The "Bat Cave" - hideout thread


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Goblin Squad Member

I'd think that the more and more construction that's put into a hideout, and the more NPCs that are periodically going to and from from the place, the place should get easier to detect. Yes, you can put in some upgrades that make it harder to detect - and you'll have to, if you put in many of the nice-to-haves.

edit to add: Alternatively, rather than making hideout easier to detect because of the OPSEC issues related to construction and activity, construction times for upgrades might take significantly longer than similar construction at POIs. Why? Because the construction is being done almost entirely by members of the owning company (no blabbermouth NPC labor) and construction materials need to be moved in secret. (The trade off is that the upgrades are likely less exposed than those at the outpost. I can see hideouts being used for secret caches.)

CEO, Goblinworks

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Amari wrote:
I find my spot i would like for my "Bat Cave" and mark it. This mark would be the access point for the hide-out. The mark can be on a tree, rock, wall or whatever. The mark will only be visible to whom I give permission. Clicking this mark loads you out of the terrain into the instance.

If there's a defined physical access point it will make hideouts useless. They'll be compromised so fast as to make them worthless.

I wish it wouldn't, but it will. Anyone using that system will be trailed to the vicinity and even if they avoid detection when accessing the site with that much localization you'll get a ring of observers as soon as the target vanishes near the access point making ingress and egress impossible to hide thereafter.

I envision something like an object in your inventory that you manipulate when within the Hex that takes you into the Hideout. I see potential problems with that acting as an escape hatch from PvP so we have to consider the best implementation and limitations. TBD.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:


I envision something like an object in your inventory that you manipulate when within the Hex that takes you into the Hideout. I see potential problems with that acting as an escape hatch from PvP so we have to consider the best implementation and limitations. TBD.

Can not enter hideout while currently flagged with short term

PvP flags. However the flags for feud, war and faction I do see as a problem.

There is also another problem I can think of as far as making detection easier.

First, not everyone that has a hideout will be a criminal. It would behove those who specialize in hunting down criminals to not only train the skills to search for hideouts, but also to construct their own hideout to see how they work.

If access and egress of a hideout is not randomized for the owner of the hideout, these hideout hunters will use their own to practice discovering the signs of the hideout trigger (if it is some object in the environment).

On the other hand, if the hideout hunters have dedicated the time, training and resources in building their own hideout they probably deserve to have an advantage over those who did not.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:

If there's a defined physical access point it will make hideouts useless. They'll be compromised so fast as to make them worthless.

I wish it wouldn't, but it will. Anyone using that system will be trailed to the vicinity and even if they avoid detection when accessing the site with that much localization you'll get a ring of observers as soon as the target vanishes near the access point making ingress and egress impossible to hide thereafter.

Sounds like hideouts have run smack into "if players can do something it will be done."

Possibly hideouts need to be more like outposts than POIs. Something that is quickly built, serves its function for a while, and will shortly be lost or replaced.

Or return to the basic purposes of hideouts: muster location for secretive types, safe login/out spot, cache point, and scanner for determining lootable cargo. (There was also the jammer to pull someone out of fast travel, but that depends on fast travel). How many of these can (secretly) be placed into POIs? I think the seedy inn might be a more common hideout than Sinbad's cave with its magical entry point.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:

The hideout has to have a non-physical entrance and no defined location in the hex otherwise they'll be useless. How you find one has to have at least two components: a character ability related to tracking and sensing, and an observational component involving seeing someone access the hideout. If it's just the former, they'll be useless. If it's just the latter, they'll be useless.

What might happen is that if you do find one (ability + observation) then the system might create some kind of short-term visible object so you can leave, group up and invade it. It has to be short time limited or they'll be useless.

OpSec to keep people from observing someone accessing the hideout is going to be crucial.

I'm defining useless as not being worth the effort to build and operate one due to excessive risk of discovery and loss. If you can find a hideout in a day or two after creating it, it's probably useless.

The requirement of having seen someone go in recently to attack is pretty damn nice in that I assume hideouts may have fairly weak defenses compared to other structures, so it's cool that you can't attack it unless there have been people there recently.

