And why do you think changing null-sec to be like wh space will keep null-sec populations from changing?
There is a reason WH space is less populated. While non-fixed travel paths are part of it⌠difficulty to find people is also a part.
I will say it again. The problem with free intel is why we have a problem with AFK cloaking. No local, no AFK cloaking issue. Nobody will be AFK cloaking for strategic purposes, theyâll instead be doing for tactical/personal reasons (I need to go take a leak and I have no place to dock and donât want to hassle with logging on and off).
We need less free information at this point not more.
Okay, two comparisons of the same situation, with and without local.
Situation, alliance has cloaked scouts on grid at the ingates to their space; people entering in get reported into intel (qty and ship types). Youâre roaming their space.
Your scout makes the first jump, hits D-scan, sees nothing. Unfortunately, itâs a 50AU system, so he has scanned less than a third of the system. Warps to the gate, spamming dscan, still missing half of the system. Thereâs actually a pair of rattles running a 10/10 in the system, but without probes youâve got no idea buddyâs even there. You continue on your way, having missed a very easy kill, because you werenât combat probing EVERY SYSTEM you jumped into.
Response fleet has formed, they know where you are, what youâre in, etc. The moment you show up on intel again at the next choke point, their fleet embarks towards yours. Maybe they bait you and cyno in caps. Either way, theyâre coming. They know what youâre in, you donât even know that youâre on intel because due to the cloaked ship and a lack of local, you didnât even see their scout.
Suddenly, the fleet that knows your numbers and comp (and formed something specially to beat it) bubbles your ingate, and youâre screwed.
VS with local:
When your cepters enter system, they see two in local. They take a bounce to the far side of the system, hey rattles on dscan. Get the probes out, weâre hunting wabbits. No missed kills.
That cloaky scout? Yup you saw him in local, you didnât see his ship anywhere in space, obviously cloaked, youâre obviously on intel - time to move faster.
The response fleet, however they choose to do it, will be the same. But your knowledge that youâre even on their intel gives you a better chance, and you didnât completely miss those kills.
These figures are incorrect.
Total systems: 8035
Highsec: 1212
Lowsec: 695
Nullsec: 3524 (230 in Jove space and not normally reachable by players)
J-Space: 2604
Data taken from the Static Data Export (https://developers.eveonline.com/resource/resources)
The exact wormhole count has always been strange, with many before the addition of shattered holes and Thera in 2014, reporting 2498-2500 and there were 101 wormholes added in Rhea.
Ellatha (Index #1 WH Systems Database for eve online) has 2605 wormholes indexed in its database, which is 1 more than the SDE, but itâs possible I missed 1 when extracting the data from the âsolarsystem.staticdataâ files (which would also take the system count to 8036 if Ellatha is correct).
Thatâs fine⌠but logging out people who are inactive for extended periods also takes care of AFK cloaking and doesnât reduce player interaction like removing local would do (in my opinion at least).
Two rattlers see roaming scout in local if not in intel channels before hand and dock up.
No kills just like now. Thatâs why afk cloaking is even a thing.
Roaming gang see scout for the local fleet and go home. No fight just like now.
Local kills content.
No. Adding a timer tells ratters how long to wait until they KNOW whether a cloaker is active or not.
Its not going to happen.
And it is free intel. So, no. Bad Idea.
Yup, free intel. Not only that, but if you are still in system after that allotted time you know he is ATK, again free intel.
Exactly. Local kills content.
To be clear, this will reduce interactions, not increase them.
Yes! Awesome idea. We used to have observatory array for poses log time ago but devs decided to remove it as it was useless.
But pos will be gone for good.
So, what about module (or even a service with a low fuel consumption rate) for citadels? It actually makes sense - the only way to scan down a cloaked ships.
Fair enough, right?
You seem to think all free intel is bad. I disagree. Free intel that leads to player interaction in my opinion is good in my opinion.
I understand you donât agree. But hopefully you can understand the idea that changes that make it more difficult to have players actually interact with each other arenât supported by everyone. Part of what is necessary to interact with someone else in EVE (be it combat, conversation or in-game cooperation) is for them to actually be present at their computer.
I simply donât think steps that help ensure someone is present are in any way a negative thing.
I also donât think changes that create more time to try to figure out if someone is present in a system is a positive thing.
Except it doesnât lead to player interaction. It leads to krabs farming only when itâs perfectly safe and hiding in stations when it isnât.
Local is way too powerful, leading to less overall player interaction, because almost everyoneâs a coward that stands down when he doesnât have overwhelming numbers.
The problem is youâre only looking at this from a single perspective.
There is way more destruction in null than wormhole space for a reason⌠and part of that reason is itâs MUCH less tedious to find others to blow up.
Now it might create more combat interaction in a place like Providence where every system is likely to be populated at every hour⌠but thatâs not normal for null. Providence is the odd exception. Most of null is pretty darn empty. I can go through 10-20 systems at times without finding another player. If I were hunting⌠it would be absolutely horribly tedious to try to hunt through all those empty systems to find the one where people are ratting or mining. What was a 20 minute search would instead take an hour.
