DSCAN Skills?

Communications Center Skill Discussion
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For those of use who spend an extended amount of time with DSCAN I was wondering if CCP might not be amenable to making some trainable support skills for it:

Directional Scan Fidelity - give finer increments for range
Directional Scan Range - give greater AU range (5 au per level?)
Direction Scan Acquisition - give finer than 5 degree cone for long range pinpointing

14 AU is a useful range, but there are quite a few planetary clusters that make DSCAN a little harder to use. I’d be willing to train up to use it better.

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I’m not going to claim to be an expert on D-scan; but, I do live in wormholes which means I literally live by, kill by, and die by D-scan…

You can control the increments by kilometers just by clicking on the AU/km button and manually typing in the distance you want. Sure, a few more spots on the bar would be nice… but you already have pretty fine increment control.

Fastest ship warp is 8 AU per second and that’s interceptors. You can D-scan about once every 2 seconds. I’ll admit that’s a one scan window before the interceptor appears on-grid, but we are talking about an interceptor here… they should be hard to see before they are on top of you; that’s the one of the points of them.

Seriously? If I have someone scanned down within the 5 degree cone, I pretty much know where they are. If I’m in a ship with combat probes, they better hope they move because I’m going to get them in one scan if I have them in the 5 degree cone.

I’m not going to say your idea is bad; however, I’d like to know what this adds to the game. Why should we want this? What does this help to do to increase content or improve the game? Adding skills for the sake of adding skills isn’t good game design.

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Mostly I agree with Phelan, although if these skills let you warp to wrecks I’d be up for it. Maybe dscan from 2 or 3 different points would let you triangulate and give you a warp in when pinpointed.

I know you can mess with warping between celestials and dropping BMs but its a pain, being able to map out wrecks would be nice. However, I’m not saying it should be easy, just possible with a bit of dscan fu.

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Actually there are ships much faster than this. With poor skills my Pacifier gets over 10au/s and that’s before considering Ascendancy implants.

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Fair point. And yeah, a Pacifier can probably get to the point where you can warp more than 12 AU in a second; however, Pacifiers are an expensive ship (131 million ISK buy price in Jita right now)… that’s a lot of ISK and frankly it should be special because of it.

However, you are correct, I was wrong.

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This would mean that ‘being out of DScan range’ is not a given at 14.3 AU, but depends on the skills of the other player… I’m not sure if this would make gameplay more interesting.

About the other skills: I don’t see what they would add to the game. I never need finer increments for range or a finer cone.

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The pacifier is a great ship for doing those 35 jump journeys if you don’t need to do them in something else. Its warp acceleration and deceleration alone will cut minutes off your journey time.

But yeah, not an inexpensive hull.

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Yep my pacifier hits 17 AU before implants and I also need one more skill level cause I’m at lvl 4 covert ops. So add another 10% au on top of that once I’m level 5. Then once I put implants in him it should be in the mid 20’s at least. Also has the agility of an interceptor. Its just not immune to warp bubbles. I guess you can’t have it all. Probably the best tackler if you know how to use it and build it properly.

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Hey guys,

I appreciate the feed back. It’s why I ask questions on the forums.

I’m aware of the interceptors need for speed, but the reason for the wanting a true 1 degree pin point is less about dealing with a ships speed so much as being able to determine precisely where in a planetary cluster they are.

I’m doing FW at the moment, and when sites pop up within a planetary cluster with many moons and asteroids dscan tends to be a little less precise.

I didn’t know I could set the range manually. But, I would still like more range, to force people to engage. If I can scan you down, or determine you’re in what would have normally been a “safe” and be able to start my triangulation to see if I can’t time a bookmark on your position to continually hone in on you - that’s the aim. Probes make people run, but you don’t know if you’re being Dscanned.

And who ever said if you get 3 positive scans on a high precision scan like 5 degrees… I looooooooooove that Idea. That is the kind of feedback that is super awesome. Thanks for that.

Honestly, that skill alone would be sooooooooooooo awesome.

Another thing that pops into mind is if you can get a ship down to 5 degrees, I’d love it if the DSCAN would give you the ships sig, and have a built in signature log so you can keep track of who’s in what, pass sig info to your probe scan guy if you’ve got one.

Now I’m drooling about the idea of being able to triangulate people on DSCAN. Yberta Molk - genius… really an insightful comment, and thank you for that.

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No, absolutely not.

DScan should always be an equal level from entry to end of the game because it so critical in all aspects of the game. Giving someone more DScan range or fine tuning would be a legit method of screwing over everyone. Adding DScan skills would essentially be a “train before everything else” level of importance.

Let’s retain the Magic 14 as the only “be-all” skills please.

