specific bug reports, petitions and etc.
But still i like exploration and i think it's a great thing which is implemented badly and quite badly in our region... So instead of making new encounters and exploration complexes i would like to see improvements and fixes in the actual ones first.
It's fine if you guys do it at the same time, but pleeeaseee do it!

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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Yes, multispecs find the new encounters - they're exactly like normal exploration sites in all ways except they're smaller and vastly easier to find. We're looking at the possibility of better differentiation for a patch in the near future, but for now they're all going to be listed as unknowns.

The stats on the escalation sites will mean you should be able to get a signal strength comfortably above 1 with Quest probes, meaning you'll only need one cycle if you want to find all encounter sites in the system with exploration probes.

Drone regions seeding (or lack of) is an authoring error on my part. Good catch, saves QA shouting at me next week :) It'll be fixed next time Adam's patched.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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Given that we went feature-complete on Friday, the chance of any change to the way sites are flagged up for the Revelations 2 patch are low, and by "low" I mean "Oveur will subject me to a public flogging if I even suggest it" ;) Concern noted and I'll see if we can get some changes to this in a future patch - any further ideas or suggestions are welcome on that basis

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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If the loot problems persist after the next SiSi update, please post again here saying so. A quick check on our internal server shows nothing obvious wrong on the latest build.

As to any changes to asteroid belts of any kind, they're not coming in Revelations 2 and haven't been seriously considered yet. As such I have no info on the specifics :)

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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Yes, multispecs find the new encounters - they're exactly like normal exploration sites in all ways except they're smaller and vastly easier to find. We're looking at the possibility of better differentiation for a patch in the near future, but for now they're all going to be listed as unknowns.

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Originally by: Wizzkidy

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The only way you can tell if your doing a new exporation site or not is down to the signal strength of the plex

I found a Gravametric with a 0.02 Strengh

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Originally by: Moonaru Izu

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Originally by: Wizzkidy

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The only way you can tell if your doing a new exporation site or not is down to the signal strength of the plex

I found a Gravametric with a 0.02 Strengh

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hmm, are you saying that you found an encounter (i.e. found it with the onboard scanner) that had the type Gravimetric?

aren't encounters always of the type unknown?

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Originally by: Hoshi

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A few interesting things.
You can now start the scans (both built in and from probes) while cloaked, a covert ops ship can warp cloaked to a planet, scan for a site, find it and warp into it while never uncloaking.

This is a very nice addition that makes finding people doing these sites much easier.

If you are using probes to scan warping does not interrupt the scans anymore. You are free to warp around as you wish while scanning (only limit is you can't start a scan while in warp). This doe snot work with the on-board scanner.

Your probing skills do not effect the built in scanner. Would be a nice touch if at least astrometric pinpointing and astrometric triangulation worked on it as some people have invested a lot of time into these skills.
Or maybe not, using a recon probe launcher and snoob probes with good skill are going to be slightly better (same strength, much less deviation, slightly faster with rigs) at finding the sites than the built in scanner. Maybe that is good enough, not sure.

On the bad side. The interface does not remember the selection of the on-board scanner as it does with probes. You need to reselect it to start a new scan every time. This is a bit irritating.

I did the scanning in tribute, found 3-5 sites per system, half where guristas sites, the other half drone. Too many drone in my opinion. I did not actually finish any site (was in a covert) so I have not checked how site respawn works.

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Originally by: Wizzkidy

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The only way you can tell if your doing a new exporation site or not is down to the signal strength of the plex

I found a Gravametric with a 0.02 Strengh

Couldn't do it on my own so got some buddies in, and wow what a mission is was! the thing spawned around 10 BS in stage 1 then another 15 BS after that, you then needed serpentis cystal tags to get into the last stage, which I got and we got the tanker in there to find a hostile NPC POS with POS guns, tanker stayed alive with bots on him and we pwn'ed the guns and NPC's only to be greeted with another 23 BS spawn (we had a message in local that these ships had "undocked" from the POS we pwn'ed them as well to find it had given us a commander spawn Shadow Serpentis which dropped some nice looking POS faction ammo

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Originally by: Hoshi

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Did one of the new drones encounters (in guristas space).

Started out with just one Elite something (dropped an Elite Drone AI). But more and more kept spawning for everything I killed. Once I was done I think I killed over 30 BS sized drones and 20 smaller (several of the scrambling). Mostly Patriarch Alvus and Alvus Creators for the BS sized.

With the exception of that Elite thing dropping a can with the Elite Drone AI not a single drone left a wreck.

