Deep Space Exploration and Salvaging

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1

Something that has always made me wonder about this “space” game is how hard it is to get around in most of the “space”.

And we see pirate strongholds and mission sites out in the middle of nowhere in spots that could not even be bookmarked midwarp between two warpable points. How is that explained? I want to fill in that gap and also perhaps shore up some of the EVE lore in the process.

My idea is for a specialized ship that is sub-warp only but very fast, though less than warp. Details can be worked out later, but other than being fast subwarp, it would be very primitive, with nothing or nothing much in way of offense or defense. I was thinking it could basically be very old, outdated technology with fringe uses in modern EVE times…like a crossbow in this is age of automatic firearms.

The main purpose would be for locating loot dumps/ wrecks utilizing nothing but D-scan. So you still cannot probe scan down wrecks directly, but you could hone in on them with d-scan and get to them before they disappear, providing they are in range and you have the IRL skills with dscan.

With sub warp speeds that fast I suppose other uses, ship mechanics and perhaps even exploits/issues may be found. My questons to you are as follows:

  1. Would you like to see a ship that can be used to find valuable wrecks in deep space?
  2. Would this speedy ship and ability to travel to otherwise unreachable places add content to the game? How?
  3. What would be the properties of such a ship? Its vulnerabilites would be of special interest.
  4. What other uses could such a ship be used for?
  5. In what ways, if any, could such a ship be used to damage current norms and playstyles of EVE Online? And is it possible to explain without being a whingebag about it? Do your best!

As someone who has seen valuable wrecks vanish just a few AU from my position, I would really like to see a way to get that loot while adding content yet not causing a gold rush.

2

Increasing salvage materials supply might negatively influence salvage markets and relic exploration professions.

You cant probe wrecks, but you can probe mission runners in and around highsec lvl 4 mission hubs. Ninja salvaging is a fun profession. Some risk might be involved with blitzed unfinished rooms, makes it more edgy, more fun.

Desire to salvage empty wreck pockets might be perceived as risk aversion. Zero risk should mean zero reward.

3

I never said these ships could not be combat probed.

I also never said their acceleration would be unmatched, only their (top) speed.

I did say they would be primitive with limited to no defenses or offenses. The risk is inherent and it can be increased or decreased depending on how the idea is implemented.

It might affect salvage markets. Or this might only attract current salvagers leading to no increase in that market.

Relic exploration though? Not in my mind. This would be dead slow getting to relic sites compared to probing and warping.

What would be guaranteed though is a bit less loss of high meta modules left by top end mission ships.

Its such a toss up though. If there is anything left means latching on to the right mission runner and following that person around…or finding a new one with so much time lost.

What I am proposing is: you know full well there is loot to be had, but you have to calculate if you can make it there in time and its your skills that get you rich rather than the luck of drawing the right player from a hat.

4

Bumping says hello. Ships moving very fast also has negative impact on EVE’s physics engine.
I also don’t think you get how fast warping is, and how long it would take to get anywhere in a system at sublight speeds.

5

The scale difference between subwarp and warp speed is massive. EVE isn’t made for speeds somewhere between.

I don’t think you are aware just how big astronomical distances are.

A couple numbers:
1 AU = 1.5×10^8 km
Grid in EVE 8000 km, or 8×10^3 km
Small solar system distance across = 10 AU

Taking acceleration to a couple AU/s max warp speed and decelleration into account, ships can traverse this system in warp in the order of 10 seconds.

Now take an example incredibly fast ship that can traverse this system in subwarp speed, from one downtime to another, so in 24 hours. This ship needs to go a little over 17000km/s.

For your purpose of reaching locations in space in sub warp, a velocity like this is too slow (an entire day to travel somewhere, madness!), so they would need to be much higher to get you anywhere.

But if you had paid attention, this ship is already going fast enough to traverse two entire EVE grids of 8000km across per second.

“Were you just mining in a belt? Sorry I just bumped you into the sun. Sorry I couldn’t avoid you as I was two grids away in the previous server tick and didn’t see you, nor the belt.”

I hope you understand after seeing these numbers, that there is no reasonable gameplay option in between subwarp and warp speeds. It would break the game.

EVE has three types of distances:

  • on-grid distances, in the order of tens of km to thousands of km
  • distances within solar systems, in the order of less than an AU to hundreds of AU.
  • distances within regions, in the order of light years (1 light year = 9.5×10^12 km)

For each of these completely different magnitudes of distance, different methods of travel are used.

  • Burning, (with AB or MWD) on grid (and sometimes warping short distances or MJD)
  • Warping, within the system
  • Jumping, (with gates or jump drives) between systems

You could put a new form of travel somewhere between those, but the game simply isn’t made for it. The distances are too big and the grids too small to have something in between burning and warping to reach locations within a system.

1 Like
6

Have you tried using your warp drive, dscan and bookmarks?

