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What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...

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Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#161 - 2014-08-26 13:29:37 UTC
Linkxsc162534 wrote:
So a few rapid fire questions here.

So this sensor mode, can the scanning ship move during it?
****ANSWER**** YES, but like it's cloaked counterpart, it has to remain on grid unless it is using a hull that is covops compatible. If it is a covops hull, then it can also warp while in sensor mode.

Reason i ask is because of it can, the whole painting objective kinda goes out the window, when you could just drive over them and proximity decloak.
If you're locked into 1 spot for the duration if your scanning, then your painter module might work, or more realistically youd try to direct some allied ships to go find them. Also it kinda makes it more like a siege module, for your sensors.
****ANSWER**** Unlikely.
Your ship CAN move, but cannot activate modules... which also denies use of propulsion mods.
The cloaked ship can see you on grid, and unless they have a slower hull, can very likely keep their distance from you.

Secondly, when you probe down a ship. How close to the ship will you land when warping to them. Landing straight on them seems a little overpowered. Yeah covops can fly in a line and partially avoid the prox detection, but lots of other ships looking to hide occasionally dont have the cloaked speed to do that.
If warping to grid landed you with say 30km of the target, then youd at least have to cycle again and spot them.
****ANSWER**** This is a balance issue
The devs would need to tweak this for play balance, but I would guess around 20 to 50 KM, modified by the compared skills of both the cloaking and scanning pilots.



Reasons for this came to mind. In ww2 often when hunting sub, destroyers would stop to ping their sonars and get a better fix on the enemy, less water slapping against the hull interfering with the sensors.

If the detecting ship was locked stationary for 30 seconds to a minute (and perhaps making its own sig skyrocket, after all its blasting out signals to try and detect) and it was hunting an active player, that player would have the opportunity to decloak, lock them up, and possibly kill them, followed by more cloaking or running or whatever.





Also a couple side notes for people.

The reason why wh corps can "deal" with cloakies, is because they dont run the risk of the cloaky bringing a capital blob with them.

Also under the rule that while cloaked i dont show up in local, even if they see me pop up in local when i jump into system, i could always fake them out into thinking I left. Then I can go about the business of making harvesting some nullbear tears. If theyre really worried about it that much, they can come after me. Like it should be.

Although not being able to run a cyno on a ship with a covops cloak would probably need to happen. (This means no cloaked warping and cynos. Regular cloak ships though can pack cynos, since they cant land on you, scram you, and pop the cyno. Even a covops would be limited to popping out a mobile depot and removing the cloak to online a covert cyno)


Cyno use is an element that would probably need attention, the same as intel granting awareness of cloaked vessels too easily.
I strongly recommend a change that would make on-grid hot dropping less attractive.
(I can explain my own suggestion to this if asked)

I do not pretend these changes could happen alone, since these aspects are related this way.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Bronson Hughes
The Knights of the Blessed Mother of Acceleration
#162 - 2014-08-26 14:59:42 UTC
Here's my take on this.

Cloaking is fine, leave it the hell alone. To be perfectly blunt, it's working precisely as intended and doesn't need to be "fixed" or have any additional counters added.

My view on Local is different though. Having (almost) everyone show up in Local in non-WH space is not only fine (to some extent), it fits with the lore. Each system has stargates, and these stargates control who can enter and leave a system, and they keep a record of who's in system. This is the "Traffic Control" we notice when we first try to go into a system after downtime.

But here's the thing. Traffic Control has (or should have) no way of knowing if a pilot has left system via means other than a stargate (Wormhole, Jump Drive, or Jump Bridge.)

So here's an idea. Keep Local largely as-is but pilots will not become visible in Local until they:

1. Enter a system via stargate.
2. Dock at a station.
3. Say something in Local Chat.

And here's the kicker: Pilots won't disappear from their previous Local channel until they show up in a new one.

Given the lack of stargates and stations in WH-space, this would leave WH-space exactly as it is now. Given that the only way to enter hisec is via stargate, this would also leave hisec almost exactly as it is now; the only difference in hisec would be that some players exiting hisec (via Wormhole, Jump Drive, or Jump Bridge) will show up in their origin system longer than they would have before.