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Originally by: Gaogan

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Originally by: Wizzkidy

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The only way you can tell if your doing a new exporation site or not is down to the signal strength of the plex

I found a Gravametric with a 0.02 Strengh

Couldn't do it on my own so got some buddies in, and wow what a mission is was! the thing spawned around 10 BS in stage 1 then another 15 BS after that, you then needed serpentis cystal tags to get into the last stage, which I got and we got the tanker in there to find a hostile NPC POS with POS guns, tanker stayed alive with bots on him and we pwn'ed the guns and NPC's only to be greeted with another 23 BS spawn (we had a message in local that these ships had "undocked" from the POS we pwn'ed them as well to find it had given us a commander spawn Shadow Serpentis which dropped some nice looking POS faction ammo

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I think you are confused. It sounds like you actually found an unknown exploration plex using a gravimetric probe, not a new encounter.

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Originally by: Wizzkidy

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Originally by: Gaogan

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Originally by: Wizzkidy

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The only way you can tell if your doing a new exporation site or not is down to the signal strength of the plex

I found a Gravametric with a 0.02 Strengh

Couldn't do it on my own so got some buddies in, and wow what a mission is was! the thing spawned around 10 BS in stage 1 then another 15 BS after that, you then needed serpentis cystal tags to get into the last stage, which I got and we got the tanker in there to find a hostile NPC POS with POS guns, tanker stayed alive with bots on him and we pwn'ed the guns and NPC's only to be greeted with another 23 BS spawn (we had a message in local that these ships had "undocked" from the POS we pwn'ed them as well to find it had given us a commander spawn Shadow Serpentis which dropped some nice looking POS faction ammo

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I think you are confused. It sounds like you actually found an unknown exploration plex using a gravimetric probe, not a new encounter.

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No there was no unknown sig in the system only an gravametric sig.

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Originally by: Hoshi

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Originally by: Wizzkidy

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Originally by: Gaogan

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Originally by: Wizzkidy

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The only way you can tell if your doing a new exporation site or not is down to the signal strength of the plex

I found a Gravametric with a 0.02 Strengh

Couldn't do it on my own so got some buddies in, and wow what a mission is was! the thing spawned around 10 BS in stage 1 then another 15 BS after that, you then needed serpentis cystal tags to get into the last stage, which I got and we got the tanker in there to find a hostile NPC POS with POS guns, tanker stayed alive with bots on him and we pwn'ed the guns and NPC's only to be greeted with another 23 BS spawn (we had a message in local that these ships had "undocked" from the POS we pwn'ed them as well to find it had given us a commander spawn Shadow Serpentis which dropped some nice looking POS faction ammo

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I think you are confused. It sounds like you actually found an unknown exploration plex using a gravimetric probe, not a new encounter.

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No there was no unknown sig in the system only an gravametric sig.

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That doesn't sound like an exploration site/encounter at all. More like some cosmos or static plex.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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Drone regions seeding (or lack of) is an authoring error on my part. Good catch, saves QA shouting at me next week :) It'll be fixed next time Adam's patched.

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Originally by: Dominator9987

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I was intrigued how all the complexes disappeared off the test server. (the ones worth doing / 5/10 and up ). I asked CCP Oneiromancer about it. I was told that they had to be probed out now, and that they were no longer static.

very bad change, a lot of players are gonna be ticked, the plexes are already difficult, now we will have to train up those inaccurate / random probe skills to find the plex in any given system of a region?

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Originally by: Echtra

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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Drone regions seeding (or lack of) is an authoring error on my part. Good catch, saves QA shouting at me next week :) It'll be fixed next time Adam's patched.

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Does this mean Drone regions will have the full range of exploration sites (i.e. Mag/Radar/ladar/Grav/Unk) as well as the new encounters?

Ech

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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Quote:

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Does this mean Drone regions will have the full range of exploration sites (i.e. Mag/Radar/ladar/Grav/Unk) as well as the new encounters?

Ech

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Not yet, no. Watch this space though.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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The issue with scanning wrecks is it makes mission/exploration runners incredibly easy to find due to the number of wrecks they generate.

Currently the only difference between encounters and escalation sites, as far as the server's concerned, is that the former have a much bigger signature radius than the latter. There's no other demarcation, and the multispectral probe doesn't pull signature size data currently, so there's no real way to distinguish between the two types of site without significant retooling.

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Originally by: Callthetruth

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( having them despawn and respawn outside of dt would be better than having em refresh then)

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Originally by: Titus Quintus

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You already got 5 different types of cosmic signatures: Unknown, Ladar, Radar, Magneto, Gravimetric. Why should it be so difficult to add a sixth category "Encouter"?

Sure it's work for the mission scripters to change every "Unknown" flag to "Encouter", but it's not like you have to reprogram everything.

The strength and range of the scanner makes sense, btw.
The on board Scanner is too strong. Snoop scan probes have a strength of 20 and the same range. Perhaps halve the scan strength to 10 of the scanner?

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Originally by: Helison

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As nearly all encounters seem to spam the chatchannels with some nonsense of their commanders: Please restrict the NPC-related messages (during missions, encounters or exploration) to ONE channel (perhaps local).
It is very annoying if 9 channels start to blink, just because you warped into an encounter!