I just hope hideouts take something to maintain, so that when groups come in, build a hideout, and then go inactive, there aren't dozens of inactive hideouts all over your hex. Not a huge deal I suppose because if there is nobody there to use it then it's not really hurting anything, but I don't really like the idea of someone building a huge grand hideout on a hex, leaving the game, and coming back to find it when all the POI's, outposts, and settlements required an active defense.

Then again, it would make it interesting if an old/powerful faction built an amazing hideout on a hex they owned, and then came back later and it was still there, allowing them to launch a much more effective campaign to reclaim their old settlement.

So there is upsides and downsides to each method.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Why does there need to be exactly one physical entrance and exit? A good hideout will have a front door, a back door, and side doors- and the ability to look around and see if anyone is waiting to ambush you when you leave.

Having more entrances and exits would make it easier to avoid detection and harder to blockade the hideout without finding it, but possibly easier for someone with the appropriate skills to find one of the access points. (Assuming that searching in the right location with the right ability is sufficient to find a hideout).

Goblin Squad Member

Andius wrote:
... but I don't really like the idea of someone building a huge grand hideout on a hex, leaving the game, and coming back to find it when all the POI's, outposts, and settlements required an active defense.

Yup.

Otoh, if hideouts are turned into almost-undiscoverable places, I'll bet they see wide use for all sorts of purposes. Hundreds of the things in each hex.

Sovereign Court Goblin Squad Member

Since there's no "defined physical access point" it doesn't really make sense to speak of the number of entrances. You just enter through some interface. Maybe it only works in a certain area of the hex, but that doesn't really define the number.

When a physical entrance is spawned by discovery (see Ryan's posts), the people invading are likely just entering through a generic entrance. Maybe it's the only one, maybe not. In practice it's just a different interface for entering, except that it's temporary and actually has a fixed location.

The number of exits may be definable. If you just exit the hideout via some interface, then it's undefined.

If you have to exit via some opening in the side of the hideout, then the number of exits is clear. Admittedly it'd be a little weird having an undefined number of entrances and a clearly defined number of exits when intuitively you'd expect the numbers to match up exactly.

For those familiar with Dragonlance, what Ryan is saying reminds me of the Tower of Wayreth, just smaller.

Goblin Squad Member

Urman wrote:
Andius wrote:
... but I don't really like the idea of someone building a huge grand hideout on a hex, leaving the game, and coming back to find it when all the POI's, outposts, and settlements required an active defense.

Yup.

Otoh, if hideouts are turned into almost-undiscoverable places, I'll bet they see wide use for all sorts of purposes. Hundreds of the things in each hex.

That's why I think they should use influence to build and maintain in addition to their material components. Hideouts should be meaningful, not just something you throw up every other place you think would be cool.

Goblin Squad Member

If a hideout does not have a physical presence it would not be subject to escalation cycles? I guess that makes sense up to a point but if the hex is crawling with goblins they are going to discover you at some point if only by dumb luck.

CEO, Goblinworks

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Vwoom wrote:
I guess that makes sense up to a point but if the hex is crawling with goblins they are going to discover you at some point if only by dumb luck.

Would make Hideouts useless, therefore nobody would bother to make one or advance it.

CEO, Goblinworks

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Maybe I should be clearer on why there are problems with Hideouts.

Overall, we don't want to invest developer time in making a feature that doesn't get a lot of use. There are so many things that we can work on that we know will be widely used that putting resources into a marginal case feature is a really bad idea (for us) that delivers low value (for you). So we need to carefully think about how likely the feature we're investing in is to be used as intended.

The Hideouts are supposed to be basis from which bandits can conduct operations against merchants in territory far from the Bandit's Settlements. Like other kinds of player-built structures there should be a fractal space of things you can do with them over time which implies a connection to something like the Development Index mechanic. Since they're so useful, the process for making one has to be hard, time consuming, and risky. Ergo, a Hideout should be something that has persistency over a very long period of time.

