CSM Candidate Summaries: Part 1 of Many

CSM Election time is here again, and Cap Stable has taken on the incredible task of interviewing all of the candidates.  I'll go so far as to say if that a candidate hasn't appeared on Cap Stable by the time elections come, they aren't serious and don't deserve your vote.  Cap Stable has been keeping these interviews down to 30m or less, but if you want the even shorter version here is my opinionated summary.  I'll do them in batches as they roll through.  Edit: ... and by the time I've finished this one I'm already behind again!

Top Notch Candidates, put them on your ballot now

Sugar Kyle.  (Lowsec, Communication, New Players, Quality of Life, Small Group)
I put Sugar at the top of my ballot last year and I was not disappointed.  She has clearly been a stand-out star of CSM 9 for her work in providing transparency and communication from the CSM to the players, representing low-sec (my home), gathering player feedback for CSM, driving more minutes than many of her colleagues put together.  As a PVPer and an industrialist she has hands-on knowledge to improve many areas I care about. She's showing no sign of slowing down and that shows in the interview.  Even in this early stage of the campaign I can tell you she'll be on top of my ballot for CSM 10. I recommend that you listen to her interview and decide for yourself.  (Forum Thread)(Podcast)

June Ting. (Nullsec, New Players, Small Group)
Crisp.  Business-like.  Focused.  Damn well knows her shit.  That's my take-away from the interview with June Ting.  I was definitely impressed.  If you read her candidate thread you'll get the same focused feel.  Her candidacy is tied to Ali Aras and her decision not to run for CSM, and I think she's explained that well.  In the interview, notice how she repeats the question back to the interviewer before giving her answer.  You can just tell that she's taking notes as she goes, a professional quality that should work very well dialing in to conference calls with CCP.  When we players don't know a lot about a candidate it is these kinds of qualities that I think will hold up.  Her accomplishments with Of Sound Mind   (Forum Thread)(Podcast)

Solid Candidates, worthy of consideration

Borat Guereen.  (Small Group, French) His key driver is that solo and small group players should be able to own part of Eve.  The idea of a nomadic lifestyle play style is appealing.  His desire to move away from Eve as "a game of alts" resonates for me as a single-account player, but making all alts visibly linked to their mains doesn't seem like a great idea.  The idea of reducing the reach of the APIs seems like it would entire push us back to cache-scraping and/or cause us all to spend more time bopping between regions just to check on prices.  That doesn't seem like a great amount of fun.  As an American who is a French speaker and has spent much of his life in France he may also represent a good connection to an underrepresented player base - with a new localization pack no less.  I'm not terribly convinced by his position on CSM term limits - honestly they seem to burn out fast enough that it isn't a problem. (Forum thread) (Podcast)

Vic Jefferson. (Small Group, New Player, New Ideas) In terms of the general appeal for small gang and new players he is comparable to June Ting, but he suffers in that comparison in terms of focus and confidence. When asked about what he brings with his out of game sense he gives a nervous laugh - not a great selling point and reminds me of my "things not to do as a CSM candidate" from last year.  His appear for bottom-up income is great, but that's hardly an unusual position nowadays.  The idea of making the Pirate missions/LP more valuable I find appealing from a gameplay and lore point of view.  I'd recommend that if you find him interesting, do check out his forum thread for other interesting ideas such as the "HighSec Pirate ESS".  I expect his chances aren't that great given he's a GSF member who doesn't sound like he'll be on their ballot, and will be avoided by others because of that ticker.  (Forum thread)(Podcast)

Not worth your time, move along capsuleer

Xenuria.  (CSM Reform, grrrGoons) Look, he may be a sharp guy and all that, but he's buried under his tinfoil hat.  I'm no fan of GSF, but I honestly don't care about his Goon Agenda message.  Vote buying and people spinning up account just to vote?  Sure, I'm not a big fan but he offered zero in a way of how that should be countered by CCP.  It just sounds like this agenda would derail what I see as the real work of the CSM, which is making the game better. (Forum thread)(Podcast)

