Stop Touching My WHs

Stop Touching My WHs


So the latest and 'greatest' idea from CCP regarding K162 WH detection is the perfect example of why I'm a huge advocate of as few changes in wspace as humanly possible.

Here is the full proposition as posted by Fozzie here:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=331782

Hey everyone. Team Five O has been working on a few concepts for improvements to wormhole mechanics and we wanted to run one idea by you all to start some discussion in the community. This idea has already been discussed with the CSM, and we don't currently have specific plans to implement it but we think it's at least worth getting discussion started.

We have been thinking about and discussing the way that the Sensor Overlay has affected Wormhole life, mainly in the ease with which players can now observe new wormhole signatures appearing (which often indicates that the entry of hostile players may be imminent).
We investigated what would be involved with delaying the appearance of signatures on the sensor overlay, but that solution is somewhat unsatisfactory since players could always return to the old trick of spamming probe scans to check for the new sigs. Basically, the Sensor Overlay had only made the existing problem more visible, and it would be better if we could get right to the source.

The potential change would be to delay the appearance of the signature beacon when K162 dungeons spawn. This would prevent the dungeon from appearing on probe scans or the Sensor Overlay for up to a few minutes.

This change would make life in wormholes a bit less safe, and increase the sense of real danger that unknown space should include. The flipside is that actively hunting for pvp in wormholes should present more targets that have a slightly shorter notice to your arrival.

The delay could take a few potential forms, either a set timer of a couple minutes, a timer that has random elements or even one that is variable depending on the amount of mass that passes through the wormhole.

This would obviously be a very significant change to wormhole mechanics, and we think it may be a very good opportunity to shake up wormhole life and further encourage the best parts of the wormhole experience.

I'd like to repeat that this change is currently not planned for any specific release, but we would like to start community discussion on the idea and see where it goes.

Let us know what you think in this thread, and we'll be watching closely.
Thanks!
-Fozzie

Ok, so let's break it down in a timeline.

- Life pre overlay meant you had to drop probes to see any sigs and had to watch for new sigs using probes if you wanted to see them.  No one was complaining about this well functioning system.

- Odyssey happens, sensor overlay introduced.  Now you don't need probes to see new sigs, they show up right away automatically.  This change a) wasn't asked for b) wasn't like by basically anyone in wspace c) was hugely demanded for removal from WHs.  All in all a big success.

- Now CCP seem to want to do something about it, ok fine.  So what's the solution?  Is it to put things back to how they were pre sensor overlay? No, apparently not.  Apparently it is to roll the change back even further and make it so that you can't even use probes to detect new incoming WHs for an unspecified period of time.


I have no idea why CCP keep trying to 'fix' or 'make better' WH core mechanics when there's never really been any issue with their core mechanics.

Here we have them adding a very bad feature in the overlay that wasn't asked for, wasn't checked with the community prior to implementation and was universally hated in WHs after release and then instead of simply removing it like we're asking for, adding a new feature again in a detection delay on K162s that, again, wasn't asked for and isn't liked by roughly 75% of people that have been responding to the thread and various polls.  At least this time they asked us about it first so, progress I guess...


Let's look at the proposed change itself and what it would mean for WHs.
The change is pretty simple, it's just adding some period of time after spawning where a new K162 exit WH cannot be detected on the overlay or even with probes.

Assuming the delay is not something absurd like half an hour, this might seem like a small change but in reality, even if it's 30 seconds it is a major change in WH security and makes it completely impossible to have any security in a WH apart from raw numbers of pilots.

The main concern is obviously for people who PVE.
The only WH PVE I've done in years is C5/6 capital escalations and while the risk is increased there too, I'm going to argue that this is the smallest issue of all activities.  The reason for this is that the number of corps that can even warp a fleet into a C5/6 site is quite low and the number of those that can kill a site running fleet is even lower.  It's also very difficult to warp back to your POS when a new WH spawns when you're scrammed and/or in siege/triage so if a group that can fight you does happen to connect, you're likely going to be fighting, delay on sig detection or no delay.

The affect this has on other classes is much more profound. 
If you roll into a C2 and see a Drake + wrecks on scan, how long does it really take to be on grid with it? 1 min? 2 min? 5 min if you're really slow, there are 30+ anoms and you take a smoke break half way through looking for it?
If people running low class sites can't watch probes for new sigs they have very little chance of escaping if a new hostile WH connects to them.

Let's not even get into what this does to the already laughably dangerous activity of WH mining.


This also has an effect on PVP operational security.
If you're bashing a tower, camping a system, conducting a fight whatever, you have no way of knowing when a potential 3rd party connects to you.
Obviously, in a PVP scenario you may well want to take the fight anyway but a non zero amount of time to prepare is generally nice.


Sure, a part of me wants to go along with this change and say 'fuck it, I don't do PVE anyway, let's just kill anyone who does'.  Thing is, you can catch people already anyway, it isn't that hard.
Adding a probe detection delay on incoming WHs is a typical CCP style of change that adds a feature to address an issue in completely the wrong way.

I guess I should be glad CCP seem to be listening and noticed that WHers hate the new overlay but they need to actually fix the issue in the way that we're asking for, not by taking it way too far and doing what they think we're asking for.

Yes, the auto detecting sensor overlay needs to be removed from WHs.  No, a probe detection delay does not need to be added.


