Player Features and Ideas Discussion

he even gave reasons as to why he was against it. it was a nice contribution all things considered lol.

anyways
for a while now ive been for the idea of having a certain probe or ship being able to (eventually) detect cloakers. but something like this couldnt be balanced as long as local existed, and i wouldnt even say it was for detecting afk cloakers. i'd personally want one that detected those fleets or scouts that are ready to ambush u or try to hide from u.

if it was implemented through someway of probing, then it would be evadable by skilled and un-lazy pilots and would keep peeps on their toes.

the main reason i'm for this change is to stop fleets that come into ur territory looking for a fight, but then wait whilst cloaked until u have half or even a third of their number. i just think cloaking gives u too much choice in what fights u engage in or avoid. it would be nice to put them on the back foot once in a while.

and yes, i'd much rather i didnt even know about enemies at all and be able to discover them by probing than i would knowing their exact number but not being able to do a damn thing about it.

In my experience, its only the bots that dock and/or logout. Actual players simply move to another system. But if you dock and don't play when I afk cloak your ratting and/or mining system, not only am I achieving a legitimate goal of resource and income denial while I'm there, but I will also be downgrading your system's sov indices, thus further degrading your income even after I leave.

Short-term solution: don't dock.

Long-term solution: set all nulsec local to delayed mode. Holy crap, you might actually have to learn how to use your directional scanner.

Practical solution to AFK cloakers is incredibly easy: Do nothing at all.

Someone who is AFK is by definition not a threat to you, they are AFK. Ignore it and move on.

Yes they may be watching you and giving intel, but then they are not AFK are they? They may use a cov ops cloak to to warp in on your mission/plex/site or whatever and kill you, again not AFK are they?

AFK cloaking is a form of psychological warfare that relies on the terrors you construct for yourself to prohibit your movement through areas of the game. If you see them, panic and turn back then they are able to use any areas they have just denied you for their own ends, unharrassed by you or any fleet you can rustle up. In other words: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

Quite frankly given that you can hide in wait under cloak for any amount of time you like waiting for a victim to pounce on and for some reason that is rarely called out as broken. If you are in a ship that would not present a viable target or in a group that is too large a "trap door spider" style player and an AFK cloaker are indistinguishable. Therefore, I have an extremely binary view of cloaking and all related tactics. If any use of a cloak is not legitimate then no use of a cloak is legitimate and cloaking should be removed from the game entirely or all uses of a cloak are equally acceptable. My position of course is that ALL tactics involving cloaks are legitimate and therefore, it's time to sack up. If he scares you then go back to station dock up and wait for him to leave (downtime should do it). Otherwise take the 99.9% chance that if he is actually just sitting there all day he will fail to notice your presence.

EDIT: Really just have to say here despite living in low sec, I know AFK cloaking is pretty much exclusive to null. I have flown with gangs through null looking for fights many times. When we find an ship that is unaccounted for we just assume it's cloaked to avoid us or AFK cloaked and move on. We don't even have 100 blues within 5 jumps to call on, we are isolated and alone, if that cloaker rounds up 45 people to camp us on the outgate we are completely screwed. The biggest carebears in this game live in nullsec. With all the blues around you're not even really risking a suicide gank short of blue on blue action and associated drama. If there is one person in local with you and you have multiple friendlies nearby, then play the game like you have a brain and don't AFK your mission. I frequently plex in null (that I don't own) to make money, a scout goes ahead and the ship that is going to run the PvE legwork trails behind it. Since 2008 I have NEVER lost a PvE ship in null sec/low sec (not including my scout several of whom have died in glorious fires which were by and large T1 scanning frigates, not exactly costly) and that's without an intel channel. (Excluding local)

Remove local, problem solved

Please explain.

sidenote: oh this new and exciting topic again. should be a part of Commonly Proposed Ideas... Oh wait...

I thought the problem is being afk while cloaking? You have addressed cloaking at all here (with an horrible idea that is 5 years old), but not the "issue" of being afk.

So your problem is being AFK. Not cloaking.

This discussion is 5 years old aswell. So are your arguments. You see the cloaking mechanic or AFKing through a carebears point of view, which is in fact only one side of the medal.

Please do a forum search for valid answers to your statements.

Dear OP: Please unsub (from life).

There is no problem other than local and mega-carebears.

If there was no local, then going AFK while cloaked would be the same as logging off (technically safer, as your ship disappears, while afk there is still the *remote* possibility of another object coming close enough to decloak it). So clearly the mechanic is not the problem, or else we'd have to make everyone vulnerable that doesn't log off in a station (and there's people that want to get rid of that invulnerability too)

The problem is the biggest carebears in EVE are scared when they see a non-blue in system, and can't even be arsed to move to a neighboring system.
Say... don't many bots have orders to dock up if a red/non blue enters the system?
Could it possibly be that the whiner's are people who run bots and are upset when their bot gets shut down?

AFK people can't stop you from doing anything. Move systems or watch D-Scan/probes)

The problem is people who are apparently terrified that there may be someone out there who may try to kill them.
EVE does not cater to those people, thus showing up in local to scare those people is not a problem.

However, Local is a problem for the "invader" it is an immensely powerful tool for the defenders and their carebears.

I support removing local in null, and making it like WHs, but not because of AFK cloakers, simply because if the advantage it gives the defenders.

Then "Low security" would actually have some significant security that one doesn't have in null (in one aspect at least).

Of course... then the nullbears wouldn't know they were safe in any system (although I hear some bots can effectively read local even in WH systems, as if local data is still there and accessible just hidden from the user interface).

I'd love to see the carnage that could result from raids into null sec once the protection of local is gone.

My signature handles this, although it was based off someone else's 10 minute version....