31 replies to this topic

[Gizznitt]

This is an idea I've had for quite a while, and have posted it to the EvE-O forums.  If you like the idea, give it some support.  I have one CSM member that liked it, and he's brought it to the attention of CCP Rise, who kindly added the dev tag to the thread with a random comment.  

 

Here's the idea from the forum thread:  

I would like an anchorable object that you deploy in space (like a secure can), which creates a "decoy ship". 

Details: 

• It would have a Sensor strength to make it scannable by probes.
• It would have a paper thin tank (no matter what ship it was mimicking).
• It would be single use, meaning once deployed it would stay in space until it "expired" or until it was destroyed.
• It would be temporary.... probably lasting several hours, but perhaps a day or two (we should debate what is reasonable).
• It would be smallish (like about the size of a mobile warp disruptor bubble, so any ship could utilize it).
• It would be treated as disposable (think build costs similar to a small mobile warp disruptor bubble).

 

The simple version: It mimics your ship: If you deploy it in a taranis, it appears as a taranis, with your name, your corp ticker, your alliance ticker, your militia ticker, a speed of zero, et al, on everyone's overview (and dscan). If you deploy it in an Avatar, it appears as an Avatar with your name, your corp ticker, et al, on everyone's overview (and dscan).

 

This more desireable, but harder to code version: Allow the deployer to chose a ship type to mimic, and perhaps even a character (or none) to mimic (with their corp name, ticker, etc). This would need to be done prior to "onlining" the decoy ship, and wouldn't be alterable once onlined. Then a taranis pilot could deploy an Revenant under the name TSID (or some such thing). If this takes "too much" coding, then simple version would be just fine! 

 

 

Let me know of any suggestions on how to improve this.  I see a lot of entertaining uses for this module!  

[Tay]

What about tying it to the pilot it mimics being in system? Otherwise you'd see a ship with a name that is not in local, would be a dead give-away that it's just a bottle rocket. As soon as the pilot leaves system the decoy pops too.

In the other direction, having the decoy produce an entry in local (and then even maybe stay for a longer time)... hm, then we can just as well have local not show people in real time like in a wh, it's no longer very useful.

[Gizznitt]

What about tying it to the pilot it mimics being in system? Otherwise you'd see a ship with a name that is not in local, would be a dead give-away that it's just a bottle rocket. As soon as the pilot leaves system the decoy pops too.

In the other direction, having the decoy produce an entry in local (and then even maybe stay for a longer time)... hm, then we can just as well have local not show people in real time like in a wh, it's no longer very useful.

 

I would prefer simply having the ability to join any local chat from anywhere in the game...   It is a chat channel after all!!! 

 

The truth is, I think having this module interact with local would be awesome!  However, I stayed away from interacting with local because messing with the "local being used as an intel tool" paradigm is very taboo, and likely to polarize support for this simple and universally desirable tool along the "nerf - don't nerf" crowds.  

[Othran]

I think you need to reduce the time it stays visible Gizz.

 

Not sure what would be appropriate but 30 minutes then renew seems reasonable, even a bit long.

 

Otherwise unless the costs are high you will see them at most every celestial within days.

 

The module looks interesting but it needs to be interactive. We know CCP can't do grid stuff easily - ie leave grid then decoy pops - but it should at least disappear if you leave system.

[Gizznitt]

I think you need to reduce the time it stays visible Gizz.

 

Not sure what would be appropriate but 30 minutes then renew seems reasonable, even a bit long.

 

Otherwise unless the costs are high you will see them at most every celestial within days.

 

The module looks interesting but it needs to be interactive. We know CCP can't do grid stuff easily - ie leave grid then decoy pops - but it should at least disappear if you leave system.

 

People anchor bubbles all over a system (and all over gates), and those have a serious hindrance to movement.  These only catch you attention for a moment, are easily destroyed, and don't last nearly as long.  I think with a 1-5m price tag, we don't really need much more "limits" on their use.  

 

I've seen suggestions where they require fuel to operate, but I thought that would a.)  Make spotting a decoy to simple (cause it would have a "open bay" button on the selected object toolbar. I figure that having low EHP and single use would be self limiting.  If you can bring in a Tornado or Ishtar and 1-shot these from afar, anyone will be able to undo your fleet of decoys.  And if the pilot they are mimicking ins't in local, it's going to be a decoy. 

[Othran]

I hear what you say. My fear is it'll just become more "system spam".

 

See if it had a short life then there would be an argument for allowing you to move one system (or more with skills) away while it still acted as a decoy. Eg - you could drop a decoy and leave system if you didn't have a timer running.

 

If its going to stick around for ages then I think it'd inevitably limit the scope of usage.

