Fair enough, no mentioning of the tech that is the only reason persistent spy bots even exist and this is perceived as a problem, let's not deal with core problem and try to find a solution that will make the consequences less problematic.

This kind of inflammatory, passive-aggressive BS isn't welcome on Suggestions, or frankly anywhere on these forums, and I'm muting you from this thread.

It is hilariously, incredibly naive to believe that the "core problem" is TGFT's specific plugin.. where they were not the first, and certainly not the only ones, to develop this kind of network or plugin. Yes, you have all kinds of embittered biases, but keep them off my forums. You are not "helping" anyone, and you consistently muddy up and polarize discussions, which is a downside for the community as a whole.

The actual core problem is what content and information we choose to make available in the game. NOT what person or guild utilizes that, or when. Anything related to the latter is exclusively my purview, and a subject for tickets and not the forums; something I think I made clear in the updated forum guidelines.

I don't think limiting in station range to 500m is going to do much except make it easier to station camp which I really don't care either way.

My understanding is that the bots are looking to see who is moving cargo i.e conq station sectors who may be moving supplies in for FCP or possibly moving it out to the safety of said station.

As the player docks to get or drop off the cargo the sitting bots will see them and the ship type will be a clue i.e. XC scream "I'm moving big shit".

Now if you could just block the ship type to docked sensors that would probably be much more effective as then ok yeah they know what player is docked but not what kind of ship they are docking or departing with.

"The only salient point in your whole post is the 500m suggestion, which I think is too small. That drastically limits the awareness of any docked player, to the point where their danger may be greatly increased."

This is going a bit beyond the scope of the OP, but I've never much liked docked players being visible on the sector list either.

My understanding is that the bots are looking to see who is moving cargo i.e conq station sectors who may be moving supplies in for FCP or possibly moving it out to the safety of said station.

Some use cases are historically more for tracking of pirates than for tracking of traders. At the same time, your basic idea of holding back ship-config information could be interesting. That's feasible. But, make the assumption that anyone who implements this kind of system, is going to be matching against their own "known-trader" or "known-pirate" user-list anyway.

This is going a bit beyond the scope of the OP, but I've never much liked docked players being visible on the sector list either.

Even if it is a bit off of the OP, that's an interesting thought. If we're really dropping things back to "radar", and eliminating the old "magical spacequake list" stuff entirely.. it's rational for that to actually just mean launched ships that you detect, and not like.. an individual dude wandering around on a station, having a beer. We could eliminate docked ships from detection entirely, although that would certainly change things for a lot of people..

Actually, the point is for cases like Jallik E15, Pyronis O9, and Initros O12.. situations where there is a station in a wormhole sector. A bot in that location will gain all transiting shipping information, regardless of whether the traffic is docking.

Touché.

To summarize: docked sensors should be limited to (1) detecting characters within 1500m of the station (if 2000m would cause issues with some close WH/station alignments (or can the stations be moved?); and (2) detecting character info, but no ship info.

That'd help.

We could eliminate docked ships from detection entirely, although that would certainly change things for a lot of people..

I see plugins to auto-msg last detected pilots to confirm online status when docked :P

I see plugins to auto-msg last detected pilots to confirm online status when docked :P

That's getting pretty far outside the OP in scope here, but that kind of information leak can probably also be addressed.

Too much BS in the thread, so I didn't read it all.

However, what about completely ignoring the concept of radar and sensor range for docked players?

Instead, as was suggested in an earlier post, if they're wandering around drinking a beer, the only information they should have available to them is station announced arrivals and departures. While in practice a station would likely be able to see all activity within 15km or more of them, how much information would they actually announce? Only the traffic within their NFZ? Only the traffic within 500m? Would fog or ion storms (in the case of conquerable stations) affect this information?

Perhaps rings from the tutorial could be used as a docking path and only pilots flying an approach route through the rings would be announced. Would there be an incentive to using this approach vs trying to fly around them and jam your ship into the dock at the last second? Perhaps it could have a tractor beam assisted docking that could be broken out of if desired?

EDIT:
Dr. Lector, they already removed the "<player> is not online." message returned from "/msg" if they aren't online.

Instead, as was suggested in an earlier thread, if they're wandering around drinking a beer, the only information they should have available to them is station announced arrivals and departures.

