Player Features and Ideas Discussion

We will never resolve this as those who wish to use the threat a cloaking vessel represents are working from a fundamentally different set of assumptions than everyone else.

Local does not need a counter. It works exactly as intended, in every area of space where it is present. A great many games have chat channels where all the players in an area are not listed constantly, while EVE does and this was not an oversight. Local does this for exactly the reasons you want to counter it. Combat began at the station. So long as your chosen prey relies 100% on evasion tactics then you should expect to not encounter prey on a regular basis. Especially when that evasion is earned through the concerted efforts of masses of players applied continuously over unlimited spans of time. When you want to solo PvP ships designed for PvE activity (by game design these ships are useless in nearly any PvP direct combat encounter, which is why they are popular targets) in their own friendly space you are not fighting them, but rather their entire alliance that helps keep that space . It appears to be the stance of the AFK Cloak supporters that this combined effort of entire alliances be rendered pointless by a single module with minimal skill requirements, fitting costs or even slot opportunity cost.

You should not be able to go AFK in hostile space with 100% safety. Even POS are subject to violence, and there are other dangers inherent as well. If you are in an outpost you are not in space, but rather in the only area of EVE intended to be safe- in a station. These things are also working as intended, and require no adjustment as concerns cloaking nor do they justify the safety of the 100% effective cloak.

PvE ships are designed into the game as being nearly 100% ineffective in PvP combat. The needs of sustained operation for missions, the ground up design of mining and transport ships, everything about pure PVE gameplay is in direct conflict with the reality of being capable one on one against a PvP ship. The PvE content as well is almost completely designed to disincentive group play. Rewards and difficulties do not scale. The reality of PvP is opposite- group play has incentives and the tradeoffs of burst performance are compensated easily by logistics at minimal cost.

The point of all that is that PvE ships are designed to and must rely on evasion to survive. While individual pilots may not ensure the safety of their space, that space is only safe because of the efforts of many allies, or else very selective timing and/or travel to an area where vigilance is possible.

PvP does not need yet another advantage in achieving initiative in direct combat. They already hold nearly every card in such an engagement. 100% effective cloaks are not balanced nor in keeping with the core design of EVE.

Hi Mike!



As numbered above:
1> A chat channel that gives key intel, even if only game changing when enhanced by circumstances, is still not the same comparison as other games for context.
Other games have chat across the spectrum of the game, or areas so large that presence awareness has little to no tactical value.
If chat was the true value, then an anonymous option would be present.
This is clearly possessing intel related value, in this context.
As possessing intel, it becomes a play element, and deserves potential to be affected by play.

2. Based on what? The ability to go AFK in perfect safety exists already.
Sure, that POS or outpost MIGHT be possible to disrupt over time, but not before a returning player is able to perform simple tasks which make them safely out of reach once more.
The cloak, in addition, is the ONLY safe AFK method which is open to any player willing to make the sacrifices needed to employ it.
The simple truth that many are unwilling to chat with you in the only place you have direct awareness of them, is not their responsibility.

3. This sounds like the real issue here.
You are describing an entire play style which seems incentivized to avoid interaction. In a game where interaction is touted as the highest form of content.
Fix this, and the rest really does go away.

Why exactly should serious PvE need to be mutually exclusive to serious PvP?
This, to my awareness, has NEVER been explained properly.

1. Again, this is intended behavior. It's how the game is supposed to work. It helps hunters find targets and targets evade hunters equally. It is only the fear of actually being forced into encountering an actual fight that keeps the proponents of AFK cloaking fighting so hard to limit local. You may get your wish, but it won't be for the good of the game.

2. Based on the core design of the rest of the game. You cannot go AFK while in space with 100% safety without a cloak. Outposts are stations, and that's the only safe place the game ever intended. POS are vulnerable to a number of factors including theft, bumping and awoxing. Nothing and no one you don't actively make aware of your exact location can affect you when cloaked. It is the safest state in the game apart from being docked in a high sec station, allowing for the absolutely insane chance that someone might stumble within 2k of you out in random space.