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Originally by: Akurion

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There seems to be a massive disparity between rewards on some of these encounters. For example:

Yesterday I found a drone encounter in Mannar, a 0.3 space. It consisted of about 5 waves of drones, from destroyers up through battlecruisers. I had to retreat several times to repair (was using a PvP setup). The only loot was alloys.

A few minutes ago I scanned out an encounter in Oursulaert, a 0.9 hub system. It consisted of about 4 waves of coreli frigates/destroyers, and ended with a shadow serpentis trooper that dropped a Shadow Serp 1MN MWD and a Shadow Serp Stasis Webbifier (!).

The coreli encounter was infinitely easier, in much higher security space, at least 10x faster to finish, and gave much nicer loot.

Drone rewards need to be looked at, IMO. Alloys aren't going to cut it.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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In answer to the first, it would require programming work on Multispectral probes to deal with the extra type - it shouldn't be too hard, but we can't do it for Rev 2 at this stage.

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Originally by: Gaogan

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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In answer to the first, it would require programming work on Multispectral probes to deal with the extra type - it shouldn't be too hard, but we can't do it for Rev 2 at this stage.

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Then don't put encounters in rev 2. If you can't do it right, don't do it at all. It is already too hard to find exploration sites as it is, having dozens of false positives thrown into the mix will make it impossible.

And AFAIK, the scrap category does nothing anyhow, so why not just rename it to Encounter?

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Originally by: Princess Jodi

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It was once stated that existing Static Complex sites would cause a higher chance of spawing an Exploration site when Static Complexes are removed. The stated reason was that people had put up infrastructure to farm these complexes, and therefore there would be a greater chance that good Exploration sites would be found.

I think this concept is EXACTLY the WRONG way to go!

Farming of Complexes is an abused area of the game. Regardless of the infrastructure put up, there should not be a benefit in the future in these areas.

In addition...What possible reason would a NPC entity have for continuing to swarm in an area where they are habitually destroyed? Should not the opposite be true - that they moved on to less-dangerous areas to regroup?

I suggest completely reversing the proposed favortism and move the best exploration to areas that currently have NO complexes.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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The only direct effect Encounters are going to have on Exploration is making it harder to know if there's a non-encounter Unknown site in the system, unless there's something I've missed?

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Originally by: Akurion

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There seems to be a massive disparity between rewards on some of these encounters. For example:

Yesterday I found a drone encounter in Mannar, a 0.3 space. It consisted of about 5 waves of drones, from destroyers up through battlecruisers. I had to retreat several times to repair (was using a PvP setup). The only loot was alloys.

A few minutes ago I scanned out an encounter in Oursulaert, a 0.9 hub system. It consisted of about 4 waves of coreli frigates/destroyers, and ended with a shadow serpentis trooper that dropped a Shadow Serp 1MN MWD and a Shadow Serp Stasis Webbifier (!).

The coreli encounter was infinitely easier, in much higher security space, at least 10x faster to finish, and gave much nicer loot.

Drone rewards need to be looked at, IMO. Alloys aren't going to cut it.

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Originally by: Hoshi

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Venkul: They are not changing belts yet, Grayscale said it won't happen until rev 3 at the earliest.

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Originally by: Hoshi

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A very much doubt we will get probes that can be places inside each others scan range. Probes are use for more than exploration you know. There are many situations where stacking multiple probes ontop of each other would make them overpowered for ship scanning.

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Originally by: RedClaws

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Will these new "encounters" spawn during the day or will they only respawn after DT?

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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The relative strengths of Quests and Encounters means you'll be able to identify every single encounter in the system within three cycles or so. You'll probably find them all in the first cycle, but I don't think that's guaranteed. If you're hunting escalations/complexes, you shouldn't need more than two multispectrals and two sets of probes for any system, unless you're unlucky with respawns.

This is, incidentally, what I meant by "harder to know if there are non-Encounter Unknowns in the system", in that there's no way of telling if one exists without clearing the system first. It won't have any impact on people searching for Radar/Ladar/Gravimetric/Magnetometric sites, or anyone looking for encounters, but it will mean that if you're after combat sites the most efficient modus operandi will be to look for Encounters and then run a multispectral probe after you've cleared a system on the off chance that there's a more valuable site there too. It's not an ideal situation and we will revisit it again in the near future, but equally it's not going to make doing any kind of exploration completely impossible.

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Originally by: Venkul Mul

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when I clear a system of encounter sites they respawn, so it is almost guarantee that I again have encounter sites in the same system.

Unless there is some serious delay in the respawn time the system will never be totally clear of unknow encounter location. To make it even worse if the number of encounter sites is fixed at a costellation level and not at the system level, people clearing 1 system 2 jump away can be cluttering the one I am in, so new sites will spawn even when I am clearing those currently existing.

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Originally by: Hoshi

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The ded plexes show up as unknown on the multispec. This makes the almost impossible to find. You basically need to go to every system, clear out all encounters and escalation sites and then see that you still have an unknown that you haven't found. So you keep scan for that one, but it has a very, low signal strength. 0.208 with a sift right on top of it, so we are looking at around 1% chance with a quest.