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We’re of different mindsets here. I suppose some things don’t need changing, but I’m still not all onboard with you.

This idea of a Triangulation skill has my mind deeeeeeeeeeeeply engaged.

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No one was talking about an interceptors speed against 1 degree of pin point, that was a discussion about range.

Seriously, if I get you down to 5%, I will get you with one scan of combat probes. If you have good scanning skills, that’s all it takes. And by good, I mean 4 in Astrometrics, 3 in Acquisition, Pinpointing, and Rangefinding… its not that long of a train.

Respectfully, then you’re doing it wrong. There are a few ways to do it. But I’ll give you one way. Drop combat probes… immediately move them as far from the system as possible on the probe scanning screen and then scan. This is just to move the probes off D-scan.

Next, D-scan down the ship. You can do range or narrowing degree first… people will argue over which is better. Figure it out yourself. Once you have it down to 5 degrees and you have them at the very end of your D-scan range, you move the combat probes to that location with a small scanning area and tight cluster. Active the probe scan. As soon as it finished, pull your combat probes back in.

I’m still learning to get better at this, but I know members of my corp who get their prey about 50% of the time with this method.

Yep, let’s completely remove the need of combat probes from the game. Let’s make combat probes like the Noctis and other items that have pretty much been abandoned due to new additions to the game.

Drool all you want… do you know how much code writing it would take to add this feature? I’m not saying it will never happen (Never say never); but, well… I just don’t see this happening, ever.

Seriously, learn to use the tools that are already in the game to do what you want to do. They are already there, you just need to learn to use them. Also, as for combat probes causing people to disappear… if you’re not in wormhole space, a lot of times people will disappear just because you appeared on local and you’re not blued to them.

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Respectfully - I’m not a novice at the game. I know an appalling amount of people say that on the forums. I will always have a humble spirit about the game, but I’m no roomie. That said, I do in fact know how to use probe scanning. It’s just incredibly time consuming. I am only advocating for a more streamlined method of game play similar in methodology to the way a fighter pilot uses HOTAS to operate their radar, locate a target, and engage an enemy - that’s it.

The F-14 required a second man to handle the radar and weapons. Communication problems between planes, the planes crew, and flight command on the carrier were horrible. Pilot and RIO trying to get on the same page between themselves and their wingman/rest of the people in the sky - absolutely heinous time.

The F-15 was a huge improvement because you could manipulate certain functions on the radar to acquire a target, lock, and engage, while flying with your eyes on the sky and your "hands on the throttle and stick’, (H.O.T.A.S).

I’m really excited about not having to fiddle with a bunch of windows and buttons and right click menus to get the task done. I’ve still got a battle to fight, and information to communicate. I really don’t want an F-14 level of workload, no co-pilot, or the communication gaggle-F**K in Comms.

So with this in view it’s my oppinion that not everything ever put into EVE should stay. Somethings have been pulled. Recall how Drones have been significantly paired back. Back in the day you could launch every drone you could carry. Recall how smart bombs have been dumbed down. Blasters have been taken for the tiericide waltz several times now. Do you remember mines in space? Gone.

EVE’s memory lane has a surprising number of skeletal remains to it’s credit. A fair number of my corpses generated by them as well lol =)

Point is, the noctis is the least of Eve’s concerns, and probes are not uniformly a particularly useful way of dealing with every scenario - and by no means are required to be the only way of doing a specific thing.

Triangulation requires piloting, probing requires window feng shui that not everyone may have space for in terms of screen real-estate due to eyesight issues or budget for screen size. Sometimes you haven’t got space for more than one monitor. I mean I just made the commitment to using two monitors, and it’s still not as easy as I had believe it would be. Anyway, fewer windows up in the client means that the UI scaling is a little more forgiving to a user with glasses and generates less eye fatigue and such. More monitors means relearning the clients options, and mouse accuracy - not huge concerns, but still things to sort out.

Regarding code… I can’t claim great knowledge there - perhaps you’re right. Not going to get into that.

Again - I just think that we’re a little far apart. I really do appreciate your cross examination though. It’s always valuable to have something to chew on. I don’t want EVE to lose it’s challenge, but I definitely don’t’ want a PHD in EVE online to have fun with it either.

Oh, and by the way, I think you have an impressive corp history! Moria is in fact one of the few corps that has automatic street cred in my view. Well done.

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14.3 AU is 2^32-1 (iirc) and that is why it’s maxed out at that iirc

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Not playing with you - I don’t follow. I know what the current max range is, but how does your statement explain why. I feel like I missed something in your reasoning.

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Yep. I knew how to do probe scanning too. And several of my current corp mates have shown me ways to improve at it… including reducing the chances of getting your combat probes seen.