Jenshae Chiroptera.  (CSM Reform, Mining-v-Ganking) Key platforms are around CSM/voting reform and "fair fights." He describes positioning himself as a rival to Mittens - and that's a hard way to start convincing me you have a good grip of reality.  Carrying that to an idea of a "negative vote" really sounds like someone who hasn't thought things through - I'm not sure why he thinks that this would add anything, even after skimming over his comments on the forum thread. The call for a way for non-combat ships to defend themselves against combat ships doesn't really seem to make much balance sense, though the Rorqual as mobile POS could be an interesting launching point. (Forum thread)(Podcast)

Immersion and module tiericide

A brief post about immersion as it relates to the module tiericide.  The short version is that having odd and inexplicable names adds confusion, not immersion.  Using that as an excuse for removal of largely useless meta modules is a red herring.  So what should we be looking for?

Patterns contribute to immersion

If I come to be immersed in the game then the patterns in the in-game world become predictable because they seem like a real world.  This is built up from getting the details right and getting them consistent.  If I see that a new, unfamiliar ship is developed by CreoDron Shipyards and past experience has told me that CreoDron ships favor drones, then I'll expect that the new ship will be drone based. It adds to immersion if the game world continues to make sense.  If the world is generally consistent, then that opens the opportunity to go one step further and introduce the exception.  But if the world is full of exceptions then it's no longer a pattern, it's just confusion.  The exception has the potential to break us out of immersion and make us scratch our heads or just exclaim WTF?

Example from the Enyo: "Unlike most Gallente ship manufacturers, Roden Shipyards tend to favor missiles over drones and their ships generally possess stronger armor.  Their electronics capacity, however, tends to be weaker than ships from their competitors."  Even though the idea of Gallente missile-based ships has been fading for years now (perhaps only truly gone now with the Recon rebalance), this flavor text remains to trip up new players and break immersion.  Let's just hope that ISIS helps guide new Gallente players from training up their missile skills.

Extending Immersion in modules

So the next step would be to take the patterns that have been established, such as racial benefits in ships, and extend them to something like modules.  If we've already established that the premier Target Painting ships are Minmatar, then we'd expect that a Minmatar made faction-level module to be the premier in that class.  We can even go to have the Officer Module named after a Minmatar.  We'd expect the best stasis webifier to be Serpentis and the best Afterburner from Sansha.  Yes, there is plenty of room for rivalry too - perhaps the Angel Cartel is a close rival in propulsion to Sansha.  I hope I'm misreading the dev blogs, as they seem to imply a flattening of the faction modules rather than keeping a complexity that adds to immersion.

What we could see:
Afterburners - Sansha for highest speed, Minmatar for best fit at high levels of performance
Microwarp Drives - Angel Cartel with highest speed, leaving another for smallest signature
Warp Scramblers - Federation Navy with longest range, Serpentis remains with highest strength
(etc)

Immersion supports Gameplay

We get benefits in gameplay primarily in understanding the game.  We don't get as many non-intuitive corner cases.  New players can pick up on how to play the game itself, rather than wading through oddball naming and inconsistent bonuses.  And we get fun ideas like a "True Sansha roam" where Sansha ships with Sansha modules actually is the best possible combination for what is expected from Sansha combat styles.

It doesn't help the game to ask players to memorize that clearly an "Interior Force Field Array" is better than a "Pseudoelection Containment field.  Having those two different names doesn't do anything for immersion all by themselves.  Quick, which is better: "Internal Force Field Array" or "Interior Force Field Array" ?

Immersion supports Lore

There is distinction between this kind of internal consistency that makes the world more understandable and the lore.  The lore provides a rich backdrop of stories, but knowing the lore shouldn't be necessary for playing in the sandbox.  Eve isn't a story-line driven game where you can't get to the end-game without knowing who the big villain is.  The lore can provide immersion for those who are interested by adding another level of consistency and pattern that makes the world seem real, but it (largely) external to the game itself.


There is a big opportunity here for CCP to increase immersion with these module tiericide changes.  I hope that we can see some of the possibility here come to Eve.

How (not) to lose your pod

This is a follow-up from the last blog (Battlysts Burn Oto), where I noted that I need to put together a list of ways people lose pods and thus how to avoid losing your pod. Thanks to my corpmates in Aideron Robotics for helping with my original post to our internal forums.  Note that this advice is primarily for lowsec, and only a starting point in null and WH.  In those areas you also have bubbles there and perhaps other things I'm not familiar with.

