EVE General Discussion

This thread comes up on almost a weekly basis. In fact, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a nerf cloaking thread in the first 2 pages on this forum section. Almost every single one of them goes like this:

1. OP posts a post with a new (lol) idea that always boils down to some variation of the following:
- "There's a big meanie who is sitting in my system and not doing anything, but I don't know where he is and I can't ever just go next door. I can't find said meanie and even though I know that he's probably at work and poses no threat at all, I wont do anything in my system that I absolutely can't leave ever because he might not be at work and I might lose a ship. CCP please stop the meanie from being able to do nothing to me because he's probably at work"

2. Thread gets trolled because its been done literally to death. This horse has been beaten so hard and so often that it's little more than a memory of a memory of a red smear on the grass, and yet it STILL WONT DIE! In fact it's been done so many times that this particular horse is now undead; even if it does die, it will still be remembered and parodied.

3. Someone comes along and suggests that AFK cloakers can't hurt you, because they are, by their very definition, AFK. No one ever lost a ship to someone who ISN'T PLAYING THE GAME.

4. Someone else comes along and points out that while the cloaker might be AFK, he might not be, and so we have Schrodinger's Hot Dropper. The cyno pilot who might be AFK... but he might not be as well, and you will only know for sure when he decloaks, points and lights his candle. (Yes, I know this isn't how the cat works)

5. Someone else comes along and suggests that you use bait and setup a TARP. Or have a defence fleet on standby. Heaven forbid you have to actually fight to defend your space.

6. A further person comes along and suggests that the problem isn't cloaking AFK in your system that you can't possibly leave ever, but that you KNOW that the person is AFK in your system... and perhaps local should be removed because free 100% accurate intel is probably not the best thing in the game and if you didn't know that the big meanie was in your system, you wouldn't be worried about leaving the undock/POS.

7. Then another person pokes their head in and complains that local is 100% NEEDED because D-Scan and probing are such bad mechanics, and IF YOU TAKE MY LOCAL AWAY IM QUITTING FOREVER AND NO YOU CAN'T HAVE MY STUFF!

8. Someone asks if they can have 7's stuff.

We end up with another thread which goes on for pages and pages between complains about local, defence fleets, inability to just go next door, people who aren't playing the game but are playing the meta, lots of bickering and in the end nothing gets solved. CCP wont remove cloaking because it would mess with waaay too many things and it creates content (which is a good thing) by removing content (which is a bad thing) but they can't really think of any way to do it without a complete overhaul of the local and scanning systems.

Now that I've had this entire thread's conversation, can we just let it die? Please?

I love cloaks. They make transporting goods through hostile territory a lot easier, they allow people to escape harm as well as to spy on others. Having said that, there is some serious need for allowing players to effectively country this one sided advantage. aside from cloaks there measures and counter measure with most if not all other modules. So why are cloaks left in a state of imbalance with the other modules. Why is it that a cloaked ship can remain cloaked for 5 full days in one system and the corp that owns that system is incapable of locating that hidden ship?

This is extremely one sided and should be addressed by the devs.

Some people have proposed a timer that would cause the ships to de-cloak after period of time and would require a recharge time before it can be used that was based on the length of usage. I think I have a better idea.

My idea would be to either create a new probe that has the capability to seek out cloaked ships based on skill level. It would not locate or show anything that was in system unless it was cloaked. then using the same process to locat anything else, you could eventually locate the position of the hidden ship.

What ever the case, something needs to be done to correct this one sidedness. a ship should not be allowed to remain cloaked in a system for 5+ days without being challenged by those that own that system or territory. The use of probes would still allow the integrity of the cloaked ships to remain to a decent degree while allowing others to locate cloaked ships whose players continue to use this as an unfair advantage. I like probes over timers because it allows the player of the cloaked ship to be able to use the cloaks until they are located.

I would like input from the Devs please. Thanks.

Why is it that a cloaked ship can remain cloaked for 5 full days in one system