 

A decoy should be there for a very limited time but actually have the power to deceive - unless you have eyes in adjacent systems.

 

How that would be done then I dunno. Eve local is basically a (badly) hacked together IRC channel so it ought to be trivial to have you remain in local when you're not there. Gods know its been done before via injection scripts

 

I like the idea but having decoys hanging around for hours devalues the decoys.

[Gizznitt]

I hear what you say. My fear is it'll just become more "system spam".

 

See if it had a short life then there would be an argument for allowing you to move one system (or more with skills) away while it still acted as a decoy. Eg - you could drop a decoy and leave system if you didn't have a timer running.

 

If its going to stick around for ages then I think it'd inevitably limit the scope of usage.

 

A decoy should be there for a very limited time but actually have the power to deceive - unless you have eyes in adjacent systems.

 

How that would be done then I dunno. Eve local is basically a (badly) hacked together IRC channel so it ought to be trivial to have you remain in local when you're not there. Gods know its been done before via injection scripts

 

I like the idea but having decoys hanging around for hours devalues the decoys.

 

Drop the decoy ship in a Carebear WH system..

Really, if I'm ratting in a belt, perhaps I want to put a decoy thanny near the in gate so people go tackle that while my ship can get safe.  

 

In both of these cases, a 2 hour or so time limit makes it more worth while, whereas a 30 minute timer would feel like a waste of isk. I also expect these to be useful for people doing RP stuff, too (setting up mock battles and doing creative sculpturing), and a short timer would hinder the scale they could do this with.  

 

I'm just not afraid of these being spammed, mainly because doing so would take time to implement and be easily undone.  I do like the idea of these interacting with local (like putting a decoy pilot there), but doing so really opens up a can of "don't fuck with my local" drama that CCP is staying away from.  

[glepp]

Imagine the number of Revenants that would show up on scan if you didn't have to tie it to your ship type...

[Gizznitt]

Imagine the number of Revenants that would show up on scan if you didn't have to tie it to your ship type...

 

I'd imagine that would be common for the first month.  Decoy titans and Supercaps and limited edition ships.  Given these are single use items that disappear within a couple of days, such uses would cease to be common after a couple of months.  Meanwhile, manufacturers would reap the rewards of the "new toy" rush, while a market for these emerge.  After that, who knows what we'd see!  

[Goodvibes]

I forsee you doing much evil with such a toy Gizzy, you evil evil man!

I'm leaning towards a 6 hour timer myself - long enough to be useful, not so long as to create system spam.

One suggestion - maybe it should be a low-sec only tool and limited to one per skill level or somesuch, otherwise what's to stop either a single troll unleashing thousands on Jita undock or a pack of trolls aka Goonswarm from undocking a few hundred trade alts and unleashing one each?

[Gizznitt]

I forsee you doing much evil with such a toy Gizzy, you evil evil man!

I'm leaning towards a 6 hour timer myself - long enough to be useful, not so long as to create system spam.

One suggestion - maybe it should be a low-sec only tool and limited to one per skill level or somesuch, otherwise what's to stop either a single troll unleashing thousands on Jita undock or a pack of trolls aka Goonswarm from undocking a few hundred trade alts and unleashing one each?

 

I think 6 hours is fair.  Like I said, the time limit is very negotiable, and really I just want it long enough to be useful, but short enough to limit spamming (especially scan spamming).     

 

If these had similar "rules" as anchorable cans, their spam would also be reasonably limited.  Can't be within 5 km's of another entity; limits on where you can anchor them (I think you can only anchor in 0.7 space and below).  

[Itkovian Beddict]

Don't like this idea at all personally. It's a huge nerf to people hunting for targets, doesn't help the 'outnumbered' in any meaningful way, is probably exploitable...

It's one of those mechanics that would never be right - either too powerful and overused or not that powerful and never used (other than for amusement).

[Granger]

Don't like this idea at all personally. It's a huge nerf to people hunting for targets, doesn't help the 'outnumbered' in any meaningful way, is probably exploitable...

It's one of those mechanics that would never be right - either too powerful and overused or not that powerful and never used (other than for amusement).

+1 TBH

[Dior Saursi]

Agreed with itko ans granger. This would do far more harm than good.

[glepp]

Agreed with itko ans granger. This would do far more harm than good.

I can imagine probing booster alts would be pretty hard in big fights. a 250-man fleet could anchor a Loki/legion decoy each at safes.

[Jade ID-900]

I am not a very active poster, but i have to reply on this one. Personally, I would be very sad if we could use decoy ships in addition to the ones we already have

 

- Imagine all the decoy ships in / behind / around dead space pockets, especially in FW. You want be able to tell if there are any real targets in there or vice versa not able to understand if you warp into a 1v1+1+1+1. Prohibiting decoy ships in complexes will not solve the problem as you can still place them outside the complex having the same effect. We would gain more gamble vs. d-scan/intel skills.

