Rework of the Mobile Siphon Unit Idea

So now that Athanor’s and Tartara’s handle moon mining and reactions too i believe the Mobile siphon unit is useless. While it was hard enough to use before thanks to API and as a member of the CSM said “Theres no instant justification to bring it back” (paraphrased) i had a thought.

What if we brought it back from the dead to target the new refineries?

  • Make it use “Cloaking” Technology that hides it on the overview (NOT D-Scan or Probes)
  • This time it steals 1-2% of whatever is refined or compressed within citadels.
  • Give it a 2500m3 Ore bay for compressed materials
  • Give it a 7500m3 mineral hold (optionally allow it to filter what it steals so its not just full of tritanium all the time)
  • Shooting it in Highsec flags suspect same as MTU’s
    - Reasoning for this is if someone is dedicated to trying to steal your materials they can defend the MSU if they want to or eat the loss if they don’t. Miners who are ok with 2% lost yield can ignore it, but who won’t tolerate the loss can go seek it out and destroy it. They can probe it down or just fly around looking for it since clicking on it in space would allow you to lock it.
  • Allow anchoring anywhere on grid with the Refinery
    -(After input this would be a bad idea due to Grid-Fu implement hard deployment range of 300-500kms)

Alternative PI Idea

  • Allow it to be anchored in orbit over the planet, targets extractor control heads and steals a portion of whatever is being harvested. OR allow it to intercept a planetary launch 1x and create a bookmarked can for the goods much like how launching without POCO is / used to be. Can can be found on D-scan and probed down by the person who’s materials were intercepted.

Just want to get a few ideas floating in my head out on paper and see what everyone thinks

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So I am meant to search a 5000km plus grid for a cloaked siphon, when I cant see the size of the grid, so have no idea if you have done grid fu to place it 50000km away…
And it space magic teleport stuff?

Yeah no.

Very valid point, would be better if it had a hard range for anchoring. 500km sound reasonable?

And if i remember correctly it always “Space Magic Teleported Stuff” just did it from POS to Siphon

So how do you know if its there?

It can still be detected on D-scan or simply by probing your refinery periodically. Or if you begin to notice your not getting what you should be from refining or compression. Smaller scale operations would likely notice much faster while much larger scale operations may not notice at all or would have a vested interest in ensuring there are none present.

The cloak i proposed was not an optical and overview cloak like bombers have but similar to what the curse has where it cannot be detected on D-scan but can be detected on grid, or by probes. Instead the Siphon unit can’t be seen on your overview but can be seen floating in space, detected by D-scan on any range which would allow you to use angled scans to determine the general area, or scanned down by probes.

All of these seem quite tedious. And siphon users can spam them as much as they want?

The price of not checking could be quite high. The reward for checking is occasionally being able to shoot a structure and go suspect so that the owner of the siphon and his friends can gank you in cloaky ships…

No they should be limited to how many can be anchored to one structure, but i don’t know how many would be reasonable. Looking for input there.

The price of not checking for them has always been high, anchored ones to valuable POS’s could steal quite a bit. So no real difference there.

As for the second part, thats a risk most people would have to take not much different from baiting people after shooting an MTU or can flipping back in the day. And if you have suspicions of cloaky ships, try decloaking first or bring something fit to fight covops.

They only stole quite a bit because the owners didn’t even visit the pos for days because of passive income.

As soon as one did, it would be visible on the overview. It’s quite different to expect structure owners to actively scan for these things.

Imagine it. You can’t reprocess at an refinery without first scanning for siphons. Does that sound fun to you? Can’t complete a job until you scan either. So stop whatever you’re doing and fly so many jumps over to the structure and do some scanning.

And that’s EVERY time you want to use it. Because someone could anchor a siphon at any moment.

I don’t think you under stand what a huge pain in the arse this is.

Except you have this backwards.

When i shoot an MTU I’m the one trying to steal. When I’m suspect baiting I’m the one trying to start a fight.

