Mobile Observatories – Live on Singularity

[Etch_Masuka]

my covops can be very short lived. totally agreed. All filament s apply the same. thats fair totally agreed. And yes im not suppossed to be 100% because i have a cloak.

I dont recall saying anything contrary to this so i have no idea what point you are trying to make. I explicitly said i expect to be hunted and its only right that i can be.

I was specifically responding to your assertion that fuel needs to be limited because pilots need to have a plan. If i filament into to null i cant plan because i have no idea where I’ll land. therefore i cant make a meaningfull plan. Therefore the increased risk of running out of fuel and the increased costs for fuel mean ill just stick to wormholes. My null expeditions just wouldnt be viable.

And thats the rub. The change they have made makes a few things less conveniant while totally adressing afk perma cloakers. Great. Your suggestion makes whole sections of gameplay a non event.

And as for this hauling fuel nonsese. Did you forget you said it starts to degrade when you leave a station? Or does that only happen when it suits whatever pont you are trying to make? Where am i hauling it to and who is buying it considering casual explorers with any sense will avoid sov null? But as others have said…thats the objective…you dont want anyone in your space and you cant be bothered to police it so you want ccp to do it through game mechanics.

But this is the last word on the subject because the discussion is pointless. Its a rubbish idea. It wont be implemented. CCP are going ahead with observatories. Get over it. Have a nice day.

[Senyu_Takashi]

First of all, economic damage is a part of PvP. When you seek to take out an alliance, you have the option to either engage them directly a or do guerilla warfare, take out supply lines etc. Killing off the ratters and limiting the enemy’s potential to generate income and resources is a necessary part of sov warfare.

Second, the problem is that cloaky camping is pretty much the only way how roamers can catch someone in sov 0.0.

The number one reason for this issue is local chat being 100% foolproof tool for perfect intel. You immediately know the enemy is near as soon as they enter the system.
There is no additional effort needed such as ping a D-scan, keep a scout on a gate or have bubble anchored nearby to interdict any potential warp ins on your position.
You have a 24/7/265 access to a passive tool that provides intel immediately, with no drawbacks, no cost, no management requirement and no effort required.

I won’t mind cloaking getting a bit more nerfed, but only if local channel system gets a massive hit by the nerf bat as well.

[Gerard_Amatin]

@Senyu_Takashi

Second, the problem is that cloaky camping is pretty much the only way how roamers can catch someone in sov 0.0.

Luckily cloaky camping isn’t affected by these mobile observatories. AFK cloaky camping is.

I know, it’s going to be hard now to leave an alt in system overnight to let the locals get accustomed to that name in chat, but it won’t be possible to leave an alt in system for a couple of hours while you’re doing something else on the pc.

[Mosimos]

@Hug_Motsu

In essence. This is what I believe, from my own point of view.
the “cloak-fuel” idea is bad. cloaky AFK camping is bad. the mobile observatory is bad.

But of these 3 “bad” choices. the only choice that actually supports what has been said in the dev blog is the “cloak fuel” idea.

Fortunately, there are not only these 3 authorizations, you have mine (the simplest and for all equally entitled variant, simply omitted)

Everyone I’ve talked to has found this variant to be the better and easiest.
Give the cloak a time limit of 10 minutes, covertops get a bonus of 80-100%, and then the module needs 2-3 minutes to cool down.

No fuel (bad for people who are on exploration for hours and can’t even dock somewhere, because of their booty from exploration they already have a full hold.

[Senyu_Takashi]

He was asking about cloaky camping in general, I replied about cloaky camping in general…

[Trii_Seo]

@Eto_Tekai

This change will cause people to actually hunt. Instead of 50 people on the bridge, with 100 alts cloaky camping, it will be 30 people on the bridge and 20 people actually hunting. This will educate new hunters on how to do it, create more excitement between the hunters on coms. People will have to actually learn how to play the game instead of waiting on billy who has 50 alts covering the region to shout “I GOT ONE” and everyone jumping through the bridge for a 10 second kill.

Unfortunately, the notion that somehow twenty people out roaming and hunting is romantic at best:

First of all, Intel is optimized beyond just cloaky camping. ESS/Agency provides down to a tick feedback on sources of activity, so at any given time you will be sending hunters out to areas where you know, directly, activity was.

Even before ESS, it wasn’t hard to get a bearing either - because map stats are exposed via ESI and you can graph NPC kills to look for a pattern. Then, since you know that there’s probably a guy there at that hour - head over and try to catch him.

Of course, that still assumes the guy who is learning how to play as a hunter doesn’t get spotted in local on a +1 jump and the entire mining op that’s in the pocket tethers.

Hunters put up with boring stakeouts and near-missed targets so often that really few people want to hunt in the first place.

