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Cloak Hunting

Author
Rayzilla Zaraki
Yin Jian Enterprises
#1 - 2013-05-10 21:01:44 UTC  |  Edited by: Rayzilla Zaraki
Latest distillation of complete idea: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3040391#post3040391

More in-depth explanation here: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3014721#post3014721

Note: This has been adjusted further down this thread. The idea of specialized probes has been eliminated in favor of a module that enhances DScan. This module would use a lot of resources on 99% of available ships but any ship that can mount a Covert Ops cloak would need significantly less resources to use this module. In other words, the best ship to hunt a cloaked ship is another cloaked ship.

Just an idea that popped up in the general discussion thread...

I'm not going to discuss whether cloaking works as intended or not, that's not the point of this post. This is just an idea.

The original Star Trek established cloaking as an analogy to submarine warfare. Today, submarines can be hunted down no matter how stealthy they are made, so why not cloaks?

Hunting cloaked ships would require the use of both a probe launcher and some sort of missile launcher. The probe launcher would be loaded with specialized probes that have a maximum range of a few hundred kilometers.

A ship enters the area and launches these probes just like we do with probes now, just on a smaller scale. If there is a cloaked ship in the area, a faint signature will appear. This signature is scanned down until a lockable area is produced. The cloaked ship is not locked, just the general area (25km radius sphere, let's say).

The scanning ship then launches a specialized missile that goes towards the scanned area and explodes with a large, low damage radius. If the missile is accurate enough and explodes close enough, the cloaked ship could be de-cloaked. If it is de-cloaked, it can be locked and possibly destroyed.

This isn't an easy process. First, it'd have to be suspected that there is a cloaked ship operating in the system. Then, each individual area in the system would have to be scanned down until the cloaked ship is found.

The chance to be found would be affected by the type of cloak, the type or probes used, the type of missiles used, skills in different areas etc.

Mining corps in low or null sec areas could field ships equipped with this equipment. When they enter an asteroid field, the cloak hunters launch and place their probes and repeatedly "ping" them until a signature pops up. Obviously, there would be a chance of false pings (or a way for cloaked ships to spoof these hunter ships with decoys).

This gives a process to expose a cloaked ship without it being an easy "I win" way to defeat them. The advantage still goes to the cloaked ship. You can beat them, but it'll take a good amount of work.

Gate campers are just Carebears with anger issues.

Unsuccessful At Everything
The Troll Bridge
#2 - 2013-05-10 21:04:29 UTC
For the love of ****.

Why did this need another thread.

Since the cessation of their usefulness is imminent, may I appropriate your belongings?

Rayzilla Zaraki
Yin Jian Enterprises
#3 - 2013-05-10 21:08:37 UTC
Unsuccessful At Everything wrote:
For the love of ****.

Why did this need another thread.



Hater! :)

C'mon...you have to admit, its one of the better ones as it involves big explosions!

Gate campers are just Carebears with anger issues.

Llyona
Lazerhawks
L A Z E R H A W K S
#4 - 2013-05-10 21:19:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Llyona
Rayzilla Zaraki wrote:
-Snipped-
This gives a process to expose a cloaked ship without it being an easy "I win" way to defeat them. The advantage still goes to the cloaked ship. You can beat them, but it'll take a good amount of work.


I'll tell you what, I'll agree with your idea under one condition: Removal of local in kspace and replace it with wspace local.

Wait, what's that? You need local to tell you there's a cloaked red is in your military 5 system? Well, too bad. Welcome to the big boys club.

EVE is an illness, for which there is no cure.

Rayzilla Zaraki
Yin Jian Enterprises
#5 - 2013-05-10 21:51:21 UTC
Llyona wrote:
Rayzilla Zaraki wrote:
-Snipped-
This gives a process to expose a cloaked ship without it being an easy "I win" way to defeat them. The advantage still goes to the cloaked ship. You can beat them, but it'll take a good amount of work.