With that limitation we have to make finding a Hideout a time consuming, very difficult process. If we simply placed the challenge in the hands of the seekers, it will produce a system nobody uses because there will always be seekers willing to invest whatever time is required to find the Hideout. They'll all be found. So we need a two-factor process; a qualified seeker has to do the thing in the way proscribed, and someone with access to the Hideout has to screw up and allow themselves to be discovered entering or exiting it. That places the burden for discovery on the Hideout's users. If they don't screw up, they don't lose their investment. If they lose their investment, it's because they screwed up. Requiring that two-factor process also means that it is far, far less interesting to be a seeker, and we won't have people who play the "seeker game" and haunt every hex looking constantly for Hideouts (because 99% of the time they'll find nothing).

Anything that automates the process of finding a Hideout ruins the Hideout system. Any meaningful loss of Hideout value that isn't due to the Hideout's users screwing up ruins the Hideout system. By "ruins" I mean "players won't build them, develop them, or care about them, which means the effort we spent making the feature is mostly wasted". Players are extremely sensitive to marginal impacts on what they perceive as their "rights" or their "value" in invested time & resources and nothing outrages the player community faster than the sense that they lose either through capricious or random events. So having the Hideout discovered by the computer is even worse than having the Hideout discovered by a Seeker - it's the exact opposite of "meaningful human interaction".

Goblin Squad Member

Hideouts are beginning to sound like extra-dimensional spaces. That is good as there are lore examples of such things existing. Think BIG bag of holding. If that is the case then it would take a large investment of time, resources, and crafting skill to make the object that creates the extra-dimensional hideout. The generating object is taken to a hex and activated to creat the hideout extra-dimensional space. Once created it can only be accessed by specific items or "keys" (much like a special tuning fork for plane shift). These special "keys" could be anything (created when the generating object is crafted). They don't have to all be the same for a particular hideout and they don't have to have a detectable magic aura. To enter the hideout, one simply needs to be within the hex and activate their key. They then fade from view and fade into view in the hideout because the hideout is not tied to a specific spatial location in the hex.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Harad Navar wrote:
Hideouts are beginning to sound like extra-dimensional spaces. That is good as there are lore examples of such things existing. Think BIG bag of holding. If that is the case then it would take a large investment of time, resources, and crafting skill to make the object that creates the extra-dimensional hideout. The generating object is taken to a hex and activated to creat the hideout extra-dimensional space. Once created it can only be accessed by specific items or "keys" (much like a special tuning fork for plane shift). These special "keys" could be anything (created when the generating object is crafted). They don't have to all be the same for a particular hideout and they don't have to have a detectable magic aura. To enter the hideout, one simply needs to be within the hex and activate their key. They then fade from view and fade into view in the hideout because the hideout is not tied to a specific spatial location in the hex.

That's an interesting idea, particularly if there is some 'activation phrase', or if the keys are also linked to specific people.

Getting one of the keys might be part of one of the ways to destroy the hideout, and "Have one of the keys and the reports of a good observer who saw someone using one" meets the goals of having the attacker do something right and the defender do something wrong.

Goblin Squad Member

I think that there would be a lot of RP in identifying characters who are seen using a "key", tracking them down, then trying to determine which one of their threaded items was a "key". If the hideout user fails to take the right precautions, they could be easily identified and stalked to gain information. Someone who is a hideout hunter may have to be skilled in making hideout generators to manipulate a key taken from a hideout user. A tier 1 hideout hunter might not be able to unlock (detune?) a tier 2 key to be able to access the hideout. Destroying a hideout could operate like capturing a town hall to capture a settlement. Enter the hideout (once the key is "unlocked") and destroy or capture the hideout generator. A sufficiently skilled generator crafter could re-key a captured generator for the use of another, especially on the black market.

Goblin Squad Member

Thank you that makes more sense now.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

I would make the keys both unthreadable and immune to item decay, to avoid the case where someone manages to kill the carrier but can't get the item required to defeat the hideout.

That also implies either a way to create more keys, or the ability to deny the hideout to the creator by taking all of the keys off out of his cold, dead, hands.