[Algathas]

@Eto_Tekai

Youll see more people in sites

Why would active go in a site when they 1) see you in local the second you enter system, 2) know your active 100% for sure, and 3) can check your kill board and know you have a cyno?

Thev answer is they will only be in a site when local is 100% empty and dock up the second something appears in local. They won’t undock until you leave.

This deployable doesn’t reduce that it reinforces and increases that behavior.

[Derath_Ellecon]

@Mosimos

Fortunately, there are not only these 3 authorizations, you have mine (the simplest and for all equally entitled variant, simply omitted)

Everyone I’ve talked to has found this variant to be the better and easiest.
Give the cloak a time limit of 10 minutes, covertops get a bonus of 80-100%, and then the module needs 2-3 minutes to cool down.

No fuel (bad for people who are on exploration for hours and can’t even dock somewhere, because of their booty from exploration they already have a full hold.

Another variant of an equally unnecessary change.

If CCP thought the problem with AFK cloaking was the cloak, they would have changed the module. They certainly aren’t shy about that these days considering the major changes they just made to WCS and nullification.

However they didn’t.

You have to ask yourself why, after at least 12 years of people crying and complaining about AFK cloaking they finally did something about it, and that thing is this observatory?

It’s pretty easy to follow the logic.

1. CCP doesn’t have a problem with the cloak module
2. CCP doesn’t have a problem with cloaky camping
3. CCP has started to work on ways to cut down on afk activity across the game.

So they did the bare minimum they could to appease the crying krabbers while trying to not affect any other part of the game.

[Xeux]

Nothing will ever appease the whiners. They will complain all the way until the servers are shut down. Nonstop.

[Mike_Azariah]

and then they will whine that Eve is gone

m

[Amak_Boma]

i see other nature of problem… ineffective QA testing… releasing things too fast,too early then creating event sites that will lead your account to perma-ban… the new sites for gate-building has design flaw…

hunting players in the event sites is problematic because if they keep running from you,you try to find them at all cost and run across sites,you as hunter start timers …before you find your targets you cross i.e 30 sites untill first kill… next day ccp will ban you because warping to sites and not engaging with content is illegal action…you did kill targets so engaged with content but too late…

solution for this major design flaw was to just…once all players leave sites timers should reset… thats just all…easy solution.

[Hug_Motsu]

@Senyu_Takashi

BUT! In order for the system to be fair, let’s also have a similar system for ratters. So, as of now:

there is already a system in place, it’s called ammo.
Also, I get it, you are being sarcastic to try and prove a point… but!
what you don’t know is that your “sarcastic” bounty tags idea is actually better than the current ratting situation in sovnull regarding the DBS system.

so yeah, I agree, the bounty tags are a great idea.

@Etch_Masuka

I was specifically responding to your assertion that fuel needs to be limited because pilots need to have a plan. If i filament into to null i cant plan because i have no idea where I’ll land.

what you do wrong, and alot of others as well is; you’re applying a half-new concept to the current old system.
what you need to say is:
“Okay this can work - but for this to work, we need this and that”.

now your just saying “nope it doesn’t work.”
You are not really adding anything to the topic, you just enable trolls to say “omfg you cant change your concept all the freaking time!!!111!1 one”.

@Etch_Masuka

But this is the last word on the subject because the discussion is pointless. Its a rubbish idea. It wont be implemented. CCP are going ahead with observatories. Get over it. Have a nice day.

Yeah, I agree: the way you and others are discussing the topic of a cloak-fuel… there is no point in the discussion.
It’s however not a rubbish idea - it’s far superior to the observatory in every aspect.
Will it be implemented by CCP… idk?
If ccp is true to their roadmap plan it should be, there is no denying that.
mobile observatory promotes inactive gameplay and uncatchable botting.

@Gerard_Amatin

I know, it’s going to be hard now to leave an alt in system overnight to let the locals get accustomed to that name in chat

its not gonna be hard, its gonna be against the eula considering botting is prohibited, but still… uncatchable if you do.

@Trii_Seo

First of all, Intel is optimized beyond just cloaky camping. ESS/Agency provides down to a tick feedback on sources of activity, so at any given time you will be sending hunters out to areas where you know, directly, activity was.

in a lot of pro-cloak debates opinions, there is a “nerf local chat” argument.
but on the other hand, even having the local/NPC kill feed is an unfair advantage to the hunters… nerfing local is not an option without nerfing NPC kill feeds… and even that a good hunter knows where to hunt anyways so the npc kill feed is redundant - but not when illustrating how a local chat nerf somehow is “fair”.

@Derath_Ellecon

You have to ask yourself why, after at least 12 years of people crying and complaining about AFK cloaking they finally did something about it, and that thing is this observatory?

that thing is the observatory because CSM had a hand in the change.
(its quite brain dead and does not follow the roadmap of hell… err i mean the roadmap of starvation and game change.)
CCP does the change because after 12 years of “crying” they actually realized the “people crying” was right and deserves respect as payiong customers.
Allowing a cloaky camper in the system is bad for the game and the players.

