W-space life is rubbish
16th June 2014 – 5.39 pmI don't know what there is to do in w-space any more. The discovery scanner has made finding active pilots more difficult. Even if I do, mobile tractor units have all but made salvagers obsolete, removing another significant source of targets. Now the 'look at' feature doesn't let me track a ship aligning to warp, meaning I can only start to follow seconds after my target has shot off in to the distance, effectively losing the last significant group of targets.
Maybe I need to start using the local channel to arrange fights. I'm pretty sure that's what capsuleers envisioned when they first encountered unknown space. Still I persevere. For now, anyway. Maybe the 'look at' function is merely glitching, and I can at least get back to being frustrated by chasing planet gooers. Or maybe I can find some solace in scanning empty space for days, despite knowing that exploration kinda needs something to see at some point, or I'm just aimlessly wandering from system to system.
Scanning the home system resolves the static wormhole and uncovers a new pocket of gas. Hmm, maybe I should start sucking on it. That makes ISK, is barely dangerous even in w-space these days, and will clearly give me lots to write about. Soon, perhaps, but today I continue through our wormhole, to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system, where my directional scanner shows me nothing and a blanket scan reveals twelve anomalies, fourteen signatures, and, of course, no ships.
My notes give no occupation and list the static wormhole as exiting to null-sec, which, considering my previous visit was around two weeks ago, looks about right. There could be K162s, though, so I call my probes in to see what I can find. The first signature looks like it could be the K346, but, no, it's just a relic site. The second is a wormhole, chunky, so it isn't the K346. I warp across as I continue to scan, dropping next to a K162 from class 2 w-space. That's good.
Further scanning finds plenty of gas, data and relic sites, and a few more wormholes. One is a K162 from null-sec, another a dying C2 K162, the last the static exit to null-sec. I get the exits before heading to more w-space, for some reason not getting as excited about another w-space connection as I used to. The K162 comes in from Curse, where no one else is in the system and an extra signature prompts me to launch probes. I pop a rat and ignore the combat site, but spot a siphon unit on d-scan. I'll take a look.
There it is. The siphon unit is lightly disguised as a laser battery, and quite obviously empty. That will be bait, easy to ignore. I return to w-space, cross C3a, and jump through the K346 to appear in a system in Malpais. There's no one in this system either, but also no signatures to scan. I take a moment to pop a rat anyway, taking less time than I thought it would, and I return to w-space to see where the healthy C2 K162 will take me.
A tower and two ships light up d-scan from the wormhole in C2a, but the ships are just an Impairor frigate and Helios covert operations boat, nothing to get excited about. There's nowhere to hide either, the system being relatively small, so I locate the tower to check for pilots before decloaking to launch probes. Both ships are piloted. The Helios is moving as well, but it's obvious he's only performing idle loops around the tower and probably not at the controls. The Impairor is aligned with the hangars and so is definitely idle. I'll scan.
The seven anomalies and four signatures don't take long to sift through, giving me two wormholes and a touch of gas. Another K162 from class 2 w-space will keep me going a little longer, and the static exit to high-sec leads to a system undergoing an Incursion in Kador that I don't care to get involved in. From C2a to C2c, which holds a well-stocked tower, with all of its hangars being put to use, given there are no ships visible. I warp away, launch probes, and perform a blanket scan. Ten anomalies, five signatures, no ships.
I locate the tower for reference and switch filters on my probes, revealing a clump of structures elsewhere in the system. It's a second tower, but still with no one around. A quick scan resolves two data sites, some gas, and a wormhole, a static exit to low-sec that clearly leads to Kor-Azor. That's the end of the constellation, nothing happening inside it, and I don't have the impetus to scan the low-sec system. I poke through to bookmark the low-sec side of the wormhole for reference, and turn my ship around to head home.
11 Responses to “W-space life is rubbish”
Now the 'look at' feature doesn't let me track a ship aligning to warp, meaning I can only start to follow seconds after my target has shot off in to the distance
I have noticed this too. Do you know why they changed it? I never saw any discussion of it.
I haven't even seen an acknowledgement of the change, despite asking on Twitter and filing two bug reports, one before Kronos and one after.
I've asked about 'Look at' cutting out the instant warp is initiated also. I used to use that a lot.
*Insert 'Deirdre Barlow discovering Ken's had an affair' type face.
I've never been able to "look at" a target after it has initiated warp. If I look before they start I can see them until they actually enter warp, but if I ever arrive on scene after they've already started it the function will not work. If yours gets fixed let us know as I've never been able to do it and I'll petition.
re: Gwydion Voleur
It used to be that if you had the look at on before they initiated warp it'd keep looking until they got out of look at range, thus if you were set up beforehand you had their align time to see where they're going. It's now snapping back to ship the second they hit the warp button. It smells of a CCP bug fix with zero considerations for W-Space. I'll poke Corbexx to ask CCP for confirmation.
"It used to be that if you had the look at on before they initiated warp it'd keep looking until they got out of look at range, thus if you were set up beforehand you had their align time to see where they're going."
Yes, that was my experience as well, I just hadn't seen the early snap-back you describe. Sounds stupid.
The other comment made me think that previously everyone else could initiate the "look" feature even after warp had been initiated, whereas I could not. I get it now.
Yeah, if the ship was in warp you couldn't use the 'look at' function on that ship, including if they were decelerating at the end of warp. But it was always only when the ship actually had its warp drive active.
Now the 'look at' function fails, and the view snaps back to your ship, as soon as the warp command is given. This is the moment the ship starts aligning for warp and before the warp drive is active.
Essentially, the 'look at' function used to work whenever it was also possible to target a ship, and now it doesn't.
My feeling is you should always be able to look at any ship on grid and in range, regardless of its warp status. But I'd be happy just to get the old behavior back.
True. Sadly the instant warp is engaged now negates your ability to look at the target. I can't help but feel that this is a byproduct of tinkering for the last patch as its removal makes no practical sense.
If the warp changes never happened it'd almost be ok, you'd have time for the snap back to resolve, figure out where you need to look and see them go off grid. But with their new warp speeds anything destroyer sized and smaller is offgrid and gone before the snap back resolves.
What I'm doing these days is looking at the sun from my perch above the POS and listing down left to right what planet is what. Not super easy with the new popup text that seems to like grouping things even vaguely within the same screen space into it's list but once you got it you can more or less see where things warp to from your ship. No look at needed. CovOps are still impossible to track though :/
Another possibility is to look at something next to the ship (SMA, CHA etc) and rotate the view so you can see that ship.
Still far from ideal tho.