Radiation Technology Mechanics

[J.D.]

So, with pvp, and a means for pvp being such a hot topic right now, I thought I’d ask you @LauriFB if you would mind providing some details on this mechanic that is to come down the road. I think it’s something a lot of us are excited for to make pvp more fun, and it seems as though it will also help the others who are more for staying away from pvp while venturing out for some added protection with awareness of their surroundings. Any spicy details you’d like to entice us with?

 

[Womble]

I only hope it's not some simple-minded single-factor kludge.

 

[J.D.]

I only hope it's not some simple-minded single-factor kludge.

What you mean?

 

[Womble]

I hope it's more complicated than:

"some one thing" in your ship produces "detectable radiation" that you can mitigate by "shielding".

Something more like

"Several things" in your ship produce "different kinds of detectable radiation" that you can mitigate by "shielding" and behaviours. Not all shielding or behaviour will work for all your "signature" sources. So "turning your radiators away from the enemy" would mitigate the heat sig from rads, but not the energy signature from your reactor. Active equipment use (weapons, mining lasers, thrusters) should increase your detectability. Maybe damping the energy signature of your reactor makes hiding your heat sig harder.

Even individual elements need some complexity: your reactor might emit a signal baselined on its size, but that signal should increase as the power output of the reactor actually being used increases. Shut down thrusters should be low-sig, thrusters at full burn should be high. More thrusters? Higher sig.

You might be able to run a ship entirely off batteries and have very little reactor-based signature, but that has its own issues of endurance and vulnerability to damage.

There should be the option of active detection. Downside would be, that it's extremely visible itself, and there should be ways to mitigate the return your ship gives from such a device.

The interactions of simple things can produce complex outcomes: search methods; stealth approaches; compromise solutions that aren't "can I get the ore for that?" (to which the answer is always "yes" for a large portion of the population).

It could get *very* involved, and that's probably too much, but keeping some of these concepts in mind will stop the whole shebang being a pointless exercise in "Oh, we just have to add shielding and finding PvP becomes as hard as it used to be."

 

[J.D.]

Oh. Actually the developers have already said in the past that your generator gives off the radiation that is detectable. The only way to shield this signature is to fully encase hour generator with lukium. That material insulated radiation. I think the way they handled that is pretty cool.. But, at the same time, currently the market is shit because the overload of ores. So everything is dirt cheap. Then everyone would have a lukium ship, then we are back to square one. Lol

 

[Womble]

Oh. Actually the developers have already said in the past that your generator gives off the radiation that is detectable. The only way to shield this signature is to fully encase hour generator with lukium. That material insulated radiation. I think the way they handled that is pretty cool.. But, at the same time, currently the market is shit because the overload of ores. So everything is dirt cheap. Then everyone would have a lukium ship, then we are back to square one. Lol

Well, that's lame. Lamer than a one-legged horse that's thrown its shoe. Bleh. I cannot express how disappointing it would be if that is, indeed, the full extent of the "signature game". Hopefully it's just the first leg of a stool with more legs.

 

[J.D.]

Well, there is the option also to turn off the generator to hide the signal, and just run your batteries. It can’t be too complicated, if it were, people would have a hard time finding each other, and that wouldn’t solve the issue we are having these days where pvp people are upset about pvp being so scarce because we lack the tools in gigantic space, and then people who are trying to avoid a fight can use it to their advantage as well. But this was all talk in the past. Any of it could change. That’s just what I’ve been told from the devs earlier on

 

[Womble]

So you have a single thing that anyone can detect... and you can turn it off. Or shield it. So if a raider is closing on a target, they'd better have enough batteries to sneak up on them, or the target will see them coming and turn their own genny off, go dark in a thoroughly simplistic manner and only needs to have enough batteries to change their loctation by enough to be out of visual contact by the time the raiders arrive at their "last known". Having it be too simple means that it becomes simplistic. And you add no game while still failing to solve the problem.

If you make the search and evasion a test of skill and wits (both in design and execution), even if the PvPers can't actually generate an intercept vector, they'll have fun trying. They'll have even more satisfaction when they succeed. And everyone with even the slightest confidence will be prepared to give it a go (and those with less confidence wouldn't be tempting PvP in the first place) if they feel they've got a fighting chance of either hiding or seeking, whichever they're choosing to do.

ETA: it's this kind of one-dimensional combat/conflict mechanic that killed PvP as a concept even, in DU. In a similar vein, I do hope that weapons are going to be a bit more varied than the handful currently available, once we're headed towards "no longer early access".