Currently you can’t scan down wrecks, only ships, drones, structures etc but NOT the wreck itself. We can see wrecks on D-scan but can’t scan them down even with combat probes.
Rather than trying to re-invent the wheel, the Noctis would make a good base ship, but it would need a hi slot for the probe launchers and an expanded drone bay on the order of at least 50/50 m3. It would also need a new skill in the ‘scanning’ category . Advanced wreck search or something like it.
It would be one of the high time skills to train, requiring a lvl 5 Astrometric Acquisition, lvl 5 Survey and lvl 5 Salvaging as a requirement to inject the new skill. I think it should need a new rig or module to enhance scanning down the wrecks. Perhaps new probes as well dedicated for scanning wrecks only. The skill would also give boosts to drone range, salvage percentage and longer range for salvagers and tractor beams.
While this could be used for tracking down Mission runners, I’m more interested in locating and salvaging/looting the wrecks before they ‘vanish’. It would be like every other salvage operation out there, with legal salvage and suspect looting conditions, but the new modifications would have a much better ability to find the wrecks and salvage/loot them expeditiously. It would also be less able to defend itself from PvP but able to handle the NPC 'rats.
New skills are not the solution. I say add bonus to Noctis hull so that combat probes launched from it can scan wrecks. Noctis hull is pretty underused so this little buff will help, however leave its fitting capabilities as it is so fitting expanded probe launcher would cripple the ship fitting so you will make this buff balanced.
i don’t see the benefit. wrecks vanish after two hours, so you’d have to be relatively lucky to find any, unless you really know where to look for them and then you’d still need to get lucky about the runner not using an MTU and not salvaging his wrecks.
i absolutely get the point, but the 2h timer kind of stands in the way for it to actually pay off.
I wouldn’t add new skills, only a new probe, that’s only able to find wrecks.
I had a detailed idea for this on the old forum which I can’t even search anymore for my old comments (thanks CCP), let’s see if I can remake it:
the new probes work similarly as the combat probes, but they can be launched from core launchers only, so you have to decide if you want to find players or wrecks, you can’t simply switch probes to do both.
“site decorations” generate interference, so you can’t find sites that are still active, you have combat probes for that
only the Noctis gets bonus strength to these new probes
Look around mission hubs. You’d get loads. Also don’t think we need new skills, or more slots, or bigger drone bay.
Current noctis can sacrifice a high slot to scan down someone elses wrecks (it has 8 highs already).
Consider making new probes for wrecks, deployables and containers. And consider a small salvaging ship like an ORE ‘dessie’ (smaller cargo, no tractor bonus, +salvaging range bonus) just for salvaging wrecks that don’t belong to you.
The problem with this, and the reason wrecks were removed from the probing system ages ago (they did used to be scannable) is that you either end up making the wreck hugely hard to scan or you make it easier to scan down the wrecks than the person flying the ship, which basically nukes most use-cases for fitting a ship to be harder to probe since most of those are for PvE and PvE generates wrecks.
This would be solved by my idea that “site decorations” generate interference so you can’t probe the wrecks. But after the site despawns, the wrecks stay there and you can find them.
This actually already exists, there’s a penalty to scanning anything in a deadspace pocket. It’s not anything like complete prevention though.
I can’t find any major issues with that. The closest I’ve got is that some of the new PvE like the mining operations don’t use site mechanics, they just warp to a random safe after being aggressed. That could be fixed by making the wrecks have the same general scan strength as the ships they came from and require combat probes to scan down, so if you can scan down the wrecks you can just scan down the ship making them.
I’d have to look at the fittings for combat probes on some common salvage hulls though.
If I recall correctly it was somewhere back in like 2008 or 2009, right after either the new probe system was introduced or after salvaging was introduced. It was around for like a couple of months at best though before CCP decided that no they really didn’t want to make it that easy to find anyone engaged in PvE.
I wanted to make these wreck hunter probes core launcher only, because this way you have to decide first: you want to find wrecks left behind by other players to salvage, or you want to find other players, make your own wrecks and then salvage.
Another reason is the expanded launcher’s CPU need. If I want to use a Noctis as intended then after an expanded launcher there is barely enough CPU to fit salvagers and tractor beams. I think I had to use rigs or co-processors, and that’s still just the main equipment without tank or other support modules.
Also, MTUs were added since a while, so I think there is no actual difference between finding wrecks or MTUs if you’re looking for PvE players.
This argument works against you. As there’s no difference, there’s no need to be able to probe wrecks, as simply the MTU can be probed instead. You’re making some wild generalisations here.
This “argument” is so broken, it screams out of pain, begging for mercy.
You can actually work around the CPU need on the launcher by dropping a depot and turning modules off and on as needed in space. Leave the probe launcher on while searching then offline it and turn on your salvagers and tractors.
A “Salvage Probe” could work since that would let the sensor strength be calibrated separately and would clearly indicate to a player that someone is looking for wrecks and if they don’t want to be found they might want to am-scray., so long as the end result is that wrecks aren’t easier to scan down than ships.
The problem with this is that it assumes that everyone is going to have an MTU down, which isn’t the case. The decision to deploy an MTU also makes you easier to scan down so it’s something that certain players will specifically avoid for that reason.
Also MTUs require combat probes, so that would actually be a point in favor of the Combat launcher, not the Core one.
Cade said that originally wrecks were on the list of thing you can find with probes. It wasn’t mentioned, but I think that was a combat probe ability. This function was removed because it made PvE players too easy to find. Then the MTUs were added, which not just most likely used by PvE players, but they have to go back and collect them. This allows hunters to find PvE players easier, and it also allows them to set up traps because they know that a PvE fit ship or a hauler would go there probably sooner than later.
The point I’m trying to make is: first a feature was removed because it made the job of hunters too easy, then (much) later a new feature was introduced that made the job of hunters even more easy.
While I would like to keep ship and wreck hunting separated, if they would simply allow combat probes to find wrecks again, it wouldn’t make too much difference in finding PvE players.
When were PvE players ever hard to find or scan down? i wonder, because the time between this change, and the time between the introduction of the MTU is many, many years, and i never had issues probing down mission runners. I don’t see how anyone needs to probe wrecks, when the ships can be probed directly.
It doesn’t fit together, but i see that it’s not your fault.