Forums » Suggestions
Make Shared Group Radar Extender Small Port
I am making this suggestion in response to a previous suggestion thread where Rule#5 was cited.
I said in the thread that Shared Group Radar Extenders could be used by guilds to spy on wormholes while running very low risks of being spotted. I have personally seen this happen. I can't do it myself because I don't have a Capship. However, I have heard of this from certain veteran players as well.
There was also a recent 100 discussion where it was said that "Who would waste their capship on this?" I can think of a couple of situations where doing this would make sense:
1)Leave the spotter on one client, and pirate on the other. You don't really need a Capship to pirate non-capships. One can easily make this spotter in a wormhole (say Verasi O7) and then be able to pirate on another client.
2)Go afk, and give your guild members alerts on spots. If I'm going afk anyway, I might as well do this at a wormhole and then go afk, so my guild mates know which places to avoid (if they're traders) or which places to target (if they're pirates).
I would also like to state here, that in spite of SGREs being disabled in the NFZ, it is still possible to do this at stations by stationing capships in the black ring of roids in Dau L10, or the ring around Verasi O7, etc. This might not be completely safe, but the chances that a busy hauler would bother to check behind the roids every time are slim to nil.
This is not a "attack on piracy". I simply think that any kind of spotter bots are bad for gameplay, especially when they're one-sided. And I think a pretty simple solution to remove this particular ability without sacrificing on legitimate use (I can't think of any, but still) is to make the SGRE small port.
I said in the thread that Shared Group Radar Extenders could be used by guilds to spy on wormholes while running very low risks of being spotted. I have personally seen this happen. I can't do it myself because I don't have a Capship. However, I have heard of this from certain veteran players as well.
There was also a recent 100 discussion where it was said that "Who would waste their capship on this?" I can think of a couple of situations where doing this would make sense:
1)Leave the spotter on one client, and pirate on the other. You don't really need a Capship to pirate non-capships. One can easily make this spotter in a wormhole (say Verasi O7) and then be able to pirate on another client.
2)Go afk, and give your guild members alerts on spots. If I'm going afk anyway, I might as well do this at a wormhole and then go afk, so my guild mates know which places to avoid (if they're traders) or which places to target (if they're pirates).
I would also like to state here, that in spite of SGREs being disabled in the NFZ, it is still possible to do this at stations by stationing capships in the black ring of roids in Dau L10, or the ring around Verasi O7, etc. This might not be completely safe, but the chances that a busy hauler would bother to check behind the roids every time are slim to nil.
This is not a "attack on piracy". I simply think that any kind of spotter bots are bad for gameplay, especially when they're one-sided. And I think a pretty simple solution to remove this particular ability without sacrificing on legitimate use (I can't think of any, but still) is to make the SGRE small port.
How do the capships evade being spotted near WHs? Does the shared group extender expand the range beyond what the capship normally has?
They can still technically be spotted. But you don't get the "So-And-So has entered your radar range" notification, so unless you know it's already there, you won't search for it. Simply taking it about 10000m from the wormhole or hiding it behind roids can make it hard to detect, while still retaining it's ability to tell its owner that "So-And-So has entered your radar range".
But you don't get the "So-And-So has entered your radar range" notification, so unless you know it's already there, you won't search for it.
So, really, this whole spybot/capship thing is kind of irrelevant; what we should fix here is the "entered your radar range" notification to be the same, regardless of whether it's a remote-controlled capship or a player-controlled capship.
Assuming that that is actually a difference (I don't know, but it's plausible).
Then the ships will present no advantage (if, again, such a bug exists).
So, really, this whole spybot/capship thing is kind of irrelevant; what we should fix here is the "entered your radar range" notification to be the same, regardless of whether it's a remote-controlled capship or a player-controlled capship.
Assuming that that is actually a difference (I don't know, but it's plausible).
Then the ships will present no advantage (if, again, such a bug exists).
Yeah that works too without spoiling any other loadouts that use SGREs.
I like the idea of small port extender.... but the resent obsession with "spotter bots" is getting ridiculous. As a writer of plugins that actually do share spots, I think the value and usefulness of those plugins is greatly exaggerated.
A small port version, in addition to the existing large port version would be nice at times. I see no reason to remove the current one.
Currently few people run shared extenders as they eat a large port, which is a pretty hefty price to pay, a small port, could at times be sacrificed, maybe if it's grid is low enough to be used with a CWM or CUP.
Currently few people run shared extenders as they eat a large port, which is a pretty hefty price to pay, a small port, could at times be sacrificed, maybe if it's grid is low enough to be used with a CWM or CUP.