How to lose your pod:

1. Trying to stick out that last moment when your ship is going down.
• Reason: Your pod will need to align before it can warp out and if you are fighting a gang there is a good chance someone with a fast locker will be trying to catch your pod. Pods align very quickly but they do not do so instantly.
• Alternative: As soon as you realize your ship is going to be lost align to a bookmark or celestial and spam warp. When your ship blows the first warp command registered should get your pod out. Be warned that aligning may mean that you lose transversal and thus will suddenly take damage at a higher rate than you were previously.
• Additional: Have a tab that only has celestials that are safe to warp to.  Many people label this "GTFO."  Warping to the sun is particularly predictable.  I personally like have a bookmark near the sun so if someone sees me align they may waste time thinking they can catch me there.  Meanwhile I bounce and GTFO.
• Bonus: You may get your ship out anyway.  See this Reddit thread that happened to pop up today: Never ever stop spamming "warp to".
2. When you encounter a camp on a gate, attempt to jump in your pod after your ship is lost.
• Reason: You incur a session timer when your ship is destroyed that keeps you from taking a gate.
• Alternative: Once you realize you aren't going to be able to crash the gate, align out and warp your pod immediately upon losing your ship.
3. Warp straight from losing your ship in a fight to a gate or station.
• Reason: Your aggression timer from the fight will keep you from docking or jumping, making your pod vulnerable to hostiles.
• Alternative: Warp to a safe after losing your ship, or if you have no safes in the system warp to a celestial. As soon as you land at the celestial warp to a new celestial and drop a bookmark while in warp to give yourself a place to wait out your timer.  In most cases one bounce will be enough time though.
4. Warp straight to a gate after losing your ship, particularly in a hot warzone.
• Reason: Some smartbombers will watch for hot spots on the map and plant themselves between the fight and the gate.  They'll hit their bombs as soon as they see you on d-scan.
• Alternative: Your corp probably already has 150km perches off of the gates.  If not then now is a good time to make them.  Go to that perch and peek at the gate.  Even if the smartbomber is cloaked and tries to uncloak and get you then the perch is likely to give you a different angle to gate that will save you.
5. Warp to a station when there are likely campers on station.
• Reason: Warping to zero on a station lands you within a range of locations, some of which may not have you immediately be within the docking radius. Note that some campers may be sitting on the undock with smartbombs so they will not have a locking delay.
• Alternative: Establish a docking bookmark, preferably at a location other than the undock location.
6. Undock from a station without having a undock bookmark ready.
• Reason: There is a short period of invulnerability when undocking, but this is not sufficient for most ships to align to their destination compared to the lock time of potential station campers.
• Alternative: Have an undock bookmark ready and warp to it at a random distance immediately if there are possible campers around. Creation of an undock bookmark is a topic longer than this brief summary, but googling should get you an answer fast.

My corpmate YoYo Mommy has a video that demonstrates many of these, so check it out.

Did I miss anything? Feel free to let me know in the comments.

Battlysts Burn Oto

A strange thing happened to my killboard on my way into the end of the year.  After all the rush of the holiday preparations I hadn't gotten into nearly as many fights as I had hoped.  But after Christmas I got some time to log on and found that a battle was raging for Faction control of the system of Oto.  The next couple days highlight a lot of what I see as the FW experience for a line pilot.  As a spoiler, check out this YouTube video.

Solo Fiddling, Farming, and Podding

When things are quiet FW pilots go off and do a lot of things.  I keep meaning to do more hacking-type skills for exploration sites in low or in wormholes.  I haven't tried FW missions yet and I don't do PI, though both of those things that I hear good things about in terms of ISK/LP generation.  FW missioning is tough for Gallente because the preferred method (running Lvl4s in stealth bombers) doesn't work due to the Caldari NPC combination of missiles and ECM.  I do have to wonder if that actually has contributed to Gallente war success though - other faction such as the Caldari can get swarms of farmers who won't contribute to the war effort below stabbed plex-running and FW missions.  Yeah null-sec Caldari guys, I'm looking at you.

