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[Morwen Lagann]

Doesn't the current (IRL) theories about wormholes suggest that they can also work through time as well as space?

Meaning that Sleepers could be from the future of the cluster?

Tony G suggests otherwise, what with Templar One's 'reveal' of who/what the Sleepers are (not that any of US care, but CCP does, and it was likely intended from the beginning, because there are more than enough hints in w-space to that end.)

This world, despite all it's shields and cynos, looks to relics and ancient lore as it's frontiers.

Also this, very much this.

All invention is done from decrypting ancient tech.

There's a really good reason for that.

Societies in EVE, the Jove aside, are at a lower technological level than the apex of the societies that preceeded them, due to collapses from one cause or another (EVE Gate included). Our current position is nowhere near the apex of those societies, so, yeah, of course we're going to look to them for direction and improvement.

[Ché Biko]

Early EvE lore was rather specific about this tech not existing.

Much like alien races, it was meant to distinguish the universe from other pop-scifi.

I will asume you are correct.

But I think immersion aspects in this instance are more important than distinguising from other pop-scifi, which it kinda fails at because; we can have transporters (Star Trek) or no transporters (Star Wars). Both situations are used in pop-scifi.

I see no reason why CCP could not decide to bring lore more in line with game mechanics in this case. They could just decide that transporters are invented. I guess the real question is, do we want that to happen? I guess my opinion is pretty clear.

[Ghost Hunter]

Mining lasers, on the other hand, do use something vaguely teleporter-esque. I think it is only good for raw materials, though. If I remember right, it basically vaporizes material, and then draws it in along the beam.

Mining lasers specifically have two components : A laser that breaks the rock down, and a tractor beam that hovers in the broken up rock bits.


As far as I am aware teleporter technology, as it is known by Startrek and otherwise, is non-existent outside of laboratory experiments in EVE. As mentioned the Jovians had a colossal fuck up with one in a public demonstration. Some speculated the Sansha were using a type of technology, but Tractor beam hoovering was the route taken instead.

Early EvE lore was rather specific about this tech not existing.

Much like alien races, it was meant to distinguish the universe from other pop-scifi.

I will asume you are correct.

But I think immersion aspects in this instance are more important than distinguising from other pop-scifi, which it kinda fails at because; we can have transporters (Star Trek) or no transporters (Star Wars). Both situations are used in pop-scifi.

I see no reason why  CCP could not decide to bring lore more in line with game mechanics in this case. They could just decide that transporters are invented. I guess the real question is, do we want that to happen? I guess my opinion is pretty clear.

I am quite happy with the "little robotic drone helpers do a lot of the menial space work" approach. Everything from stations to starbases has a sortie of unseen helper drones that do the dangerous work that humans can't be assed to do. The instantaneous speed at which it happens is merely a convenience factor for us, and one of those 'best to ignore' considerations for EVE gameplay <-> lore. The existence and mass scale usage of teleporters would just introduce more wall-banging to the PF that doesn't need to be there.

[Lyn Farel]

Instant transporters are too shiney and clean to my eyes for a setting like Eve.

It's like if Neo was suddenly beamed up to the Nebuchadnezzar just after having awoken from the red pill. The way it actually happens is way more gritty. The guy ends up unplugging itself with difficulty and the help of a spider drone (and it looks painful), and gets dumped into some hazardous liquid that makes me think of biomass waste disposal. Like ectoplasm.

[Horatius Caul]

Early EvE lore was rather specific about this tech not existing.

Much like alien races, it was meant to distinguish the universe from other pop-scifi.

I will asume you are correct.

But I think immersion aspects in this instance are more important than distinguising from other pop-scifi, which it kinda fails at because; we can have transporters (Star Trek) or no transporters (Star Wars). Both situations are used in pop-scifi.

I see no reason why  CCP could not decide to bring lore more in line with game mechanics in this case. They could just decide that transporters are invented. I guess the real question is, do we want that to happen? I guess my opinion is pretty clear.

The problem is that introducing a technology like matter-to-energy transporters just to explain how you loot shit is a terrible solution. To use one of CCP's favourite expressions: it opens up a can of worms.

Transporters work fine in Star Trek because the entire universe has been built around the idea of a post-scarcity society where you can have a computer instantly materialize your favourite food or transport you across space in the blink of an eye. Plots, technologies, strategies... they're all made with the existence of teleporters in mind, and even then there are matters they have shied away from exploring.

Introducing functional teleporters to the EVE universe would be a world-altering event. Everything from lore to gameplay would have to shift to accommodate the new technology - just to maintain the immersion you suggest it be shoehorned in to fix.

[Ché Biko]

Ghost and Caul: Can you give me some examples of the wallbanging and worm-can-opening?
Because I can't see any.
I'm especially interested in why and how lore and gameplay would have to shift.

[Lyn Farel]

Instant transportation making stargates useless. Think about what would happen if the Empire even mastered Wormhole tech like Sansha does. Sansha is very close to use it as instant teleportation. You would end up in a society where starships are not always needed anymore. You can perfectly open a wormhole between Athra and Luminaire and send your troops directly here. Or open a wormhole between your corporate headquarters in Rens and your starbase living quarters in Anoikis.

Of course you can then bring up a limit to the range of the thing, sure. I haven't thought of all the possibilities yet.

[Desiderya]

Although jump drives/portals linking up with cynos kind of are instant teleportation. Range limitation isn't necessarily a reason against Star Trek style transporters.

