Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Baltec
Catching ratting ships is the only counter to local. Which afk cloaky campers cannot do by defintion.

The only raison etre for safe and sustained afk anything is to enhance player numbers on the server.

And that era ends on November 8th.


Ratpack
You flatter me. Though I would suggest sticking to the matter at hand, no matter how interesting your opinions on forum personalities.

Baltec
Thank you for again sharing your opinion!

Get into a t1 frigate, fly off into deep space in a system and counter local perpetually. You dont need a cloak to do "your only counter to local"

The raison etre for safe and perpetually sustainable afk anything mechanisms is to buff the number of people (technically accounts) on servers.

No longer desirable after 8. of November. So can be removed.

Yes, I too AFK cloak so as to drive up login numbers.

While I fully expect CCP to deal with AFK cloaking this is not the reason why, nor will the advent of Alpha clones provide sufficient grounds.

While I've experienced the frustration of finding everyone docked wherever I go, and I therefore believe there ought to be "some" way to interact with peeps in their space -preferably a better one than exists today- I find it peculiar how nobody's talking about catching ratters or defending space anymore. At this point I'm looking at guys literally defending the AFK aspects about it.

Same guys that explicitly condemn AFK in every other thread except this one.

Just an observation ...

Say Jerghul, I don't know if you've been following the thread when Observatory Array was the topic of the month, but how do you feel about that one? (if you didn't follow I'll fill you in real quick, but I assume you have been keeping taps). Five hours ain't too bad imho, but it doesn't go far enough as far as I'm concerned-- I'd like to get an uptick in roaming out of this while we're at it, not just a small modification to cloaking you see.

While your proposal ain't bad, and it'd take care of the AFK problem after a fashion, it would do little to turn nullsec into a giant PvP thunderdome. Sauce?

I have no issue with people being AFK so long as they accept the consequences of going AFK in different contexts.

The nice thing with the observatory array is that it gives you another something to shoot. Hopefully, one that will even have more immediate consequences than other structures in space. It would be interesting if there is a timer in terms of destruction, but the immediate effect turning on intel via the array. It can be turned on by having somebody come out an entosis it again which wouldn't disrupt any timer to destroy the thing...or something like that.

Ratpack
Not at all. Spokespersons have signed NDAs.

baltec
fitting a t-1 frigate to be uncatchable even if scanned down is trivial.

Player motivation for using afk cloaky camping is irrelevant, though obviously they use it to generate 0 effort kills at their convenience. Else they would be countering local in high sec.

Brokk
I think it fine in addition to what I am suggesting. Play and counter play generates content. Not as much as creating human error opportunities does. But content is content.

Ratpack
Its actually called an ad-hominen. But don't sweat it. Sarcasm is hard to master.

Sensor Arrays that have an opportunity cost greater than ship module sized are disproportionate and would function poorly.

So the array would simply amount to some form of ship fitted decloaking device with certain limitations.

Which seems to me a bit heavy handed an approach.

As to removing local. Remember if you will that in wh space, the compensation for lack of local is the ability to close gates. For an inkling of the scale of compensating measures that would be on the table if local is to be limited in null-sec.

Also a bad idea.

Cheap, low volume (m3) cloak charges with infrequent reloading needs (once ever 5 hours) is the least intrusive measure CCP can make.

Ideally of a type similar to link bursts being introduced in November. Standarization being the friend of all learning curves.


In sum. Shotgun tactics by small gangs give sufficient attrition in null-sec if afk cloaky camping is nerfed. The biweekly kills at the afk cloaky campers convenience will simply have to be nerfed.

The adverse effects of keeping ratting and mining ships docked up is too detrimental to small gangs that would otherwise be catching some of them.

Human error is a great content provider. If we just allow for mechanisms that let human error take place.

Sov-null is the only place that uses local as the primary source of intelligence how safe you are. It's been binarisized down to red in local= you are dead if you undock or no reds in local= do whatever you want. AFK-cloaking is only useable in situations where the intel from local is priorisized over any other information. This tactic is only viable in sov-null.

It is used for 2 different reasons
1) To drop ADM's.
2) To get kills.

AFK-cloaking is the only way to have a chance of fooling someone who looks at local for security.

And get probed down and wiped out.


A week with not being able to do anything. Lets also not forget, you are the one pushing for a free, instant, 100% unavoidable intel system.


High sec doesn't use local as an intel device because it doesn't work in high sec. AFK cloaking works in null sov space because you can secure your space and traffic is limited to just your organisation and hostiles.

You have yet to give us another counter to local and before you sperg it again, entering local and looking for something to shoot is not a counter, they still see you enter local and warp to safety before you even load the grid.



Concord means 99.999% of people you see in local will not shoot you, the 0.001% that will blend into this sea of grey which means local cannot be used for intel, thus AFK cloaking doesn't work in high sec because Local can't be used as in intel tool. It works in null only because local is used as the primary intel tool.