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Defeating AFK Cloaking
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Ines Tegator
Serious Business Inc. Ltd. LLC. etc.
#101 - 2013-01-06 20:49:47 UTC
Kestrix wrote:
I don't want to see cloaked vessels nerfed. Leave them as they are, leave local as it is. I would be happy if CCP provided us with a device that does nothing other than detect what type of cloaking device is in effect in a system. It does not give away the cloaked vessels location or what it is, only that it's using a covert ops cloaking device or the Improved cloaking device II. It gives me an idea of what the vessel is capable of. I'd be happy with that.

Thus making nullsec even more risk-free. No cookies for you. I'll agree on the point that PVE should be able to be done safely in null- without that, none would bother doing it at all since one solid loss negates all the benefit. Trendy carebear-bashing talk about risk-averse behavior or cowards all you want, math is math and business is business. Even a hardcore pvp'er won't waste their time grinding isk in nullsec if their going lose that isk the first time someone comes into system. The catch should be that nullsec requires a lot more work to obtain that safety- removing cloakers from local does that, as discussed farther up in the thread.

Overhaul Dscan!
Crimeo Khamsi
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#102 - 2013-01-06 20:55:16 UTC
Defeating the OP's idea:

http://www.officeplayground.com/Assets/ProductPreview/pi2900-2999/2954_drinkingbird_1.jpg

Oh also, youre fixing the wrong problem yadda yadda. But mainly the sippy bird jpg.
Ines Tegator
Serious Business Inc. Ltd. LLC. etc.
#103 - 2013-01-06 21:47:13 UTC
Crimeo Khamsi wrote:
Defeating the OP's idea:

http://www.officeplayground.com/Assets/ProductPreview/pi2900-2999/2954_drinkingbird_1.jpg

Oh also, youre fixing the wrong problem yadda yadda. But mainly the sippy bird jpg.


Nikk Narrel wrote:

Recloaking has a built in delay period of 30 seconds.

Many scanning experts claim the ability to locate a ship in far less time than that.
Add to this, the expectation that the ability to hunt cloaked ships will be included with changes that remove cloaked vessels from local.


Read the thread.

Overhaul Dscan!
Crimeo Khamsi
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#104 - 2013-01-06 23:52:56 UTC
Quote:
Read the thread.

Right after you look up what "OP" means.
Fey Ivory
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#105 - 2013-01-07 04:11:47 UTC
I cant say im an expert at this, but i given a few of the things said in this thead a few thoughts... personally id like that you see whos in a system by looking in local, is kinda weird, just remove that across the board... you want to know if there is other ships in a system, use skill and scanners...

As for cloaks, id be perfectly alright either way... but if there is to be a counter, id vision it alittle like this... a cloaky ship would have to emitt some kind of weak background emotion, that people can scan down like you scan for anomalies, just that this be ewen harder, this also opens up for more ship gear to make your ship ewen harder to find, or scanning gear devised to scan for cloaks, and if you finally get a "tone lock" you jump in, and hope the cloaky ship havent moved, the scanner still cant see the cloaked ship, but i vision a new type of high slot item, that emits a sort of emp pulse with X radius out from the ship, that neutralies cloaks for a certain X time...


Shouldent be easy to get a cloaked ship, but this atleast gives a chanse, and would force cloakers to be on their toes and keep moving... i hope it made sense
Asudem
Black Spear.
#106 - 2013-01-07 08:58:36 UTC  |  Edited by: Asudem
Nikk Narrel wrote:

Many scanning experts claim the ability to locate a ship in far less time than that.
Add to this, the expectation that the ability to hunt cloaked ships will be included with changes that remove cloaked vessels from local.


Removing cloaked ships from local is a bad idea in my opinion. It might give the nullbear the feeling of not being in danger, but especially this feeling can be so deadly lethal. It would be like W-Space + with the permanent and totally unexpected danger of hot drops. Even worse. I could hide an entire manned capital fleet in a system infront of your POS, your anomalies or whatever just waiting for you.

