Filament chase, so we constructed an idea that we wanted to be able to chase the small gang PVPers that fila into and out of Null space, with the tracer lasting long enough to find it or warp to it and then allow other members to follow the tracer using a filament in there own cargo.
Once the fila is used its scannable to allow the chasing groups a chance to get on top of the needle-jack tracer.
Solution#1 could be Tier 1 scannable object to allow easy scannability.
Solution#2 show up on overview like a cyno style warp able object.
Once to tracer is used by Group B (or pursing team) make sure it is consumed once the 5 people following have gone in.
What we are allowing the go into the tracer. ( amount on tracer ) discussed some but might need more.
This would mean reworking all the fleet formation issues. (solution is for discussion) So if the original tracer is a 5 Signal then the next ship to follow it would use a 5 Signal from there own cargo and also the team would be restricted to 5 members.
Once the fleet issues are worked out the chase team would be able to take the tracer just as quick as the team that initiated it. With the teams using these as almost jump gates to allow more PVP content.
Capable of catching someone does not automatically imply you have them scrammed.
You could have all gates and wormholes camped, have combat probers ready at any point in space to catch them if they uncloak and a few mobile observatories running to decloak a group.
If they ever decloak because of a mobile observatory they’ll be caught before they can recloak. Even if they would try to log off, their ship would be in space for at least 30 seconds which is enough for good combat probers to get them.
While it’s unlikely for a group to be disciplined enough to cover all exit points this way, any roaming group can just ignore it all by decloaking and instantly filamenting away.
That is my main issue with filaments: it allows players to run away safely in situations where CCP in the past has noticed issues (when people do the same by logging off) by adding a counter to it (a 30 second delay before you can log off, or your ship will be in space for 30 seconds even if you force quit).
Add a 30 second delay before people can leave a system with a filament and my issues with travel filaments will be solved.
I agree that it should be possible to chase a group that wishes to use filaments to flee, but I do not think ‘follow the tracer’ is a good solution.
The filaments are specifically designed with sizes (5 man, 15 man, or even some 25 man filaments) in order to keep the maximum fleet that can pass through such a filament limited. This means that the maximum filament gang size is 25, because if the group is any bigger the separate fleet parts cannot travel to random places together as they will both end up in a random separate part of space.
Because of this restriction the roaming filament groups are only 25 man at most, rather than 100+.
If you would allow players to follow a filament trace, this filament fleet size restriction would be circumvented by splitting the main fleet into a few separate fleets that ‘chase’ the trace.
What you could do to allow chasing without removing the filament size restriction is to somehow allow people to follow through a trace as long as the ‘maximum capacity’ of the trace has not yet been hit. Problems you get here is that (1) your chase fleet will likely not be able to follow with enough pilots to kill the fleet you’re chasing - if they’re smart they only leave a few spots open so that anyone chasing them will be easily dispatched - and (2) fleets that do not wish to get chased will simply make sure they’re full on capacity and bring 15 ships for a 15 man filament.
If a chasing fleet is limited by the leftover capacity of the initial filament, it is too easy to make chasing not worth it or outright impossible.
You wanted to make it more dangerous for groups to use filaments to flee, but I do not think that allowing a chase is possible without introducing other problems (such as 100+ man filament roams, or entire war fleets that escape being camped in by using filaments).
As I said in the first part of this post: I think a better solution to add risk to the use of filaments to run away is to add a delay before the filament activates.
Just like logging off in space requires players to be decloaked for 30 seconds in order to make ‘logging off’ not the answer to any time you get camped, I believe using a filament - which can be used in combat situations for the same purpose as logging off - should get similar restrictions.
maybe, but I think to be faire as Null sec fleet tend to fight at 10 vs 1… the chasing party should not land next to the initiating fleet. Or you could just crack a new filament where the other one craked and then get yeeted to somewhere in the same system,
I think log off and filament out should be considered as two different things.
about Log off, he will log in sometime if you wait in that system, whereas about filament, he moves to another system altogether.
So, compared to log off, filament should be strongly restricted.
For example, when using filament, one might give it the same restriction as cyno, that it cannot move at all for a few minute or more. Of course, it should not be possible to stop using the filament during that time.
In this way, the filament would only be used for movement and not for escaping from enemy pursuers.
This idea applies to nullsec and lowsec except WH (include pochven) and highsec.