Player Features and Ideas Discussion

i dont think that the local is a counter to cloaks the only thing the local provides is the info he is here
a counter would a way to find a cloaked vessel and if you find him destroy him

the info in itself is useless if you want to kill a cloaked vessel
you can bait him but if he has a brain he would not attack unless he knows he wins
on the other side the 0.0 bears have the constant fear of a hotdrop or a entire fleet behind the cloaky

since they have always the worst case in mind its a game and the cloaky has always the edge

Actually, no.

Cloaks are broken so long as they are easy to fit, indefinite, and make the ship safer than it would be inside POS shields. Regardless of how they are used, every ship in open space should be huntable, and colaks are not. That is as clear a case of broken as can be found.

Local isnt broken. It functions exactly the same in high sec, and ganks happen all the time. Its power comes from clearing the space, an active player effect. It does not keep you safe even while afk, using it is also an active player effect.

By every standard of measurement, so long as entire ship lines depend on active evasion for survival, and that evasion must be in advance of tackle, local or an equivalent instant intel source must be in game. It does not matter if its 'free', requires skills, modules, or some kind of structure-- it must be present or these ships will just die because they are designed to not be able to fight. Far from being broken or OP, local or its equivalent is required for industrial and mining ships to be worth the cost of making them.

Cloaks dont counter local, they are just broke. Local does not need a counter, those ships are supposed to be evading hunters. Complaining about miners and ratters docking is like complaining about Interceptors warping through bubbles. That is intended behavior, or they would be made to fight competitively while fulfilling their intention. There are ships that wont run, but they are designed to fight and my actually pose a threat to a solo hunter.

Elliminate movement penalties and reduce recal time, but have cloaks cycle and use capacitor to stay functional, as well as use some more pg, say 10-15 for t1 prototype, 30-40 for t2. Would be fun to see someone pop off a cap drain bomb and decloak an entire fleet of bombers. :D

To me, all cloaks need are a much larger cap cost, about 1 point shy of unprobable, and to be made mutually exclusive with regular Cynos.

If you had to fit rigs, a few Cap rechargers, and some power diagnostics and shield power relays to keep one active constantly it would still be able to fulfill it's purpose of gathering intel. If it does not fit a regular cyno, then it's threat is unknown, but at least quantifiable enough to warrant it's power. If it had that kind of cap draw then it would not need it's other disadvantages. Most ships would not be able to keep one active all the time, and those that can would either be cheap intel ships or cov-ops.

Wow this is still going.

Just out of curiousity (too hard to search without the right filter options but i figured someone who cares enough would have a bookmark) but has a Dev EVER replied in one of these threads, one way or another?

and how is any cloaked ship supposed to do anything combat related fitted like that? T3's? recons? bombers?

cloaked ships arent just for intel gathering. they are ambushers, and raiders as well. they already suffer from lesser power as a balance for being able to fit a cloak. Regualr cloaks heavily nerf ur lock time (needed to get point) and make u near immobile when active. cloaks already gimp ur ship for being fit, they dnt need cap mods as a must fit as well.

a covert ops frig is nothing like an intie or assault frig
a force recon is never as strong as a combat recon
a cloaky T3 isnt as strong as their combat orientated counterparts

so afk cloaking is still possible with cap mods, but the active use of cloaking and hunting is further nerfed.
its doesnt fix the 'broken' use of cloaking, and it breaks a perfectly fine use of cloaking.

lets not do this.

Just out of curiosity, if cloaked ships were unable to fit cynos, would that make it better for you Mike?

Without the cyno though, they are effectively useless in null, so why would it matter if they were out in space being undetectable? They are totally undetectable in wormhole space (no active local), and it doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything. That alone shows the issue is the cyno, not the cloak.

Apples and Oranges.

Even without the Cyno they aren't useless, and I would not remove BLOPS Cyno in any case... the issue with Cyno is the unquantifiable risk. They might bridge in a fleet of newbie frigates or a couple of Titans...you can't calculate that risk and must therefore treat it as if it was infinite threat---meaning no activity in system. If it's just BLOPS, you know that you need to be worth the price of fairly expensive T2 Ships... you still can't know if it's 1 or 1000, but it's not the kitchen sink.

Much of the issue is the mistaken idea that ships designed to rely on evasion should be denied the opportunity to evade. Those ships don't just lose an engagement when they explode... they lost the engagement the moment they had to stop performing their assigned task, and simply lose *more* when destroyed.

Without the Cyno they could still be used for intel. You could still hunt soft targets, but it would be actual hunting--- yes, you will often fail against ships that rely on evasion as has been discussed. With the addition of the mobile Depot you could still use the cloak to penetrate into enemy space, and then refit for Cyno or combat. My suggestion is to make the cloak and cyno mutually exclusive, not make hulls that only fit one or the other. You still need cargo space and options get more limited, potentially requiring bigger ships and exposing more assets to risk than the current typical newbie frig.

Regardless, the actual problem is the 100% safe zero counter cloak itself. Cyno is a magnifying issue of the basic problem that cloaking mechanics themselves don't match the rest of EVE.