Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This...is going to be...super unpopular.

But here's the deal anyway. Eve is a sweet game, it's exactly what I imagine space would really be like if filled with a bunch of immortals looking to kill some, or a ton, of free time. The best part is that the game is balanced in such a way that even though your death is pretty much certain at any give time no matter where you are, haters are going to hate, there is ALWAYS a counter to someone else's advantage. Guy has a huge ship? Tackle him in a small one. Guy being a jerk in high-sec hiding behind CONCORD? Suicide Gank... Gal jamming your targeting system? Skill up sensor skills and/or load a module. Etc.

Then...there's this...

Lame-AFKer-UsingACloakInYourSystem-Can-Strike-Anytime-And-Ain't-Nothing-You-Can-Do-'Bout-it! There's also the ol' "All his buddies are logged off in system and he's just waiting to tell them all to log back in mumbo jumbo." If you aren't playing in Eve but actively setting a trap that is a huge deck stack that can't be countered (Though l suppose I could come to your house...).

It's obnoxious. Ya can't get a whole lot done while there's a spy hanging out in your system who can pull himself away from that giant platter of hot pockets at any time to scan down your ship and take you out then return and do it all over again. There isn't a counter to this and in the spirit of Eve "You can die anytime" mentality, I call BS...and a big fat COME ON!

Now, I'm not one to complain in RL without having a solution in the hopper so here's my soon-to-be-ripped-apart "solution" to this issue.

There's not a whole lot of point in having a cloak if folks can track you down easily. So let's not make it easy, but let's make it possible. If those nerds on Enterprise can do it, then so can we!

My idea: Cloaking devices build up emissions over time, at some point becoming detectable by combat probes or some new technology specifically designed for that purpose. This opens some interesting additional dynamics. Skills/Ship Traits that reduce cloaking emission build-up rate and skills/modules to lower the threshold. Larger ships can build up the emissions faster (sorry capital ship cloakers...), etc. How long before a ship becomes detectable is a math equation for some other 20 lb brain and how the decay mechanic works as well though I don't think it unreasonable that it be tied to the ship not the pilot.

Anyway, that's my idea. Pretty sure this subject has been discussed before but search is broken and I was feeling typy. You all have a good time wrecking this one.


-G

Classic

We already have a thread about that.

Redundant /thread

Sitting docked should also build up some magical energy and then eject you flying out of it.