 

- All home systems would be full of decoy ships and almost every system is a home for one or more corporations. To reduce overuse you will either have to let them time out quickly or make them expensive. If you make them expensive, why not unman a real ship as a decoy. If you let them time out quickly there will be little to no effect. The chances that a decoy will be placed in time and correctly when a roaming gang appears / that the gang has a prober / that the gang will focus on that ship and actively hunt it down are low.

 

However that is only my opinion. I think even more ships would totally clutter every d-scan and make it almost impossible to find any hostile in a timely manner, not to speak to get an idea of ship compositions. We would also disrupt pilots d-scan and probing skills if we would really allow "real" decoy ships to be deployed. Intel, positioning, hunting and tactics are a strong and important part in finding targets. We shouldn't mess with these aspects by disrupting them with decoy.

 

I would even go the other way and would love it if CCP removes unmanned ships inside POS shields from the d-scan and probing. Old Man Star for example is a system where you already can turn off your d-scan anyway and nothing is left there except praise the god of "clutter". Most of the time I just pass through OMS to non-cluttery systems.

[Jeremiah Cole]

I can see the pros and cons to having decoy ships, so I'll say this: Because scanning is getting such a huge buff with the upcoming changes in Odyssey 1.1, decoy ships could balance the playing field a little bit. I would love to see this implemented in the game, but only in a manner that would regulate the number of anchorable decoys. For example, having a skill that allows you to anchor one ship per x amount of people in your corp, with each level of the skill allowing you to anchor a larger "tier" of decoy (Level I being frigates/destroyers -> Level V being Caps/Supercaps, etc.), and up to a max of five total decoys for your corporation. The training time multiplier would also have to be quite high and require Anchoring V (at least).

 

i.e. Jeremiah Cole has (for lack of a better name) Decoy Deployment III and can anchor decoy ships up to battleship hulls, but is unable to anchor a Megathron decoy due to being in an NPC corp. glepp has Decoy Deployment I and can deploy ships up to destroyer hulls, but can only deploy one Thrasher decoy due to the other three (3) corp decoy slots being filled.

 

And why not have decoy ships so long as they're regulated? It adds a whole new level to PsyOps and baiting, where scanning

[Jade ID-900]

Good ideas about the mechanics. Although I have to say that I haven't seen that the scanning buff has influenced PvP in any significant way so far. The scanning buff has influenced the PvE part very strong though. It was meant to bring people into null and into space taking risks in exchange for ISK.

 

However I hope enough people will raise against the decoy ship so I don't have to deal with them on d-scan

[Jeremiah Cole]

Lately I've been doing a lot of runs and camps in null with Bombers Bar and we always have a guy with combat scanner probes probing out different ships. It takes some serious time for him to pinpoint and scan down different ships for us to hunt (unless we're doing a gate camp.) When I say that scanning is getting even more of a buff, I say this because we'll be able to save our probe formation and deploy them as we like instead of the standard two we've seen (because there are better formations than those.) That in itself will make combat scanning that much easier.

 

And if the mechanics are set up right, you won't have to deal with d-scan spam.

[Bloodmyst Ranwar]

Honestly, I don't think I like the idea.  It kinda takes long enough to find other pilots amongst the stars let alone having a "decoy ship" slowing the process down.  I can already see everyone spamming these things everywhere throughout the stars........

 

For it to work, I think the "decoy ship" needs to disappear once you leave system.  A mechanic would also have to be implemented that lets fleets only deploy so many of these.  imagine how annoying it would be to see a fleet of 100 pilots deploying one of these each! 

 

I guess it could be a nice buff to miners and ratters, thus enticing more folk to dabble in nullsec....

 

But as a pilot who spends hours and hours being persistent d-scanning and trying to find the "fight of the day" (solo roaming).... I don't want this duration to be extended. 

[Aote]

Is this actually happening.

http://themittani.co...bile-structures

If any of these structures are real things could get real interesting.

[Gizznitt]

I hope so.... I think this could be enjoyable if implemented right.  

[Jeremiah Cole]

D-scan disruptor? No thank you

[Gizznitt]

D-scan disruptor? No thank you

 

Yeah... this makes me wonder...   Dscanning is an active form of intel gathering, and nerfing that seems like the absolute wrong direction.  Nerfing passive intel.... well that's another story.  

[Aote]

D-scan disruptor? No thank you

Yeah... this makes me wonder... Dscanning is an active form of intel gathering, and nerfing that seems like the absolute wrong direction. Nerfing passive intel.... well that's another story.

Interesting is not always a positive.