Player Features and Ideas Discussion

Out of sheer boredom I wrote up a little proposal on a possible solution to the afk cloaking problem in null and low secs. Frankly it can work in high sec too during war decs or whatever. I realize I am not the first to post about this, and I am certain I will not be the last. Here is a long list of ideas, of which I've only read about a dozen... Some start or come close to my idea, most do not.

There is a problem in eve. The ability to enter a system, warp to a random spot and cloak for an unlimited amount of time. This causes many issues. The first being uncertainty. Not knowing if this cloaked person is hostile or not. Not being sure if it is safe to linger in this system or not. Additionally if this is a staging point for fleets, or trade routes you now have the added concern if they are collecting information for the enemy. Also if you live, work and play in this system a cloaked hostile can be a great annoyance at best because you cannot live work or play when they are present. As well as more reasons I will not go into here.

This needs to be part of the game. I don’t want this tactic removed. I just want a method to counter this tactic when it is deployed against you, and to ensure this tactic is not abused or exploited. After giving this issue much thought and discussing this with my corpmates we have come up with a possible solution. This solution needs to be approached from both ends. This solution to the afk cloaking problem will work in nullsec and lowsec in addition to highsec during war decs, or for gankers to nab that afk cloaker.

First the cloak itself needs to degrade over time. Let’s say for an example 10% per hour. The first hour you cloak is at 100%, the second hour the cloak is at 90%, the third it drops to 80% and so on. This gives you 10 full hours where you can be cloaked and cannot be scanned down by current methods. The second that 11th hour mark is hit you become visible if cloaked and your cloak no longer works. This is fairly realistic too as sitting in space your ship will be bombarded with cosmic rays, space debris, and dust. Passing through a force field to dock at a station or generated from a POS will restore your ship by scrubbing clean all these particles you collected while in space, restoring your ship or rather cloak to full operation. And yes I mean that this as collective degradation. The time spent in space between a POS or Station visit is calculated no matter how many time you cloak, uncloak, mine, entered combat and so on. At the start of the 11th hour your ship is in open space without docking or visiting a POS your cloak no longer works until you clean these particles off you ship. You could even start the degradation at a higher level like 35% per hour and introduce a new skill drops it 5% per level to the 10% mark. CCP loves their skill books.

Now you might ask how this affects the afk cloakers other than at the 11th hour mark they are no longer cloaked (or the 4th hour mark if they have not trained their degradation skill to max). I mean 10 hours is still a long time and can annoy, if not **** off the inhabitants of the system you are sitting afk and cloaked in. This is where the second half or rather other end comes into play. Explorers with a new skill trained to an appropriate level will be able to scan down cloaked ships whose cloak is degraded. This new skill will give them the ability to find disturbances in background radiation at 10% degradation pre level. Meaning with the skill at level 1 the new disposable probes (like moon probes) only see cloaked ships that have degraded down to 10% effectiveness. At level 2 they only find ships that degraded to 20% effectiveness to a maximum of 50% at level 5. Now 50% degradation stills gives a person 5 full hours who has trained their degradation skills to level 5. 5 hours is still a long time to afk cloak. Here we add an additional skill for the explorers. This skill cannot be trained until the first one is at level 5. This new skill adds an additional 5% per level that the probes can find these disturbances. That will increase the overall effectiveness of these probes with both skills trained to level 5 to 75% degradation. Add a tech 2 version of the launcher which gives a 5% bonus and tech 2 version of these new probes that give you a 10% bonus you now will be able at maxed skills to scan down a cloaked ship who’s at 90% effectiveness (in other words if both are maxed on skills the cloaked ship has 1 hour before they can be scanned down with various random times in-between based upon the scanner and cloaked persons skills).

This new method of probing for cloaked ships will add at least two new modules (tech 1 and 2 degradation probe launchers), and two new types of probes (tech 1 and tech 2 degradation probes). It also adds at least three new skills. Still I can see how this process could be abused by persons with maxed training, so I would add one last twist to this whole process. These new probes will require time to sync with the background radiation in the system, and your ship is exposed the entire time the probes are syncing. What I mean here is that once you launch the probes it takes something like 15 minutes for them to sync and become active, before you can start scanning with them. You could even have it start at 40 minutes for the probes to sync, and introduce a fourth skill to reduce that time by 5 minutes per level bringing the time down to 15 minutes when that skill is at level 5. More importantly though the probes expire and disappear 15 minutes after they become active. I add these aspects for two exploits I can foresee.

To be continued... And why do these posts have character limits?

Why not make a new probe that tracks down heat signatures? just takes longer to track plus need good skills.

That's quite a long solution you have there. First though, can we see evidence of this problem's existence? I'll wait for you to procure it. I really want to have this issue resolved and a good start to doing so will involve documentation of the issue existing.

I know it's a pain but it's like bug reporting in BETA's in that you have to document this problem through imagery or demonstrate repeatable steps so the dev team can see exactly what it is that you are referring to.

And also I want to thank you sincerely for this thread. Not only have you more eloquently stated this phenomena exists than any preceding you have given me a place to stand in solidarity with you on this issue without having to sift through the refuse of the obtuse and benign writings of the plebeians. Your posting style is quite extraordinary and because of that I'm throwing my chips in with you. You're quite special and I mean that sincerely.

Remove local and you get rid of afk cloaking and effortless perfect intel at the same time.

1. Grow a pair
2. Use the manly powers of a ballsack for courage

"Hostile bombers in system"

"probes out"

~15 minutes later~

"Entire bomber fleet destroyed while setting up."

Yeah. Fair and balanced.

I'd like to propose a counter *solution* to afk cloaking ships:

A new module which fits in the mid slots and when activated, removes local from the pilot's UI.

So, for all those that get the fear when they think there is someone AFK in their system here is the solution. Hit that button and the fear evaporates like the dew on a summer's morn.

No more will you need to fear what isn't there, the phantoms of EVE, those unoccupied ships. You can just remove them from your view and voila! No more fear.

Of course, this doesn't really help with those that aren't AFK but it seems no one has a problem with this, just those that are AFK. So, take responsibility for your actions and decisions. Fit the module, decide they're afk and you're done. Very probably literally.

You brought up AFK Cloaking.

To assume it is not tied into Local Chat is a glaring failure to recognize the cause and effect relationship they share.

Actually suggesting that the problem begins with the pilot using AFK Cloaking tactics, ignores enough to be considered mislead.

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.

I don't want to be safer than I already am.

The devs see I am safe, and they are stripping down my possible rewards. This makes my gameplay a coin toss over whether it is even worth the effort to log in, since I have limits to my time online.

Is any ice left to mine? (must be on a limited list to be counted)
Is any ore left to mine? (must be on a limited list to be counted)

I have no worry about being safe, but if I cannot get the ice or ore that is needed, being safe is meaningless.

The devs are killing my rewards because I mine in null, and like anyone who does PvE in null we only have worthwhile rewards if we have actual risks.

Those risks are already a joke.

If I am ratting, I stay aligned. The moment a hostile appears in local, I hit warp. I arrive safely in the POS, and they can do NOTHING to prevent that short of attempting to take the sov and tearing down the POS's.
And I can evacuate with everyone else then, just like every other PvE player in every other null sec corp.

Between war decs and bounties, PvE players are MORE at risk in HIGH SEC, where afk cloaking is treated like a joke.
With limits to ore and ice, the rewards are too often already comparable.