All in all this is exactly why I'm always against any changes being made to WH space.
Hell, even in the best case scenario where CCP remove the scanner overlay from WHs and leave probe detection without a delay, where do we end up?  Exactly where we were 4 years ago, in a well functioning wspace.


JM

This House is not a Home

This House is not a Home

The issues of living in a POS and POS mechanics have been the hottest topic around the wspace water cooler for some time now.
WH dwellers live exclusively out of POSs, or nothing at all, as it is their only option but POS mechanics are old and have not kept up with the modernization of EVE life.

The suggested fixes to the matter of POSs have varied wildly from 'don't touch it, you'll break WHs' to 'scrap it entirely and give us modular POSs with docking' and everything in between.
Personally, I lean much closer to the 'don't touch it' end of the spectrum as I simply do not trust CCP to redo POSs well and maintain the feel of WH living if they fully redo them.
For instance, I do not want docking of ANY sort anywhere near my WH home and I consider removing the POS force field mechanic a deal breaker on any changes.

That said, POSs very clearly need an update so I'm going to go over what I consider to be the major points that need addressing.  I am going to be venturing slightly into the corp management/roles area since it is very closely linked to some of the major POS issues.
Unfortunately (or possibly fortunately?) I have zero experience on running any sort of industry out of a POS so I will only be touching lightly on it but given how often I hear people complain about it, the image of POS industry I have is that it is also in need of major review and updates.

Note:  These items are not in any particular priority order.


POS Setup

Anyone who has every set up a fresh POS knows how time consuming and tedious it is to do.  There has already been a small pass done by CCP on this a few years back when they removed anchoring timers on most mods and reduced onlining timers but it is still very poor.
This area needs improvement in 2 ways:

1.  There needs to be an onlining queue where you can queue up as many mods as you want and they'll go and online in that order without you needing to wait for one to finish and then hit online on the next one.  Would function similarly to the skill queue and would make onlining a POS way simpler.

2.  You should be able to save POS setups in the same way you can save ship fittings.  In order to use one, you would need to online the tower and set its layout.  Then if you go to anchor a mod at it that is on the loaded layout, it would automatically go to the predefined location as per the layout and anchor there without each mod needing to be manually placed.


POS Security and Access

This is the big one for most WH groups.  Security on current POSs is so limited that it actively limits how much a group can grow until it hits an inevitable security wall of too much risk.
Currently the only security you can put on a POS is a force field password and you can set 3 levels of corp role based access to storage mods and even if you have the role based access setup, the people with higher level access will have access to the items/ships in the lower access storage as well as the people with the highest level access having total access to all your POSs, including pulling fuel and tearing down towers.  Clearly you can't give a 3rd of your corp starbase configuration level access.
This forces large WH corps to set up many 'personal' POSs that are secured by force field password and are shared by a small group of people, at most, that know  and trust each other.  Many large enities have upwards of 50+ such POSs in their home WH which in a 200-300 man corp (about as large are WH corps get) is extreme to absurd levels.

The way I see it, POS security should work in a similar way as chat channel access currently works.  If you have a module level allowed usage list it would allow corps to specify exactly who has access to view and/or take from a particular SMA/CHA or use production mods ect.
Ideally this should be able to be set on the POS level and then further altered on the module level so that you don't need to set it manually for each and every module.

Personal SMAs that work in the same way as personal CHAs are also very much needed.

If proper module level security was implemented to POSs it would allow a far greater number of people to live out of the same POS without risking all their stuff to people they don't know.


Refining Array

Currently the maximum yield you can get when refining ore at a POS is 75%.  Now, I haven't refined or at a POS or elsewhere in over 4 years so this doesn’t really affect me in the slightest but it does seem like this is a super extreme penalty for refining outside of a station.
I do not know what CCPs original reasons for this may have been but I don't see how upping the yield to somewhere in the 90-100% range would hurt anything.
Currently even C1 corps are choosing to build Rorquals in their WHs for the sole purpose of compressing ore so that they can haul it out to high sec to refine it.  Many of those corps then haul to minerals back into their WH for further industrial use. This kind of tedious work around should not be needed for manufacturing items in WHs.


Offline POSs

WH space is littered with old abandoned towers long left to rust in space, their owners long gone and not likely to return.
This topic comes up reasonably often among WH denizens, many of whom want to be able to unanchor and scoop the dead towers.
Personally I don't feel you should be able to just straight up take them but I do agree that removing them should be easier.
I would suggest that an offline POS tower should have zero shields so that you only need to chew through its armour and structure points to blow it up.
Admittedly this is not a super important change but it would clean up the streets of wspace somewhat and unclutter our dscans.


Self Destructing in Force Fields

This shit has to go, enough said.
If not outright banning it, James Argent recently suggested that any SDed ship inside a warp disruption bubble should give a kill mail to the bubble's owner.  This is an idea I like a lot in the alternative to just banning SD inside a POS.


So apart from the admitted industrial changes I'm sure are needed, that's actually the end of my list.
Honestly, I don't think that the 'POS problem' is anywhere near as big as people make it out to be.  Most of the issues are small items with the big ones being POS setup and POS security.
The security changes are sorely needed and I would urge CCP to prioritize them over everything else but I am also quite sure they'd be the hardest for them to implement.

In summary, I actually really like the POS system.  It just needs a few user friendliness upgrades and a real security system.  Apart from that, I'll take a space stick with a force field over any modular POS with docking/mooring/whatever-else-that-isn't-a-force-field any day of the week.

JM