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Originally by: sghuhu

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The problem I have with the exploration system as it is now, is the following:

Problem: The time it takes to find a site in an area does only slightly depend on the number of sites in that area.

Two examples:
1. Somewhere in empire with only one radar site in 10 systems left: It takes 5 min/system for the multispec and 1-2 hours once ur multispec had a hit until u actually find the site: 2-3 hours total time spent

2. Somewhere in a seldom visited 0.0 area with one radar per system: It takes 5 mins for the multispec and 1-2 hours to find it: 1-2 hours total time spent

The difference is not very big, which means that the the incentive to move into the areas with lots of sites is low -> the almost empty areas stay empty.

My suggestion would be to give the multispec probes a chance lower than 100% of detecting a site. That way more time would need to be invested per system (like 10-15 minutes), encouraging more people to move to the high site density areas.

Am I making sense?

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Originally by: Helison

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These are quite bad news. Sure, a 10/10 should not be very easy to be found, but with 0.208 (and I expect that you are using a char with pretty good skills) this will be very difficult to be found. We can expect to scan for several hours, just for locating this single location. With encounters etc. it will be even more complicated.

Btw: Were you able to check, if the 10/10 plex was unchanged from TQ?

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Originally by: Helison

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As nearly all encounters seem to spam the chatchannels with some nonsense of their commanders: Please restrict the NPC-related messages (during missions, encounters or exploration) to ONE channel (perhaps local).
It is very annoying if 9 channels start to blink, just because you warped into an encounter!

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Originally by: Avrunath

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Originally by: Helison

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As nearly all encounters seem to spam the chatchannels with some nonsense of their commanders: Please restrict the NPC-related messages (during missions, encounters or exploration) to ONE channel (perhaps local).
It is very annoying if 9 channels start to blink, just because you warped into an encounter!

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/signed

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Originally by: Callthetruth

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poked around 0.9 and 0.8 space the spawning at dt will favour UK and aussie palyers over US players ( perhaps having them despawn and respawn randomly every 2 hours would be more acceptible) is it possible to do that CCP instead of the dt farming encouragement thing

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Originally by: William Hamilton

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^Well, it would be nice if the multispectral probe gave us a signal strength for each site it found.

As for the complexes, I'm guessing they will have similar exploration properties to encounters, seeing as they are similar in the fact that they do not escalate.

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Originally by: Hoshi

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Originally by: Callthetruth

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poked around 0.9 and 0.8 space the spawning at dt will favour UK and aussie palyers over US players ( perhaps having them despawn and respawn randomly every 2 hours would be more acceptible) is it possible to do that CCP instead of the dt farming encouragement thing

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It's been said several times, DT have nothing to do with spawning of any exploration content including encounters. And no spawning and respawning randomly every 2h is not acceptable. It would make looking for escalation site and complexes a virtual nightmare.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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The solution I'm playing with in my head right now is changing "Scrap" to "Cosmic Anomalies" or something similar. This would contain all content designed to be found with the onboard scanner (currently just encounters, possibly other stuff in the future that we're not discussing right now). That would mean we can have encounter-level content with different signature types, which won't interfere with exploration-level content.

This will still mean that existing static complexes are mixed in with escalations, but I think that distinction is probably going to become increasingly blurred as time goes on, so trying to demarcate the two will be counter-productive in the long run. It does mean that "going out to find a complex" is going to be difficult, but it also means that people outside the major alliances have more chance of stumbling across one (and probably selling the bookmark on for an outrageous profit in the case of the 10/10s). It changes the current dynamics, but I'm not entirely happy with them anyway so maybe a change is a good thing?

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Originally by: Hoshi

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PenguinJim you will have a slight more clutter in the scan window, that's about it. The encounters have such a huge signal strength there is no way you are going to mistake one for a hacking site. A quest probe of any kind will always get a 0m accuracy result on them.

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Quote:

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We're aware that this will have an impact on the way large alliances in particular are funded; that said, complexes were originally designed as high-end, challenging PvE content with good rewards, and not as alliance-level revenue generators restricted to approved pilots only and run mechanically day after day.

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Quote:

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- Numbers alone do not win a battle
- No, but I bet they help.

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Originally by: Sadist

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Quote:

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We're aware that this will have an impact on the way large alliances in particular are funded; that said, complexes were originally designed as high-end, challenging PvE content with good rewards, and not as alliance-level revenue generators restricted to approved pilots only and run mechanically day after day.

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So pardon my asking, but what's going to replace complexes in terms of profitability and high-end challenging PVE content? Lvl 6 missions to be done with capitals?

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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We're aware that this will have an impact on the way large alliances in particular are funded; that said, complexes were originally designed as high-end, challenging PvE content with good rewards, and not as alliance-level revenue generators restricted to approved pilots only and run mechanically day after day.