I've toyed with solo plexing, though I think the biggest risk there isn't so much the local Caldari as the local pirates.  We have three major "pirate" groups in our stretch of lowsec that would be glad to pick up some quick kills.  One of them (YUHU - a branch of Overload Everything) has settled into the same station in Fliet as Aideron Robotics and likes to camp the undock and local gates.  We're all familiar with seeing their neutral T3 booster hanging around on gates, supplying links and ready to jump the gate if threatened.  Mark that one as another vote for seeing boosts forced on-grid.

A 1:1 with a local pirate can quickly turn into a blob, but honestly that's not really different than when I was in Rifterlings or what we see in general baiting around.  One thing that does seem to be different is how quickly people will go for pods, and how sebo'd ships are a more central part of the fleet comps that make that possible.  As a group that enjoying camping, it isn't too surprising that having an instalock ship is a fixture in YUHU fleets for instance.  Since Jakob is my main, I tend to always have at least two learning implants in, which is certainly more painful to lose than the empty clones that I see that are presumably more the hallmark of an alt character.  Nullsec readers won't be particularly sympathetic to this, I'm sure.

These small/solo fiddling around is very similar to what I did with Rifterlings.  You get some good fights, they can be quite intense, but you can also have long quiet periods unless you're really willing to roam long-distance and hope you can run any camps you stumble into.  So in that sense I'd argue that FW in lowsec can offer all of the opportunities for small-scale PVP than you'd see as an unaffiliated lowsec (i.e. "pirate") or nullsec roaming group.  If I don't see a fleet up in Aideron and I don't feel like roaming solo then I've recently been hopping on the comms of Rapid Withdrawal (RDRAW - also Gallente FW) and joining their fleets.  And that's how I got particularly more involved in the fight for Oto.

Oto Burns

There had been a couple stabs at Oto over the past month, mostly half-hearted things to bring fights as best I could tell.  I'd get on a fleet some night and we'd drive down the plexes in between leaping out to chase things our scouts found.  Sitting in any complex below Large is a relatively safe way for your fleet to hang out, and one that doubles for LP generation and system control.  If some pirate group roams through in HACs or somesuch you can just watch them go past, but people of your ship class or down can come and jump on you if they're interested.

That changed a few days ago - apparently because of a rash bet made between two of the FW corp leaders in the area.  Dom Pender made a bet that Oto could be flipped in four days, and RDRAW was bent towards this mission.  No longer could the Caldari casually undo the plexing damage done.  Fleets would range from kitchensink Dessy-down to Armor Cruisers and then last night: Battlysts.

The Battlyst is a very simple, cheap ship and there's no real secret to it.  Aideron's kill (and loss) boards have been full of it for quite a while.  Hull tanked, railgun Catalyst with an MWD and a Sebo.  For close range work you load Faction Antimatter and a Scan-Res script.  For long range work you load the range script and Faction Iron.  You get a pile of those together and you have an alpha that lands every second that pops frigate hulls in two volleys.  Here's a video from last night - you'll see that the enemy ships are dying pretty much as fast as the FC can call them.  In fact, Dom practically gives up calling them verbally and just broadcasts them as fast as he can.  Frigates, Destroyers, Assault Frigates, even a Stratios and a Confessor go down quickly.  As the targets scatter we burn after them, our tackle ships (ranging from Atrons to Keres) keeping them on the field, and the range of the railguns meaning they can't easily range-mitigate the damage.  Contrast this to the classic gank-Catalyst, whose blasters require it to be sitting on the target for maximum effect and thus doesn't work as well for fleet action.  It's also an interesting contrast to the other Aideron doctrines which focus on drones, which means there is a delay as the drones travel from target to target.

Basing out of Oto over the past few days we chased after a group of Omen Navy Issues (twice that I've been around for) who kept running from us, killed a Rattlesnake, broke multiple Caldari FW fleets, and at tangled with a pretty heavy YUHU fleet (I didn't see the end of that one after getting podded).  Oto became one of the hottest systems in the Gallente FW effort.  RDRAW is the top corporation for kills in Gallente FW this month.  My personal killboard for December basically doubled in the past two days (which I know isn't saying too much compared to many folks).  More importantly I was in a lot of exciting fights in a range of ships from frigate to cruiser and from solo to 5-6 ships to 30+ ships.