I'll tell you what, I'll agree with your idea under one condition: Removal of local in kspace and replace it with wspace local.

Wait, what's that? You need local to tell you there's a cloaked red is in your military 5 system? Well, too bad. Welcome to the big boys club.



Actually, I'll go with that one! There is no local chat in the seven seas. Either that, or if a ship is cloaked it doesn't show up in local. Fair enough?

That way, when the cloaker jumps in, he shows up briefly in local. He may just be passing through to the next system or he may not. Even if local isn't changed, there is a LOT of space to scan to find the cloaked ship.

Gate campers are just Carebears with anger issues.

Little Dragon Khamez
Guardians of the Underworld
#6 - 2013-05-10 22:48:00 UTC  |  Edited by: Little Dragon Khamez
If you want submarine warfare in eve, then I would suggest thst each time you actively ping your sensors you broadcast your location with 100% accuracy to any other ship in system, they can bookmark you and fly directly for you. That's how it works with real submarine warfare, all emissions can lead the enemy straight to you.

A stealth afk cloaking thread lol. Cloaked ships are mostly harmless, but they do stop bots from mining when you are in work. You don't run any bots by any chance do you?

Dumbing down of Eve Online will result in it's destruction...

Rayzilla Zaraki
Yin Jian Enterprises
#7 - 2013-05-10 22:56:07 UTC  |  Edited by: Rayzilla Zaraki
Little Dragon Khamez wrote:
If you want submarine warfare in eve, then I would suggest thst each time you actively ping your sensors you broadcast your location with 100% accuracy to any other ship in system, they can bookmark you and fly directly for you. That's how it works with real submarine warfare, all emissions can lead the enemy straight to you.



This makes sense, but not system-wide since the effective range of the probes will only be a few hundred kilometers. Plus, it's the probes sending out the pings, not your ship.

Here's an idea. Missiles that lock onto the pings from the probes. The cloaked ship can carry them and when the probes ping, the cloaked ship can drop cloak and launch the missiles without lock since the missiles will insty-lock on the probe's ping. BOOM! No probe.

The ship drops cloak and becomes vulnerable in order to become less vulnerable through destroying the probes.

In today's military, I think they'd call these "Wild Weasels".

Little Dragon Khamez wrote:


A stealth afk cloaking thread lol. Cloaked ships are mostly harmless, but they do stop bots from mining when you are in work. You don't run any bots by any chance do you?


No, I don't run bots. I play a pretty simple game, actually. Nothing really fancy.

I think you may have me wrong. I am not griping about cloaked ships, AFK or not. I spend a lot of time exploring in a cloaked Buzzard lately. I have just read all the threads griping about cloaks and dreamed up a solution that makes sense and, I think, adds something to the game. I could see it being an interesting specialty to hunt cloaked ships. I'd definitely consider it.

Personally, I don't like anything easy. I prefer challenges. I know that if a ship gets close to you while you're cloaked, it'll drop you out of cloak. I learned this the hard, and expensive, way. So, it only made sense to me that there could/would/should be a mechanic to use this to hunt cloaked ships. If I wanted this to be easy, I'd have suggested that the current combat scan probes could be used to hunt cloaked ships system wide and that, when found, they could be locked normally. Instead, you need special probes and missiles then you only get the general area of the ship, fire your missile and hope it decloaks so you can get a real lock on it before it recloaks.

Gate campers are just Carebears with anger issues.

Danika Princip
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#8 - 2013-05-10 22:59:26 UTC
If you get a decloaking method, then I get a method to force everyone in a station to undock. I also get a method to force everyone out of a POS shield. Neither of them are to be any harder than your method of finding cloakers.
Rayzilla Zaraki
Yin Jian Enterprises
#9 - 2013-05-10 23:08:53 UTC
Danika Princip wrote:
If you get a decloaking method, then I get a method to force everyone in a station to undock. I also get a method to force everyone out of a POS shield. Neither of them are to be any harder than your method of finding cloakers.