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Originally by: Toffles

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Edited by: Toffles on 12/06/2007 19:58:32

Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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We're aware that this will have an impact on the way large alliances in particular are funded; that said, complexes were originally designed as high-end, challenging PvE content with good rewards, and not as alliance-level revenue generators restricted to approved pilots only and run mechanically day after day.

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So you mean like jump bridging titans through trade routes to make 2b a day risk free. Why isn't that being addressed?

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Originally by: Gaogan

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Any chance that while you are at it, you can fix the existing unknown signatures so they are worth a damn? So far it seems like they require 3 hours to find, 3 hours to run with a buddy across multiple systems, and in the end, most of the time you just get some veldspar mining crystals.

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Originally by: Tanis.

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[...] Existing Escalation sites should also have a chance of spawning a Commander at the end of the site [...]
Please keep posts constructive and on topic.

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Originally by: Hail Xenu

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Seriously, every time i go probing then I'll sit there while watching the timer go down wondering why I pay for this game, it's soul crushing. Make it take less time at least. Make some sites drop absolutely nothing if you have to compensate somehow, just please, less trying to narrow down sites for hours. It just isn't fun at all, especially considering the risk/reward(the reward bit hovering around "none" at times)

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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And, as Tanis says, please stay on topic. I'm trying to work out how I can tie jump portals and freighters into an exploration thread, but I'm just not seeing it...

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Originally by: Itzena

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Originally by: Toffles

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Edited by: Toffles on 12/06/2007 19:58:32

Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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We're aware that this will have an impact on the way large alliances in particular are funded; that said, complexes were originally designed as high-end, challenging PvE content with good rewards, and not as alliance-level revenue generators restricted to approved pilots only and run mechanically day after day.

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So you mean like jump bridging titans through trade routes to make 2b a day risk free. Why isn't that being addressed?

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This needs quoting for the new page.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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Originally by: Gaogan

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Any chance that while you are at it, you can fix the existing unknown signatures so they are worth a damn? So far it seems like they require 3 hours to find, 3 hours to run with a buddy across multiple systems, and in the end, most of the time you just get some veldspar mining crystals.

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Would something like this help things out?

Originally by: Tanis.

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[...] Existing Escalation sites should also have a chance of spawning a Commander at the end of the site [...]
Please keep posts constructive and on topic.

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And, as Tanis says, please stay on topic. I'm trying to work out how I can tie jump portals and freighters into an exploration thread, but I'm just not seeing it...

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Originally by: AztecD

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Here you go it ties in with the Alliance Income angle

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Originally by: AztecD

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Here you go it ties in with the Alliance Income angle

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Originally by: Azrael Bierce

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Originally by: Hail Xenu

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Seriously, every time i go probing then I'll sit there while watching the timer go down wondering why I pay for this game, it's soul crushing. Make it take less time at least. Make some sites drop absolutely nothing if you have to compensate somehow, just please, less trying to narrow down sites for hours. It just isn't fun at all, especially considering the risk/reward(the reward bit hovering around "none" at times)

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And I'd like to say if it was only 130 seconds I could find a way to live with it. It's the failing to find a hit 78 times in a row and sitting in the same spot in space for 3 hours that really sucks.

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Originally by: Deva Blackfire

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Originally by: Sadist

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Quote:

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We're aware that this will have an impact on the way large alliances in particular are funded; that said, complexes were originally designed as high-end, challenging PvE content with good rewards, and not as alliance-level revenue generators restricted to approved pilots only and run mechanically day after day.

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So pardon my asking, but what's going to replace complexes in terms of profitability and high-end challenging PVE content? Lvl 6 missions to be done with capitals?

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Um... do you understand that complexes will REMAIN INGAME?
They are only MOVED to exploration. It means you need to have someone scan it before you can run it.

Ah one more thing: please make sure plexes despawn properly after being done (ie: overseer killed), so they dont get farmed.

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Quote:

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- Numbers alone do not win a battle
- No, but I bet they help.

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Originally by: Sadist

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They are removing them completely for at least a month

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Originally by: Sadist

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Originally by: Deva Blackfire

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Um... do you understand that complexes will REMAIN INGAME?
They are only MOVED to exploration. It means you need to have someone scan it before you can run it.

Ah one more thing: please make sure plexes despawn properly after being done (ie: overseer killed), so they dont get farmed.

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They are removing them completely for at least a month, which could potentially take twice as long knowing CCP

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Originally by: Sadist

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, and cutting alliance income for 2 months without any decent alternative to replace it is bad.

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Originally by: Sadist

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Please think before you use your fingers to type some utter nonsense.

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Originally by: Deva Blackfire

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Um... do you understand that complexes will REMAIN INGAME?
They are only MOVED to exploration. It means you need to have someone scan it before you can run it.

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Quote:

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So, enlighten me and tell me why the alliances have the right to have access to an isk printing machine with limited risk and huge rewards? And don't tell me that i can go there and challenge them for the complex! First complexes are PVE content and second you have to be a big alliance yourselve to challange them which means i probably would already have an high end complex in my territory....

