Line Of Sight

The mechanics of space flight in New Eden leave a lot to be desired. Many fundamental laws are absent from the galaxy for various reasons but Line of Sight (LoS) is something which could potentially change the universe.

Imagine you’re mining in a belt, bored and lonely. Suddenly a pirate warps onto the beacon looking for a meal. Positioning the mining vessel such that the LoS is obscured from the enemy could mean that the overview fails to locate your fragile mining ship helping to keep you safe(r).

A mission runner encounters problems containing the incoming fire from several faction battleships. Positioning the ship behind a structure found within the complex shielding a majority of the fire from the mission runners’ ship assists the management of the damage.

LoS could be the next logical step in the evolution of our galaxy. Imagine a formation that shields support vessels from enemy fire. This could be quite a valid tactic and would work beautifully with the addition of fleet formations.

I realise that server calls would be increased impacting on the clusters performance and that this performance hit would increase further within large engagements. Without technical knowledge to comment I am unsure whether this idea may even be valid but I’m curious as to what you may think.

Again, just a thought...

5 comments:

AlansJourney said...

I like your way of thinking, but I think that line of sight would be fine for beam and projectile weapons, where an obstacle interferes with their ability to hit the target. But missiles would be a different story. Missiles would simply avoid the obstacle and hit the target anyway.

Good idea though. :)

Myrhial Arkenath said...

Depends if they are guided missiles or not, Alexia. Although those in EVE are, since there is a skill named accordingly.

I like the idea of line of sight but with the current controls -- no "joystick" -- it could be pretty hard to execute.

Darina said...

I like the idea of LoS, but, like Alexia says, it should only affect un-guided weapons. I would also add that target-based modules should also be affected.

In your example of a miner hiding behind an asteroid when a pirate warps in, the miner would still be visible on the pirate's overview, but the pirate would have to get LoS to be able to scramble the warp drive. Not too hard for the pirate to overcome, but gives the miner a chance to flee if she is awake.

Perhaps it is possible to calculate a visibility rating between two objects fairly easily on the server (as the client must draw intervening objects), so maybe the idea can be expanded to cause the effectiveness of these LoS modules to be reduced. (E.g. reduced chance of a successful point, or less than optimal remote armour repair amount given, etc.)

I don't think a joystick would be essential, as maneuvering is not that difficult. Just putting a roid between your hulk and the default warp-in point could mean the difference between escape and ransom if you are also exercising the required level of paranoia.

Jaggins said...

Great idea! Even if this is taxing on resources now, servers keep getting faster, so it may be possible in the future. I think LOS would really add an element of fun to the simulation!

AlansJourney said...

If LoS combat ever becomes a reality, I can see 'area effect' weapons becoming more popular. Fire a bomb at an asteroid, for example, and expect the area effect of the blast to cause damage to any ships hiding there. A big enough blast radius, and the hiding ship not moving, could be substantially devastating. One of the risks of hiding behind an asteroid...