I'm sorry, but I really don't see the correlation here. What I offered up makes sense as it is pretty much how subs are hunted (with an Eve twist, of course).

Even if the cloaked ship is found that doesn't necessarily guarantee destruction of that ship. They could have time to re-cloak (at least they should).

Forcing players to undock? I don't see how that makes sense. Same with pulling them out of the shield. I suppose CCP could allow players to destroy the stations. That'd get players out. Maybe dump nerve gas into them? Dunno.

Gate campers are just Carebears with anger issues.

Danika Princip
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#10 - 2013-05-10 23:23:56 UTC
Rayzilla Zaraki wrote:
Danika Princip wrote:
If you get a decloaking method, then I get a method to force everyone in a station to undock. I also get a method to force everyone out of a POS shield. Neither of them are to be any harder than your method of finding cloakers.


I'm sorry, but I really don't see the correlation here. What I offered up makes sense as it is pretty much how subs are hunted (with an Eve twist, of course).

Even if the cloaked ship is found that doesn't necessarily guarantee destruction of that ship. They could have time to re-cloak (at least they should).

Forcing players to undock? I don't see how that makes sense. Same with pulling them out of the shield. I suppose CCP could allow players to destroy the stations. That'd get players out. Maybe dump nerve gas into them? Dunno.



It's the old 'lol cloaking is the only way to be safe lololol' argument people like you always make. If you want to wreck cloaking, and thus ruin a whole load of gameplay just because you're terrified of AFK cloakers, then I get to kill you every time you run and hide from a roam. Big smile
Alvatore DiMarco
Capricious Endeavours Ltd
#11 - 2013-05-10 23:32:06 UTC
Just going to leave this here because the only thing older than "cloaking is overpowered" is people suggesting the same things again and again because they're either too lazy or too stupid to search.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=216699&find=unread <-- "Anti-Cloaking" thread.
Rayzilla Zaraki
Yin Jian Enterprises
#12 - 2013-05-10 23:32:19 UTC
Danika Princip wrote:



It's the old 'lol cloaking is the only way to be safe lololol' argument people like you always make. If you want to wreck cloaking, and thus ruin a whole load of gameplay just because you're terrified of AFK cloakers, then I get to kill you every time you run and hide from a roam. Big smile



How about you get over yourself a little and read another reply I gave just above?

I use a cloak a LOT, especially lately since I have really been enjoying exploration. I am cloaked for an hour at a time while scanning and, yes, getting up to get beverages and to get rid of beverages, too.

Would I necessarily like being hunted down like this? No, not really. I kind of like it nice and safe like it is right now. Would I get bent out of shape if CCP put this in the game? No. I'd just have to be a little more creative and careful than I am now.

Just because someone comes up with an idea doesn't mean they hate whatever the idea messes with. People discuss cloaking a lot and what I came up with makes sense and, best of all, requires work on the part of the hunting player. It does not benefit AFK miners or carebears or whoever you happen to not like unless they spend some ISK to hire a bodyguard to scan while they are doing their AFK bot-thing.

Gate campers are just Carebears with anger issues.

Rayzilla Zaraki
Yin Jian Enterprises
#13 - 2013-05-10 23:37:45 UTC
Alvatore DiMarco wrote:
Just going to leave this here because the only thing older than "cloaking is overpowered" is people suggesting the same things again and again because they're either too lazy or too stupid to search.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=216699&find=unread <-- "Anti-Cloaking" thread.



Because the threads linked in that post were at best close but not exact, that's why.

And, help me out, did I use invisible pixels or are you seeing things? Where did I ever say cloaking is overpowered? I happen to think cloaking works exactly as it should and as it has thoughout sci fi.

But, I also believe that there should be ways to overcome just about everything. This isn't a button that forces a de-cloak, it's not some magical effect that causes the de-cloak, its not even fuel or capacitor reduction. You have to actively HUNT a cloaked ship. Its work. Its not a guaranteed kill.

