Player Features and Ideas Discussion

AFK cloaking has become one of the key issues with EVE, 1 person can shut down an entire alliances PVE for as long as they wish. Faction battleships people have worked hard on sit in hanger and don't get used, and how many do you think log on to play, notice and afk cloaker and no pvp ops atm and just change skills and log off instead of actually playing the game? I know many including me that do it all the time. Sure, you can try to trap, until you get hotdropped by 20-40, it is normal protocol for almost EVERY nullsec alliance to just not rat with a cloak in system afk or not. Removing local is not the answer until a balanced way to protect your pve ships can be found, currently that would result in jumping in system 10 sec dscan for sancs and in under 30 secs have a faction bs pointed? That would obviously be hugely imbalanced. It Is time something be done to balance nullsec pve, with the changes to nullsec going to truesec no longer can an alliance just upgrade 4 systems in a row, causing 4 afk cloakers to be required. It is time something be done to prevent afk cloaking while not effecting much else, this would be a HUGE difference to nullsec pve and would encourage more ppl to play by giving them options other than station spinning. The current system makes 1 smug and 30 annoyed and discourages play, it should be apparent it is not good for the longevity of EVE online.

The Solution: Cloaks should require something along the lines of "liquid Nitrogen" to "cool your thermal signature"

By causing every cycle of the cloak to consume some fuel from cargo it would effectively prevent afk cloaking, while having almost no effect on active cloakers or pvp. It would be a huge boost to nullsec pve, give players more options when they sign on, and stop the 20-30 ppl being annoyed over 1 person cloaking then going to work, if you need to be gone that long players should be forced to log off. It is time something to be done to correct this issue, as I and many others I'm sure strongly believe it is in the best interest for EVE and its future.

fantastic suggestion +1

Why is it even possible for a single ship to effect an entire system in any way?

That's what needs to be fixed (i.e. eliminated).

Or you could grow some balls and realise nullsec isnt a 100% safe place for all you pathetic carebears

Oh... this thread again.

Not Supported.

How about you post something decent for once instead of trolling?

I agree with this and i agree with the OP, let null be null and let high sec be high sec, people forget this is a game. Theres gonna be two different styles of play, pvp and pve, you got your hardcore gamers, and you got your casual gamers, but you have to protect both investments if CCP ever plans to keep people in this game so they take home a check every week.

I dont agree with afk'ers.

However I don't want to nerf the potential of exisitng cloak useage so heavily.

The view that "2 hours" worth of fuel should be given isn't very helpful for people genuinely scouting out sites in their covert op ships. It also removes the other main valid use of reconnaisance, where intelligence is provided by extended observations of strategic points. Both of these gameplay areas could be significantly nerfed as a result of this change.

As an example looking at existing cargo spaces as a model for a Cov Ops we get:

Anathema, 190m3 cargo maximum = 1267 race related ice gas product (e.g. helium isotope)

"current" average price for the isotopes at best = 400 isk / unit

400 * 1267 / 2 = 253,400 isk / hr to run a cloak. This seems plausible until you consider newer players wanting to use low tech cloaks for valid use. It forces it more into the provinces of a rich persons useage. Moreso hurting the limited game time playstyle.

It also implies a cycle time of approximatley 5.7 seconds. (Minor point: Cloaks don't currently cycle).

The above model seems to work, to some extent. Though you have done two things as a result:

1) The model is based on max cargo, so there is no space to store other things, how will current cyno fuel needs be accomodated? How can other things be stored for useage? How can anomolie site loot be captured?

2) With the increased demand for race related ice gas isotopes this will significantly raise their prices I would imagine. Good news for ice miners, perhaps bad news for POS owners and Cloak users.

I imagine to extend the model to recon ships, strategic cruisers and blockade runners (or other larger ships in general) you may need to have a multiplier for consumption amounts to balance for similar times based on the increase volume needed to be cooled and their cargo bays.

This will principally increase the cost per hour for cloak use for larger craft and in the case of blockade runners maybe some exception would need to be applied else the idea of having to store significant fuel to do it's role may make it redundant for what its actually trying to do?

In the case of capital ships that can't dock wanting to use cloaks, you might need stupid amounts of fuel with obvious logistical support just to make use of the technology.

All of a sudden, the simple model doesn't look so nice for the significant handicaps it applies for genuine players.

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Assuming however, the numbers can be tweaked and some level of compromise can be reached so that the related time, impacts and costs are reduced to a bearable amount that makes sense, I could see this model working, but not as is currently proposed.

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The idea that cloaks must use fuel: Why? I don't see you refuelling your ship to warp, provide power to a number of modules that don't use an ammo based model.

Also, how does this effect people who may want to use cloaking technology for genuine purposes based on activity, like recon and scare related tactics but not go afk? As if the only logical argument is to remove afker's then why not apply a periodic validation window say every half an hour for prolonged cloak useage that needs to be confirmed in a few minutes, else the cloak will fail and need to be reapplied? (Maybe a minor irritation but will stop afk cloak use, I could put up with this rather than a debilitating fuel need.)

soooo you wrote all that to say 250k isk/hr to cloak is debilitating? not to mention i never said anything about what cycle times or usage should be...and yea a dialog saying "are you here?" every 30 mins while cloaked sounds real fitting

your obviously not too in tune with "covert operations" where does loot from anomolies go you ask? in your noctis you tard because thats really the only thing you should be looting with, you rat with a cloaky rapier or something? also this gimps actual cloak usage? who the **** that actually uses a cloak without afking needs 3-4 hrs of cloak time? dont cloak in empty systems in transit, log if you have to go afk for more than 30 mins zomg thatd be terrible, fit cargo expanders and make it 6 hrs if it makes you happy, if your cloaked in a system 4 hours with your pew pew finger itching the whole time w.o a kill your doing it wrong

Actually no, not going to stand for this type of argument, now your heavily prescribing how I spend my time with the use of a cloak. And justifying your idea based on a model not everyone does or wants to follow. Also, read your own threads, you said a period of 2 hours, I used this value to base the maths on as was mentioned.



implies your period needed to wait for fuel exhaustion.

I also said the 250k isk an hour wasn't an big deal and you seem to ignore all the other issues quite conveniantly or the scalability problems mentioned.

Having to fit cargo expanders rather than other prefered mods on a recon ship for example isnt really a solution is it, maybe your understanding of effective use of some cloaked ships needs to be revised?

As a result of the snide insults, lack of comprehension and projection of your opinion how I should play this game, hf with your thread as obviously you don't want to compromise or discuss it sensibly, you just want to apply a nerfbat to cloakies. So I wont waste my time trying to discuss it with you.

-1 support