Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I like where you are going with this. How about this idea:

After 30 minutes cloaked on a single grid without warp, an accumulation of cloaked residual material accumulates and enables the cloaked ship to become scannable with a rig that detects cloaked residual particles. The signal strength at 30 minutes becomes strong enough for the most skilled pilots (all level 5) in Covert Ops ships with sisters stuff to get a lock. After 30 minutes more (1 hour cloaked without warping), the strength has increased to the point where players at level 4 skills and T2 stuff can get a lock. After 60 minutes more (2 hours cloaked without warping), the ship becomes as easy to scan as any other uncloaked ship. If the ship decloaks after 30 minutes, waits 30 minutes, and the re-cloaks without warping, the cloaked particle residual build-up begins where it left off. Because the cloaked particles are unique, cloaked ships register on the scanner as cloaked and can be filtered in the results as such.

Concessions to making local intel only available to sov and blue players in sov null seem reasonable so long as the demands of paying more ISK to CCP for IHUB upgrades and such are dropped and the intel becomes immediately available only to sov and friends without any extra mechanics.

Interesting. Cloak Probes could be introduced with skill requirements on cloaking skill level to use them. These probes would only be able to detect cloak particles residuals.

There are already guerrilla combat options, but I agree that the introduction of smaller HP structures supporting sov benefits would encourage smaller group options and more combat.

There is NO need to remove the ability of a pilot to see a threat coming! There is enough of that with jumping through gates and far too much of it with infinite bridging capabilities to cynos. The goal is not to force combat with the wrong kind of ship in the wrong arena. The goal is to encourage combat with more stuff to fight over/about! Blind combat always favors the aggressor.

Hadn't thought of that, but you've got a point there.

Maybe cap regen doesn't die immediately, but five or ten minutes after activating the cloak? Any covops-capable ship should be able to transit through any system in the game in that amount of time. Or something like that.

That way, blockade runners and travelers don't get crippled, scouting becomes a little more challenging (without reaching the threshold of royal pain in the voonerables), and AFKers still fizz out within a few hours. I've done scouting in cloakies before, and I have to say I wouldn't be raging at the addition of a mechanic that prevents me from just staying cloaked up forever.

I guess that's a vote for "don't change the mechanic". But if there's any form of flying that's less vulnerable than being cloaked up in a deep safe spot, I can't figure out what it is. It's like having an invincible overwatch for a shift as long as 22 hours with no realistic counter.

And tweaking covops cloaks wouldn't even come close to some of the real nerfs I've seen. There's the mission-rat AI changes, with regard to drones. There's the incursion quadruple-nerf. There's the resistance bonus nerf.

And besides, just about every other type of AFK play I've seen since I first subscribed has gotten a bat to the kneecaps from CCP at some point. Why should invulnerable psychological warfare be immune?

I'm not saying "this must be done". I'm saying "what about this as a half-baked suggestion?" And it sounded like there was an actual conversation going on for a minute.

No, its a vote against unbalanced suggestions. Maybe you should also go back 2-3 pages and read some of my posts so you don't look so ignorant. Here is a good one. Here is another. Or even this one.

Or go to this page and read.



Killing a ships cap is not a tweak. And what about worm holes where AFK cloaking is not even an issue?



It isn't my fault or anyone else's that you can't come up with a strategy to defeat an AFK cloaker in your systems.



And I'm saying it is half-baked so don't do it.

There was the start of agreement, when it was a discussion of decoupling intel from local and making it dependent on sovereignty and various structures (note: only the alliance that had the structures would have access to the intel BTW--i.e. a home field advantage). The problem of AFK cloaking is a result of local and the way it provides intel, flawlessly and instantly. You jumped in and suggested an idea that has been suggested before, many, many times before. Did you even scan down the list of links in the OP? Read any of them? I made it damn easy for you to do some research on the issue...so did you use any of it? Your like a guy who show up to the party wearing polyester bell bottoms, a wide collared shirt unbuttoned to your navel, a big white belt and shoes, wearing gold chains and sporting a mustache and side burns and asking all the married women what sign are they. Don't be that guy. Read some people's responses, try to get a feel for what they are suggesting and for the love of God don't suggest ideas on the front page by themselves. They have been suggested for years and, obviously, have never been implemented.

Sorry if this is harsh, but the original intent of the first post in this thread was to provide a resource for people to look up what has been proposed before and then studiously ignored by CCP.