Lessons Learned (or to be Learned)

• FRAPS.  We're on a big kick to record everything in Aideron to learn from the fights.  I've been fiddling with my FRAPS lately - I seem to keep getting my hotkey to start recording either superceded by Eve's hotkeys or not working.  I think this will be particularly big for making sure I'm keeping at the right ranges for the targets and when I should or should not be running my prop mod.
• Implants.  Given the nature of fleet fights, I'm debating the value of implants.  Having 3% more armor or 3% more damage may well help the overall fleet effort, but the 3% better agility perhaps is only useful when in more solo/small-gang situations.  I have to weigh that against the costs when getting podded.
• Pods.  I've lost a lot more pods after joining FW.  That may just be a natural match with being in more fights and larger ones.  Experienced pilots repeat that you shouldn't lose your pod in lowsec (barring lag and such).  I think an entire blog on "how to lose your pod" may be needed from the little bits I've learned over time.  Ex: You incur a session timer when your ship is destroyed that keeps you from taking a gate, which explains how I lost a pod while spamming jump on the gate I was crashing under fire from a YUHU camp.

This morning Oto fell to the Gallente.  Next!

Eve Podcasts of 2014

Back in August I wrote about the (then) current state of podcasting.  At the time the bittervet disease seemed to be sweeping through the podcastiverse, making formerly great podcasts a downer.  Since then CCP has moved to six week releases, started shaking up the meta of Eve, and generating a huge amount of enthusiasm.  I've definitely seen this in the podcasts, so it's only fair to revisit what's out there.  And since this is Eve, let's do it competition style with a top three:

Most Improved: Declarations of War

Declarations of War was in a real drag in August of 2014.  I said: "This used to be one of my favorite podcasts, but recently it's seemed like Alekseyev Karrde is succumbing to bittervet disease."  The Pheobe release has marked a turnaround for DoW, and the most recent episode was one of the best I've heard from DoW perhaps all year featuring a discussion back and forth between Alek and a recent contract target: Thaddeus Drake of Violent Declaration.  Alek is clearly energized again - it's good to have DoW back.

Most Consistent: High Drag

Even when the recording software isn't turned on, somehow High Drag manages to get their podcast out thanks to their Twitch-stream format and their loyal fans.  Coming out regularly and constantly having good stuff to talk about - what more do you want from a podcast?  I particularly liked Fintarue's recent piece on flying the Firetail as a good trainer towards a Dramiel - that's an idea I'd love to hear more about.

Most Timely: Hydrostatic Podcast

Hydrostatic podcast exploded on the podcasting scene with a tight format and a focus on lore - just in time for CCP to really start ramping up the internal plotline that had laid dormant for so long.  When HP put out the Rhea Lore Panel it was quickly recommended and linked across the Eve blogosphere and podcasts.  Until putting together this blog I hadn't even noticed that they've kept a constant mailbag going on lore questions too, so check it out.


Beyond these great podcasts here's one more I can't let go of:

Most Awaited: Fly Reckless

Real life has been conspiring to keep Fly Reckless down this fall, to the point where by the time the podcast hits the air it will be discussing an "upcoming" release that has been out for a week or two.  This is a real shame, since it means that Connall's speculations are shy of one last tweak from CCP and implementation.  I've always enjoyed hearing Connall Tara talk about ship rebalancing, so I feel like I've missed his enthusiasm with the Confessor and the Recon rebalance.  Here's hoping that in 2015 real life will let up a bit and bring the podcast back into sync with Eve.


And to close things out...

Since August I've also started listening to Derping Through War.  This one is particularly relevant to me as a Gallente Faction Warfare pilot.  The strength of the podcast is in discussions of fights, fits, and tactics.  The downside is that it can be awkward in the ego-driven boasting that is not uncommon around the Eve community.  It's definitely staying on the list.

