Suggestion: Improve Scanning

Aio

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Aio Dakina
Afternoon all,

I've been giving this some thought over the last few days and I think the following would be good boost to the scanning professions (which for a set of professions, have so many skills for such a currently "useless" profession).

2 Parts:

A- Mob Locations

So we have Human, Animal, Robot, Mutant scanning professions. Why not introduce a personal (avatar based) database, of encountered mobs. Think of it like a Pokedex from a fairly famous video game. How this would work is as such:

- There is a new interface (I know, this will only end up being a completely different design to all the other in-game interfaces) which has 4 sections - Animals, Robots, Humans, Mutants. In the subsection "Animals", it lists all encountered xenotypes (e.g. Atrox, Atrax) and then below these, all encountered maturities. This is the same for Robots, Mutants (Drone, Feffoid etc), and for "Humans" it would be a list of encountered participants.

- To add a mob or human into your personal "EntropiaDex", you would have to scan that mob/human. As an example, you scan an Atrox Young, you add the fields "Animals->Atrox" and then have "Young" listed underneath that. Only once you have scanned other maturities (Mature, Old etc) they would be added into this list.

- With humans, this would scan their stats as currently and add those (potentially static?) to your list. Perhaps there could be a new use for the mindforce profession "Jamming" which would block or obscure these stats depending on the level.

- Once a mob is added into your database, you then have the option of locating these mobs. Based on your scanning skill level, you would have a visual range overlaid onto the map to show where spawns of the mob are. You can only do this for mobs you have already encountered, and the range would be very large (radius 5km?) for poor skill levels, homing in to specific spawns at level 100.

B- Scanning Information

- Currently when scanning you can only gleam basic information - Mob attributes (useless apart from Stam), HP by Stam*10, and an approximate range of damage.

- I propose that when you scan a mob, if the mob level is below a certain threshold compared to your scanning profession level (could be linear (prof=50 mob level max =50) or it could be /2, /4, /8 what ever works best) you start to gain more information from the mob. There are many mob attributes which could be shown here: Actual HP, Actual DMG range, Run Speed, Regen Rate, Crit Rate, Hit Rate, Damage Types, Damage Type Proportions.

- The amount of information could be shown as an ever tighter range around the real information, depending on relative skill to the mob. E.g. below the mob level, you might see "Unknown". Above the skill level, you might see "Impact ?, Acid ?" under damage types. Far above the skill level, you might see "Impact 66.8%, Acid 33.2%".

- Scanners could also be moved into this equation. At the moment, their only differentiating stats are reload speed, range, and decay. How about introducing a "skill modifier" on the scanner, so that an ES100 might give 0.5*Skill level, while an ES500 might give 2.5*skill level when deciding what information is shown.

- These mob stats would also be loaded into your personal database (part A) for future reference.

_________

Like to hear your thoughts on this. Only downsides I can see are that the information gleaned would be quickly shared on the forum... but it kinda is anyway. The other one would be that it could take a fair amount of coding and implementation time but I think it would be a nice boost to probably the most forgotten profession in-game.
 
I kinda like the proposal.. need to give it some more thought tho
Did you include scanning vehicles? :D Too lazy to read the OP again :laugh::laugh:
 
I kinda like the proposal.. need to give it some more thought tho
Did you include scanning vehicles? :D Too lazy to read the OP again :laugh::laugh:

I forgot :(

I guess it would be possible to introduce a basic list of Vehicles which are in EU?
 
100% yes, great ideas.
 
Something along these lines would be great, but a couple of things I'd like to mention:

Firstly, having the ability to locate any avatar you've previously scanned (and I'm not sure if you intended that would happen for avatars as well as mobs) could be problematic. As long as there was some kind of opt-out I think it would be OK. And they can fix the 'Visible in player register' while they're at it.

Secondly, I can't see any way that vehicles could be included in this without reducing the amount of information that's available as standard on the item info windows, which probably wouldn't be a good idea. However the skill is Scan Technology, not Scan Vehicle, so we could have something which gives us more useful info about other items. Perhaps this is one way to finally allow us to see proper item decay information. Being able to calculate accurate dpp information would give skilled players a genuine advantage, giving some worth to the skills (notwithstanding the inevitable data sharing that will happen anyway, that is already mentioned in the OP).
 
Something along these lines would be great, but a couple of things I'd like to mention:

Firstly, having the ability to locate any avatar you've previously scanned (and I'm not sure if you intended that would happen for avatars as well as mobs) could be problematic. As long as there was some kind of opt-out I think it would be OK. And they can fix the 'Visible in player register' while they're at it.