If you can draw lines between all objects and anomalies in your system and the thing on your dscan is within those lines, you can get there with your warp drive in much less time than burning would take you. Create bookmarks all around the object and warp from one to the other while dropping new bookmarks to close in.

7

Its a bit amusing having you lecture me on astronomical distances, and then posit these astronomically improbable ifs. Its not a workable way to find wrecks. Your odds would be better of being struck by llighting while trying.

I am not sure what you mean by this. We used to be able to bounce off the sun and travel at in-between speeds. I think EVE can handle it.

And? What do these numbers mean to me? The ship can go as fast as it needs to to be a viable way to get to wrecks that are within a certain common proximity to warpable objects. I don’t care the number generated.

But if such sustained speeds are a concern other methods could be found and even other explanations. For example, rather than be old tech, it could be new tech that allows people to warp to nowhere with distances from, say 10, 000 km to 1 AU. Or perhaps warp to one of your own probes, cause they don’t seem to have any trouble going whereever almost instantaneously.

The numbers can also be expressed differently.

8

I am not sure what that means. Will it cause a crash?

I don’t remember saying “sub-light”. I said “sub-warp” and its not the same thing.

But did you never find it odd that we cannot slow down the warp speed of ships? Its pretty odd that some ships warp faster than others, we add rigs and mods to increase the speed, fleet warp will slow all ships to the slowest ship’s warp speed, but it is otherwise not adjustable, unlike usual sub-warp speeds.

A ship that was adjustable would be very interesting to play with.

9

If a ship moves fast enough, it starts jumping in steps across the grid rather than smoothly flying between points, this has bad effects on collision detection.

Given that Warp is how we go Faster than light, Sub Warp is a direct implication of Sub light speeds. Especially since you want it to be controllable. There is no situation I can think of deliberately slowing down a ships warp speed would be sensible that doesn’t already happen.

10

Ehh… this isn’t about odds or chance. You have a directional scanner and know exactly in which direction to warp to get closer to your object.

Maybe I didn’t explain it very well, but this is a valid way to get to any point in a system, as long as it is within the volume created by connecting all lines connecting objects within the system.

Warping in space

As long as your object is within warpable space, you can get there by using your Dscan to see in which direction to warp and creating bookmarks until you’re on grid with the target.

That number is your minimum velocity to fly across a small solar system of 10 AU within 24 hours. It’s 10 AU divided by 24 hours.

It’s just an example number, to show it’s far too slow to reach anything in a solar system within a reasonable time and is at the same time far too fast to do anything reasonable on grid as it flies multiple grids per second.

EVE can handle it. It just can’t offer gameplay for it.

Gameplay takes place on grids. You can warp from one grid to another to continue playing there.

What you’re suggesting is a way to burn for hours from one grid to another in a ship that’s going faster than one grid can offer you for gameplay. You would enter a grid (size: 8000 km) one tick, and be two grids further the next tick.

EVE isn’t made for that. And it will still not be fun to burn at sub-warp speeds to find your wrecks at these velocities, as it still takes you hours to reach wherever you want to go.

11

My understanding is that warp speeds are ridiculously faster than light. So much so they are only put in the same sentence for comparison…except in some sci-fi material…which is all totally inconsistent I admit. We can interpret this however we like.

But I don’t have a problem with sub-warp being sometimes faster than light. I don’t have a problem with multiples of light speed being used if necessary. Its not like it would be the worst example of EVE breaking physics.

That is interesting information. I guess on the software side it would have to operate the same as a warp tunnel to avoid such issues. As I have passed through mission sites at warp speed and got the full overview on that grid, I think that would be workable. Collisions off would be unfortunate though. I wanted them to blow up for hitting stuff on occaison. :smiling_imp:

12

I recommend trying it. The core trouble with your 2D representation is that its, well, 2D.

13

1au/s = 499c

It kinda would. But eh… Yeah also the game engine could not handle FTL without warp mechanics.

14

That fine. Use them without the warp cinematrics.

15

At which point it is warp, so it won’t do what you want and there is no point?

16

If its so much slower than all current warps then its not really warp by the lore and can be called something else for gaming purposes. It will also be visually different.

The point would remain…align vaguely toward wrecks…travel toward said wreck…adjust until you get on grid with said wreck…???..profit.

17

I hope it’s not hard to extrapolate from a 2D surface to a 3D volume. But the principle is exactly the same.

Also I’ve tried it.

18

Which,… is not how current warp works
And either you travel so fast you skip across multiple grids in a tick and stopping on the right one would be pure luck, or you travel so slow you’ll never get anywhere in time

19

I am not sure if that’s an in or out of game mechanic. Regardless, I covered ways to get around it if its out of game programming mechanics.

You can still bookmark. Also I did say speed would be adjustable, its only a question if that can be done in the middle of the super speedy travel or before only.

20

Again, blind luck to get a particular grid.