The other thing to note is how a change like removing local would end up if you follow the progression. Right now alliance intel channels report reds in systems through local. So what happens if you remove that? Will the intel channels go away?
Of course not. It will become a little harder, but instead intel reports will include ship names (for D-scan use) and the tracking of incoming hostiles will be much less precise but still will definitely be present. On the flip side, the invaders (who presumably are LOOKING for a fight) get no intel. At all. One side (the farming one) gets a slight intel nerf. The other gets a total intel nerf. And you honestly believe this will cause the invaders to get MORE fights?
The result will likely be completely the opposite. Most of the time the first fight they get will be the defense fleet coming with ten times the numbers to blow them up.
No, it doesnât. With intel channels and the free intel of local, I can see you coming from 5 or more jumps out so I dock up. You get in system and I am docked, there is no interaction beyond maybe some smacking in local.
With local our scout will see your response fleet and and we can bugger off meaning no interaction.
The scouts get into the target system, âOh look they have 2x the numbers we have. Fleet stand down.â
Local reduces content.
It does no such thing. I can still go AFK just like before, the only thing it does is give you information for no effort.
And please, be honest. I do not have an issue with contentâi.e. players shooting each other even if it includes me being shot at. If you want to argue about that with someone go strike a conversation with @Mike_Voidstar, he hates being your content.
You really should look at that on a per/pilot basis. If there are say 10x more people in NS than WS and the destruction is say 5x for NS relative to WS, then there is actually less destruction in NS.
No, you can use the OA. A system of OAs might even be networked providing additional intel depending on how you fit them.
So? Nobody is saying âIntel is badâ. People are saying, âFree intel is bad.â
They still have d-scan and probesâŚwhich all scouts use. You can also anchor your own OAs, which would be cool if you could anchor them at safe spots. You can also shoot the defenders OA and hopefully disable it meaning that somebody is going to have to undock and put it on the chopping block to get your intel back.
Are you going to let me run around your systems and completely blind you? If so then yeah, I wonât get a fight that day. But since Iâve blinded you I might get a fight later when you come to try and turn your OAs back on. And if you donâtâŚwell, we might just have to come with more guys and take those systems.
And if the roaming gang starts out by sending in a stealth group to start taking down your OAs? Suppose they take them down in 3 systems, then how would you know how big our main fleet is? Sure you might bring 50 guys to try and chase of the 5 guys in stealth ships, but our main fleet might have 50, 60 or even 100 dudes in it. And if you jump in blindâŚcould be fun!
No idea how to tell numbers in null vs whâs. But I can tell you that the first page of kills on zkillboard goes back 21 minutes and contains 6.2 billion in destroyed assets for null. The last 21 minutes in wormhole space has 952 million in losses.
The numbers idea is also tough to measure since many exist in all areas. I donât live in wormholes⌠but I do travel through them and occasionally go hunting relic sites in them. I also spend time in low-sec and high-sec despite my âbaseâ being in null. How do I count?
Thereâs also the factor that removing null might remove numbers from null to be closer to wormhole space⌠as they arenât in wormhole space for a reason at the moment. But without a knowledge of numbers active in null vs WH, thereâs no way to account for any of that.
Looking at totals tells us very little. When you have a complex process like EVE there are those things we can easily see, and then there are those things that are much less easily seen. Considering both is important even if it is from the stand point of logic. The classic example is the broken window fallacy. What is seen is the broken window being fixed for 5 francs (hey, Bastiat was French) which looks like an economic transaction that otherwise would not have taken place save for the precocious young lad who threw the rock. What is not seen is that the cobbler, the guy with the broken window, wonât be spending that 5 francs on dinner, or leather for making shoes, or whatever else he would have spent it on. So in effect, there is no new economic activity.
Is NS more destructive than WS? Depends on things like populations as well as the mechanics. Looking at the totals and ignoring population and then concluding the differences are all due to mechanics is flawed thinking.
You might be rightâŚbut you also might be wrong. We do not have enough data to tell for sure, so your âevidenceâ is not clear evidence in favor of your hypothesisâŚor against it.
This conversation is getting convoluted by referencing multiple ideas. One is simply removing local (which is mainly what Iâve been speaking toward). The other is this overly complicated idea of structures that give local alliances part of what local gives them. I think youâre over-thinking it with that somewhat un-fleshed out idea.
If you give the locals MORE intel than visitors (compared to the current balance we have)⌠the ratters who flee combat get more of an advantage than they have now.
Right now, we have roving gangs of hunters trying to trap ratters and miners while roving gangs of âdefense fleetsâ with more numbers are trying to wipe them out. Any changes that put more intel in the hands of the local alliance vs. the invading hunters will cause the number of ratters/miners caught before the defense fleet wipes out the hunters to go down. Even if your âOAâ were the size of a MTU⌠most combat ships arenât going to have room to carry that many. And every local alliance will have multiples set up.
Iâm stumped as to why people think this would be a negative for those seeking to avoid conflict. Every negative impact for a local pilot seeking to rat or mine without getting attacked is reduced because every sov holding group will have the intel gathering structures and most invading groups will not. It just seems that the inevitable destruction by a defense fleet that most hunters end their day with would come sooner with less kills before that point.