Secondly, I can't see any way that vehicles could be included in this without reducing the amount of information that's available as standard on the item info windows, which probably wouldn't be a good idea. However the skill is Scan Technology, not Scan Vehicle, so we could have something which gives us more useful info about other items. Perhaps this is one way to finally allow us to see proper item decay information. Being able to calculate accurate dpp information would give skilled players a genuine advantage, giving some worth to the skills (notwithstanding the inevitable data sharing that will happen anyway, that is already mentioned in the OP).

Yeah, I definitely didn't mean to be able to locate avatars. More, just have a personal "database" of names, perhaps appearances (depending on data size / effect on servers), and skills - I like the idea that you pick a player to emulate (skill wise) and then track yourself against them. Opting out of even this should also be possible - perhaps as I said by high jamming skill.

Your second point, hadn't thought that and I agree, that's a great way to implement it. The ability to find out decay or, for example, "accurate" information on what scopes/lasers do, would be really useful. I have a feeling MA are a bit "past" the total blanket secrecy now anyway, just by looking at the new item releases listing all the stats we'd normally have to find out ourselves. And for existing items - the wiki must be the third hit on google after EU & PCF. I agree too, vehicles in the personal database wouldn't be so useful as they already have full stats listed, and there's only about 10 relevant ones anyway.
 
Freaking amazing idea! This would be a really useful addition to the game. :yup:

Once the basic functions (described in OP) have been implemented, the next stage could be special info chips capable of storing your database. Those chips can then be sold and consumed, similar to our current skill chipping.

This would turn scanning into serious profession on it's own. Many ppl would rather invest into infochips of the less known backwater planets instead of wasting their time and resources for collecting this info all on their own.
If implemented right, this could easily bring forth an economic boom in scanner and infochip manufacturing (imo both should be craftable, not lootable!). As a side effect, it would also help to promote the hidden gems of the content created on smaller planets that are currently suffering for the lack of reliable info sources.
 
Great idea, this would be a really useful addition to the game!

Once the basic functions (described in OP) have been implemented, the next stage could be special info chips capable of storing your database. Those chips can then be sold and consumed, similar to our current skill chipping.

This would turn scanning into serious profession on it's own. Many ppl would rather invest into infochips of the less known backwater planets instead of wasting their time and resources for collecting this info all on their own.
If implemented right, this could easily bring forth an economic boom in scanner and infochip manufacturing (imo both should be craftable, not lootable!). As a side effect, it would also help to promote the hidden gems of the content created on smaller planets that are currently suffering for the lack of reliable info sources.

Also a great idea.

I would pay significant PED for a Cyrene or Toulan chip, where I could land there and instantly find the correct mobs I was looking for.
 
Somewhat tangential, but I've always thought that it would be awesome to be able to do a special extra ped on top scan of another avatar or mob and be able to get a RL 3D printed version delivered to you...

;-)
 
Suggestion: Improve Scanning

Thank you for your effort to wake up some of our gods but will be hard - maybe a miracle.
Its beating dead horse and everyone look away.
From the beginig PE and Calypso had great bacground story talking also of scientists who come with first wave of colonists to study planets, creatures, wild natre, robots, resources etc.
Story wich was promiting great future for scientists and investigators and development of those professions.
Instead of that we got 10 or more years of non development, we got scannergate with ES500 rain in loot drop on RT what caused full fall of MU of an item considered rare as is was crated with blue print wich do not exist any more because removed almost 14 years a go.
Our gods instead to fire someone from RT seem they liked what happened and decided to make investigator profession even more obsolete by hard nerfing skills gain as it was not enouht that was never developed further.

Here is an old thread with some ideas like DNA craft, ESI craft, creating protective materials for tailoring underwear etc, :
Contain also small part of old background story...
What happened to Raahn Guzt, Xenomorph Scientist ?
 
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Thank you for your effort to wake up some of our gods but will be hard - maybe a miracle.
Its beating dead horse and everyone look away.
From the beginig PE and Calypso had great bacground story talking also of scientists who come with first wave of colonists to study planets, creatures, wild natre, robots, resources etc.
Story wich was promiting great future for scientists and investigators and development of those professions.
Instead of that we got 10 or more years of non development, we got scannergate with ES500 rain in loot drop on RT what caused full fall of MU of an item considered rare as is was crated with blue print wich do not exist any more because removed almost 14 years a go.
Our gods instead to fire someone from RT seem they liked what happened and decided to make investigator profession even more obsolete by hard nerfing skills gain as it was not enouht that was never developed further.