Having said that I'm absolutely not in favor of introducing that into the world of EVE. Introduce it and you face the challenge of having to introduce artificial limitations. Why can't you just transport 100 Marines on board of the other guy's ship? Or much more fun, vent the entire crew into space. Somehow the antagonists in Star Trek always beam boarding parties onto the Enterprise but they never just move the inhabitants of the bridge into space.
Ah, chivalry.

So, we've got 'camera drones'. We've got drones that move loot. It's even mentioned in the starbase changes devblog. So there you go. :p

[Graelyn]

I was always fond of the 'beam an antimatter warhead onto their bridge, and get me some earl grey' tactical directive. For some reason 30 years of Trek captains kept forgetting it...as did Starfleet Shipyards, with the 'replicate a fleet on Thursday' initiative.

My Point: Energy/mass/teleportation technology barely works (narratively) in universes in which it's a cornerstone of the canon; it will do much much much more harm in a world designed with it's absence.

[Ché Biko]

Why can't you use bombs, DDDs, and cynos in high-sec?
The "artificial" limitations are already in place, as far as I can see. I'm not convinced that the problems with incorporating it into lore and gameplay (gameplay is already there, imo) are so great. The "drones did it" solution also raises questions.

[Graelyn]

Why do you want this so badly?

[Morwen Lagann]

The complete lack of a fully-functioning transporter was one of the reasons I really enjoyed Enterprise when it first started.

They had one on board, sure, but it was experimental technology, and it was intended for the moving of cargo only, not living beings. Did they use it a few times to get out of tight scrapes? Sure, but it wasn't the cavalier "oh, just beam 'em out" attitude that was so prevalent in other Star Trek series. They knew damn well that the tech they were messing with was new, it was experimental, and there were lots of very big risks involved - and they even had one or two episodes dealing with mishaps involving what happened when things went horribly, horribly wrong.

[Aelisha Montenagre]

Don't shields in Star Trek block beaming attempts (with the exception of macguffin/deus ex machina species/techs for episodic *gasp* moments - borg for example)?  Though beaming nukes into Wraith ships was a big thing in SG-Atlantis (no shields, it didn't work well on Goa-Uld ships because of this). 

As for DD and bomb blocking in hi-sec - Aren't all capsuleer vessels riddled with space magic Jovian grade malware that can basically deny us ship control in certain situations?  That same software that makes us less vulnerable to the Incursion DoS/viral attacks that prevent direct DED responce or the intervention of local Navies in a meaningful manner (and which also rendered ground defenses inert apparently).

[Desiderya]

Shields - have fun with that in EVE, where some empire ship doctrines would be kinda stupid then. Or implement a magic shield that's not the standard shield that shields you from space magic.

Re: DD/Cyno.
Independant Capsuleers can't. CONCORD controls your ass and you're not allowed to break some of these rules. You don't see 99.9% of civilian space traffic, you can't shoot stations, you can't shoot planets whereever you want, you can't crash.



So, why do you want this so badly?

[Horatius Caul]

Why can't you use bombs, DDDs, and cynos in high-sec?

Because CONCORD can lock down your modules, and the Empires have cynojammers in their systems.

The "artificial" limitations are already in place, as far as I can see. I'm not convinced that the problems with incorporating it into lore and gameplay (gameplay is already there, imo) are so great. The "drones did it" solution also raises questions.

If you use teleporters to extract loot from cans, why can't you extract your opponent's pod from their ship?

Why can't I teleport a nuclear charge on board my enemy's ship?

Why can't I teleport soldiers aboard my opponent's ship to capture it rather than destroy it?

And that's just the basest level of gameplay questions that would arise. If you have matter-to-energy teleportation you also give rise to these issues:

Why do I need to haul all my stuff across the universe? If mass can be accurately patterned as energy, why can't I convert my entire hangar into a battery?

Why do I need to grind asteroids to bits? Wouldn't it be easier to just use teleporter technology to extract the minerals straight from the rock? Or convert the whole rock to energy and not need to worry about storage space?

Why do I have to travel anywhere? If my character or ship can be converted to an energy pattern, why not just send that pattern via the fluid router system to instantly get materialized where I want to go?

Why do I need to be concerned about losing my stuff? If my ship and modules can be expressed as energy patterns, all I need is a station with a replicator to recreate it all.

Why do I need to build anything? If everything on the market can be abstracted to an energy pattern, why would anyone need to buy something from anyone else?

Yes, you might say "But H! You're super cool and all, but you're assuming Star Trek-type transporters. What if it's some other system!?". Well, the only other system for teleporters I can think of would be... wormholes. And EVE has very strict mechanics for how those work. For an on-demand wormhole, you need two collaborative end-points - either two conjoined stargates, or a jump drive/bridge and a cyno. Yes, there are also 'natural' or 'spontaneous' wormholes, but we don't have any method of controlling those. Additionally, we've never seen wormholes on such a fine level that one might be used to pick up a single module, and not only does that end of the hole need to be meter-perfect, the delivery side also needs to hit the right spot.

So to pick up loot using a wormhole solution you'd need: Talocan/Sleeper/Jovian/Sansha level control of non-cyno non-paired wormholes, on an unprecedented level of fine detail and miniaturization. And that still doesn't do away with questions such as "Why can't I use this to tear apart the enemy from the inside, or teleport a bomb to their ship, or open a wormhole to suck out all the air to suffocate their crew?"