What you’re talking about is sending people suspect because they don’t want to let people steal their stuff. Meanwhile the actual baiters and theives with a siphon are, hilariously, not suspect…

All valid points. Thanks for the input as always.

While I believe the first part is at least justified by the nature of the module perhaps looting the MTU should flag someone suspect as well. Thoughts?

You do know how decloaking works in EVE right…
Your posts really don’t imply you do.

I don’t think it’s a workable concept against refineries. If you want to steal ore, turn up on the moon rock timers.

Against planetary interaction in low/null/wh’s maybe a siphon concept can work. But maybe it’d just be better to somehow findout when peoples launch pads are ready to pop so hunters can make a gamble to kill and collect.

Something that’s more about being there rather than passive stealing of passive income.

Yes I used to FC for BB back in 2015 before I joined proviblock,so I know if I’m close waiting to scram I be decloaked easily by drones assigned To a fast frigate. I also know since this isn’t on overview I need bookmarks if I want to sit 200+ off and warp in. Which takes about a second longer.

Bombers would get shredded by cruisers or frigates, and anything with target lock delay risks them warping off if they pre-align by taking precautions before shooting

Fair enough, glad to hear you think it has limited viability in PI though. Normally I would agree that being there is better 100% but I’d hate to see such a potentially unique module go to waste, especially if it’s the only one really designed to target passive income

ESS targets active income just like the MTU

So explain why this second matters when I have to spend minutes suspect shooting a siphon. And therefore how I decloak you.

In principle I agree with you, admittedly because I liked cruising around lose and popping them for lulz and I miss that particular target set.

In practice though, moon mining mechanics have changed so much since the days of the mobile siphon unit that I don’t think it makes sense any more. Also, your weird mix of “cloaking”, overviews, and d-scans is a total nonstarter.

If you want to steal moon mining materials, mine the moon rocks out from under the owners. If you want fun kills for lulz like I used to get, kill whoever is mining the moon rocks.

Having said that, I could see some utility for resurrecting mobile siphon units for interfering with PI, just as long as you skip your “cloaking” weirdness.

Sorry for delayed response just got off work.
Again i said if i’m close and waiting on a scram i could theoretically be de-cloaked easily, if i’m on a bookmark i have to warp down to tackle, some ships Have to de-cloak before they warp, others would de-cloak as they warp to avoid targeting delay. Someone who is aligned prior to shooting would have ample time to warp off in the case of larger ships warping down or decloaking in warp, bombers would be shredded by drones or anti-frigate weapon platforms, webs, etc.

There is also no guarantee you have to be next to it, you could jet-can next to it, warp back at range, look at the jet-can and then click the siphon and blap it from 100+kms off too.

If the EHP of these is a concern the EHP could be slashed.
Now out of stark curiosity, how would you suggest rebalancing an obsoleted module? Or how do you feel about the alternate suggestion above, always looking for feedback of all kinds!

You aren’t using normal cloaks for tackle. You are using something like bombers with instant lock. You know this, you know it’s not getting decloaked. And sure I could jet can and shoot from 100k. And then you tackle me anyway. Because the time taken to do that is far more than the time to make a few bookmarks or just fly to me cloaked.

Frankly, the siphon isn’t good gameplay and should just die now. No idea here is good.

Fair enough, i assumed hiding it on the overview but nowhere else would give them some chance of working for more than 2 seconds as well as make the task of locating them more active than undock, lock on, shoot, dock. But it does appear to be a hard sell. Perhaps PI could be a much better avenue as it is entirely passive income, i’ll try and think of a more fleshed-out idea for them and see what the response there is.

The old MSUs worked just fine while being totally visible on the overview. They just weren’t targeted by POS defenses unless a player took control of them; they were only invisible to the AI controlling POSes. Since the current Upwell structures don’t shoot anything unless a player is in control, the necessity for that mechanic is gone.

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