Warfare & Tactics

There's a lot of arguing back and forth in this thread, but here's an idea that I think hasn't been suggested yet, or at least, hasn't been suggested often enough. Sort of a 'do both' in this particular case.

1. Keep local itself as it is.
2. Introduce a certain cloak recharge timer, whereupon after dropping cloak, you cannot reengage it instantly, but only after sufficient time passes for you to get scanned down. Make that time dependent on cloaking skill. Make that timer not engage if the ship had not turned the cloak on since entering the system, (by undocking or by gate) but engage in all other cases of dropping cloak after it has been turned on.
3. Remove cloaked ships from local. Do that completely, making them incapable of being seen in or seeing local, let alone talking in it.

A cloaked pilot seen AFK in local annoys others not so much because he presents a direct threat, but because he can spy on them without being seen or moving, and can pick targets and the time of attack completely at his convenience.
Such an approach would make the cloaked pilot incapable of doing so, and to find targets for stealth bombing he'd have to run around looking for them or drop probes, which constitutes a certain stealth nerf -- while dropping probes, he has to uncloak and will stay uncloaked for long enough to be found. Probes only last for a limited time already, so a hunting bomber would have to periodically uncloak to recharge them, creating time windows which allow to find him.

At the same time, it's a buff to stealth, because a cloaked pilot can't be seen at all, so if you're an easy target sitting in a belt that doesn't need scanning to find, you've got nobody but yourself to blame.

I wonder what kind of faults will be found with this approach. :)

I like your idea of a new cloak nurf.

We also need a champion to advocate a new Pod nurf.

Pods align and warp too quickly , so hard to target .

Pods are terrifying! They look like the egg from Alien.

Like if you get too close a horrible creature jumps out and attaches itself to your face.

I also need to be able to gang 8 salvage modules on Destroyers. This is critical, please help.

We could improve on that. The moment you cloak you vanish from local. No need for a wh style local, just those who actually use their cloak will not show up on local until ... they write something in local, just like in wh space, but limited to cloaked ships.

Cloak becomes a counter to local, and afk cloak becomes irrelevant.

We already have a thread for AFK cloaking mechanics in F&I, which is a much more suitable place for discussions of this kind.

Locked.