Assembly Hall

Congratulations! You just clicked on another AFK cloaking thread....... sort of.

So the argument that keeps popping up is that under the current mechanics AFK cloaking is the only way to catch people ratting. And that's true.

Imagine trying to catch someone in the slowest ratting ship in the game (a carrier) with a traditional nano shield BC roam, or even a T2 frig roam.

First the carrier pilot undocks and scans down a newly spawned sanctum. Since it's new it spawns in a new safe spot that nobody has bookmarked yet. He warps in at 10mk and then begins full aligning back to the station. And then he starts ratting.

Now the roam gets one system out on the gate ready to jump in. The most effective way to catch people is by shotgunning a system. Everyone jumps in, hits their system scanners, and everyone warps off to a different anomaly.

As soon as the carrier pilot sees the first red pop into local he pulls drones and warps to the station, or if he's got fighters out he just warps immediately and recalls his fighters.

The roaming gang on the other hand has to sit there for a few seconds while their system scanner cycles, then wait a few more seconds while their ships warp to each anom.

Under the current mechanics it's very difficult to catch people without having a cloaked ship sitting in the sanctum with them.

And before we start talking about fixing AFK cloaking (which I imagine is frustrating and boring for both cloakers and carebears alike) we need to make traditional roams a more viable option for catching people.

We could look at getting rid of the system scanner timer. You should just press the scan button and BAM instant warp in spots on anomalies.

Maybe up the warp speed of Interceptors a little bit more. Also I'd up the warp speed of Heavy Interdictors since they have interceptors as a skill prerequisite.

And look into putting more scramming frigates in the higher end anomalies.

Why don't we save you the bother of doing any work to catch people and give you a free KM just for showing up in system?

So you are proposing that we penalise people that are not afk, read intel channels and take sensible precautions when ratting?

Lots of ratters die all the time without AFK Cloaky ship. These are usually the inept/asleep/afk ratters. Shouldn't need much effort to catch and kill them. Nor would you need a cloaky ship in the plex/anom with them.

Not supported.

Confirming only newbies, the stupid, and the non botting afk should ever die PvEing in Null. I'm not sure what it is your not supporting as the OP didn't propose anything other than a discussion.

The answer to the OP is the removal of 100% flawless effortless Intel that is Local Chat. Intel should require more effort than opening your eyes and looking at the Chat Chanel.

Some interesting idea's but I feel like there isn't enough variant when it comes to the issues. You could set a 30 sec delay to local keep the scan timer and still effectively have the same thing, just a different way to look at the same picture. Also I would like to see covops cloaked not posted in local, as this defeats the purpose of black ops operations and guerrila warfare. Essentially, Covert Ops and Black Ops aren't really living up to there name if the locals have 100% intel on you all the time. If things indeed need to stay the way they are with local, I suggest a rename of ship classes.

Covert Ops -> Scout Ship
Stealth Bomber -> Bomber with Cloak
Force Recons -> Electronic Assault Cruiser
Black Ops -> Glorified Mini Titans

Reading these threads always makes me laugh. So let me paraphrase this a bit., "I want to ride out Hulkageddon safely tucked away in pet /renter space"

Look this all comes down to one question, "What should the mortality rate of nullsec be?"

In order to live in a space you need to be able to get more resources out of the space than you sink into it so that you can grow. So let's say hypothetically that in order to run a sanctum you'll need a 500 mil ship (faction BS, or pimp fit AHAC). And let's say that each sanctum pays out about 50 mil each. So in order to break even on your 500 mil ship you need to run a 50 mil sanctum 10 times in peace without blowing up. And let's say we want to give they player a 50% return on investment for willing to live out in null, that's another 280 mil and now we are up to 15 sanctums run in peace without exploding.

Now if on average your navy dominix did blow up and need to get replaced once every 15 sanctums that's still OK because every time you fit a new ship for 500 mil it's going to give you 750 back before going up in flames.

Now I can prove that the mortality rate of ratting mining in null is way off, based on two things that exist.

1. Ratting supers + titans
We've all seen these things. You warp to a haven sanctum and there is a nyx with 20 fighters out, or a titan sitting 100k off blapping battleships.

The fact that people can buy a titan, which last time I checked went for around 50 bil, and looking at the payout of a sanctum say to themselves, "Yeah I think I can run 1,000 sanctums undisturbed before I can make my money back and make this thing a profitable investment."

2. Renters
True carebears are the most risk averse people in space. Your average empire carebear won't go into lowsec, and won't even undock during a wardeck. But they are willing to pay someone to live out in null. That's because of the whole nullbear phenomenon where a lot of people feel that certain areas of nullsec are safer than highsec.

Even if they did think of losing ratting and mining ships in pure terms of return on investment then there is still the incredibly high renter fees that their owning alliances charge them to live in null.


And just to drive this point home, here is a ratting titan in a renter alliance
http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=12349996

Get rid of local, then your prey doesn't know you're in system until you show up on dscan.

Seriously though, you're complaining about someone having 10-15 seconds' warning that a gang might be inbound and you want to take away their ability to escape in the event that they are actually prepared to escape. A cloaky alt on the gate would give them the same amount of warning. Seeing the gate flash would be the signal to pull drones.

They don't need to read intel channels, they see +1 neutral, they warp.
Hell if the ratting carrier wanted to it could keep ratting till someone warped in/uncloaked and hit warp.

However the suggested changes wouldn't change ****, scramming frigates get blown up in seconds and faster warp isn't gonna be fast enough unless it's 50x faster. If you want roaming to be effective local needs to be delayed 30-60 seconds.

Well if that's what it takes then sure delay your local pop in time.

Specific ideas aside it's just too safe to rat in an anomaly. Granted people need a certain amount of safety otherwise it's just not wroth doing. That's why I'd be a little worried about removing local entirely without putting in another intel tool for people.

If your worried about losing your intel abilities over local...then you have seriously very poor skills in intellgience to be sure.

Yep....for someone who makes such a claim (the guy who said hes worried about intellgience...)....obviously would be easy prey in wormhole space.