Also still on the list, but less to say about them:
* Broadcasts from the Ninveah.  Kirith Kodachi is a wonderfully stable presence between his podcasts, running public fleets on Aideron, and generally contributing all over the place.
* Cap Stable.  This podcast is focused on what's going on with the HERO Coalition, and for a few episodes even billed itself as the official podcast of that coalition (though not the latest one I noticed).
* Crossing Zebras.  Of all the podcasts on my August list, CZ is the one that has managed to get the lease bounce from the huge upturn in Eve.  Perhaps it's because Xander and crew are still bound down in null-sec and haven't been able to enjoy the changes.  For some reason Xander keeps HVAC around even though he isn't playing Eve and just has a constant downward pressure on the mood of the 'cast.
* Down the Pipe.  Lots of turmoil back and forth here, and I expect the podcast is going to go on hiatus as I hear Bronya is taking a break from Eve.  It's a shame - I've always enjoyed the Storytime theme of DTP.

D-scan - towards a unified scanning and probing system

We have some big changes to D-scan coming with the Proteus release, as announced in the Recon Rebalance thread.  There is a lot of … let's just say "feedback" … from the community on the impact of making Force Recon ships invisible to D-scan.  Really I think this is an opportunity for CCP to do something much more deep and interesting with D-scan.  Right now we have a D-scan that provides perfect information.  That takes away ambiguity, which is a shame in a game that is as complexly nuanced as Eve.  What if we change that to provide a fog of war?

Current D-Scan

Let's recap briefly before we launch off to the proposal.  D-scan currently reaches out to 14.3 AU or 2,147,483,647 km (which probably not coincidentally is the maximum value of a signed 32-bit integer).  You can change the angle of your D-scan from 5 degrees to 360 degrees.  Recently the user interface changed to make both of these values (range and angle) more easily manipulated with sliders.

If a non-cloaked vessel is within the range and angle of your D-scan then you see exactly what the ship is but not how far away it is, unless it is already on grid.  You do not see pilot information nor indeed if there even is a pilot in the ship, leading to what many people call "POS trash" - ships that are unpiloted but inside of the force field of a POS.

So we've identified a couple things here to play with.  Let's consider if we changed the level of precision that we see with two of them: ship information and distance.

Directional Scan Strength

Consider if the baseline for all ships was 1 D-scan strength.  This allows scanning to 14.3 AU - we'll call that 1 "bracket".  What if some ships such as Force Recon, Interceptors, and Interdictors had a D-scan strength of 2, allowing them to scan 28.6 AU (2 brackets)?  These ships would then be a valuable asset to fleets, allowing them to more rapidly scan down distant gates and plexes.  What if a module such as a "Directional Scan Booster" allowed you to add additional D-scan strength to your ship, adding an additional D-scan bracket?

(Credit where it's due: the original idea here came from Kyle Yanowski both on the forum and in our corp chat)

Stealth Rating

Consider if the baseline for all ships was a 0 stealth rating.  This would mean that they had no ability to avoid being d-scanned.  But then perhaps Force Recons had a stealth rating of 1.  When the D-scan algorithm hits a possible target ship, it compares its strength to the stealth rating and the distance bracket.  So at less than 14.3 AU, a baseline ship will see another baseline ship, but would not see a Force Recon (+1 Scan, -1 Stealth = 0).  A Force Recon (+2 Scan) would see a baseline ship at 28 AU (2 brackets) but not another Force Recon, but would regain the ability to see that target Force Recon at 14 AU (1 bracket).

What if there was a "Stealth Booster" module that allowed a ship to increase its stealth rating?

Partial Information in D-scan

When you use Combat Probes, you get progressively more information about a ship.  I've often wished we saw that kind of progressive disclosure in D-scan.  Consider if we saw this:

1 bracket to 0.75 bracket = Ship Hull Size  (ex: Cruiser, Frigate)

0.75 bracket to 0.50 bracket = Ship Hull Type (ex: Vexor hull, Punisher hull)

0.50 bracket to 0.25 bracket = Full Ship Information (ex: Ishtar, Retribution)

0.25 bracket to 0.00 = Full Ship Information, Pilot Name, actual distance at time of scan

Note that your bracket is independent of the scan range you've selected on your D-scan interface, so if you're tuned down to 1 AU then the first time you see a ship you'll have full information on it.  Again, ships with higher D-scan strength rating become valuable to be able to more accurately scout out opponents.

