General Hide 'player' ship on scanner and on the description - additional option

[Robert Maynard]

The point is to make all ships - player and NPC same with only a possibility to mark as human on owner wish.

The DDF discussion on IDing ships was an interesting one - and Sandro's proposal meant that if a player switched off their own ID then they would not be able to see other players' IDs, i.e. off is off.

This proposal seems to want to put all of the advantage into the hands of the player deciding to switch their ID on or off - which seems to suggest that its designed to let players who switch it off hide among NPCs with no corresponding loss of the ability to ID other players.

The galaxy would feel very empty if everyone switched off their IDs - and a not insignificant number of them would be encouraged to do so by suffering the unwanted attentions of those who preferentially prey on players unprepared for combat.

If any changes to the way the HUD scanner operates were to be considered then I'd hope that one of those implemented would be to immediately highlight any scanner contact that has notoriety - no waiting for it to resolve or requirement to scan it at all.

 

[Kyokushin]

Notoriety is related only to humans so showing that before the scan is breaking an idea of hiding. Hide should means same - for everyone.

A galaxy will be more populated because there will be no difference between player or NPC, so you may assume all ships belong to players or all of them to NPC - its only up to you how you will consider that.

This is leading us to other point - maybe Fdev could allow a chat with NPC and give them AI chatbot Then maybe you will never know who is who.
All lives matter so, why not the artifitial ones? That could be interesting, in S/F AI is quite common.

 

[aRJay]

Good for you he will not be able to write you, nothing else

The suggestion is not for blocking other players, but for better gameplay, without invisibility modes, combat logs, blocking each other etc. It would simply bring better gameplay and less tensions between different player groups and will allow everyone to play a game with more rich playerbase - more crowd, more ships no one know who is who till someone decide to 'coming out' and simply will switch the button and show 'i am human'.

Means more lag, lower frame rates etc.

Also sorry if I missed this but you will also need to rename the players while they are hiding otherwise the Cmdr part of the name will give the game away.

Too much coding effort for not enough fun from my point of view, if I want to hide from players I can play in a PG or Solo, if I want to shoot at players I arrange it with friends before hand to me there is no fun that I feel good about shooting random strangers and possibly ruining their game for that session. If I want lamenting I read the forums.

 

[Robert Maynard]

Notoriety is related only to humans so showing that before the scan is breaking an idea of hiding. Hide should means same - for everyone.

Indeed - however, as the scanner already "knows" whether a contact is CMDR or NPC (which relates to membership of the Pilots' Federation), it seems not unreasonable to extend the use of that link to include notoriety.

I realise that this doesn't agree with the proposal to be able to hide in plain sight - but I don't agree that being able to do so would be an improvement to the game for all players.

All lives matter so, why not the artifitial ones? That could be interesting, in S/F AI is quite common.

NPCs are provided for our entertainment - and, as a non sentient series of bytes in RAM, NPCs don't count as "life".

 

[Susanna]

I would like to add the suggestion about the visibility of player ship on the radar, scanner and description

The option to 'mark me as player' should be in the menu as a choice for players to allow them to be recognized as human players or other 'world characters'.
At now the NPCs are filled by colour and players only stroked. In my opinion it should be the matter of choice.

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It would be harder to find a player to gank in world 'full of NPC', without radar recogniction, and better gameplay for other side to hide like the shadow in npc crowd to catch a player.
More players could be able to play 'on the Open' because other will be never sure they are players or NPCs.

Only profits, for all.

As an addition to this option, for example the KWS could be able to detect a ship belong to human or NPC.

What a dreadful idea! A back door to ganking. "I didn't know they were a real player officer Dibble..."

 

[aRJay]

But scanning by KWS will take longer and maybe a scanned ship may get info is scanned (for example to make a jump in meantime, drop from SC or take other countermeasures).
In my opinion it would be nice - but that is the option to consider.

The point is to make all ships - player and NPC same with only a possibility to mark as human on owner wish.

A KWS scan can take as little as 2 seconds, unless you are going to have that blueprint removed.

 

[Helvellyn]

While this proposal takes things a little far (I can happily rationalise Pilots’ Fed ships being clearly identifiable), I would like if things like Q-ships were more viable and scanning was less passive perhaps?

A bit more uncertainty in what you're attacking? Might work, and I like the idea in theory, although it would have to be carefully managed in practice.

 

[Achtung-Goomba]

A bit more uncertainty in what you're attacking? Might work, and I like the idea in theory, although it would have to be carefully managed in practice.

Oh I agree, and probably more work than it’s worth now that the ship has long since sailed so to speak, but imagine if the Keelback for example was indistinguishable from a T6 until you got close enough to visually identify and active scan? A Keelbacker can dream, can’t he!

 

[Rubbernuke]

A lot of people fly about with the dev console bandwidth visible, which is like a cheaty player radar- plus, just by looking at the ship you can spot if its an NPC or player. NPCs don't build like players and to properly blend in would need to be far more varied.

 

[Achtung-Goomba]

A lot of people fly about with the dev console bandwidth visible, which is like a cheaty player radar- plus, just by looking at the ship you can spot if its an NPC or player. NPCs don't build like players and to properly blend in would need to be far more varied.

NPCs are the cannon fodder and redshirts, the Pilots’ Fed are PMF mercs; I’m more like one of those fat guys in a cheap army costume telling pretend stories of my imaginary spec ops experience in Afghanistan...

 

[Rubbernuke]

NPCs are the cannon fodder and redshirts, the Pilots’ Fed are PMF mercs; I’m more like one of those fat guys in a cheap army costume telling pretend stories of my imaginary spec ops experience in Afghanistan...