@Mike_Azariah

and then they will whine that Eve is gone

or perhaps just “whine” that the CSM is allowed to interfere with module/gameplay changes, you’re there to inform ccp on the status of null sov, not to develop game features.
because when you do; you come up with a game feature that is designed to promote inactive gameplay and botting.

[Gerard_Amatin]

@Hug_Motsu

its not gonna be hard, its gonna be against the eula considering botting is prohibited, but still… uncatchable if you do.

If we let ‘potential to be botted’ dictate EVE’s development, I wouldn’t expect ratting to exist for much longer.

But no, let’s ignore bots for the sake of this discussion. There are better measures that can be taken against bots, game mechanics aren’t one of them.

And if you see someone ‘bot’ to stay cloaked 24/7 it’s going to be really easy to spot him botting and report him for botting.

[Hug_Motsu]

@Xeux

Nothing will ever appease the whiners. They will complain all the way until the servers are shut down. Nonstop.

what you are doing now is being a whiner,… ironic.

@Algathas

This deployable doesn’t reduce that it reinforces and increases that behavior.

I very much doubt this item is gonna burn 24/7/365 in every system.
this item will burn in some systems that known cloak AFK campers, these “afk” cloaky campers will thus only “pulse” their login time.
just enough for the “victims” to either go bankrupt or just saying “to hell with it it’s cheaper to get dropped on than burning observatories”.

these observatories will most likely just see an increase in null sov war and not in “day to day” use.

@Trii_Seo

Hunters put up with boring stakeouts and near-missed targets so often that really few people want to hunt in the first place.

just avoid the covops hunting and just plain go out and roam in small gangs instead…?

@Mosimos

Everyone I’ve talked to has found this variant to be the better and easiest.
Give the cloak a time limit of 10 minutes, covertops get a bonus of 80-100%, and then the module needs 2-3 minutes to cool down.

nothing has been written in stone of how to balance the fuel cost. or where the fuel should come from
but yeah, I guess a straight cloak time limit and a cooldown period is an “easier” way to implement it.
But the unforeseen negative effect is still that of an cloak observatory.
This can be botted too, and the cloak camper can stay in the system. Petty much uncatchable.
All that is needed is x amount of bookmarks, just warp around for those 3 minutes - always to a new bm… thus cant be caught.

I’m sorry but the way I see it…
the ONLY path to fair and active gameplay, where choices matter, is cloak fuel?

@Senyu_Takashi

but only if local channel system gets a massive hit by the nerf bat as well.

Just go live in a WH and all your demands are meet.

[Algathas]

@Hug_Motsu

I very much doubt this item is gonna burn 24/7/365 in every system.

It doesn’t have to. Just the ability to have it is enough. A person won’t go AFK in space cloaked even if one isn’t deployed because at any time one could be deployed. A krab doesn’t have to keep one deployed all the time to check if a cloaky is active either. If someone appears in local you know they are active by default. You only have to deploy one if someone hangs around too long to confirm if they are active or not.

[Hug_Motsu]

@Algathas

It doesn’t have to.

it has an activation time of 10 minutes, so one can go afk for atleast 10 min.
also there are multiple ways to achive a 100% undetactable bot that can alarm, or even perform actions whenever the observatory shows in the overview.

instead of afk cloaky camping, we will now have “market-pvp” type of gameplay vs bots…
or even vs human… point is, cloaky campers are gonna log in and out 24/7.
this observatory is … rather pointless.

this is also a attitude-problem that shows itselfs in development of this observatory. and in the comments i’ve read here…
basicly, alot of people tend to think that “victims” should pay a ransom-fee to live free of oppression.

thus we get this highly exploitable item.

[Algathas]

@Hug_Motsu

multiple ways to achive a 100% undetactable bot that can alarm, or even perform actions whenever the observatory shows in the overview.

I love how the krabs say “dont design the game around botting” when it comes to WCS, but then “you must design the game around botting” when it comes to cloaking. The hypocrisy is real.

[Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras]

@Hug_Motsu

you’re there to inform ccp on the status of null sov

That particular CSM, Mike Azariah, IS NEVER in null, so why the fudge would he have any say in null?

[Trii_Seo]

@Hug_Motsu

just avoid the covops hunting and just plain go out and roam in small gangs instead…?

Most players actually do. Those willing to put up with the boredom of prolonged hunts usually simply enjoy staking out a target for longer.

(That said, long stakeouts are “the” option for nailing people that are cautious enough to take the basic precaution of “watching local and warping to a citadel when it’s no longer 100% blue”)

[Mike_Azariah]

@Geo_Eclipse_Oksaras

That particular CSM, Mike Azariah, IS NEVER in null

I prefer ‘hardly ever’

never say never

m