3. I agree, this is the issue. As with most issues it has multiple sides and angles of attack. The game design needs to move away from luring in players to pilot targets for the entertainment of sadistic malcontents.

The core concept of the game is that choices have consequences, not pure PvP. Pure PvP games are like Battlefront, which do not have issues with losses beyond killboard stats. The ecology of EVE requires people out doing industry, ratting, transporting, etc... and yet that part of the game continues to exist in a state that is primarily designed to lure in and kill carebears.

I don't believe that serious PvE needs to be mutually exclusive to PvP. The game in its current state heavily incentivizes against doing PvE in a way that makes PvP practical. It's not a case of giving up a little profit or progress toward a goal- It's literally not worth the trouble to do much PvE in any environment where PvP has more than a remote chance of actually occurring. Solo PvP pilots know this as well, or they would be charging head first into areas where they are guaranteed a fight and in short order- just not on their own terms, rather than harassing and being frustrated by people in ships incapable of doing much but running or exploding. But that's a whole other topic of how to bring the two playstyles more in line with eachother.

Very well. I don't know that it would be of great impact, but it might be worth examining removing standings from the chat window. It's still something that would logically be available in the RP world that EVE is supposed to be, but I can sacrifice for gameplayability.

Of more import, You *should* be able to PvE with greater rewards in exchange for willingness to stand your ground. The game isn't set up for that however.

There is almost nothing in the environment worth fighting for, and even less of it matters in any way to PvP pilots. By and large they want another tick on the killboard, at the lowest cost possible. The ones hunting PvE ships are at least as risk adverse as the PvE pilots they hunt, at least rats occasionally shoot back effectively.

The issue there becomes both the combat viability of PvE ships, and the absolute nature of tackle. If you are defeated, you get nothing from the encounter. If an enemy gets on grid with you, you will be tackled, and you will have no chance of escape. Even if there was something in the environment worth risking the encounter over, the binary nature of EVE PvP, with near zero chance of disengagement or a draw makes it a bad bet to attempt. At that point it becomes a catch-22. Because it's completely win or lose with no middle ground, combat pilots will not attempt an engagement unless there is no effective opposition. Because no one attacks a group, there is minimal value in escorts, and no fun for combat pilots it babysitting. You either have sufficient allies on hand to attempt a rescue (since there is no chance of escape) in which case there will never be an encounter, or you leave before you can be engaged because there is no point in staying in an effectively defenseless ship.

It's not the only way to play, to be sure. It's the most common because that's what the game provides incentive for. Everything else costs more than the potential gain.

I agree, and in many respects fixing this will touch many aspects of the "afk cloaking problem". That problem is generated by an entire chain of underpinning relationships in the game. It's like learning a little Chinese, being a little pregnant or trying to hold up just a little bit of a truck. You kinda need to be all in or not in at all.

I'm not reading 109 pages of stuff to find out if any of what I'm about to say has been said yet. That's the problem with a mega thread.

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AFK Cloaking lets a player affect the system, disrupt the enemy's ISK making, and weaken the enemy all while you are not at the computer. This is the same thing botters do, only they make ISK directly from botting while AFK cloakers get something else out of it instead. I believe that AFK cloaking should be considered botting and that the mechanism needs to be changed to make sure a pilot is at their computer, or if they aren't, they can be banned for botting (macros and botting scrips to auto cloak).

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The proposed mechanism change, is that the cloaking devices have a time limit before they turn off. You can base this off skills, so at level 5 shield skills, or a new skill called "Cloak Timing" or "Cloaking Duration", maybe "Cloak Enhancements", you get maybe 30 minutes out of the cloak. Within the last 10% of the cloak's cycle, you have the ability to click "prime cloak" which will prime the cloak for another cycle and prevent you from decloaking. This will totally unaffect anyone who isn't an AFK cloaker, and all AFK cloakers who leave their computer for more than the cloak duration, will be sitting ducks.