If you see the cloaked guy in local, you know that you have to be careful, fleetup with your mates and be prepared for a bad surprise. Thats the best solution to defeat the danger of cloakers. And if that is too much for you, just do your carebearing things in a neighbor system where there isnt a cloaky. Or go back to HSec where the only danger for you is yourself.
Doddy
Excidium.
#107 - 2013-01-07 09:45:36 UTC
Down with people afk in stations or pos, they shouldn't gain an advantage from being afk should they. How about we have a button that if its not clicked every few minutes ppl get forcibly kicked from station or pos shields, that would remove the afk nature of their station hugging.

etc etc.
Asudem
Black Spear.
#108 - 2013-01-07 10:57:12 UTC
Doddy wrote:
Down with people afk in stations or pos, they shouldn't gain an advantage from being afk should they. How about we have a button that if its not clicked every few minutes ppl get forcibly kicked from station or pos shields, that would remove the afk nature of their station hugging.

etc etc.


Once its implemented, you will regret that idea. Blink
Magic Crisp
Amarrian Micro Devices
#109 - 2013-01-07 11:20:20 UTC
I think you misunderstand the isseu.

In my opinion the issue is the inbalance of the risk-reward ratio. By afk cloaking in enemy terrotiry, the "guest" is safe, while the locals are unsafe. By "afk" we mean, afk with a p probability, which means, considered as always active, because it's unable to track its activity.

So i think while someone is in enemy territory, he should be in less safe circumstances than the locals, he's trying to harass.

The problem here, it works vica-veras at the moment. Locals are threatened, and they have no tools to counter the guy. The cloaker is more safe than the locals. So, anything is fine, as far as it fixes the risk-reward. That is, being in enemy territory, either cloaked or uncloaked, is unsafe, and it should require active user input to stay alive.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#110 - 2013-01-07 11:52:51 UTC
Magic Crisp wrote:
The problem here, it works vica-veras at the moment. Locals are threatened, and they have no tools to counter the guy.
…aside from shooting him.
Doddy
Excidium.
#111 - 2013-01-07 12:09:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Doddy
Magic Crisp wrote:
I think you misunderstand the isseu.

So i think while someone is in enemy territory, he should be in less safe circumstances than the locals, he's trying to harass.



Why? He is a military man with special forces equipment ship while they are farmers who clearly haven't bothered with any security.
Valleria Darkmoon
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#112 - 2013-01-07 12:43:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Valleria Darkmoon
I was in Puppet Masters some time ago now and our entry system into Fountain was permanently occupied by an AFK cloaker. The only time we knew he was active was immediately after downtime as he logged back in. The system was over 100 AU across so we never even got a hint of what he was in and you know what?

NO ONE EVER CARED. That's right we flew right under his nose and right into the territory he was presumably trying to keep us out of. Given the outcome of our fleets designed to harass PL renters and towers and our ability to STILL catch bling fit Faction Battleships and whatnot there is no evidence to even suggest that any of our ops were ever compromised by that cloaker's presence. (Though at the time I suspect that the renters we were primarily targeting would have been smarter to assume we were active in the area anyway and try to figure out where we were instead of wondering if we were out there). The cloaker may have even served them well had anyone been looking but who wants to watch that damn screen for an hour straight waiting for the 2 mins where local spikes.

By definition any AFK player is no threat to you in any sense whatsoever. They can not attack/defend or do anything at all. They can't even warn others about your movements because they aren't looking. In short if he's AFK then who cares. If he's watching so he can gank you, welcome to EVE Online.

Reality has an almost infinite capacity to resist oversimplification.
Sedstr
#113 - 2013-01-07 13:20:32 UTC
The system is fine as it is.

I tried to find the 'remove cloaked pilots/ships from local' post, I would support that...


my 2 cents.

The only thing I would support, as far as cloaked ships, is an anchored sov structure that produces an audible pulse every 15 mins exposing cloaked ships for 10 seconds to combat probes only or perhaps a new faction probe+launcher.
The audible pulse in the system makes the cloaked pilot aware so the can warp to another safe.

