Player Features and Ideas Discussion

So you what happens your cloaker has 5 alts ignore those upgraded systems as well ?
You do realise that bills keep going on whether you use those systems or not.

So AFK is problem because it's too easy way to deny assets by just sitting there.

Moving to other system is not an answer because it takes several days to get upgrade lvls to any meaningful lvl (mainly 3) by which time the system that you just dropped is back to 0 by the time you get another system to 3.

Ofc. there should be risks but AFK cloking goes beyond game mechanics into meta gaming.

But but, that would mean talking about local. Please don't make him do it.

give us delayed local and a big part of the afk cloakers would go away.
A part will stay there just to deny rattng grounds (which is a valid tactic) but many of them will go.

Having spent a good bit of time in cloak, against far superior odds, and in areas where there simply was no way to manage prosecuting a campaign against an entrenched sitting sov holder with it, I can firmly say that the cloak has an excellent place in the arsenal of any pilot. and works exactly as it's supposed to work.

To begin with, an actual AFK cloaker is usually there, not to prevent your use of the system, but instead, to lull you into a pattern of dull thinking where you see the cloak in local, but simply are unconcerned and therefore, easy prey. Solution, don't be one of those. Does this affect your ability to do certain things? Certainly, it does, but the main thing that being prepared for cloakers does is prevent cloakers from getting easy kills simply by waiting on people to get fat, dumb, and happy.

For those the depend on the cloak but are active, the issue is mainly that while the cloaker may be active in your system, they may not choose to engage every single person that presents themselves as bait. Ganking someone from the middle of a system when five before ratted fine in the last hour does exactly what it's supposed to. It sets ratters on edge and spawns response fleets wasting time trying to find you. You may call that metagaming. I call it psychological warfare, and to be clear about it, if there were a more effective tool to effect that, I'd use it. My intent is to make you mad that you can't rat in your nice safe home system, make you log off in disgust or go off by yourself and out of place for fleet CTAs. Your solution? Fight the campaign being waged against your alliance instead of worrying after your pocketbook. Sit in response fleets and baiting out cloakers. I welcome it.

The simple answer that I, the cloaker, have for you is that Eve is not a game for people that want to be fat, dumb, and happy. I prefer it that way. I prefer it that way in whatever level of security you are in, even the "home" systems of sitting sovereign powers in nullsec.

I'm afraid your scenario has little connection to the EVE "reality".

First, there's no need for a hulk to tank the belt, use a BS or HAC
for this purpose.

Next, a maxed skill maxed damage 86km Hound [1] will do about 3800 raw
explosive damage. A unfitted hulk has about 10k EHP against
explosive. Hence you need three salvos to kill an unfitted Hulk from
86km and this is not even accounting for signature resolution vs. torpedo
explosion radius. The third salvo will reach the hulk 27.86s seconds after firing
the first salvo. A hulk warps out for what, 16-17 secs and yes, there IS
such thing as a passive align. If you put inertia stabilizers, you can even warp
out before the javelins from the first salvo reach you from 86km or, if you're a bit
slow, before the second salvo hits. You say you have mining upgrades in the lows?
Well, it's you choosing to increase your profits at the expense of increasing the window
during which you're vulnerable.

And these are the theoretical maximums, in practice it's even easier
for the Hulk.

If you die to a bomber at 86km, it simply means that you're mining AFK. which is
at least hypocritical in a thread, whining against "AFK cloakers"

[1] It can be made over 100km, but with less damage.

PS. All of the above applies for Nemesis and Thermal damage, the lowest EHP of an unfitted Hulk.

afk does suck but i really do not think they should stop it there nothing that stops them from it, it would be wrong

Due to lack of response from another thread. I'm posting this here aswell to get some feedback.

What do you guys think about these suggestions to cloak?

-Players do not show up on local after a gate jump before you become active or the timeout expires.
-During the standby a ship with a cloakmodule can activate the cloak without first becoming active.
-Players with an active cloak will remain hidden from local untill the cloak deactivates. After that the player will remain on local untill he/she changes system.
-Ships with a cov ops role can warp while cloaked. (stealth bombers, stealth recon and black ops, independant on cloak module. Other ships will decloak on warp).
-Non-cov-ops ships are unable to use probes and dscan while cloaked, as it will interfere with the cloak module. In addition stealth bombers and black ops are limited to dscan while cloaked.
-Stealth recon can operate dscan and probe scanning while cloaked.
-While cloaked, stealth bombers can get a target lock and fire one salvo towards a target before being decloaked. No other action can be taken towards the target while cloaked.

Updated. Bolded is new.

Feedback appreciated

It's... not good. The first two parts, they don't need to be changed. There should be that little blink while you transition. Third one... the player should disappear from local whenever they cloak and reappear whenever they decloak. Fourth part... that's already true... only covops can warp while cloaked.

Last one is flat out stupid. What in the hell are you thinking even suggesting something like that in public? You completely trying to destroy intel gathering in wormholes for some reason? You should be embarassed for suggesting that without thinking of the ramifications thorughout the game.

Its true that this will dampen the effectiveness of non-cov ops ships. However in my opinion a cov-op should be the only ship to utilize full advantage of cloaking systems. Other ships can use it to hide from threats, but that should the scope of what they can do with it.

I will look over it, maybe I will come up with something good.

@Ingvar Angst.

Thanks for the colorful reply.

Could you tell me how it completely wrecks intel gathering in wromholes? cant work with nothing.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

Of course. Consider, for example, you're investigating a hole for a potential op. The first and foremost thing is to get in there unseen... if they know you're there it changes everything. So, you hop in in your covops, cloak immediately and hit dscan. Ah, two pos's on scan, both have forcefields, a few ships seen. (If you can see them in dscan, they can see you, unless you're cloaked.) So now you adjust the angle of dscan down and you narrow down the planet(s) with the pos's at them. You select a planet, warp to the planet and adjust your overview to show moons. Again, you adjust the angle of the dscan to narrow down and isolate the moon the pos is at. Find the moon, warp to 100km or so, BM the pos. Ah, there's a few ships here, with pilots in them. OK, time to take a few names, get the corp and alliance info, etc.

Rinse, repeat for all pos's, making sure you get all planets covered.

Now tell me... how is this humanly possible if I can't use my DScan while cloaked?

This is only one example. Let's take it a bit further. You find a nice little place to sit, watching what appears to be the more active pos while watching DScan to detect the comings and going of the other pos. Again, gathering vital intel. Again, can't do this if you can't use dscan while cloaked.

If you're still having doubts, go spend a month or two in a hole and get back to us. You will be... enlightened.