Goblin Squad Member

There's a spell in TT called Rope Trick that seems to parallel a lot of the discussion here (extradimensional, unassailable unless the owner of the hideout screws up, can be used pretty much anywhere, allows the people inside to look out without others looking in). Just a thought, which can of course be modified to suit the needs of the game. First point would be to make it permanent, and probably confined to a magic item so that non-casters could also use it.

Goblin Squad Member

I would guess that all the initial functions of a tier 1 hideout (occupancy capacity, storage capacity, training capacity, ability to see around in the hex while in the hideout, etc.) would have to be collected before the hideout generator can be made. If the hideout needed to be enhanced, you would probably have to turn it off (de-exist the extra-dimensional space) and return the generator to its crafter or some other crafter for enhancement to (for example) tier 2 abilities.

I think that making the keys unthreadable would make hideouts useless. It would be too easy to get a key. Identifying a character with a key, then killing them for their key would make hideouts very short term things and no one would make the investment. Patrolling a hex known to have a hideout and killing everyone who came out of it would be better. This makes the hideout much less usable but the owners do have a change of turning off the hideout and slipping away with the generator to start up again somewhere else. If you killed everyone in the hideout outside of the hideout (requiring hideouts not to have soulbind points) and keeping them from activating their keys when they comeback to the hex could mean the hideout decays or shuts down and can not be used again, destroyed if you will.


While it doesn't really concern me as I am a pvper I should point out that EVE has a somewhat similar system as hideouts called the cloak.

The cloak is an interesting device which enables a ship to sit within a solar system and be invisible to all probing and DScan, the only way in fact to find it is to come within 2.5 km of this ship in either another ship or a piece of jetsam.

The problems in null sec in eve are caused by the following things however (it is not just down to the ability to cloak)

1) The enemy can be their and cloaked
2) The enemy can light a beacon to call in a hot drop
3) The pilot shows up in local (a chat channel)

Item 3 is the main thing because even though you know he is there you cannot see him and the gatherers and PVE people don't want to go out and about in case he ambushes them and kills them. The other problem is he can be in your system, cloaked and AFK for hours out of each day (these guys log on straight after daily down time and cloak up then leave the ship sitting there cloaked until down time)

The situation you are describing here seems to me to be coming perilously close to the afk cloaker problem. Just something to chew on really

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:
Vwoom wrote:
I guess that makes sense up to a point but if the hex is crawling with goblins they are going to discover you at some point if only by dumb luck.
Would make Hideouts useless, therefore nobody would bother to make one or advance it.

This makes 100% sense to me if the result of goblins finding your hideout during an escalation is your hideout gets destroyed.

If it just means your hideout may get infested and you'll have to clear out some goblins the next time you use it, it makes less sense.

I suppose the question at that point is that given hideouts will generally be placed on enemy hexes, do we really want to incentivize the hideout owners to help clear out the escalation? If anything I would think the hideout owners may want to work with the escalation.

Then again, if it's possible for them to work with the escalation and they choose to do so then the goblins who showed up at their hideout probably wouldn't attack it, or might even help defend it.

Goblin Squad Member

@Andius

Ryan,s next post states that the computer (AI) will not discover your hideout. I was truly referring to an ES at its peak, if the hideout is near or inside the settlement hex then the owners would need to address the ES in any case.

I completely agree with his logic however. Hideouts will require an investment that should not be lost by a single perception check, or people simple will not build them.

Goblin Squad Member

Though your hideout may not be destroyed during the escalation, it would likely be a nuisance to get to and certainly would not help much with intercepting merchants, as I doubt merchants will head right through an escalation without good reason. Though if the specific escalation is being contested over by different groups, a hideout in the hex could be a very handy thing to have...

Goblin Squad Member

Steelwing wrote:
The other problem is he can be in your system, cloaked and AFK for hours out of each day (these guys log on straight after daily down time and cloak up then leave the ship sitting there cloaked until down time)

What's the exact issues with this? Does being in a system have some impact on others?


