Monday, January 12, 2015

The Full Nine Yards

Think for a moment, about the Eve universe.

We have capsuleers who are effectively immortal (so long as the power stays on at all the facilities with their clones throughout the universe).  These capsuleers are able to inject skills directly into their brains which they can use after a suitable time for their bodies to acclimate to the information.  Time reading books is effectively unnecessary due to cybernetic implants.  These implants can enhance their mental and physical performance or, alternatively, slave them to another's will.

Capsuleers pilot spaceships ranging from single-man shuttles to massive, multiple-mile-long Titans with tens or hundreds of thousands of crewmen.  They live in space stations all throughout the known universe, while tens of trillions of humans live on settled worlds throughout known space.  They have the means to flawlessly and instantly communicate with various parts of their ships at once, effecting incredibly sophisticated sets of commands near-instantly.  Those ships are capable of firing a range of weapons with devastating effect and gobbling enough power to put entire Earth countries to shame.  Some of the missiles launched are larger than frigates, and some weapons can even bombard planets with a high degree of accuracy.

Modules themselves are capable of interfacing with and jamming the equipment of enemy ships, shorting out their ability to warp, target, or even move.  Massive jump gates hurtle ships throughout the known universe without limit - traveling instantly between two points 14-15 lightyears away isn't beyond the realm of possibility.  Some ships can actually harness that energy to open their own jump portals and send ships blinking to existence in distant solar systems (well, that distant part isn't quite true anymore...).

A majority of ships are capable of carrying drones, highly sophisticated computer systems capable of analyzing trajectories, following complicated commands from their host ships, and tracking various objects traveling in sometimes complex patterns through three-dimensional space, all while keeping them separate from any number of other objects.  The Eve universe also contains sentient sleeper drones, which put the technological sophistication of normal drones to shame.

We all communicate via FTL transmissions that can span any range of distance, transact on a highly sophisticated market system which instantly updates buy and sell orders across an entire region, and can conduct contractual agreements at FTL speeds as well.

Medical and neurological science.  Space transport.  Energy harnessing.  Complex computer algorithms.  Faster-than-light Communications.  Eve is a highly advanced technological universe involving de facto solutions to a host of real-world problems involving scarcity, technological innovation and, indeed, mastery over death itself.

So why the hell can't my probes remember the 60% hit on cosmic signature XYZ-123 after I get a subsequent 20% hit as I'm scanning down another sig?  I don't buy that they're not advanced enough.

Come on, CCP, please fix this.  Weaker signals shouldn't overwrite stronger ones on subsequent passes of probes.  That just makes no sense.  What, don't our ships have RAM to store a simple set of best-available coordinates?

The probing system was changed a few expansions back to make it a lot easier to scan down sigs, but it stopped too short.  Once you make probes auto-launch in formation, is it really a stretch to use the best ping for each sig?

Give us the whole nine yards.  The really isn't any reason not to.

5 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. It'd certainly help with carebearing, but I noticed it scanning down sigs for the Corp near our lowsec home, looking for wormholes and targets.

      Some of those wormholes have dozens of sigs right on top of each other, and subsequent scans cause you to lose data, if you only get a partial hit compared to the initial scan.

      Delete
  2. There is a lot of things in EVE that you would think could be done with the tech that is available in the EVE universe. Another example is dscan, that apparantly cant update automaticly instead of you having to click a button.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Um....no. Just....no.

    If anything, the discovery scanner needs to go back to the way it was with regards to auto-populating sigs and having ore sites show up as anoms. With the current syustem, there's no 'exploration' in exploration; as it stands now, a pilot jumps into a system and immediately knows if it's worth scanning or not. Where's the exploration in that? Where's the sense of the wild frontier that w-space is meant to be?

    There are some positives that I think CCP should keep. I do like the new formation system (the old way was needless complexity), I like the fact that sig IDs don't change at downtime (though they could just as easily move back to the old system, it's just that the new one is slightly more convenient), and I don't mind the fact that I can no longer lose my probes if I forget to recall them before jumping (If we can be happy about infinite skill queue and no need to update med clones, the auto-return probes are fine, too).

    What you need to realize is that if CCP gave us what the tech would actually permit, they'd eliminate a lot of the need for folks to go out and do stuff. I'm incredibly frustrated that I can't place a market order - or even see the market - outside my current region, but I see the need for the system to be the way it is. There are other examples, too, like local as instant intel, or Concord boutnies paid in nullsec. They don't make sense, either, but they serve a useful game balance/game mechanic purpose.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The issue is... yes, a helluva lot in EVE could be automated and made vastly better than it is based solely on the idea that it is real... but then you'd just have Bots in Space, and that's against the EULA.

    I know there is a helluva lot that COULD be made easier, better, faster, more accurate... but is it good gameplay? Games are supposed to challenge us... and this includes the game itself, not just other players.

    Personally, I have no issue with probing the way it is, I really don't have some of the issues I have read of here and my 'joy' in probing is getting faster/better in my human skills using the system... not in making the system faster/easier to use.

    And dscan autoupdate... really? If dscan auto 'pinged' then the game itself would be working to make you 'safer', and that is not what CCP wants or is trying to create... the point of dscan being a human button push is that people get complacent... comfortable... careless... and a cloaky slips in unnoticed and 'player interaction' ensues... IE Dscan is working exactly as intended... so is probing.

    ReplyDelete