Odyssey Mumblings, The First

Odyssey is upon us.  As much as I’d love to make a crack a Jester’s great caravan of the stars, there are some other ideas I’d like to spin out a little.  With the hints in CCP’s release at PAX, there’s plenty of opportunity to speculate and put on our tinfoil hats!  I'll put some posts up over the next few days regarding the topics announced in at PAX, and my thoughts regarding those topics.  Today I want to talk about exploration a bit.

Discovery scanning.  We have no idea what it is.  I can hope that it is a system that makes the process of scanning sites down more enjoyable.  Currently the dedicated explorer is pigeon holed into a few core concepts.  You need a scanning ship, either a CovOps or a T3 fit properly.  If you are serious about beating the competition, you probably also have another account with a combat cruiser, again likely a T3, flying with you to jump into those sites as soon as you find them.  The choice of useful ships is rather limited, and the fitting requirements to take advantage of those ships narrows the selections even more.  The skills needed to fly the narrow range of suitable ships are not insubstantial.  The skills to utilize the sites are very specific and often have no use outside scanning.

This is not bad, per se.

What is ugly, however, is the capricious nature of scanning and the tedium of finding and resolving signatures.  It usually requires a notepad and some patience.  So how can CCP improve things?

First, I’d love to see a change to the dynamics of what ships are allowed into resolved sites.  Specifically, I’d like to see the mechanics work so that if your ship can scan it, your ship can go inside.  There’s nothing quite like finding a handful of sites in a system, and learning that your cruiser, battlecruiser, or T3 isn’t allowed in.

Second, I’d like to see dedicated exploration ships that can fit some of the scanning gear without severely sacrificing the ability to complete the sites.  While this is primarily true for combat sites, there is only one CovOps that can fit all the modules needed for a scanning roam without needing to dock up to switch modules.  Obviously there are balance issues, as giving a cruiser PvE or PvP tank and gank AND scanning would break aspects of combat scanning.  But giving each race a cruiser hull with a few more mid slots and scanning bonuses would go a long way towards making solo scanning roams more feasible.  Perhaps make cloaks and probe launchers a dedicated hardpoint?  Perhaps just change the way high-slot hardpoints work by adding specific role-only slots?

Third, and tied directly to the first two, scanning needs to be made more possible for solo roamers.  A dedicated scanner should be the fastest and best option, and PvE and PvP fits should excel at those tasks, but reasonable balance should exist that makes scanning and completing sites a one-ship, one-account activity.

Fourth, the scanning mechanics need a tweak.  Saved probe formations.  Ship-board logging of sites you have resolved or are working on resolving even if you leave the system or need to dock.  My ship can hand a neural-interface, route through all of known space, and control weapons, navigation, scanning, targeting, and EWAR at the same time.  It can’t remember how I launch my probes or the data loaded in the scanning system if I close the window?  And as for the D-Scan, if it can figure out what something is and how far away it is, why can’t I warp to that point in space?

Fifth, and most contentious in my mind, is that scanning should be less random in the rewards received.  Nothing saps my will to scan like clearing through a half dozen systems and getting nothing for days on end, only to hit the jackpot once in a blue moon.  I'd love to see low end rewards boosted with a corresponding reduction in high end rewards.  If exploration is to be a viable career in Eve, like mission running or industry, there needs to be a more dependable income stream that comes from it.

I'm sure some of these ideas are not feasible, and others, such as ships I consider suitable for scanning and completing sites and rewards, are open to debate.  But there are many changes CCP could enact to make exploration more interesting overall, and more enjoyable and accessible.  

Wormhole Fun

I have been having some pretty awesome luck with exploration within a jump of my home system lately.  In the last few days I have found multiple Radar sites with about 20 mil of loot (in my opinion these are the easiest isk/time ratio in the game when the streak is on), I found a nice Sansha site with a 90m mod, and we found a nice little C1 that was inhabited.