Originally my idea was to max it at 10 min, but I realize that may be too much of a hassle on those who do exploration. I mean, i nail down all sites within 30 minutes time usually, mostly under 20, but I think it'd be best to max at 30 min. Priming your cloak every 30 minutes doesn't sound like a bad idea, because really, who would sit there at their computer cloaked for 8 hours at a time when they are actually at the game? The only people who cloak for 8+ hours, are afk cloakers in enemy systems to disrupt everything. This would ensure that anyone who is actually cloaked from now on, is not afk, but actively hunting.

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Another thing, I saw posts about a new module proposal that is supposed to be used in SOV space to decloak all cloaking campers in the system and force decloak everyone for a duration of time. This is a bad idea. Sure, it gets rid of cloaking campers, but puts your own allies or friendlies at risk. Also, warning before everyone gets decloaked? That's stupid. Do I warn my enemies before I shoot them? Does an NPC spawn warn all the miners in the asteroid belt before they warp in? Do enemy players announce that they are about to warp in on you before they do it? No. Don't warn the enemy cloakers before they get decloaked, let them find out that they were decloaked by a decloaking unit as soon as it happens. "Cloaking systems disrupted." *attempt to recloak* "Cloaking systems are currently offline." *ohshit, I better run, damn, they caught my stupid ass.*

If you're going to add this module to the game, it needs to not decloak alliance members, corp members, or anyone marked as blue. Or at least be configurable to set who it doesn't decloak when active. It also needs to not give any warning out whatsoever, but it should give out it's location while active. "Cloaking Jammer" icon like active cynos. It is a powerful device after all, to decloak everyone within a system. Also, this item should probably take some sort of fuel to work. So long as it has plenty of fuel, it should keep the specific settings of people decloaked and unable to cloak. Does not affect gate cloaks, obviously. Different tiers of the device to store larger amounts of materials for longer decloak durations and more defense with slightly increased fuel usage for each tier. Top tier should probably be able to keep the system cloak free for 24 hours (till down time).

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I still think that the cloak duration is a better method, more realistic. I mean, how do you jam light waves? Cloaking works by bending light around the object so that you can't see the object anymore. At least that's how we see today's cloaking technology. So you can't exactly jam it by sticking a jamming device out there. I know the game isn't on with the whole realism thing anyway so, I just thought I'd mention that.

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A) AFK Cloaking should be disabled via cloak timers with a prime cloak button to ensure you're still at your machine and will remain cloaked if you prime the cloak for another cycle.

B) If Cloaking SOV unit comes in, do not announce decloak warning to anyone. Do not decloak specific people (options in decloak unit, e.g. +10, +5, allience, corp). Show location of jamming device like a cyno does for the duration that it is active. Cloak Jammer fuel, + tiers of unit with different storages, armor, shield. Top tier might keep system cloak free till down time (24 hours).

Cloaks slow your engines down because in order to effectively keep your ship cloaked, they need to compensate while you fly. To bend light at the proper speed so that you remain invisible at all angles. Better cloaks can do this faster, so you are able to move faster. The more power your cloaking device has, the faster you can move without being seen.

Engines can be disrupted via a number of ways. It's not that super odd. Electronic warfare could be used to attack the navigation system making the ship unable to keep up with the data, slowing it's navigation down, a weapon that accelerates the ions in your engine could be used to make your fuel burn faster and produce less thrust, a weapon that sucks the oxygen out of the mix before it can be used would also make your engines produce less thrust.

Tractor beams are done this way so that someone else can't steal your loot or keep you away from it. A game of keep away with loot. This is gameplay, not science.

Wormholes are perfectly logical. Wormholes open up and collapse in space all the time. Though, we tend to think that the only ones that exist are black holes. An unstable wormhole would collapse if something too large tried to pass through it.