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Originally by: Chi Quan

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i confess i only read the first and last page of this thread, could someone sum up a few things? thx
1) how long do the Encounters stay on the map once they have been scaned down?
2) how long do they stay once someone enters them without killing any npc?
3) how long does the encounter stay when all npcs have been eliminated?
4) does any module/rig/ship increase the chance of finding explorations or decrease the scan time ?
5) are there only encounters with npcs shooting, or will there also be encounters which let you mine excusively (i had an npc-shoot one with veld asteroids inside today), or maybe salvage? (yea, some ship graveyard from ancient old time battles)

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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Originally by: Gaogan

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Any chance that while you are at it, you can fix the existing unknown signatures so they are worth a damn? So far it seems like they require 3 hours to find, 3 hours to run with a buddy across multiple systems, and in the end, most of the time you just get some veldspar mining crystals.

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Would something like this help things out?

Originally by: Tanis.

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[...] Existing Escalation sites should also have a chance of spawning a Commander at the end of the site [...]
Please keep posts constructive and on topic.

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Originally by: Tanis.

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[...] Existing Escalation sites should also have a chance of spawning a Commander at the end of the site [...]
Please keep posts constructive and on topic.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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The ratios should be significantly higher than that. I'm not going to go into exact numbers but your 1% estimate is between one and two orders of magnitude off, depending on the site

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Originally by: ShinChan

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Originally by: Tanis.

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[...] Existing Escalation sites should also have a chance of spawning a Commander at the end of the site [...]
Please keep posts constructive and on topic.

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I have completed a few drone escalation plexes and the Sentiend Commander Drone dropped nothing, the wreck was empty. Salvaging it returned in t2 comps, but no loot. Is this intended or loot table has not been finished yet?

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Originally by: Venkul Mul

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A 10% chance for the good sites seem good enough, unless that mean "only in 0.0, in the cosmos and/or NPC regions" or some similar limitation.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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The original plan had two parts:

1) Distribute ALL static complexes across ALL suitable regions. For example, the Serpentis 10/10 has an equal chance of spawning in all systems in Cloud Ring, Fade, Fountain, Outer Ring and Syndicate. (It's a small chance and it's very hard to find on top of that, but it's there)

2) Make special distributions for constellations which already have one (or more) 7/10+ complex, so there's a better chance of finding in that constellation the complex(es) that are already present there pre-Rev2. This is solely so that outposts built in system XZY-123 because there's five 10/10 complexes in there won't suddenly find their 30bn investment is useless.

2) has been removed for exploitability reasons. 1) is still going in. The old statics will still be present and findable in-game from day 1 of Revelations 2. I hope that removes any residual confusion.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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Originally by: Venkul Mul

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A 10% chance for the good sites seem good enough, unless that mean "only in 0.0, in the cosmos and/or NPC regions" or some similar limitation.

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10% is lowball for some of the sites, and this applies to all sites from 1.0 downwards - but the lower the security, the bigger and better the Commander

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Originally by: Venkul Mul

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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Originally by: Venkul Mul

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A 10% chance for the good sites seem good enough, unless that mean "only in 0.0, in the cosmos and/or NPC regions" or some similar limitation.

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10% is lowball for some of the sites, and this applies to all sites from 1.0 downwards - but the lower the security, the bigger and better the Commander

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Seem the perfect balance better rewards in lower security levels, but something decent even in high sec.

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Originally by: Hoshi

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Originally by: Chi Quan

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4) does any module/rig/ship increase the chance of finding explorations or decrease the scan time ?

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4) No.

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Originally by: Avrunath

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Originally by: Hoshi

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Originally by: Chi Quan

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4) does any module/rig/ship increase the chance of finding explorations or decrease the scan time ?

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4) No.

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Of course there is a Rig that decreases scanning time! Im sure Hoshi overread that

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Originally by: Alski

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Originally by: Avrunath

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Originally by: Hoshi

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Originally by: Chi Quan

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4) does any module/rig/ship increase the chance of finding explorations or decrease the scan time ?

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4) No.

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Of course there is a Rig that decreases scanning time! Im sure Hoshi overread that

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Gravity Capacitor Upgrade (rig) decreases scan time by 10%.

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Originally by: Callthetruth

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considering the fact high sec exploration atm is worthless ( unless youre on right after dt hence the 2 hour respawn-despawn suggestion it works for belt rats )

3% commander spawn possible in high sec maybe even 1.5%

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Originally by: Hail Xenu

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Edited by: Hail Xenu on 12/06/2007 21:27:04
You know, exploration was kinda neat in the beginning, but if you guys want us to sit on our butts for 130 seconds every time we want to initiate warp then you are definitely wrong in thinking that isn't the worst gameplay decision you have ever made.

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Originally by: Hoshi

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Either me or you misunderstood his question, I was assuming it related to the new built in scanner, there is no skills or mods that effect it.