Here is an old thread with some ideas like DNA craft, ESI craft, creating protective materials for tailoring underwear etc, :
Contain also small part of old background story...
What happened to Raahn Guzt, Xenomorph Scientist ?

I remember that thread... I agree too it's ridiculous that we have a Sci-Fi game with Low-Fi content :(

Aio said:
Maybe scanning mobs gives you a chance to see their droplists, again related to scanner skill. Those with the highest skill can scan a mob, and spot when they have the Imk2 hidden in them, and hunt them hard with the chance of dropping it.

I also wrote that in your thread - would like other's opinions on this? May be too powerful of a feature, but it is pretty difficult to get to lvl100 scan ... ;)
 
...[Lots of good ideas]...
Very nice. I'd +rep again if I could.

How about an extra improved scanning information skill: "Weaknesses" with information about the mobs weaknesses.
This skill could contribute (very little) to the 'hit damage'.

Then all hunters would have a real incentive to start scanning, to gain that extra little benefit to efficiency and economy.
 
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tbh the weakness this should have been implemented years ago when they started to think about the L equipment.

10% bonus for using the correct weapon types or -10% for the wrong one. Bigger mobs needing more exotic weapons types to claim the damage bonus. But that discussion is better off in another thread.
 
Great ideas. :)
I had a similar idea, but not per avatar, my idea was based on soc instead.
 
very nice idea. all of it sounds good enough to be added to the game right away!

but please... don't call it a "mob". call it a monster.
 
Here is an old thread with some ideas like DNA craft, ESI craft, creating protective materials for tailoring underwear etc, :
Contain also small part of old background story...
What happened to Raahn Guzt, Xenomorph Scientist ?

I had always wondered what was the point of scanning thank you for history lesson.

very nice idea. all of it sounds good enough to be added to the game right away!

but please... don't call it a "mob". call it a monster.

They have always been called mobs and I doubt that will ever change. Anyway, they are not monsters (apart from a few mobs on RT) they are aliens or are we the aliens as we came to populate their planet.
 
I've never heard the word "mob" used before playing this game, ever! so much for that statement.

sure, some are animals or robots but I think monsters is a passable catch-all term.

and I don't care whether it's 0.01% or 99.9% of people spouting something that is factually wrong. I WILL fight it. every single person avoiding that dumb term (a mob is a group by definition... :rolleyes:) makes the world a little bit better.
 
I've never heard the word "mob" used before playing this game, ever! so much for that statement.

sure, some are animals or robots but I think monsters is a passable catch-all term.

and I don't care whether it's 0.01% or 99.9% of people spouting something that is factually wrong. I WILL fight it. every single person avoiding that dumb term (a mob is a group by definition... :rolleyes:) makes the world a little bit better.

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/mob

verb (used with object), mobbed, mobbing.
11.
to crowd around noisily, as from curiosity or hostility:
Spectators mobbed the courtroom.
12.
to attack in a riotous mob:
The crowd mobbed the consulate.
13.
Fox Hunting. to chop (a fox).

mob2

[mob mohb]
noun

1.
Digital Technology. (in a video game) a hostile nonplayer character that the player may target and fight.

Origin
1980-85; coined by British video-game developer Richard Bartle; shortening of mobile ( def 10 )


*well i dont remember year but even in time with zxspectrum and commodore 64 computer games - was used world mob.
 
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I've never heard the word "mob" used before playing this game, ever! so much for that statement.

sure, some are animals or robots but I think monsters is a passable catch-all term.

and I don't care whether it's 0.01% or 99.9% of people spouting something that is factually wrong. I WILL fight it. every single person avoiding that dumb term (a mob is a group by definition... :rolleyes:) makes the world a little bit better.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/mob

verb (used with object), mobbed, mobbing.
11.
to crowd around noisily, as from curiosity or hostility:
Spectators mobbed the courtroom.
12.
to attack in a riotous mob:
The crowd mobbed the consulate.
13.
Fox Hunting. to chop (a fox).

mob2

[mob mohb]
noun

1.
Digital Technology. (in a video game) a hostile nonplayer character that the player may target and fight.

Origin
1980-85; coined by British video-game developer Richard Bartle; shortening of mobile ( def 10 )


*well i dont remember year but even in time with zxspectrum and commodore 64 computer games - was used world mob.

Actually IIRC, MA used the term mob right from the start, and that's why the community has always embraced it.
In MA's case it meant 'Moving OBject', as far as I recall.

Technically that would mean that vehicles are also mobs, but they are ofc relatively new in EU, and I doubt that's what MA mean if they even still use that term.
 
well you see that moving "object" doesn't catch the category in question whatsoever. even players are moving objects.

but whatever. if that was the worst case of people defending obvious nonsense, I would be a happy guy. I mean, religion? :laugh:
 
Wonderful, we're back to "words have multiple definitions".
 
