EVE players and drones

IGÇÖve seen a few comments asking whether or not EVE players will be allowed to deploy drones to salvage themselves. This is a pretty cool idea although it seems like a shame to not create a player to player relationship between EVE pilots and mercs on the ground. Still interesting possibilities there for the future.

I think it would be hillarious to see us escorting Drones to Salvage zones, have the drones box up the goodies, and see those boxes fly up into the sky X-files style.......

I like the idea of having to call in an RDV that slowly lifts off with your lootz.

Creates some nice tense gameplay in which all of your phat lootz are vulnerable to disruptive gameplay.

Yes, although we've talked about the possibility of adding some built in defense to them.

You can only carry one so if you want to steal you have to abandon yours.

My main question regarding the "Salvage" is who is dropping it in the first place? Who is having the battles that we are cleaning up after?

The one thing I really don't like about the Salvage concept, is that at the moment we seem to be playing the part of garbage collectors, rather than immortal mercenaries.

The fact that the salvage is just 'there' seems like we are missing an opportunity for a cool bit of lore and a reason for the Legion mercs to exist. Maybe we are exploring remnants of sleeper facilities? Maybe the drone have been deployed by the sleepers whom are seeking revenge for the original theft of the techonology that created the Dust mercs.

Can we get a variation with a small automated turret at the expense of salvage capacity?

I am going to side with True here and not because he is in my corp but because I agree. The requests for racial parity isn't so much about each race having something as much as it is each race's version works hand in hand with the balance of the whole. To have versions with high armor or high shield or high speed and such, have turrets designed for taking down either armor and shield and at different ranges. All of this is important in the creating the very basic and fundamental balancing act between all the vehicles.

It certainly seems that CCP is really excited about a fresh start with Project Legion that they are getting carried away and adding superfluous mechanics opposed to working the core first. Salvaging is an absolute great idea and can become a really integral part of the entire Project Legion experience, but not for a second will I believe it is a higher priority than racial parity in vehicles. This is the same problem we saw exposed at Dust's Fanfest 2012 and Fanfest 2013 presentations where the developers clearly had their attention focused on all these really cool ideas to expand the experience while the current experience remained broken and incomplete.

I would love to hear your thoughts

A playerGÇÖs suspicion rating helps other players identify him as a possible threat, particularly PKGÇÖers. It is a reactive system used to rate and grade player behavior rather than a proactive system. This is to allow for an exciting degree of uncertainty over the motives of other players who are still GÇ£neutralGÇ¥.

There are four suspicion states that define the color of a playerGÇÖs tags:

• Neutral GÇô white
• Neutral Marked GÇô white/black (half white and half black)
• Suspect GÇô yellow
• Threat GÇô red

What is the thinking behind clones & spawning in Salvage?

Each player would pay a fee before deploying to cover the cost of their clone jump and a limited number of clones. There would be no teams so the clones are personal. Run out of clones and youGÇÖre out. The idea that you could salvage extra is interesting.

Currently spawning on to the field is handled using a number of neutral CRUGÇÖs available to all.

Hardly anyone would gift players for protecting them after the fact. It has to be before, have players set an amount of ISK for neutrals who kill a threat within a certain radius of them. Of course that requires creating a specific game system to support it but it is still all entirely managed by the players.

Again, hardly anyone would be willing to part with ISK or items AFTER THE FACT.

That is correct. They work just like regular tags for a member of the enemy team now.

Quick note on consequences - Pking not only increases your suspicion rating but it is also one of the largest factors for increasing drone hostility towards you. High hostility will mean the drones are actively hunting you.

- What if FF where always OFF within squads?
(And I mean always, in all security space)

This would actually take care of a number of problems:

• it gives a huge plus to running squads, especially for new players.
• it completely removes the problem of trolling within squads without consequences.
• to betray the squad you need to leave it first, giving the prior warning Severus was looking for.
• The "no tagging" within squads would make sense, since it would be impossible (due to FF OFF) to obtain a suspect or threat status by firing on your team mates.
• the common squad tagging also makes more sense, since you still can fire upon other players and squads, but will do so as a team.

(...)

What FF OFF in squads would give us, is a relatively safe space for people that don't know each other, that is not dependent on the local security level. The ability to turn coat your squad without any repercussions will be gone, since you need to leave squad to do so. This will increase your threat level, and invoke any consequences the game feel is justified depending on where you do it. New people would be encouraged to run squads, which we don't have at the moment in Dust 514.

I think it's important (for any game) that the game mechanics (i.e can I hurt that dude?) stays the same thoughout the game. I don't like the sudden shift from FF OFF to ON that we have I Dust at the moment, and I will not like it in Legion either. If a new person learns the ropes in high sec, he shouldn't have to re-learn everything when he goes deeper in the game.