The probing system has limitations on how quickly the probes can rescan, and you only have 10 seconds from the pulse to get readings, so potentially it could take someone 45 mins / 3 pulses, to probe out the cloaked ship. make it impossible to get 2 scans, except with the most expensive max max max skills/implants/etc, only in sov space though if anywhere.





...
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#114 - 2013-01-07 14:34:47 UTC
I shall try to explain a few details that are usually glossed over crudely, but hold the truth.

AFK Cloaking: This is done in response to Local Chat flawlessly reporting pilot presence. It dumbs down the interaction between pilots by outright telling all parties who is present. Without this crutch, use of sensors, strategy, and cooperation would be needed to fill the void.
What does it achieve?
It creates a flaw in the usual flow of cause and effect for life in many systems. Often, a neutral or hostile pilot is seen entering, and activity is suspended until they leave. There is trivial risk, as standard procedure often involves being ready to get safe in the time frame provided by this instant alarm. Hostile pilots who refuse to leave are subsequently hunted down.
When the "AFK Cloaking" pilot enters, he disrupts this process, by not leaving. Further, since this intel tool persistently shows him present, the default response of suspending activity is perpetually pushed as chosen reaction.
This devalues the intel tool, as it is now being used against the native PvE pilots instead of helping them.
If local were removed, sensors strategy and cooperation would be placed as valuable means of protecting PvE income assets.
It would also be pointless to AFK cloak, as noone would be aware of your presence while you were passive.
It is widely anticipated that any change to local which stopped free cloaking awareness would also include a means to hunt cloaked ships.

Summary: That free intel tool favored by so many can be used by the hunters too.

Hot Dropping: Bridging is intended to bypass reinforced blockades and travel time. Here, it has been fine tuned to avoid advertising the presence of a fleet to the free intel tool as well by delaying the easily recognizable population spike till the last possible moment. The intention is to deny the warning local provides, although it still reports the presence of the cyno boat enough to be associated with AFK Cloaking instead.
Quite simply, while PvE pilots would never resume regular activities with a hostile fleet present, they are sometimes willing to gamble over whether a cloaked vessel represents that level of threat at a given time.

Sorry about the length, but the mindless repetition of "AFK Cloaking is bad mmkay" sounds foolish.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Fey Ivory
Center for Advanced Studies
Gallente Federation
#115 - 2013-01-07 14:53:21 UTC
Sedstr wrote:


The probing system has limitations on how quickly the probes can rescan, and you only have 10 seconds from the pulse to get readings, so potentially it could take someone 45 mins / 3 pulses, to probe out the cloaked ship. make it impossible to get 2 scans, except with the most expensive max max max skills/implants/etc, only in sov space though if anywhere.




Thats sort of my point with my earlier suggestion about finding a cloaked ship, you sort of cant if their active and keep moving, but if you are afk and dont move, people can pick up your ships cloaked faint astrometrical resonance... ie, its a way to get afkers, that was my thought though
Jessica Danikov
Network Danikov
#116 - 2013-01-09 00:43:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Jessica Danikov
Nikk Narrel wrote:
If local were removed, sensors strategy and cooperation would be placed as valuable means of protecting PvE income assets.


I'd like to know what crack you're smoking, given that if you remove local your 'sensors' strategy comprises of running d-scan, seeing nothing, and getting ganked by cloakies that you never saw coming. Worse than that, intel channels do not function, you can no longer track reds and have little warning of roaming gangs- intel channels actually have to have blue intel so people don't freak out seeing blue fleets passing through their d-scan range! Hunting reds that are much harder to catch and track, and PVErs have to live under constant fear of the unknown rather than only being worries when reds are in system. Most people have to move or act while cloaked, flying cheap, or with heavy security.

That isn't a bad thing by itself, it's actually quite a thrilling experience. In fact, that's how w-space is. However, we already have w-space. If you like that experience so much, just go there.