Teckos, Most of your criticisms claim that idea's given would UNBALANCE the game... what you really mean is REBALANCE one aspect of the game, just not in the direction YOU would like.

so you mean that there is no way to kill PVE ships in enemy sov without AFK cyno cloaking, this is completely wrong as I have stated before, as evidence for this just look at the killboards or dotlan and check out how many kills people are getting in null against ratters and miners using small gangs or other tactics, and that's not including ACTIVE cloaked cyno's....

and there is that word again.... UNBALANCED... no it would be rebalanced... most of these ideas would not stop ACTIVE cyno cloaks, just AFK cyno cloaks... huge difference! The argument is should we wait for someone who is at work in real life or gone to bed to become active again? while we spend 6 hours trying to bait someone that's not even there? Or should that player have to be playing EVE to present a threat?

Bullcrap. I've already shown how local provides and advantage to residents of a system that they take advantage of, and if wasn't something so many depended on it would most likely be declared an exploit. Also, given that AFK cloaking offsets this "exploit" there is enough reason for CCP to leave things as they are until a better mechanic for intel is put in place. Once that happens nerfing cloaks, or rebalancing cloaks, would be appropriate. Until then, "rebalancing" cloaks while leaving local as is, is unbalancing.

TL:DR: These ideas have been ignored by CCP.



Saying an idea sucks and is stupid in the extreme is not a personal attack. Now if I said, "Player X sucks and is stupid in extreme." That is a personal attack.



While I haven't mentioned these aspects of W-space ITT, I have mentioned them before. And those distinctions matter mainly for cynos and less for AFK cloaking. AFK cloaking in W-space are mainly for convenience--i.e. bathroom run, grab food, answer the phone, etc.--and much, much less for resource denial or trying to psychological warfare. The reason for the latter is because if I go into a C6 and then cloak up and go AFK...I wont stop anyone from doing anything in that C6. Even if I stay at my keyboard, nobody will respond to me until I decloak and attack somebody.



Yes, WH space has lots of aspects that make AFK cloaking pointless. The primary reason: no local. And yeah, cynos don't work so even if you suspected a single cloaked ship it is not as much of threat as a single cloaked ship in null space. And yeah, worm holers can go ahead and try to collapse the entry points to make themselves safer.

Can you admit that local in K-space provides you with a mechanical benefit that you have to do nothing (in game) to obtain?

Alright then, here is a great example of how attacks on ideas alone can quickly escalate into personal attacks (I don't really mean the following):
Teckos, please don't take this personally, but your IDEAS have got to be some of the dumbest, least thought out, selfish, evil, and fundamentally unsound ideas that has ever disgraced this planet. If all your THOUGHTS had been turned off and then the dribble of the rest of the IDEAS floating around your head were emptied into the toilet and then flushed down into the sewer system and scooped out and let to sit stagnant in a cold dark room for months, they would be only slightly better than the garbage that has spewed out of your .. [you get the idea, I hope]

With that demonstration in mind, I hope you see the power of disrespecting the ideas on executing personal attacks and I hope that you try to respect the ideas with the "benefit of doubt" much more in the future. I hope that you understand that the previous paragraph was an example only and not meant toward you or your ideas in any real way. Trust me, attacks on ideas can quickly and easily get personal.


I think that your second quote recognizes why wormholes do not care so much about cloaked stealth bombers; no gates, mass limits to whs, and no cynos. So you didn't mention the first to but they are vital also. Cloaked stealth bombers can be handled much more easily when wh mass limits and cyno restrictions limit the bigger threats from entering. This would also be true in known space, if similar mechanics were in place. Until then, we must know if there is a hostile because the lack of these restrictions makes the potential threat extremely large. It all comes back down to the cyno, even with local in place.

Can I admit that the information in local is useful? Yes. Do I have to do anything in order to benefit from that information? Of course, I do. So I cannot admit that I have nothing to do either in-game or out-of-game with the information. I have to check the character creation date, corp history, and alliance (in game). I have to check the killboards (out of game) for ships, fits, and efficiency. I have to do dscan for ships and probes (in-game). I have to check intel channels (in-game) for fleets and other reports. I have to organize with corp mates for intel and fleet doctrines to match or evade the expected threat. It is most definitely not free, because either I spend all that time researching and countering the hostile, or I have to waste precious time being tied down by the threat (which is still a great cost). And since no threat can be accepted as afk no matter how long they camp a system without decloaking, they must be treated as a cloaky cyno boat ready to pounce at any second with overwhelming force. Some baiting is done with possible active stealth bombers, but the unresponsive, stationary ones must be avoided by moving ops to another system for the duration of their stay. In short, local provides some benefit but it is not free at all.

If there were NO gates, NOR cynos, there would be NO need to move ops to adjacent systems merely because of the presence of a solo stealth bomber.