Jiminy wrote:
Steelwing wrote:
The other problem is he can be in your system, cloaked and AFK for hours out of each day (these guys log on straight after daily down time and cloak up then leave the ship sitting there cloaked until down time)
What's the exact issues with this? Does being in a system have some impact on others?

Often the response of miners and ratters(ratters are people who go out to get bounties of PVE mobs) is to dock up and stay docked while there is a cloaked ship in system. They fear that it may either come after them or call a fleet down on them by what is know as a hot drop.

(A hot drop is when you light a beacon then a capital ship such as a titan can form a temporary jump gate between its system and the beacon and a fleet can jump through it)

Goblin Squad Member

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Gothca. Not a mechanics thing, but a 'fear' based reaction from other players.

Goblin Squad Member

It sounds like cloaked ships are much quicker and easier to set up than hideouts, which would likely shift the benefit of a cloaked ship into a penalty for a hideout. If losing a hideout is a significant cost, then you want it to be as under the radar as possible, and probably not alert nearby gatherers or PvErs.

Goblin Squad Member

I asked whether there will be a listing of local players awhile back. It was confirmed that there won't be. So sitting stealthed in someone's hex will accomplish nothing in PFO.


Jiminy wrote:
Gothca. Not a mechanics thing, but a 'fear' based reaction from other players.

Very much a fear based thing yes. However that fear does have an impact on earning. If it is known there is a bandit hideout in the area either through game mechanics or word of mouth I expect for some people in will have a similarly activity depressant effect

Goblin Squad Member

Given that all local lists have been eliminated there will always be a certain level of danger everywhere.

"I heard there is a hideout in X hex" will be much less impactful than "I heard 10 merchants got robbed in X hex within the last few hours".

If they are actually using their hideout to carry out attacks, and that spreads fear, then that's the game mechanics working as intended IMO. It's a feature not a bug.

Goblin Squad Member

Ryan Dancey wrote:
If you can find a hideout in a day or two after creating it, it's probably useless.

Up to that comment, I never expected hideouts to last for days.

Now I expect them to have non-trivial building cost and be associated with a group rather than an individual.

Not sure which I prefer. Easy come/easy go hideouts would allow bandits to relocate at a moments notice to follow traders. More permanent hideouts effectively allow them to hold territory and potentially be a force in territory control.

Goblin Squad Member

What if we treat finding and destroying hideouts like a small scale siege on a settlement? (Granted that if a hideout is generated by an object and can be deactivated and moved to a new hex the analogy has some apparent discrepancies.) Attacking a hideout could need a substantial preparation and dedication of manpower and resources. To keep this on a reasonable scale, lets suppose that a tier one hideout can only have a capacity of 25 character "keys". Further, lets suppose that at least one character must be in the hideout with a key at all times or the hideout decays and reverts to the generator object (an interesting opportunity to discover a hideout object in the wild). A group of companies may decide that they need to remove the hideout from a hex. They put together a patrol rotation to catch and kill any character exiting the hideout. Also they stop and delay any character entering the hex from trying to enter the hideout (this presumes that activating a key can not be done in combat and is interruptible).

Option A: The attrition of characters with keys gets to the point that only a few (or one) character(s) is left. The last player(s) have to decide to loose that hideout and save the character(s) try to exit the hideout and sneak away allowing the hideout to decay, or to go AFK for an extended period of time in hope that eventually the companies will give up and leave allowing the hideout to return to being active. That choice places the character at a disadvantage because their is no character(es) XP gain while logged off (DT exception granted).

Option B: Through lucky kill looting, bribery, or moles, the opposing forces gain enough keys to stage an attack within the hideout. Chaos and mayhem ensue with varying results.

Option C: The besieged hideout owners (presumably a company or alliance of companies) has (through their own mole) convinced their rivals to commit to a siege of the hideout. The allies of the hideout owners attack the besiegers from the surrounding hexes while those in the hideout come out at strategic points within the hex to flank and attack small embattled groups. Once again chaos and mayhem ensue with varying results.

I do think that this hideout method has great potential for some interesting content.

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