[REQUEST] Tracking Limpets

[Ram Paige]

tl'dr When you gank a mob, hit the Type-9 (or whatever you want) with a Tracking Limpet, never losing track of the main pack!

Basically been running a pile of PVE missions and I'll engage the first few ships from a mob but can never find the main pack again. When I pop into an instance, I can just lob a tracker onto a 'main' part of the pack and work on picking off the rest while keeping track of the location of the main pack. It would only work in that instance but have very long range, maybe a different indicator shape/color on radar. Yes?

 

[varonica]

tl'dr When you gank a mob, hit the Type-9 (or whatever you want) with a Tracking Limpet, never losing track of the main pack!

Basically been running a pile of PVE missions and I'll engage the first few ships from a mob but can never find the main pack again. When I pop into an instance, I can just lob a tracker onto a 'main' part of the pack and work on picking off the rest while keeping track of the location of the main pack. It would only work in that instance but have very long range, maybe a different indicator shape/color on radar. Yes?

They stop existing once they leave the edge of the instance, that's why you lose track. Instanced mobs only exist in the instance, if you fly far enough away, for example chasing that juicy T9 and you exceed the instance range they go poof and vanish! The same with your tracking limpet.

 

[Ram Paige]

That's.. Interesting. It explains a lot about the mechanics of the game, actually. I find that dishearteningly immersion breaking. Once you're in an instance, that stuff should be (re)discoverable, even if it's 100km 30km away. Packs don't seem to follow a set path once they're "disturbed", it makes the point of hunting their beacon down to begin with, pointless.

400billion systems is a big ocean but the immersion is an inch deep.

 

[varonica]

Once you're in an instance, that stuff should be (re)discoverable, even if it's 100km away.

But that's the point, it doesn't get 100klms away, it no longer exists, the instance size can't be infinite. Note we are talking about instances in real space, not in SC, so yes you can see other ships in SC a long way away in the same system instance, but they all vanish when you drop out of SC to normal space so unless they are in the same normal space instance with you they aren't visible.

Not sure exactly how far away they need to be, but the distance on planetary surfaces is around 30klms radius, that's also the distance a SLF will explode explode so I am assuming we are looking at around 60klms across in a real space instance.

 

[GroG79]

Maybe not 100s of km...

But it does not disappear for a long time. The ship goes cold when engines are out so it is hard to track even with a long range radar. If you know the direction you can find it again.

I like this idea. Very useful for piracy

 

[Ram Paige]

100km was just a number, but I'm not sure it really should be limited. For example, the 'range' of the instance should only be pushed as far as the pack have wandered off to. In the time it takes to pick off 3-4 support, they shouldn't have wandered too far, maybe 30km at most? Point being, when you're dogfighting and swirling around for a few minutes, it's damn-near impossible to not lose your bearings, even if the pack was headed in a general direction - they don't seem to follow a set path. Even if we said 30km for a tracking limpet, it's better than blowing an instance because you can't re-acquire your mission target.

 

[varonica]

100km was just a number, but I'm not sure it really should be limited. For example, the 'range' of the instance should only be pushed as far as the pack have wandered off to. In the time it takes to pick off 3-4 support, they shouldn't have wandered too far, maybe 30km at most? Point being, when you're dogfighting and swirling around for a few minutes, it's damn-near impossible to not lose your bearings, even if the pack was headed in a general direction - they don't seem to follow a set path. Even if we said 30km for a tracking limpet, it's better than blowing an instance because you can't re-acquire your mission target.

If they are in the instance you will see them on your radar.

In the time it takes to pick off 3-4 support, they shouldn't have wandered too far, maybe 30km at most?

They don't actually "wander" off, they get out of there at a reasonably nippy pace, they are under attack right? They often jump to SC, and then you lose them because SC takes them out of the instance.

 

[zikolach]

Just adding small bit...

One continues to see team/wing beacons dropping from sc.

Teoretically such a "track limpet" could lead you to the position where other npcs made a jump allowing to scan wake and potentially follow them (e.g. reducing range to next mission source signal in case of low wake).