Good lord.

Gate campers are just Carebears with anger issues.

Linkxsc162534
Apollo United Systems
#14 - 2013-05-11 00:00:05 UTC
In effect this can already be done near gates by a player with a stealth bomber (though at risk of taking out friendly drones and such)

To all the people screaming for local to be removed, why don't you move into a WH yourself?.

I think though that an anticloaking ship could be interesting. It wouldn't have the ability to probe someone out in my book, but the ship would still show up on Dscan when the dscans range is limited to a medium range or something and a 10 degree angle

Think of it like the antisub detection systems they had on destroyers IRL. Actually all the better make it be the exclusive only to the T2 version of the new line of dessys (cause the corax looks sweet but doesn't have much place in combat).

Then it carries a smaller version of s stealth bombers bomb, with a limited explosion radius (5km diameter rather then 30), shoots out in similar circumstance to a bombers bomb (10km travel instead), and when it detonated does the low damage, if it hits though it doesn't decloak, it damages the ship a small amount, and applies a warp disrupting effect to the cloaked ship. It can't warp cloaked for like 10 seconds.

But this requires the pilot to manually search for the stealth bomber with their own skills. Of-course using a couple of the ships in an area and triangulating the bombers position would require skill as well.

Perhaps even make it so that the Dscan thing only works if the cloaked ship is moving more then 30% max speed (argue that the advanced scanner is looking for anomalies in the image of where you aim the scanner. (a slower moving ship would distort it less, however a larger ship would distort it more, so bombers could move around a bit without returning a signal, while a bops needs to move around rather slow since it would be distorting a larger area of space)

There now we have the game silent hunter in eve online. A bomber could easily take out one of these dessys with a bomb or its launchers, but doing that it would risk being detected. Or they can move around stealthily and attempt to evade the dessy's bombs (it cant dscan for a few seconds after firing the bomb or something) and escape.


I could get behind that kind of play on both sides, but well I've loved silent hunter for the longest time.

Note that the bombs antiwarping effect would only effect ships that are trying to warp cloaked. Therefore if the ship decloaks the effect drops. This way it can't be used reliably against people jumping into a system. Also if the bomber thinks hes far enough away to make it he can drop his own cloak and warp normally (pending getting regularly scrammed)
Llyona
Lazerhawks
L A Z E R H A W K S
#15 - 2013-05-11 00:52:23 UTC
Linkxsc162534 wrote:


To all the people screaming for local to be removed, why don't you move into a WH yourself?.



I do live in wspace and frankly Local shouldn't exist anywhere. It doesn't make any sense, seeing as no ship, let alone a cloaky ship, would ever want to communicate with an enemy communications hub to let it know it's in system.

My how the tears would flow though if you kbears lost your precious omniscient local.

EVE is an illness, for which there is no cure.

Rayzilla Zaraki
Yin Jian Enterprises
#16 - 2013-05-11 00:54:55 UTC
Linkxsc162534 wrote:
Snip


I like the DScan idea. Seeing probes in a system would be a dead giveaway to anyone who is cloaked and they would naturally just jump out of the area.

However, I think that there would need to be a module in a high slot to modify the DScanner on the ship We don't want EVERY ship to be able to DScan a cloaked ship. It should be a high slot to be fair because cloaks require high slots. The scan angle and distance should be very limited as it would take an intense scanning burst to be able to locate the whereabouts of a cloaked ship. Go a little further and make the module require enough resources that a normal ship would have to make some serious sacrifices to use one, but a specialized ship would get bonuses for using it. I would think that any ship that can mount a covert ops cloak should get this bonus on the scanning module. I doubt a mining barge would be able to mount one of these because of the power/capacitor/CPU requirements. You'd also need specialized skills for this stuff, too.

Likewise, there should be a method and module that would allow for several ships to link their DScans to triangulate the cloaked ship. Warfare link? Another slot taken and I am fine with that. Cloaking should be easy but finding the cloaked ship should be very hard.