Well, I supposed it's possible to have only arrival/departure data announced, and neither report docked users to anyone else, nor report other radar status information to the docked users.. so both "campers" and "campees" could be equally blind (assuming no information leaks, as Lecter mentioned).

Perhaps rings from the tutorial could be used as a docking path and only pilots flying an approach route through the rings would be announced. Would there be an incentive to using this approach vs trying to fly around them and jam your ship into the dock at the last second? Perhaps it could have a tractor beam assisted docking that could be broken out of if desired?

That sounds.. complicated. I would rather avoid involved mechanics that I have to then apply to 135 or more stations, which all have different surrounding asteroid contents and so on. I'm not sure the cost/benefit there is worthwhile..

I dislike the idea of reducing the visibility that docked players have of who is presently in the sector because it would make station camping easier. However, I would find it more palatable if in lieu of having the sensor log, docked players had improved optical visibility of the area around the station, which is considerably less useful to a bot.

Right now while in a station, there is a fixed-position view of outside the station visible behind the PDA interface. What if the player were able to rotate that view using a joystick in order to see with their eyes what ships are loitering around the station? Something akin to looking out the station window.

I also dislike the idea of players in space not being able to see who is docked at a station. Particularly at the conquerable stations, it is nice to be able to see who is docked there to get an idea of who to PM to inquire about obtaining station access.

In general, I am not in favor of any suggestion that reduces a player's ability to find other players. The game can feel empty enough as it is.

At first, i liked the idea mentioned about removing docked players from the sector list, and this is coming from someone who flies around checking who is docked where (and applying known/expected habits to those pilots in order to pirate them).

It would mean that even pirates wouldn't show up on the sector list, and sometimes I go afk at a station and I'm sure the visitors think I'm camping them.

But then I read Meridian's post. I have to agree that making people less visible in a social game is something that has to be considered. How do we keep visibility while "protecting privacy" (so to speak)? Hardly a night or day goes by that some newb doesn't ask one of a couple questions: 1) "Where is everyone?" or 2) "Where are you guys?"

Oh, wait. it's the same question. Asked a lot!

That new players bump into each other in sectors and on 100 or 1 and form groups that vary from loose to tight-knit is a fact. I think seeing someone docked in the station adds to that mechanic --a bit of recognition ("I know that guy! Oh, yeah, that's the dude that was helping with the queen the other night...", etc.)

+1 to reducing the 15k thing and increasing the radar thing to meet in the middle around 6-8k or so.

Oh, and I miss Phlegathon's One-Eyed Get. Just sayin'. Yarr.

I would suggest that by docking a player would then be able to see all other docked players- for instance this might give some value to checking in at the station bar. We do still have station bars right? It's been a while... Though I am not going to be overly upset if this doesn't change.

As an alternative, I'd suggest 'bribing' a station guard to tell you who is docked with variable pricing, as well as paying the station for an expanded sector list from the immediate list provided by the station default- again with varying prices. I think this would add a bit of positive interaction with the game, make station bots a bit more pricey to maintain and provide a needed credit sink. Also it provides a more immersive atmosphere and means of acquiring the same information.

I do like Incarnates 6-8k radar plan.

I have to agree that making people less visible in a social game is something that has to be considered.

I agree, and this has been on my mind as well. It was always a major factor in keeping the current 15k weird-magical-sensor thing, in that it at least showed you that "people" were around.

I'm not sure how to replicate this in a less exploitable way, while still making it as beneficial as it is now.

There is a sense of organic community, interest and awareness that comes from randomly running into people in the game (and being aware of that), that cannot be easily replicated using other mechanics that are purpose-built to draw people together (like creating a system of "looking for group" advertisement or whatever).

What if the player were able to rotate that view using a joystick in order to see with their eyes what ships are loitering around the station? Something akin to looking out the station window.

I don't have any problem with that. It'd probably be relatively straightforward to do, although it would require more dev-time than just changing numbers and flags, which is what most of the rest of this requires.

