I have to imagine this has been suggested already, but with the million or so local threads, reading through them would be onerous at best.
What if you could have ships hack local? Same hacking mechanics, with whatever level of difficulty it should have. I’d want it to require high skills and a hacking fit ship.
Since it’s the gates that provide local channel, you hack an outgate and it disables updating of local from that gate for 15 seconds from the time the hack completes. Counting session changes, that’s just enough time for a gang with a good prober to jump in, scan something down, and fleet warp to it.
Would be limited to sovnull to increase our risk, where it is frankly too low at the moment for the rewards of being in that space.
Programmatically it would require new code, so there’s a definite developer time cost to this one.
Which is exactly the goal. I like fleet diversity. More than just “a nano gang with nano stuff”, I love the idea of fleets with ewar, logistics, dps, dictors, probers, boosts, etc.
Adding a prober/hacker to your average roaming composition feels like it’ll be interesting. There’d be enough gate hacking and probing to keep them busy.
I think EVE would be better off without local.
The only place people use it for anything other than intel is the trade hubs and that is just to spam scams.
Unless you suck at probing (and you forgot to train Friend Ship to at least 3), it’s more than enough to do what you want to do.
I do agree that local is used for intel, and I do agree that the conversation itself is irrelevant in 99% of all communication that takes place in local. Don’t forget though that a big BIG part of intel is alts on gates in cloaky ships.
Even without local, they still know you’re coming and they report you on dedicated intel channels. When I’m out ratting in a dead-end pocket I always keep a cloaked alt on-grid with the gate. I hear the very second someone comes in, because the sound on that client is cranked. I hear a gatefire, I look into local and warp. If either local is removed or hacking becomes a thing, if I hear a gatefire, I’ll just stop looking to local first and warp as soon as I hear it fire.
Ultimately, you’ll never see enough buy-in to outright remove local. Doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad for the health of the game. The outcry will kill the change before it ever happens. So instead, I propose this. It’s enough for hunters to hunt, and after that they get their local back. That way campers can still camp and renters can still cry.
This is sick I love this idea and those who are very good at hacking could be put to great use in a roaming fleet. They could be warping ahead scouting and hacking the gate with warp speed rigs seamlessly while the allied fleet is landing if they master it. I would add a failure penalty so the attempting ship can’t jump or hack that stargate for a set duration. If it were up to me it would be possible in empire. In low sec it would draw gate fire during the hacking attempt and in high sec customs and gate fire. Suspect for both.
You know what… I’d love this. An aggression timer. It’s sovnull anyways, so it’s not like you’ll all of a sudden become engagable. Just means the gate will tell you to ■■■■ off for a little while.
Remember that local isn’t “intended” to be intel. It is, for all intents and purposes, only really used for intel… but it’s not intended. It’s intended to allow communication. You shouldn’t have to hack to communicate in local. Whether or not that’s a valuable form of communication… well… it’s not.
But don’t cement local in its place as “for intel” by legitimizing it. Just sets everyone up for more anger down the road.
I feel this needs counter play, I know local isnt supposed to be a free intel channel but you are taking an aggressive act on a gate in someone else’s SOV space and there isn’t any consequence to you beyond bringing another ship.
Btw, I tried thinking of several options like making it known to anyone on the opposite side of the gate that an hacking attempt is being made but this basically just becomes travelceptor annoyance again and we definitely don’t want anything resembling that happening again.
Maybe something along the lines of an alert to the SOV owner that such and such gate is being hacked? You would still end up with your fleet size being hidden and since it is such a short duration you may slip through unnoticed, or it may bring more action to the gate/system itself. A potential strategy could also be to set off multiple false alarms too.
Great suggestion, I really like it. Doesn’t dramatically whack everything and makes hacking more useful.
The remaining problem I see is that you would be still visible when you jump through to hack the gate. Gate broadcast effects + you are announced on local.
So, I believe it would be better if it works like that: you hack either end of the gate so it doesn’t announce anyone jumping through that gate for 1 minute - either in local or as a gate effect (in both directions for local: you don’t show as removed from that system, and you don’t show as present in the new one until the end of the hack).
After gate gets back up or the hack fails, the gate owner (both sov holders of gate ends) gets notification about the gate hack. So, if you try to hack, one minute later everyone will know a gang is roaming. Not that much of a penalty, but I believe it is still good enough to make people consider which gates to hack and which to skip.
Counterplay does exist, and it’s already fully implemented by nullsov groups. Cloaky eyes on the gates. They literally hear you come in. Another option, intel channels. I can literally follow gangs on a map with our intel channels.
It’s active gameplay (hacking) being countered by a dude who is at their computer and actively listening while they do whatever it is they’re doing.
What, praytell, does cloaking have to do with this? We get it, you’re a pissed off renter that won’t undock when there’s a scary neut in local, and you somehow feel that you’re entitled to use null space. But unless they’re only afk cloaky camping for 15 seconds, this has exactly nothing to do with it.
If you’re worried that cloaky fleets will take advantage of this to avoid both dscan and local, consider that a combat recon fleet would evade that too - and they’d actually be dangerous.
On that note… combat recons would be buffed significantly by this change. Oh my god… I hadn’t even thought of that. Imagine a gang of recons, along with a covert hacking stratios or a buzzard or something. I just got a .
I assume you mean the gatefire, and yes, that’s kind of intended. Plays and counter-plays. If people want actual intel, I 100% support them actively monitoring gates. Even if it’s just an alt with the sound cranked (exactly what I do).
Edit: Oh I think I see what you’re saying. No, you hack your outgate, not your ingate. You’d hack before you jump to get your 15 second window of opportunity.
This isnt a specific counter, it is a general counter to anything and everything. Specific counters are ECCM to ECM and you are not offering a counter to an agressive act taking place on SOV space gates, it isnt enough.
That’s the thing… I think it’s more than enough. Remember that sovnull the one and only rule is “assert your claim or bend over and let someone else assert theirs”.
We’re too safe in sovnull. Reponse fleets are already pre-staged to save caps (rorqs and supers mostly, carriers melt too fast to save unless they rat in combat fits like I do)… that won’t even change. But, jumping in fast and getting on-grid with all the AFK VNIs/Istards/Gilas, getting the drop on Rorquals before they can dump their drones (so you can go after their excavators and pop those), it helps make sovnull a more dangerous place.
And it does need to be more dangerous; we make our own safety, and believe me, we take that safety seriously. Roaming gangs could use a hand.
If you want an active counter, camp the gates with a combat fleet. A half dozen dudes at zero on a bubblefucked gate in arty sleipnirs for example… the light and fast nano gang trying to stay off intel will get murdered. If they get their transversal up and start sigtanking the damage, the sleips merely light their cyno and in come the faxes and carriers to mop up the nano gang.
Edit:
Not to mention, won’t somebody please think of the bots. Their perfect intel is now not perfect. Any system with suspected botters, high npc deltas, etc, you can now get in and land on them with covert stuff and actually tackle them. They won’t just warp as soon as you enter the system.
You know, due to the “require new code…developer time cost…”, I know it’ll never happen. But dammit I’m intrigued by this idea, nonetheless. I’d go with one minute rather than fifteen seconds, though.
better to have a structure that needs to be anchored with relevant upgrades, but i agree with the basic premis that in sov null the local chat is an issue.
.