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Originally by: Hoshi

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Originally by: Callthetruth

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considering the fact high sec exploration atm is worthless ( unless youre on right after dt hence the 2 hour respawn-despawn suggestion it works for belt rats )

3% commander spawn possible in high sec maybe even 1.5%

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As been said I don't know how many times now both by players and dev. Downtime have NO effect what so ever on the spawning and despawning of exploration sites.

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Originally by: Avrunath

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Originally by: Hoshi

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Originally by: Callthetruth

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considering the fact high sec exploration atm is worthless ( unless youre on right after dt hence the 2 hour respawn-despawn suggestion it works for belt rats )

3% commander spawn possible in high sec maybe even 1.5%

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As been said I don't know how many times now both by players and dev. Downtime have NO effect what so ever on the spawning and despawning of exploration sites.

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I think he means that if you do it right after dt you had 1 hour where nobody could go for scanning so dt effects it in a way.

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Originally by: Seramyr l'Ethia

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Apologies for the brief derail, but when I last checked SiSi it wasn't implemented and I'm unable to check the latest verison (stupid travel, stupid onboard video card). Has the full range of exploration sites been seeded into the drone regions yet, to be deployed along with Kali2 this tuesday?

I see no mention of it in the patchnotes, despite it having been horribly broken for quite a while now.

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Originally by: Helison

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As far as I can remember, there will be no Radar or Magnetometric Sites in drone space.

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Originally by: Alski

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[stuff]

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Originally by: Black Atom

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Edited by: Black Atom on 15/06/2007 04:30:17
Angel Provincial Headquarters

Super fun encounter, please please remove like 50% of the structures. It brings most people PC's to a crawl :P

Also the text for the guardians are confusing, they say you have made them angry by shooting them ( we didn't) the spawns are timed and seem come in ramdonly.

Props to this one though, fun times.

Edit: Actually please tone down the third part of the escalation.. it killed a passive tanked drake before he could load.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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The original plan had two parts:

1) Distribute ALL static complexes across ALL suitable regions. For example, the Serpentis 10/10 has an equal chance of spawning in all systems in Cloud Ring, Fade, Fountain, Outer Ring and Syndicate. (It's a small chance and it's very hard to find on top of that, but it's there)

2) Make special distributions for constellations which already have one (or more) 7/10+ complex, so there's a better chance of finding in that constellation the complex(es) that are already present there pre-Rev2. This is solely so that outposts built in system XZY-123 because there's five 10/10 complexes in there won't suddenly find their 30bn investment is useless.

2) has been removed for exploitability reasons. 1) is still going in. The old statics will still be present and findable in-game from day 1 of Revelations 2. I hope that removes any residual confusion.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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The original plan had two parts:

1) Distribute ALL static complexes across ALL suitable regions. For example, the Serpentis 10/10 has an equal chance of spawning in all systems in Cloud Ring, Fade, Fountain, Outer Ring and Syndicate. (It's a small chance and it's very hard to find on top of that, but it's there)

2) Make special distributions for constellations which already have one (or more) 7/10+ complex, so there's a better chance of finding in that constellation the complex(es) that are already present there pre-Rev2. This is solely so that outposts built in system XZY-123 because there's five 10/10 complexes in there won't suddenly find their 30bn investment is useless.

2) has been removed for exploitability reasons. 1) is still going in. The old statics will still be present and findable in-game from day 1 of Revelations 2. I hope that removes any residual confusion.

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Originally by: Smel Ly

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TWD I believe those are cosmos 10/10 complexes (I believe these are on TQ atm as well, atleast I know of 1 cosmos 10/10 in Vale of the silent on TQ) and not ordinary DED ones like the ones currently still on TQ.

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Originally by: Seramyr l'Ethia

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Originally by: Helison

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As far as I can remember, there will be no Radar or Magnetometric Sites in drone space.

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Those aren't the only two broken. Unknowns can't be triangulated after registering on a multispec, etc.

Also, do you have a source for that statement?

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Originally by: Black Atom

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Actually it kept escalating, had to bring in a carrier to tank it. All of the groups are agressing at the same time making anything less than a carrier a waste. Though the escalation path does seem to accomodate this.

Yes it does allow for capitals this may be intentional, but anything short of a carrier tanking and you might as well not go.

Also as a bug report it's impossible to gang warp to escalations. Please fix this :(

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Originally by: TWD

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On SISI, there are 2 10/10 complexes left under 'DED deadspace report'... but are new complexes in new locations. Is this final before the rev2 patch?

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Originally by: Smel Ly

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So basically with 2) going out the window, what's CCP intention? That people find maybe 1 x a 10/10 in a week or something. Or what is the goal here? Or is there something else that might give away slightly where to look, I mean 5 regions is just a ridiculous amount of systems..