Speaking of numbers, to recap, we're kinda considering:

- Increasing base radar to, say, 6km. Reducing "user list" awareness to 6km, and forcing user-list awareness to follow radar rules (ie, occluded players hiding behind asteroids are not visible on the list). Radar could also evolve into a more ship-specific stat.. so some trader ships, capships might have longer range radar? (topic for another thread/discussion).
- Decreasing "when docked at a station" radar range to within 1500m of the station, or that ballpark, to mitigate the flow of information related to wormhole sectors that contain stations.
- Removing the detail of radar information available to those docked in a station, potentially including blanking out the ship config of remote players.

Now, even with the radar reduction to ~6k or thereabouts, there will still be a significantly diminished sense of awareness of other players presence or existence, and this will negatively impact the perception of newbies in regards to the player-density of the game overall. There will probably be a need for some other enhancements to try and offset this loss.

Radar could also evolve into a more ship-specific stat.. so some trader ships, capships might have longer range radar? (topic for another thread/discussion).

+1

Now, even with the radar reduction to ~6k or thereabouts, there will still be a significantly diminished sense of awareness of other players presence or existence, and this will negatively impact the perception of newbies in regards to the player-density of the game overall. There will probably be a need for some other enhancements to try and offset this loss.

Is there a simple way to make the default radar/sector list range vary between sectors/systems? One could assume that a ship might be supplied more information when in Nationspace than Greyspace, and nooblets are more likely to want to "see" more people in Nationspace.

Could the docked player / external ships view from docked position be done progressively? Say from no change in beginner systems to complete change in grey?

Is there a simple way to make the default radar/sector list range vary between sectors/systems? One could assume that a ship might be supplied more information when in Nationspace than Greyspace, and nooblets are more likely to want to "see" more people in Nationspace.

Yeah, it's special-case code, but it shouldn't be too involved, I think. The problem there becomes one of UX and training.. in the sense that you get people used to one behaviour, and then change it somewhere else.

It also begs the question of whether we're basically maintaining the "sector list" thing in Nation space, and then do away with it outside of nation space? (purely limited by radar range in gray).

Because otherwise, if we kept everything unified to radar range.. that would mean your radar range would be much higher in nation space than in grayspace, to have the same locality awareness. Obviously that would be a little weird, it being such a major property of your ship.

Could the docked player / external ships view from docked position be done progressively? Say from no change in beginner systems to complete change in grey?

I'm not sure if you're asking the same thing as Lecter, or if you're literally referring to the whole "view" discussion (where the people in stations get a good quality way of visually checking their surroundings, while in the station).

Anyway, some kind of progression from Nation -> Gray should be feasible, if makes sense and is worth the tradeoffs of some people being confused by a seemingly arbitrary difference in the way the game "works".

5k radar range
10k detection range
add-on for increasing radar range to 8k (doesn't work in stations)
add-on for increasing detection range to 15k (doesn't work in stations)
15k detection range for Raptor & tridents

From a sci-fi technology perspective, detection range in a station/turret sector should be much higher since the stations could assist, but I understand that most people don't want that at all.

Anyway, some kind of progression from Nation -> Gray should be feasible, if makes sense and is worth the tradeoffs of some people being confused by a seemingly arbitrary difference in the way the game "works".

It's been said before, but some kind of forced tutorial covering these and other differences (like Corvus faction rules) in Grey...before nooblets are allowed to pass through those WHs...would be ideal.

I was asking the same question. I had been responding to something said in a previous message and missed the Good Dr's better phrased version.

the way I see it is that a ship has a ID beacon or something that lets you see them from outside range, perhaps this beacon could be "weakened for safety" outside of nation space and in the case of native KOS be limited to radar range. However loosing awareness of a player entirely by going behind a roid is silly, the sector list should display all ships withing radar range regardless of line of sight.
+1 to no ship info while docked

I think of it as ships in guarded/monitored sectors benefiting from whatever data stream is providing the monitoring...somewhat like a fighter linked to an AWACS will have greater awareness than the same vessel flying solo.

This would also allow for a simple, universal mechanic that could be added to the very first tutorial: "The standard Radar Range of your Ship is 5km, but in sectors that are Monitored or Guarded you are able to 'see' ships on the sector list out to Xkm. In Unmonitored sectors -- including all non-station sectors in Greyspace -- you can only 'see' ships on the sector list if they're on your ship's radar. Some ships and addons are able to increase the standard Radar Range.