Wonderful, we're back to "words have multiple definitions".
Yeah, ridiculous. Or should I say rigid perhaps? Communities tend to create their own slang - this binds ppl together. We know what those words mean, outsiders don't know. This way the community keeps giving each other positive feedback: we are the same, we belong together.

Rigid minds can't adapt to the ever changing environment around them. Those are the people who don't understand that all words are just collections of characters, meaningless on their own. It's our own mind that gives meaning to them, and this meaning changes depending on context. We call the rigid folks grammar nazis and language police. Language is my freedom to express myself, wanna police it go ahead and try. :tongue2:



On topic: This game, large and sandboxy as it is, could use more features that bind all this content together, bring order into chaos so to say. The central interface that shows you all the mobs you have met, what they are like and where you can find them.

It should come pre-populated with a few species and missions from your starting planet when you start the game. From there you can start building your own database.
You can add there mobs you accidentally met somewhere or you can make it a separate quest from time to time to just go out there - roam around, explore the worlds and record stuff for your database to use later.

This should be the central tool for all the know-how about the game. Very useful for the newbies who tend to be overwhelmed at first from all the new stuff and tend to get lost easily.

The older players could also use this central interface that shows all mobs, missions and brings up reminders for events - on all planets. Works like source for new ideas and helps to make plans what to do next. This is the crucial moment. If I forget what else was there I might decide oh there's nothing interesting to do and give up. Helping ppl to get over these low moments is in MA's own best interest! :cool:
 
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well you see that moving "object" doesn't catch the category in question whatsoever. even players are moving objects.

but whatever. if that was the worst case of people defending obvious nonsense, I would be a happy guy. I mean, religion? :laugh:

You've never done any coding for games...
MOB is a really really old abbreviation for Movable Object Blocks.
It was easier to remember then LAOSGTPIRLFAPT (large arrays of sprites grouped together possibly including raster lines for a particular thing). Seriously mob was a thing for programmers making games certainly by the early 90's. I recall even coding a game engine in basic cause people said it couldn't be done but anyways I used a program called Master MOB or maybe it was called MOB Master??? Doesn't matter because back then Basic, and particularly Visual Basic for DOS weren't as fast for visual objects (arrays of graphic sprites) then say using turbo pascal or C or python or others.

However I would take an educated guess that there was some older coders who talked a lot with the players during concept and alpha stages of Project Entropia, and possibly beta stages too? And the end result is players started calling the objects that visually appear to be monsters Mobs.
(And no not everything that moves is a mob. For example it's highly likely those coders called avatars pob = player(controlled) object block.)


EU/PE too old, then perhaps LMTR14 would be interested about mobs in something newer like Minecraft???
There's a number of books out there already but try "Minecraft Mods Programming Absolute Beginner’s Guide" by Rogers Cadenhead

The book says you will learn:
- Use threads to create mobs that can do many things at once
- Customize your mobs, and build on existing objects to write new mods
- Spawn new mobs, find hidden mobs, and make one mob ride another

"This book is the fastest way to master Minecraft modding and use Java to transform the Minecraft game's worlds, tools, behavior, weapons, structures, mobs… everything! Plus, you'll learn Java programming skills you can use anywhere."

Additionally Youtube has tons of videos on coding and the word mobs, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnoLSSUAUMM


Anyways the original abbreviation is almost lost with time and that's cool.
But that's because the meaning has also changed over time and many newer programmers (hence my references to minecraft) think mob means to be mobbed by monsters and often use it in that manner. And that's okay because coding back in the 90's was very much still hardware based and I doubt anyone today will be adding ASM poke routines to obtain the fastest switching times of graphics arrays. :rolleyes:
Also because languages are always changing and what might be slang today could be tomorrow's acceptable dictionary-vetted words and meanings...

Things change. But don't make fun of that which you don't know.
Or you might get an even longer much more in-depth explanation to read! :laugh:
 
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And to return to the OP's topic. A very interesting concept Aio and it'd be a nice additional facet to gameplay.
But I agree with others that an opt out option should be in settings.
However I think anyone with high jamming skills should also be very hard to scan by new players.
 
However I think anyone with high jamming skills should also be very hard to scan by new players.
Yeah! Another brilliant addition to the original idea!

+rep :)
 
Only downsides I can see are that the information gleaned would be quickly shared on the forum... but it kinda is anyway.

Hello,

Yes this is a fantastic idea and if it done correctly there will be no need to ever visit the wiki/forum for this information ever again!
 
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