Happy Safe Fun Time | EVE Online

Happy Safe Fun Time

2012-11-27 - By CCP Greyscale

Hi everybody,

Today I'm going to talk about how to fly safely in Retribution! We are adding a couple of new features to ensure that, when you inevitably lose your ship in a very silly way, it is very definitely 100% your fault.

SAFE LOGOFF

This system is pretty straightforward: if you are not doing anything dangerous, you can now opt to "Log Off Safely". This will give you a big on-screen timer showing you how long until you log out. When the timer runs out, your ship is immediately removed from space and you're informed that you successfully logged out.

You will also notice here that there is a button marked "Abort". If, while you're in the process of logging off, you see some dastardly pirate slash noble upholder of justice delete as appropriate flying over to end your ship's meagre existence, you can abort the process and defend yourself. This should ensure that you'll never (again) die because you logged out a minute too soon and got podded while the client was closed.

You cannot be safely logging off while:

  • You have active modules
  • You're ejecting from a ship
  • You have aggression from players or NPCs
  • Your ship is exploding or self-destructing
  • You're issuing movement commands
  • You're launching or jettisoning objects
  • You're joining a fleet
  • You're deploying or reconnecting with drones
  • You have a target lock or are targeted
  • You're warping
  • You're decloaking or under gate cloak

You can't initiate a safe logoff while any of these things are happening, and if they happen once the countdown is running, it'll be aborted.

SAFETY SYSTEM

The Safety System is sliiightly more complex. Masterplan explained in an earlier blog that, in Retribution, there will be two levels of illegal behavior: "suspect" and "criminal". The safety system ensures that you cannot commit illegal behavior without deliberately switching off your safeties first.

Your new safety system has three states: enabled, partially disabled and disabled.

  • While ENABLED, you cannot commit any kind of illegal act
  • While PARTIALLY DISABLED, you can commit acts that will get you a suspect flag, but not those that would get you a criminal flag
  • While DISABLED, you can do anything you like, up to and including criminal acts

Your safety settings can be adjusted using this cunning new button on your HUD:

Clicking the little round button brings up the safety settings options, where you can select your desired state. Going UP the list (ie, moving to a less-safe setting) requires confirmation; going DOWN the list does not.

Changing your safety setting happens instantly, but moving to a safer setting will not clear flags that you've already incurred.

If you try to attempt an action that's prevented by your safety level, you will simply not be allowed to do it (this is enforced both on the client and on the server). These commands are all highlighted in the UI - in red or yellow, depending on their severity - and if you try to click one of them, the safety button will blink to remind you where you need to change your settings.

The upshot of all this is that you can never just do something illegal by accident: you always have to deliberately go and disable your safety settings first. On the other hand, if you're out to cause trouble, you'll never be bothered by last-minute pop-ups again: if you're on a lowsec roam and you turn your safeties off, you're in full free-fire mode from that point forward. And, pilot beware, if you fully disable your safeties in hisec then you're just one button-press away from a visit from CONCORD. Use at your own discretion :)

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