Warp Scrammed

OK, I’ve been pondering the question of local as an intel source versus a chat source, and I’ve come up with an idea I’d like to share.

I’ve thought that the intel functions of local represent quite a bit of work to do manually – that is to have someone watch a gate and record who comes and goes and enter it into an intel channel somewhere. Any kind of surge of activity would overwhelm such a manual process very quickly. But players seem to want some way to limit the pervasiveness of local channel intel, especially in lower security systems. At the same time, local channel intel is quite useful to carebear types in high sec, and they’d not want to lose that ability. So here’s a proposal that gives some cake to everyone, I think.

First, local reverts to being  just a chat channel – you only show up in it if you start talking in it.

Next, a new intel probe is created, and this probe can be deployed in space and it will record the pilot info of anyone entering it’s range, and publish that info in a selected channel.

In high sec, CONCORD runs these and puts them in sentry guns at gates and stations, and the intel is published to a common system intel channel. The probes don’t give their location, only what they see (so you don’t know which gate/station someone is at, just that they are in space somewhere in the system. All CONCORD probes record in one common intel channel. If you jump out, the probe at that gate would record that and remove you from the intel channel. Stations could have jump clone monitoring to record in/out clone jumps in the intel channel, too. So in high sec, you have the equivalent of the current local intel but in a different channel.

In null sec there are no CONCORD intel probes, so no auto local intel. But players can launch their own intel probes and configure them to report to a private intel channel, which can be open to their fleet/corp/alliance, as they so choose. Multiple probes can report to a single intel channel, or each probe to it’s own channel. Probes can be placed anywhere – by a gate, POS, jump bridge, anywhere. Since each probe can have it’s own channel, you not only can learn who is in the system, but also where they are at (if they are in range of an intel probe). Private intel probes would be vulnerable to attack and destruction, but might be hard to find, if placed carefully. Private probes might have a limited lifetime, or be tied to the one who launched them – so if they leave, log off, or are killed, someone else will have to put up a replacement. But the idea here is that you can have as much or more intel than local gives you, but you have to put some effort into getting it. But not the onerous effort of having someone sit there and try to manually pass on the info of who is coming and going.

In low sec there’d be some middle ground between high sec and null sec. Perhaps station and gate probes but not inside sentry guns, possibly attackable (if you can tank the sentry guns). Private probes would be available, but maybe only to common intel channels, so if you put up a private probe everyone in the system can see it’s intel – or maybe just the local residents.

So there’s my idea. What do you think?