The other is paint jobs. Just target the ones that look like this and its a player:

Yea I'm going to blend in. No ones going to notice.

 

[Helvellyn]

Oh I agree, and probably more work than it’s worth now that the ship has long since sailed so to speak, but imagine if the Keelback for example was indistinguishable from a T6 until you got close enough to visually identify and active scan? A Keelbacker can dream, can’t he!

Or a Type 9 and Type 10... Also wonder if just being able to see the largest ship in a wing could work, so no idea if it's got escorts (should you be able to hire NPC escorts?) Maybe disguises would only be a feature available on trade ships. There should probably be some downsides to it though, beyond the small slot it would probably require. Should you be able to see builds in SC?

 

[Achtung-Goomba]

Or a Type 9 and Type 10... Also wonder if just being able to see the largest ship in a wing could work, so no idea if it's got escorts (should you be able to hire NPC escorts?) Maybe disguises would only be a feature available on trade ships. There should probably be some downsides to it though, beyond the small slot it would probably require. Should you be able to see builds in SC?

Probably not, maybe the Albuquerque bubble interferes with the scanners? You should maybe see just a supercruise ‘sillouhette’ representative of the ship’s mass. Of course, once you get into the precise mechanics of the scanning system and active/passive scan limitations that’s precisely where the discussion exceeds my layman’s knowledge.

 

[Kyokushin]

Means more lag, lower frame rates etc.

Also sorry if I missed this but you will also need to rename the players while they are hiding otherwise the Cmdr part of the name will give the game away.

Too much coding effort for not enough fun from my point of view, if I want to hide from players I can play in a PG or Solo, if I want to shoot at players I arrange it with friends before hand to me there is no fun that I feel good about shooting random strangers and possibly ruining their game for that session. If I want lamenting I read the forums.

lag and lower fps is only your assumption - a projection not related to how it could be
CMDR is not the player given name, its added by a game so may be hidden by a game. If someone have 'cmdr cmdr nickname' then yes, he will have 'cmdr nickname', If someone will name himself 'i am a human' then its his decision Also NPC can be named 'i am a human'

NPCs are provided for our entertainment.

Well, same words has been places in dark ages of America, if we develop good AI we should not treat worse than us We're going to offtopic here.

The point is to allow people to get better immersion - at now when human is entering to the system the everyone know he is a human.
What if someone want to sink into the digital galaxy and would want to identify his character as other world population (mostly know at now as NPC) ?

 

[Robert Maynard]

The point is to allow people to get better immersion - at now when human is entering to the system the everyone know he is a human.
What if someone want to sink into the digital galaxy and would want to identify his character as other world population (mostly know at now as NPC) ?

Play Solo. That way one cannot be bothered by other players.

... unless the intention is to gain advantage against those other players by unilaterally hiding the CMDR hollow scanner marker by making is solid like that of an NPC.

Fun for some, less fun for others. It might work in a new Open mode created for the specific purpose of removing the distinction between CMDRs and NPCs.

If it were to be implemented in the only Open mode then a reasonable compromise would be to add an option to the block feature to never instance with players who switch off their ID.

 

[aRJay]

lag and lower fps is only your assumption - a projection not related to how it could be
CMDR is not the player given name, its added by a game so may be hidden by a game. If someone have 'cmdr cmdr nickname' then yes, he will have 'cmdr nickname', If someone will name himself 'i am a human' then its his decision Also NPC can be named 'i am a human'

Not so much an assumption but an observation of what happens whenever I am in locations that include a lot of players, though other things can cause the same effect.

 

[Fake Newts]

Notoriety is related only to humans

No it isn't. Notoriety is accrued through killing NPCs, and frontier themselves stated part of its intended purpose was to stop 'exaggerated' BGS manipulation via NPC cop murder. It's actually a widespread misconception that it was a focused 'anti-gank' system... if it were it'd be pretty sad, because it doesn't prevent ganking at all, if anything it encourages the use of overwhelming force and discourages drawn out David v Goliath style attacks.

 

[Kyokushin]

Personally i would even opt out about the KWS scanner option - just only option to hide or show 'i am human marker'.
I was curious about your all opinion about version with KWS.

Play Solo. That way one cannot be bothered by other players.

... unless the intention is to gain advantage against those other players by unilaterally hiding the CMDR hollow scanner marker by making is solid like that of an NPC.

Fun for some, less fun for others. It might work in a new Open mode created for the specific purpose of removing the distinction between CMDRs and NPCs.

If it were to be implemented in the only Open mode then a reasonable compromise would be to add an option to the block feature to never instance with players who switch off their ID.

If i would to play alone, but i do not want The suggestion is to allow people a choice.
A choice is good. To say i am human or not. Its not influing your gameplay if someone will not tell you is a human. Your body, your choice, someone else body - someone else choice

No it isn't. Notoriety is accrued through killing NPCs, and frontier themselves stated part of its intended purpose was to stop 'exaggerated' BGS manipulation via NPC cop murder. It's actually a widespread misconception that it was a focused 'anti-gank' system... if it were it'd be pretty sad, because it doesn't prevent ganking at all, if anything it encourages the use of overwhelming force and discourages drawn out David v Goliath style attacks.

Yes it is. Have you seen NPC with notoriety level?

 

[Robert Maynard]

Its not influing your gameplay if someone will not tell you is a human.

It would influence gameplay - it would mean that players would have to consider all solid scanner markers a potential CMDRs.

 

[Kyokushin]

or all solid markers as potiential NPC's. Both opions sounds equal, but they're not because its much more probably to see NPC than human in Elite Galaxy.