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Originally by: Che Guevaro

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Please could you explain once more. For example there was lets say 10 6\10 blood raiders static complexes. couple in Aridia region others in Delve. Will those plexes randomly spawn somewhere in this regions? Or spawn across Amarr Empire or blood raiders region everywhere? And is there exactly 10 plexes per day spawned or number is random too? Is there good chance to find them in constellation they was before rev2?

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Originally by: Stellar Vix

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Is COMOS under consideration for the same sort of treatment for the the normal plexes are im sure some real scientist would love for this to be implimented as well.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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These are both COSMOS sites, which we're not messing around with right now

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Originally by: Hoshi

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Originally by: Che Guevaro

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Please could you explain once more. For example there was lets say 10 6\10 blood raiders static complexes. couple in Aridia region others in Delve. Will those plexes randomly spawn somewhere in this regions? Or spawn across Amarr Empire or blood raiders region everywhere? And is there exactly 10 plexes per day spawned or number is random too? Is there good chance to find them in constellation they was before rev2?

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They will only spawn in 0.0 blood raiders regions.

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Originally by: Che Guevaro

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Originally by: Hoshi

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Originally by: Che Guevaro

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Please could you explain once more. For example there was lets say 10 6\10 blood raiders static complexes. couple in Aridia region others in Delve. Will those plexes randomly spawn somewhere in this regions? Or spawn across Amarr Empire or blood raiders region everywhere? And is there exactly 10 plexes per day spawned or number is random too? Is there good chance to find them in constellation they was before rev2?

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They will only spawn in 0.0 blood raiders regions.

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So does it mean that BOB have monopoly for A-Type membranes and reppers now?

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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Originally by: Sadist

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They are removing them completely for at least a month

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No we're not.

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Quote:

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- Numbers alone do not win a battle
- No, but I bet they help.

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Originally by: Draahk Chimera

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Uhm I tested the onboard scanner a little in my home in Geminate, Guristas space. Here's the result: k25: no hits. U-L: 3 hits at first planet all 3 drones, then no more. D-I: 2 hits at last planet, both drones. So where is the dread guristas, the officers in chimeras and the 2 8/10 plexes we had in Geminate? Will 100% hits be drones in the live verion also?

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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I'm toying with increasing pirate spawns and decreasing drone spawns in the near future, but that's not an immediate priority.

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Originally by: CCP Greyscale

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The original plan had two parts:

1) Distribute ALL static complexes across ALL suitable regions. For example, the Serpentis 10/10 has an equal chance of spawning in all systems in Cloud Ring, Fade, Fountain, Outer Ring and Syndicate. (It's a small chance and it's very hard to find on top of that, but it's there)

2) Make special distributions for constellations which already have one (or more) 7/10+ complex, so there's a better chance of finding in that constellation the complex(es) that are already present there pre-Rev2. This is solely so that outposts built in system XZY-123 because there's five 10/10 complexes in there won't suddenly find their 30bn investment is useless.

2) has been removed for exploitability reasons. 1) is still going in. The old statics will still be present and findable in-game from day 1 of Revelations 2. I hope that removes any residual confusion.

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Originally by: CCP Wrangler

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EVE isn't designed to just look like a cold, dark and harsh world, it's designed to be a cold, dark and harsh world.

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Originally by: Kerfira

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TBH, I think you should just stick with option 1) for all complexes. Whenever you make something static or predictable, you open up for exploitation (as can be seen with all the current high-end complexes).

If all complexes are converted to exploration sites, and they have equal chance of appearing in any system in the suitable regions for that faction, you reward people who're willing to WORK for the chance to do the complex, not the people who are able to blob the complex the most when respawning.
You're also opening up this part of EVE gameplay to ALL players, not just the few from the big alliances who currently farm them.

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Originally by: Sunaria

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basicly do 6 to 8 Quest probe scans if you don't find a below 0 sig str unknw give up and move to another system. Best you can do atm

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Originally by: Deva Blackfire

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Commander spawn in the end (dread guristas etc) with loot.

Ah one more thing. Can you change exploration NPCs to belt NPC types? Ie: change Centi to Sansha? Belt rats have tad higher bounties...

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Originally by: Moonaru Izu

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anyone else running into encounters on TQ that have not despawned?
I found two already it looks like. There is nothing left except large collidable object.
No NPC's and nothing does spawn/trigger

seems not quite right..

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Originally by: Freaky Bare

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What am I doing wrong? After repeated failure with my Tempest's on-board scanner I switched to my CovOps. I checked 4 systems and found 1 sig with a multi-spec. It was a cool little Guristas site - me and a friend made 15 mill combined in bounties with a total of 4 spawns. Loot was crap - but it usually is in 0.0. BTW - I found the site with the mult-spec, then an alliance mate in system said 'hey if you want a site try planet 8 moon 4.' He found it while ratting.

My question is - where are all these sites? I thought I was supposed to fly to a planet, scan a time or 2 and quite possibly find a sig. I now think that I will simply rat and scan a bit as I go. Thats fine - but if I wanted to rat belts I would be doing that. I want exploration to be worth a bit more than ratting.

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