Warfare & Tactics

As said by someone else in the last thread.
Yes, AFK claoking is completely risk free. it also provides zero reward so the zero risk is acceptable. Risk vs reward balance is maintained.

The only negative impact an AFK cloaker has is whay you let them have.

If you are to afraid to undock while there is an AFK claoker in your system that is your own stupidity and fear keeping you from playing not some AFK player. If they come back from AFK and it results in some PVP for you then what is the problem? Null sec is a PVP zone. If you are not prepared for PVP then do not live there.

AFK cloakers are not a threat. They are AFK, they do not see anything, they do not collect intel, they do not attack, they do not lite cyno's for hot drops.

If they do any of these things then they are NOT AFK. If you are afraid of them doing any of these things then your issue is not with AFK cloakers but the players you only think are AFK. They are using the espionage mechanics as they were intended to be used. This is not a broken mechanic.

That being said, it would be cool though if there was an anti cloak sov upgrade. Just like there is a cyno jammer preventing jump drive access. An Anti cloak sov upgrade could send out an automated pulse at a preset interval that would decloak any cloaked ships in the system. This should hit all ships friendly or not. Getting hit by this pulse should put your cloak into a 5 minute cool down before it can be reactivated. A claoky spy just needs to avoid getting scanned down until they can reactivate their cloak. An AFK cloaker would be free to be scanned down, but in reality this would simply deter AFK cloakers from targeting systems with the anti cloak upgrade, just as you can not target cyno jammed systems for a hot drop.

I don't see how such an addition would be game breaking. In exchange for giving a system some immunity to cloaked spys you are also giving up your own ability to cloak in that system. You want to remove AFK cloakers from a specific system, you have to pay for it, and use an upgrade slot. If you don't, business as usual.

I personally love setting traps for cloaky neuts that come into my system. Gives some excitement to my otherwise dull and uneventful ops.

That said, there does need to be some counter to cloaked ships. People who back cloaks and afk cloakers do have some valid arguments about miners/carebears just crying about it. What isn't brought up is the issue that cloakers have 100% advantage on who they strike and when, with zero way of anyone finding them (unless they're daft and bump into someone). Cloakers should still be undetectable when they are actually playing, but if you're sitting still in a cloaked ship (either afk or just logged in annoying people and not fighting), then there should be a way to detect them.

Any time a cloaked ship is in your system, they are a threat. Whether it is a perceived threat or an actual threat is the difference. The issue is that people can go into a hostile system and cloak up, and act as a perceived threat even when they aren't playing the game. Let's say they do that prior to going to bed. When they wake up, they have a complete and utter advantage against anyone still in the system, and can pick and choose their targets at will.

I find it funny that all of these "pvpers" in cloaked ships immediately dump on any anti-AFK cloak threads... yet they are using a mechanic that utilizes rudimentary pvp skills at best. On the same note, the people that just make threads and whine about it need to sack up and prepare a trap/tank/etc to counter the inevitable attack.

Actually, we should just leave cloaked afk as-is. Anything to stuff my competition works for me :)

Except that mechanic destroys wormhole space. Nice try though.

So you want to farm safer in your "private" high sec.
And then it's the same people who call high-sec inhabitants carebears

But that is asking to play a game of magic, of Dungeons and Dragons. This isn't a game where one can cast a spell and magically banish everyone from your kingdom.

This is a game of technology, where you can detect that someone is in the system that you have laid claim to, which doesn't mean that you own, and because of their technological abilities you don't know where.

You know, I think that I will take up AFK Cloaking just for the fun of it. Let's see how long it will take me to train for it...

These threads are ridiculous.

Remove cloakers from local. "Problem" solved.

Neuts don't have super long range, work instantly, and have more practical module based counters that also happen to me more useful if ECM doesn't show up either. Not the same thing. ECM is completely broken.

Can you elaborate more?

One of the key defining traits of wormhole space is the lack of local This allows covert ops to be truly covert. It is one of the key features that makes wormholes so awesome. Having a "special" probe that can decect a cloaked ship in system completely devalue's the lack of local in WH space.

OP, you are a fool.

There is no fix to cloaks because there is no problem with cloaks.

AFK cloaking? how exactly is that a problem to anybody?

How can somebody who is AWAY FROM KEYBOARD do anything to you when he is.....AFK.

Or is the real problem here the fact that an AFK cloaky person scares you?

Should CCP break a perfectly working feature because some players are....scared?


If thats what you really think, then obviously the problem is you, not the game.
EvE is not for you. Try WoW or My Little Pony online or something more suited to your play style.