Now, back to our original program of nullsec, complete with local, bubbles and bombs, but no CONCORD. The OP subject was defeating AFK Cloaking- a nullsec issue- not augmenting it.
Little Dragon Khamez
Guardians of the Underworld
#117 - 2013-01-09 01:05:36 UTC
First of all, null is supposed to be dangerous, you take a risk living there as much as you take a risk when passing through. It makes no sense to constantly broadcast your presence to other capsuleers in an always on local channel which doubles up as intel.

Secondly if the guy is afk cloaking he isn't even in the game and therefore not a threat at all. You shouldn't change your behaviour because someone wants to waste all of their Eve time whilst away from the keyboard and cloaked up in a safe spot.

Thirdly the intelligence operatives can earn their bucks by watching the gates in a cloaked ship and reporting who actually goes through it. Some they might miss if they are also cloaked and they miss the sensor flash but that's intel for you. It's unreliable and spotty. It might be tedious and people might need to take turns as concentration will give out eventually but its not different to being put on guard duty which is a valid and tactically sensible role. Convoys are on the move all of the time in null and gangs are perpetually roaming, recon ships with cloaks are supposed to have been specifically designed to get behind enemy lines and gather intel. This is something that at present they don't do much of thanks to local being the perfect intel tool.

Fourthly you should never, ever, ever, feel safe in null. Sentiments about not feeling safe in null sec represent the carebear mentality of not taking risks etc if a threat is perceived. Note most of the time the threat is only perceived not real.

Finally fleets turn up without warning on your doorstep all of the time if you live in null, nothing can prevent or predict these random hotdrops. When they turn up you need to be ready. Just thank your lucky stars that you are all sitting in invulnerable stations, because if I had my way they would be destructible. I'd love to see the whining of the null bears if their beloved station popped with all of their stuff inside of it. That would be awesome.

Dumbing down of Eve Online will result in it's destruction...
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#118 - 2013-01-09 01:35:51 UTC
Jessica Danikov wrote:
Nikk Narrel wrote:
If local were removed, sensors strategy and cooperation would be placed as valuable means of protecting PvE income assets.


I'd like to know what crack you're smoking, given that if you remove local your 'sensors' strategy comprises of running d-scan, seeing nothing, and getting ganked by cloakies that you never saw coming. Worse than that, intel channels do not function, you can no longer track reds and have little warning of roaming gangs- intel channels actually have to have blue intel so people don't freak out seeing blue fleets passing through their d-scan range! Hunting reds that are much harder to catch and track, and PVErs have to live under constant fear of the unknown rather than only being worries when reds are in system. Most people have to move or act while cloaked, flying cheap, or with heavy security.

That isn't a bad thing by itself, it's actually quite a thrilling experience. In fact, that's how w-space is. However, we already have w-space. If you like that experience so much, just go there.

Now, back to our original program of nullsec, complete with local, bubbles and bombs, but no CONCORD. The OP subject was defeating AFK Cloaking- a nullsec issue- not augmenting it.

Funny person. I hope you don't seriously believe everything you are posting, it sounds very defeatist.

Noone is expecting any change that removes cloaked vessels from displaying in local to happen without other balancing changes. The only reason you can't hunt cloaked vessels currently is that it would be unbalanced. And by hunt I am including anything that would disable or block cloaks from functioning as they currently do.

For scanning, I would suggest the following thread.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=112964&find=unread

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Niveuss Nye
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#119 - 2013-01-09 02:59:05 UTC  |  Edited by: Niveuss Nye
Most other MMOs have the client check for keyboard strokes. If there is no keyboard activity after a period of time (say, an hour to thirty minutes) it automatically logs the player out.

Maybe that would be a solution.
Omnathious Deninard
University of Caille
Gallente Federation
#120 - 2013-01-09 03:01:27 UTC
Niveuss Nye wrote:
Most other MMOs have the client check for keyboard strokes. If there is no keyboard activity after a period of time (say, an hour to thirty minutes) it automatically logs the player out.

Maybe that would be a solution.

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