Cpt Branko
Surge.
NIght's Dawn
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Posted - 2008.05.19 13:24:00 -
[1]
While I like the idea of removing local chat as a information tool (people appearing whenever they enter system), it'd leave us with no functioning information tools at all.
Currently you've got the on-board scanner which, in addition to local (and knowledge of the system as well, so you can determine possed/AFK ships) provides you information about what's in system and your immediate surroundings. Even then, correct intel requires a bit of knowledge and guesswork since you have no precise way of determining who is flying what.
Particularly when people are flying covert ops cloaking device ships.
Just removing local would leave everyone in the dark, which is not such a awesome idea. A pirate killing for profit relies on target selection and avoiding blobs. Wars rely on being able to fairly quickly determine wether there are any targets in system - without local, you would literally never find your targets in high-sec without extensive station camping. It makes it impossible to spot the so popular bait/gank traps and such, and target selection is much harder to do.
The issue is that the directional scanner sucks. It tells you ship type and name (and can be used to figure out direction/distance) - but with a ton of ships around and a lot of possed/etc ships plus ships with cloaks, it's extremely hard to get a clear image of what's going on in system. Plus, the most annoying thing ever, you have to spam the scan button.
To prevent people from being totally blind to their surroundings, a scanner 'fix' would be necessary, preety much like this:
(1) Implementing a "pilot" tab in the scanner, so you know who's in what ship and who is red / who isn't. Without this, wars are next to impossible, particularly in high-sec.
(2) Auto-updating the scanner, so people don't have to spam the scan button - if you open the scanner, it 'pings' every 1-2 (or up to 5, doesn't have to be instantenous) seconds and refreshes the results.
Obviously, cloaked ships wouldn't appear on scanner directly, but *some* way of detecting that there are cloaked ships nearby would be nice, otherwise we're going to see a massive poliferation of recon blobs (which are already frequent for bait/gank traps, and all the cool people have a falcon alt).
Perhaps seeing 'unidentified signature' on scanner without pilot/etc information for covops cloaks at a 5AU range so you have some warning of cloaked ships without precise information, and said ships can scout from a bit farther away undetected, and at full range for non-covops cloak ships (except stealth bombers). Before you say anything about covops cloaks - this would still be a huge boost for cloaking ships as the player names would not be visible on scanner anymore. As someone with about 20-ish falcon alts/pilots set to red and therefore immediately aware of their presence in local, it will only make it harder for me to spot them, not easier.
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