But Local in losec and nullsec would become a bit more...dynamic. BlOps bridging would become far more powerful (only the covert cyno pilot would show up in local, assuming they weren't left there by another BlOps bridge). Non-hotdropped capitals would gain a certain element of surprise, assuming they didn't dock after jumping in. And (I feel unfortunately), it would remove supercap pilots from Local entirely unless they talked in Local.


Having said all of that, I'm not a strong supporter of changing how Local works. This is just an idea I'm pitching in to see what folks think.

Thoughts?

Relatively Notorious By Association

My Many Misadventures

I predicted FAUXs
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#163 - 2014-08-26 15:31:09 UTC
Bronson Hughes wrote:
...

Having said all of that, I'm not a strong supporter of changing how Local works. This is just an idea I'm pitching in to see what folks think.

Thoughts?

You should go make a thread for this idea.

This thread is not about local, so does not conflict or agree with the idea you stated.
This thread is about what could be done if any change created a balance which would allow the hunting of cloaked shipping, and how that might exist.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Bronson Hughes
The Knights of the Blessed Mother of Acceleration
#164 - 2014-08-26 15:34:30 UTC
Nikk Narrel wrote:
Bronson Hughes wrote:
...

Having said all of that, I'm not a strong supporter of changing how Local works. This is just an idea I'm pitching in to see what folks think.

Thoughts?

You should go make a thread for this idea.

This thread is not about local, so does not conflict or agree with the idea you stated.
This thread is about what could be done if any change created a balance which would allow the hunting of cloaked shipping, and how that might exist.

Apologies. I saw lots of discussion about Local early on in the thread and thought it was relevant.

Relatively Notorious By Association

My Many Misadventures

I predicted FAUXs
Linkxsc162534
Silent Scourge
#165 - 2014-08-26 19:43:23 UTC
Sorry not gonna mess with quotes on my phone.

But nikki, this whole thing is running on the assumption of it being bonused on a covops right. So the optimal ship for this would be a covops loaded up with overdrive injectors and such so it has high passive speed, doesnt need an active module to run over people. Perhaps a speedfit hound sb might be quick enough to evade. But every other ship is too slow while cloaked.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#166 - 2014-08-26 19:57:57 UTC
Linkxsc162534 wrote:
Sorry not gonna mess with quotes on my phone.

But nikki, this whole thing is running on the assumption of it being bonused on a covops right. So the optimal ship for this would be a covops loaded up with overdrive injectors and such so it has high passive speed, doesnt need an active module to run over people. Perhaps a speedfit hound sb might be quick enough to evade. But every other ship is too slow while cloaked.

And the players flying cloaked ships will certainly become aware of this as well, and adapt tactics to consider it.

If they expect an extended period, where they feel being hunted by passively speed boosted frigates is likely, then they are possibly going to duplicate this in order to counter it.

If they figure the hunting ship is a SB, and fragile enough, they might consider trying to destroy it before more durable ships arrive to support it.

A bigger ship, decloaked by proximity rather than direct targeting at range, may have anticipated this, and set off smart bombs.
(This is one tactic among many, I have no doubt more creative fighters can think up other ways to make proximity decloaking something to be wary of...)

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Linkxsc162534
Silent Scourge
#167 - 2014-08-26 20:05:20 UTC  |  Edited by: Linkxsc162534
Nikk Narrel wrote:
Linkxsc162534 wrote:
Sorry not gonna mess with quotes on my phone.

But nikki, this whole thing is running on the assumption of it being bonused on a covops right. So the optimal ship for this would be a covops loaded up with overdrive injectors and such so it has high passive speed, doesnt need an active module to run over people. Perhaps a speedfit hound sb might be quick enough to evade. But every other ship is too slow while cloaked.

And the players flying cloaked ships will certainly become aware of this as well, and adapt tactics to consider it.

If they expect an extended period, where they feel being hunted by passively speed boosted frigates is likely, then they are possibly going to duplicate this in order to counter it.

If they figure the hunting ship is a SB, and fragile enough, they might consider trying to destroy it before more durable ships arrive to support it.

A bigger ship, decloaked by proximity rather than direct targeting at range, may have anticipated this, and set off smart bombs.
(This is one tactic among many, I have no doubt more creative fighters can think up other ways to make proximity decloaking something to be wary of...)