The best scan result you can get should be that 25-50km sphere I mentioned. That is where the missile (think depth charge) comes in. We all know that a cloaked ship getting too close to an object will decloak, so using that principle, the missile I suggested would explode into a 30 km cloud of shrapnel designed to decloak the target ship.

What I do not quite get is how, in your offering, the missile scrambles the warp core of the ship and doesn't decloak it.I'd rather see it decloak then the ship is subject to a normal warp scrambler. Another idea would be to lob an interdiction sphere with the decloaking missile. Maybe make a combo missile? Dunno.

Going back to the Covert Ops thing: Ships that can use a Covert Ops cloak can use these enhanced modules while cloaked. This would, in effect, be just like two subs or even snipers stalking each other. It could make for a great game dynamic.

I am really liking this. Especially after moving the scanning to the DScanner with an enhanced module and requiring a specialized ship to mount the gear to its best effect.

Gate campers are just Carebears with anger issues.

Rayzilla Zaraki
Yin Jian Enterprises
#17 - 2013-05-11 00:58:28 UTC
Llyona wrote:
Linkxsc162534 wrote:


To all the people screaming for local to be removed, why don't you move into a WH yourself?.



I do live in wspace and frankly Local shouldn't exist anywhere. It doesn't make any sense, seeing as no ship, let alone a cloaky ship, would ever want to communicate with an enemy communications hub to let it know it's in system.

My how the tears would flow though if you kbears lost your precious omniscient local.



The only problem with tossing local is that there is a social aspect to the game which people like and is pretty much solely provided by local chat.

I suppose there are ways to network several non-affiliated ships into a group chat and get the same effect.

But, I do totally get the tactical advantage/problems with local chat.

Gate campers are just Carebears with anger issues.

Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#18 - 2013-05-11 01:28:58 UTC
Another probe based solution.

Not bad, but we do see one like it appear fairly regularly.

I find this idea to be more balanced. The thread name spells out the conditions too.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2668453#post2668453
DeLindsay
Galaxies Fall
#19 - 2013-05-11 02:56:52 UTC
Quote:
Hunting cloaked ships would require the use of both a probe launcher and some sort of missile launcher. The probe launcher would be loaded with specialized probes that have a maximum range of a few hundred kilometers.

A ship enters the area and launches these probes just like we do with probes now, just on a smaller scale. If there is a cloaked ship in the area, a faint signature will appear. This signature is scanned down until a lockable area is produced. The cloaked ship is not locked, just the general area (25km radius sphere, let's say).


A few hundred KM? Do you even grasp the sheer volume of space that is in a SINGLE system? All any cloaked vessel would have to do would be cloak up in a nice little SS even as little as 1AU from any other celestial and you could have THE ENTIRE system looking for him and NEVER find him.

Cloaking is not broken, it's a tactic used for PvP and anti-PvP. Stop being bad and butt hurt because you don't want non-consensual PvP in your little corner of New Eden.


"Ermagerd guys, there's a cloaker in system, hurry and dock up so we don't have to engage him outside of our own terms derp"

The Operative: "There are a lot of innocent people being killed in the air right now".

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: "You have no idea how true that is".

Rayzilla Zaraki
Yin Jian Enterprises
#20 - 2013-05-11 03:00:23 UTC
[quote=DeLindsay]
Quote:


Cloaking is not broken, it's a tactic used for PvP and anti-PvP. Stop being bad and butt hurt because you don't want non-consensual PvP in your little corner of New Eden.


"Ermagerd guys, there's a cloaker in system, hurry and dock up so we don't have to engage him outside of our own terms derp"


Please point out where I said it was broken or that I included anything saying that I might be tired of getting jumped by cloaked ships.

Fact: My current primary ships are all mount Covert Ops cloaks and I use them often whether it be for scanning down systems or for surprise visits.

So...go rub some salve on your own butt.

Gate campers are just Carebears with anger issues.

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