Make probes scannable and destroyable and scoopable as yours

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
1

Im looking to extend the game in a direction, in a fun or a mattering way.

You see someone scanning space using Sisters Core Scanner Probe or RSS Core Scanner Probe? You could attempt going after them and scooping them up easily? “Catch me if you can” is the game here.

If youre getting competition for a site, both of you scanning for that hard target, instead of going for that site, you could go and warp disrupt the other guys probe so he has to go through abandoning it and launching a new probe in its place. (adjust abandon time being longer than it is now), while you can be sure you get to the target first.

In highsec shooting or pointing someone elses probe could only give you a suspect status. Even a beginner could do it out there when probes have a big easy signature. And sister/rss owners need to be more careful. Giving beginners a good chance of isk and hunting.

Every type of probe would work for hunting other probes, even the cheapest core probes (well, maybe not the survey probe).

Give probes a high “signature”, not based on the hull size of theirs, but by the “protocol” that probes use to talk to eachother for pinpointing. With 100% scan on a probe, give that specific warp target different properties compared to a regular scan target. Be it called a momentary something.

You dont want to have your probes out anymore for all the time. Give probes ability to scan all of the system, way beyond the current 32AU maximum, which in return does not give any scanning bonuses other than getting a minimal signal on other regular targets, but you can get a high result on other probes even at that 128AU range. 64AU would be an easy 100% on a probe when near the center. (needs balancing)

You could scoop other probes (those sweet RSS) up after warp disrupting them or damaging them to the point where they become unaccessible to their original owner.

Killing probes could give a wreck of something, including something? Probe making materials that they originally need?

Further ideas regarding this would be to give scanning ships a separate probe hold, preventing carryng bazillion probes. Instead limiting it to only the needed amount for scanning and up to a few spare with the faction or t2 variants. Giving scanning probes a new larger size so theyre not easily carried by other ships in a fleet either. Losing probes as a scanner would mean a lot then, and having backup scanners would be on much higher priority. When having spare probes outside of the actual probing ship, would not be an easy transfer to the probing ship, like simple jettisoning, but needs to be transferred using a station, a citadel or a mobile depot where they get assembled to their full size, just like space probes are now irl, their antennas are not erect unless theyre in their working position.

Issues with this suggestions can be found by reading it further.

This is just a suggestion. Suggestions can give further ideas, which is my secondary intention here.

2

This would have the consequence of making it stupid easy to create 100AU deepsafes.

4 Likes
3

Even if you could do that you would lose the deep safe after server reset

4

“you cannot bookmark this space as the location is not precise due to the scan target being a probe (or any other item that could fit well in it), further resulting in an unstable warp destination and likely destruction of anyone attempting to land in it afterwards”

Also “cannot warp to this target” for anyone trying to warp to the scanner pilot.

5

Even then it could still be used as a deep safe and if cloaked no one could find you for the duration of the server day as long as you didn’t leave that spot.

6

With this idea, I’d throw a probing alt at a 100AU deepsafe and put all my alts in a fleet with it. Permanent deep safe unless they change how safe logout tracks your location for when you log back in.

7

Like it is now anyways. Just not available for most, with this the few needs to be afraid for the rest when it becomes normal. Why not make deepsafes a regular thing.

8

And the alterior motive is revealed. Deep safes were removed for a reason…

9

Deepsafes could serve everyone tbh.

10

Well, anyways, be it deepsafes allowed or not, having probe probeability could be there. Just disallow bookmarking or warping to a probed probe safe. Feels like real simple coding. Whenever a player is sitting in the grid and any grid that the probe was in nearby, disallow things. Give it special properties that disallow warping etc. I’d like to have my Sister’s back in a different way.

11

I doubt EVE needs more combat-evasion methods.

I’d rather argue for a change that stops that abyssal-downtime deepsave creation mechanic (which imho clearly is just a “tolerated exploit” as it is unintentional for sure) and move all existing bookmarks within 14AU of the closest celestial. Less hiding and lurking, more action.

1 Like
12

Eve needs more players, apart from alts. Interested, excited players. Eve needs more ways. Not ways that are immediately mastered by the existing players, who are not seeing opposition for that reason either. Eve needs a major shuffle in its ways. Opportunies to become a king. Not just apparent ones. For i see no other but a RNG as the solution.

13

1: Launch a set of povvo probes.

2: Move them waaaaay off the solar system map, analyse then abandon the probes.

3: load combat probes, probe down your abandoned probes (you specified they’d have a big sig radius).

4: warp to the probe, bookmark that spot.

5: ???

14

Can you explain what the suggestion has to do with “more players”? Older experienced players will by far make more use of that mechanic than new ones.
Not only because they already know what a “deepsave” is and how you use one, but also because they have a far higher probability of having a combat-probing alt nearby than a new player has.
So chances are pretty high that the only ones getting killed by a fleet hiding on such an easy-made deepsave are the newbros, not the veterans.

If you want to make EVE more attractive to new players, limit the power-projection of the veterans.

  • Citadels only be defendable by large groups, but being nessessary to compete in any industrial field
  • Cynos enabling large groups to easily move their power around and denying smaller/weaker groups settling space
  • Massmultiboxing allowing rich veterans to “invest” their amassed wealth into even more chars (PLEXing)
15

As with anything else in EVE, no matter what brilliant idea you think you’ve come up with, EVE veterans would have figured out how to min/max it before a new player could even create an account…

2 Likes
16

They stopped letting us have unrestricted access to the test server because we were min/maxing new content before it ever hit the main server.

17

It’s the usual “think of the children / newbros” lie many hide behind when pushing for their personal old-player benefit. :thinking:

2 Likes
18

Malcanis’ Law: whatever is done in the name of improving things for newbros will be disproportionaly to the benefit of veterans

19

I don’t see any advantages for the game with this suggestion.

  1. Making probes destroyable seems pointless, what gameplay does this serve? Usually they’re off grid and uninteractible, and in the cases they are on grid I don’t see the point either.

  2. Next, the ability to freely warp anywhere in system by combat probing probes makes it way too easy to get away, to hide. There is no way to chase or combat probe players if these players can go anywhere they want inside and outside a system. I don’t even know the ‘outer edge’ of systems, it’s not relevant nowadays. With your suggestion players can easily hide 128 AU away from the sun inany direction, invulneable because it is imposible to find them in a reasonable amount of time.

It’s a pointless suggestion that makes the game worse.

20

Warping to a location that is too far (deep safe), could be hard limited by the game simply telling you “NO”. Unless everyone wants to keep THEIR own deepsafes and have their ENEMYs deepsafes gone, now theres no solutions to that.