Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Tired of being prema-camped due to some asswipe cloaking in the system and keeping everyone in dock since we can't locate the asswipe?

Hello CCP!

Cloaking needs to be addressed, as it is a majorly uneven mechanic in the game play. Nothing big needs to be done, but how about a limit to cloak time so someone can't go AFK in a system all day thus killing all operations there.

Or maybe an ability to scan cloaked ships?

Something! idea's welcome.

I suppose I'll reiterate my original idea on how to "fix" that which isn't broken.

1. When a vessel cloaks, remove it from local. It doesn't make sense that it can mask it's signature from all forms of detection except local.
2. When a vessel cloaks, remove the ability of that vessel to see local. You can't be seen, you can't see who's there without a visual, probes, whatever. You're cloaked, it's a two-way street. In addition, when cloaked you can't be used as a warp-to target either.
3. When a vessel uncloaks, put a time delay of 30 or so seconds before that vessel can fire up a cyno. This will prevent abuse of the feature.

So what happens with this solution? First of all, people whining about afk cloakers won't have anything to whine about anymore. They won't see the scary ship that isn't there. There may or may not be a cloaked ship in the system but hey... it's friggin null. Grow a pair. Secondly, the cloaked vessel won't have the free no-effort intel of local at his disposal. You want to see who's there, warp over and look. Uncloak and drop probes. Earn the intel. You know... like everyone in wormholes does. Without bitching. Ultimately it adds to the experience of null space. You need to be alert in case someone's there. You may need to actually use that thing called DScan! It adds to the hunter's ability to hunt without overpowering the cyno feature. And, very importantly... it'll scare the living fecal matter out of the bot users.

Yeah, that's right... your bots won't be able to insta-warp to the station the moment a neutral shows in local... he could be already in range to scram and shoot. (If you're not a bot and have a friend handling the defenses, which should be a requirement in null anyhow, this won't be a problem.)

It's time null stopped being a field of bunnies and flowers and instead earned it's sec status.

Maybe make it 1% every 60 seconds, then you have 1 hour 40 mins before decloaking from a full capacitor.
1% ever 120 seconds - 3 hours 20 minutes.
Maybe covert ops cloaks take twice as long to drain the cap?

You can't even activate modules while cloaked

You'd get plenty of cloaking time under this scheme

Keep in mind, you can decloak, and regenerate power.

The recloak delay is what, 25 seconds? less than 15 with good skills?
How long does it take from your capacitor to go from 25% to 45%?
Not very long for any ship...
How long would it take to scan you down?
What are the chances they are trying to scan you down during your breifrecloak delay?
(use D scan, duh)

briefly decloak, allow your cap to regenerate 20%, and you've got 10/20/40 min more cloaking time.

Guess what else- decloak in warp, allow and your cap will regenerate mid warp, cloak before you touch down. (of course being cloaked while warped does have its advantages)

It may make cloaked attacks more complicated, requiring more hit and runs to allow time for the cap to recharge, but it certainly won't screw over all cloaking activity.

How much cloaking time do you really need in between brief recloaks to recharge cap?

It won't make cloaking useless, it will make cloaking a bit more complicated to use, and it will make afk cloaking non-viable for prolonged periods.
(assuming no botting)

cloak is besides stations and POS the only method to stay in any system in 0.0 relatively safe.
In hostile territory you cant dock, so the only way to stay there for a longer period of time is cloak.

there is no single reason ppl should have the ability to chase everyone they dont like out of a particular system, NONE!
The space is for everyone, if you dont like it, go back to empire.