With general FF ON, and squad FF "OFF" throughout the game, it will only be the consequences of your actions which will vary.

(...)

Without a system like this then your "carebear" players will never leave Highsec. Just like in EVE, a one jump difference goes from relative safety to utterly deadly. There isn't a stepping stone. And while many people will go "this is needed" I disagree. EVE has a large problem with incensing players to move from Highsec to Low to Null. Why? Because dropping from 0.5 to 0.4 means you will lose what your flying. CONCORD doesn't give a **** and gate guns wont save you.

You don't want that in DUST / Legion. You want new / carebear players to want to adventure out into Lowsec. There should still be danger, but it is mitigated by something like the IFF where instead of dying instantly to a turncloak or ganker they have a chance to react and survive. 1 - 2 seconds, that's all. Then, when they eventually move to Null, they can deal with the "reactive" situations of FF being always on and having to worry about instantly dying to betrayals.

You need steps. Not a cliff.

Ok, next topic!

This week we will (hopefully) be testing low orbital drops in Salvage, or as they have often been called GÇÿsky spawnsGÇÖ.

Up until now weGÇÖve been using fixed spawn points and (shock horror) some mean spirited people liked to camp them. So since we've always been fond of the idea weGÇÖve decided to try out putting the spawn locations in the hands of the players rather than dictating them ourselves so hereGÇÖs is what is being prototyped:

• No default spawns.


• When you deploy you are GÇÿdroppedGÇÖ to a random location on the map.


• Drop uplinks and LOD Beacons can be used by players to set up their own bases of operation anywhere on the map.


• Drop Uplinks and LOD beacons are only usable by the player that deployed them and his squad.

Thoughts?

(...)bases of operation(...)

Actual grounds spawns should be done with crus which should be changed in legion to have an interior. Then there should be a vehicle focused on spawns like that medium attack vehicle that was shown before acting like a mobile cru. Anything large would be better for spawning than the uplinks that are always purposely glitched in some object.

Squads

Currently there is no logic for group LODs and you will have to land and reform. There are a bunch of things to consider with it, is it just first spawn, what about spawning at different times, what if one member picks a droplink etc. Ideas welcome.

There was discussion a while back talking about how we need somewhere to drop off salvage to make it "ours". What would you think to it brought back to this base for keeps?

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So I see it as everyone poor and rich that join salvage match should be able to use neutral structure that bank his salvage and take it out of planet, but it should be risks for them, because crowd of people can use it, and there can be some bad people that set some trap over there, who count on easy prey.

Group of players that want to lower their risk of losing salvage should be able to deploy corporation assets on their base of operation(tent pitching) and use it to secure salvage more safer. To make it look more safely RDV would not be involve in that, but low orbital drops of packages/small cargo containers that open their parachute 50-70 above the ground, and land close to LOD beacon(all in subject of low-profile :P). From that place salvage teleport(modified drone teleport) can be manually install or self-install by pressing right button on terminal, but it can not be use without electronic key that is carry by two individuals of that group - they can be killed early and key can be capture, so they need to be protected(mini-game aspects).
To give more tactical meaning to basis they could be armed with electronic warfare equipment, that for example turn off every dropuplinks in some proximity, or reduces the effectiveness of other players scanners.. add noise to other players life basically.

What do you think about that?

Thanks guys, good sanity check.

Current plan is WASD, for forward, left, back, right and mouse left/right for rotation. There could be some truth in the opinion that rotation isnGÇÖt needed for a test but weGÇÖll see.

Now I have this mental image of a well-known Corp, like the Goons, spawning into the atmosphere with their dropsuits and dropships and using colored smoke trails to draw their icon into the sky.
Everyone on the ground goes "oh ****" and either calls for reinforcements, or logs out because **** those guys.

WSAD same as I described, just without any way to change facing.

Testing has gone pretty well. WeGÇÖve added in the drift mechanics and weGÇÖve also created GÇÿorbital drop uplinksGÇÖ so you can make more targeted drops. We did in fact have a playtest yesterday and they do really mix things up. Unlike drop uplinks you donGÇÖt have to put them where you want to spawn. You can put them a way off and then drift to your intended target. This was really exciting for assaulting objectives because you could drop a strike team right on top of them. It made things feel a lot more dynamic as well as just making you feel like a badass!

@CCP Wolfman
Imagine that Rock being thrown into a Hornet's nest is the Drone Hive after it takes about 1/8th of it's shields from a Rail gun tank. This is how I would like to see these Rogue Drones react.