Interaction with Combat Probing

The Proteus-proposed changes already have introduced an new dynamic here.  In order to see if there is a Force Recon somewhere, you will have to combat probe where you think they may be (ex: in a FW plex).  There is also an interaction already that I personally find disconnected - that the sensor strength of a ship (otherwise only used against ECM) provides protection against being probed (see also Slippery Pete doctrine).  What if instead we keep the sensor strength to its combat role against ECM, and use Stealth Rating?  Given "Stealth Booster" modules, we still allow the possibilities of Slippery Petes, so we haven't taken away that niche.

Interaction with Cloaking

What if we consider cloaking part of this unified proposal of scanning and stealth?  Perhaps a cloak provides additional Stealth ratings, but it could be overcome by a sufficiently prepared counter?  For instance, let's consider that a T2 CovOps Cloak provided a +5 Stealth, and perhaps other Meta Cloaks provided a lesser (or greater) benefit?  As before, modules could increase the stealth rating of the defender and the scan strength of the scout.

Another possibility would be that being under a cloak decreases your scan strength - so a CovOps scout tracking an enemy fleet might need to do so uncloaked in order to get the best possible information, making them vulnerable to being scanned and dropped on.

If we really want to keep going, we could then complete the unification of the system by saying that being on grid with a target gives you an additional level of scan strength.  This is how we suddenly see the actual distance on our D-scan when on grid, and how we will see the Force Recons on d-scan (as mentioned in CCP Rise's follow-up comments on the thread-naught).

I think there are a lot of possibilities here to bring a more unified, coherent system of scanning and probing to Eve, and I hope that CCP is able to entertain these idea.

Is Rhea placesetting the capsuleer stargates?

I'm pretty happy as the lore develops that my pod'n'planet story might be reasonably close to what will happen.  One thing that I've seen around is the idea that the capsuleer built stargate will end up being either in Thera only, or in the shattered star systems.  I don't think this is a good idea.

(I'll call this thing just a stargate, though we'll really need a new term and I won't be so self-centered as to recommend that my "throw-gate" from the story be that term.)

Following The Prophecy too closely?

It seems like it would be a lost opportunity for the stargate to only be buildable in Thera.  Capsuleers combining forces against the empire sounds great, but it goes against the player-generated content theme of Eve.  Do we really expect that CCP staff will have an ongoing grand event to command a series of fleets to attack the player-built stargate to fullfill the Prophecy trailer?  Do we think that CCP would rally Empire-loyal capsuleer corporations to do their proxy work?  We've seen what happens when CCP led player groups try to achieve an objective and the null/low powers decide to interfere - I wouldn't put much ISK on the Empire if they were actively opposing a nullsec/WH player group.

Sidenote: If The Prophecy trailer is literally a prophecy then of course we know that the capsuleer stargate cannot be in Thera or any wormhole, since the trailer shows an Avatar Titan coming to the attack.  But I think that's a bit too far to ask of the trailer.

Construction in the war zone

In either of those cases we'd be talking about building a huge structure in a system which has no moons and thus no POS for manufacturing.  So all components would be either built in the stations or flown in.  Unless of course the new starbase design allows these to be more freely anchored.  And of course we're talking about building this thing of unprecedented cost in the system with the most ISK destruction per day of any system in New Eden.

Why limit the great land rush?

Limiting this to Thera only also would imply there is only one such capsuleer stargate.  That misses the opportunity for a race to the great land rush that would motivate the building of the gate in the first place.  What motivation will a group have for building this massive project if there is no competitive advantage that they will gain?

Limiting it to only the shattered systems means more than one capsuleer organization can undertake it, so that's good.  However there is still the matter of being able to control the location of the stargate.  Perhaps it is too much to let the great nullsec powers (who are the ones who will have the resources to do this) bury their stargate system deep into their own defended systems.  I would expect that when coming into operation every gate heading to the stargate would be bubbled and defended to reduce the ability of a cyno ship to slip in.

On the other hand, there is something to the idea that such big nullsec powers would have to stretch their forces out to claim a shattered system and defend it to build such a thing.  As we read recently, nullsec forces don't quite have this WH thing down yet.  But if you're a WH dweller, do you really want the great null alliances moving into the neighborhood and bringing all their baggage with them?