I go in, make some safes, scan down the sites and investigate things.  I get on the horn and call in some backup to clear out a few sites.  Jump clones are activated.  We end up with 2 combat sites outside of D-Scan of the people living in this hole.  There are at least 2 guys logged in flying around in a Tengu and Loki.  Fun!  The best WH sites are those you are stealing out from under the "owners".  We make sure the warp bubbles are not on our warp lines to the sites.  We proceed to find out two Drakes can clear sleeper sites, but it takes a while. Apparently Sleeper NPCs know how to use EFT unlike the Empire rats, or they are just using that unreleased T4 stuff.  Who knows, maybe they have a market hub they share with the Jovians?

End of the run, we have cleared the two sites, the owners of this particular whole are not paying attention to us at all.  We were there for about 3 hours, and they never even investigated the sites we cleared.  I think my D-Scan will need a full tune up, because I mashed the crap out of that little button.  A quick trip to Jita later, and the two of us split 110m in sleeper loot, and I have another Tengu hull, albeit less shiny.

I recommend anyone go play in someone else's WH for an afternoon or evening.  It's fun, and gives you that little rush of potential (and in our case very one sided) PvP.  It also really pushes the need for good command, control and communication in a small gang.  I am becoming increasingly fascinated by this facet of the game and would love to see a more formalized training/starter version of this in EvE.  My corp has a very distinct split of highly risk averse players and a group where "no shits were given".  (Side note, trying to find an old Jester poster is ridiculous.  That was posted on the 10th and is already a page deep in his post history.)  You can guess which camp I am in at this point.

There is a whole aspect of the game outside High Sec space that I think the Empire community has unjustly turned into some horrible bogeyman.  I would love to see something in the game that pushes players into small groups to investigate space together outside the Corp/Alliance system there currently is.  I'm not advocating taking a faction fit Navy Mega into low sec 4s (I don't know anyone who has done this recently...), but trekking through WHs and Low Sec over the last few weeks in cheap, functional hulls with a few people gives an adrenaline boost that nothing in Empire can touch.  The only problem is, doing this requires a level of google-fu and willingness to go beyond any tool CCP has placed in game to organize.  Perhaps developing the fleet finder along the lines of *cringe* the WoW Dungeon Finder?  I don't want EvE to become loot-point grinding in space, but the game cries out for some small gang organizing tool.

Anyhow, if you are a bit of a bear, leave Empire for a bit.  Get a cheap BC and follow some low sec exploration sites or WHs.  It may surprise you!

Escamalations

Back from the holidays, I hope everyone had a good time and survived the familial mine field!  I got myself a Christmas present, but I'll talk about that in another post, maybe.  Today, I want to muse about Exploration and Escalations.

I like exploration.  As PvE goes, it is the most organic experience one can have in Eve.  No set locations, no promises, each time I hop in my CovOps, it is a new experience.  I've made a little money running sites, nothing great, but I generally stay out of low sec when exploring, so there you go.  Yesterday one of my corp mates, who has been talking up low sec escalations for some time, got me out of my mission grinding bliss (deadspace mods don't pay for themselves!) and into low sec for some escamalationing (I just like saying it that way).

We ended up going the full four escalations for the Sansha chain he found, which was awesome.  We also flew through quite a bit of low sec in a Drake and two Ishkurs, saw a hot-drop, and got hounded by a  Hound.  Wel also kept a tense eye on a Nyx that apparently was just passing through as we cleared the final site.  That would have been overkill, we thought, but a hilarious killmail to be on the wrong end of.  All in all we had a generally good time with some nice tense moments, and I have a new found understanding of what I want out of voice coms on a roam.

Here is the downside:  We humped some 30 jumps, spent about 2 hours, and ended up with some rather underwhelming loot (three mods worth maybe 15 mil split three ways).  Such is the life of the explorer.  I've gotten high sec sites with no combat that dropped better loot.  So for the future, I will go on low sec exploration romps when I want some excitement, and as a way to build my chops flying in a gang, but probably not if I am looking for to max my earnings.   That said, it was still one of the more interesting ways to spend a few hours on a cold afternoon.