30 minute timer is more than fair, considering I mentioned a prime cloak button is needed, and 10% of 30 minutes is 3 minutes. You get a whole 3 minutes to click prime cloak, which extends your time 30 more minutes after that cycle ends, without you decloaking.

It might also be fine to just let you prime your cloak at any time during the cycle, so you can leave for an hour then come back and re-prime it or whatever for an additional 30 min. So as soon as you cloak, click prime, that gives you 1 hour.

More modules is not the answer.

It's really silly to argue sci-fi physics. I was providing one example of how the cloaks could work based on other things we see in game. Your contention that it makes no sense for cloaks to be disrupted hinges on some assumptions that may or may not be the case.

For instance, New tech introduced to the game are the SKINs. That tech could be how cloaks work, and the argument that the ship needs to go slower so it can properly match the picture on the other side of the ship stands.... Excelpt that the SKIN tech isn't that flexible, displaying only preset static images.

The cloak effect is not really explained. It is bending light, but how? The only thing I know of that makes light bend is really intense gravity. As there are many other nonsensical aspects to EVE tech that can also be explained by the manipulation of gravity, it seems as good a fiction as any other to go with. Continuity is important in fiction, and if we are going to argue about it we should at least try to be as reasonable as possible in our unreasoning. It is as reasonable to justify cloaks as an application of gravity lensing and either the effect itself or the power drain it causes limits the speed of the ship when active as it is to say we have to go slow or look really blurry.

We aren't worried about why the game mechanics are set up for balance, we are speaking of the fluff explanation for how things are. Personally I would love it if there were a range of tractor beams and we could tug-o-war an object with multiple beams from different angles in fact, I think they should combine webs and tractors and base the strength of the effect on the reletive power of the engines combined with the mass of the object And distance from the beams origin. Battleships should stop a frigate cold, while several frigates should be required to stop a battleship. The reverse, using tractors to enhance the acceleration or aid maneuvers or against bumping should also be workable. That's not this thread though.

Wormholes may be somewhat non-fictional on the subatomic scale, but they are not commonly present anywhere we know of. Even black holes are theoretical, and only recently was an object that was thought plausible to be a black hole observed, but the science on that is the equivalent to a guy looking at something barely visible in wavelengths we don't normally see and saying "hmm, that's weird". EVE tech has sufficient mastery of this to use it in both warp drives and jump drives, and given how the ships move probably basic propulsion as well.

EVE ships do not burn fuel except to jump. They do use extra energy to warp. While the ships do emit light and appear to have thrusters, it's highly unlikely it's anything that depends on any sort of oxygen catalyzing rocket fuel. If they did, the ships would not slow down so quickly when you turned off the engines, it would be almost imperceptibly gradual and mostly only happen in gas clouds or around gravity wells.

So why do you do it, if it has no effect?

"These things are [...] working as intended" How can you tell what is intended and what not? You can't!
I can say with the same lack of actual knowlege that the cloak works as intended. You just assume you are right and because of that things you like work "as intended" and everything else is broken. Sorry but your reasoning is broken.

"Even POS are subject to violence" Again the same argument... POS have a reinforcement timer. A timer in favour of the POS! If you want a decloaking mechanic it should also take 1,5 days to decloak someone - then it would be equaly vulnerable.

And of course is the 100% safety of stations a viable reason to justify an equaly safe mechanic for the intruder. Only because you only use option A doesn't mean, that option B to be safe is not viable.

Look at PVE like in wormhole space - you are always bait! And the cloaked Proteus right behind you doesn't decloak because of the other cloaked Proteus behind that. It is always funny when I find a wormhole into a null sec system, jump through, the first thing that happens is that the number of locals drop... I am in a CovOps for god's sake. I can't hurt you and I didn't even launch probes yet!
While in a wormhole you can be on grid with someone without them knowing. It is way more fun this way. I promise.