At this point, I need to laugh. I’ve tried to be constructive here; but, umm… doing d-scan down to 5 degrees with range is going to take a lot more time than doing it once and tossing combat probes. So no, you’re not streamlining.

Also, I don’t care about how fighters work. Eve has some real life physics to it, but its not anywhere near real life… just look at missiles with an explosion radius, but only hit one target…

Okay, how does this relate to what you’re talking about. You’re wanting to add more, not remove…

Nope… but you just want to have a new, more complex way of doing what combat probes already do.

no, it doesn’t require any more piloting than warping to nearby locations to D scan down again.

As for you argument over screen real estate… my wife belongs to a wormhole corp and thus does a lot of scanning on her laptop. HTFU.

Its hard enough to teach people how to scan down sites and wormholes in this game… teaching triangulation would be even more complex and require more advances training and thus would be more PhD level than the current system.

I come back to my original questions: Why should we want this? What does this help to do to increase content or improve the game?

Because the answers I’m getting are this:

Why? Because I don’t like using combat probes…

What does this add or improve in the game? Nothing…

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Because it means I don’t need a module to perform that task. It means I have to dscan someone three times and then I can warp to them.

What does this improve? Situational awareness for one. Pilot competence for a second. Thirdly, simplifies the tools of the trade.

Don’t have to remember to pull your drones in either.

Would also make combat recon vessels a little more attractive to fly, because they don’t show up on Dscan =)

Lots of interesting ideas can rattle outta this pretty easily. Some of them are actually pretty useful too.

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Interesting, I never knew this. (I suppose you mean 2^31-1 ?)

The number 2,147,483,647 is the maximum positive value for a 32-bit signed binary integer in computing.

There’s 149,597,871 kilometers per AU. If you divide those you get 14.36, which may indeed be why CCP originally chose to have a maximum of 14.3 AU for Dscan. That doesn’t say it cannot be changed, but it could require a lot of work.

Back on topic of the Dscan skills:
In my opinion Dscan is eyes of a ship, and it’s importance on level with the overview. We don’t want new players to be required to invest in skills for a better overview, for example to see more tabs or more accurate velocities. Neither do I want new players to be required to first train Dscan skills for a month, then you can play like the rest of us.

In the rookie chat channel we tell newbies to grab a T1 exploration frigate and explore for ISK, because exploration has low skill requirements. With the addition of DScan skills, their deaths in wormholes wouldn’t only because of a lack of player skill (and a cloak), but also of a lack of crucial Dscan skills.

I don’t see the game become better or more fun with Dscan skills. I do see a bigger threshold for new players that have yet another mandatory train ahead of them.

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This is really interesting to me because EVE’s history is full of exactly this. But I agree with you, I think less of that is a better thing. I remember the day I could finally load Void S into anything. I felt as though now I could win. Turns out that was a very ambivalent perspective, and I quickly learned lol.

The caveat however is skill injectors. Grudgingly, it can’t be ignored, and I personally hate them. But, I can’t deny that the truth is they are in place very specifically to take money from the impatient and grant them what you and I had to be patient, and pay for. This alpha clone business and their skill injectors … Well, there’s that conversation to just leave alone now isn’t there lol.

I see you, I hear you, and I kind of agree - but I’d still like more options. I’m a greedy man.

Also, thanks for the background on the binary thing. I’m running a 64 bit system theses days, or so says windows (no clue what changes from 32 to 64, but the latest install of windows 10 says 64 bit everywhere). I didn’t realize EVE was still in 32. Very interesting information to dig into a little more.

Party on =)

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Not really. Situational awareness is just paying attention to your D-scan. If you aren’t in J-space, it’s knowing who is a threat in system via local.

You just said this:

Which way is it… because you’re adding a lot more skill and education to be a competent pilot.

Again, triangulation isn’t simpler than combat probes.

This is the most honest answer you’ve given. My response: in Eve you have to make choices about what your ship can and cannot do. If you want to scan down enemy ships, you have to be willing to give up something…

You literally talked about pilot competency levels and you’re going to talk about forgetting to pull in your drones/probes. Thank you for admitting you have a competency issue.

People already ■■■■■ semi-regularly about how OP combat recons are because they don’t appear on D-scan… rolls eyes and because of how Tri-ships work, I’ll tell you now that the Curse is a great ship even if you don’t make it neut sniper fit. And the Lachesis’s ability to scram from such long distances makes it pretty good to.

Not really. Its an idea that’s going to be a lot of time to code and be less efficient than combat probes. Sure, it helps with people who aren’t competent with combat probes, but all I will say is to learn how to be better with them.

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