Yes however this is a heavy nerf to ships without covops cloaks available.
A probe with 3 overdrive goes 630ms. Any ship other than a blops,recon,cloakyt3,covops,soe ship will at most probably be rolling on the order of 10-60ms, and since they cant warp cloaked have literally no defense against this decloaking scanner.

The covops ships can speedf8t themselves, or they can just warp away. A blops moves faster while cloaked than out of cloak, so it can align, drop cloak, and warp away also, now requiring you to scan again.
Non cloaky ships are boned, they will be too slow to evade, cant hide in safespots, and since theyre gettong attacked by a frigate, probably wont be getting a lock on them and being able to apply damage. (30 second sensor delay for non covops cloaks)
Yes large ships can fit a smartbomb, but using a bare minimum of tank so that you survive initial bomb detonation, then moving out of bomb range and scramming.
Linkxsc162534
Silent Scourge
#168 - 2014-08-26 20:09:01 UTC
Also given that the module HAS a fast enough cycle timer, you dont even need a speedfit ship to do it. Just use a regularly fit ship with abs, cycle the unit, start flying at them, then when the cycle is over, light your afterburner.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#169 - 2014-08-26 20:20:51 UTC
Linkxsc162534 wrote:
Also given that the module HAS a fast enough cycle timer, you dont even need a speedfit ship to do it. Just use a regularly fit ship with abs, cycle the unit, start flying at them, then when the cycle is over, light your afterburner.

I'll respond to both posts here, to keep it simple.

What you are describing, is what I would call a trade-off.

As a cloaking pilot, do you gamble that you will encounter someone who took the time to train skills up, in order to pull off what you have described?

How will you counter this, if you do expect it?

Will you travel in wolf packs, and adapt the same security from numbers so popular in front line PvP tactics?

Will you use a BLOPS, and jump out ASAP when seeing a hostile ship land on grid with you?

Will you use smart bombs, possibly drones or some other type of weapons needing no lock, or even something to boost your lock speed?

Also, if you are cloaked on an isolated grid, and this hunter ship landed there with you, what is to stop you from dropping your own cloak, and punching a speed booster?
You are pointing out the advantage of a covops boat, so one of these could boost to warp, and recloak mid warp to restart the chase again.

How would you handle this?

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Linkxsc162534
Silent Scourge
#170 - 2014-08-26 20:44:57 UTC
Yeah probably, especially in whs where everyone will probably train this and regularly sweep out their systems.

Well for countering if im in a covops or recon id keep mobile, shifting from safespt to safespot. But in the case of non covops ships, youll be too slow and easy to catch.

Security in numbers may work, but that fringes on when an attack comes everyone goes and attacks the scanner. This however doesnt help the guy, who when they were roaming with bcs, got separated, or had to log or something, now they log back in in hostile territory with ships that can easily track them down.

No with the blops you align, wait till your speed is sufficient while cloaked, drop the cloak and warp instantly.

Smart bombs are only reliable on bc and bs sized ships, drones are a much better choice, yet not all ships can carry them.
The problem however isnt lockspeed, its the 20 second locking delay after decloaking. Drones olny work if set to agressive and you get them out before you get opened up on, and smartbombs arent strong enough to kill anything larger than untanked frigs, in a timely manner.

Decloaking and punching your ab or mwd, would be probably the stupidest thing you could do in the situation. If your on grid with the scanner, your goal is probably to not get caught. Because they likely arent alone, and a half dozen of his buddies are going to be getting there in a second.

I highly highly doubt that these cloakhunters would ever operate alone, unless they were fit to a hac, which even though not bonused, theyd probably be the best ship for the job.


How would i handle it... well if in anything that doesnt have bonuses to cloaks, im probably boned, unless the person is alone, and flying something fat and slow, then i might be able to run. But noone would run this on anything slow, since theyd need to regularly outrun cloakbonused ships ships that move at high speeds.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#171 - 2014-08-26 21:04:37 UTC
Linkxsc162534 wrote:
....


How would i handle it... well if in anything that doesnt have bonuses to cloaks, im probably boned, unless the person is alone, and flying something fat and slow, then i might be able to run. But noone would run this on anything slow, since theyd need to regularly outrun cloakbonused ships ships that move at high speeds.

Now, what if you use two tier tactics.

Send in a decoy ship, draw off the hunting boat, lure it into a next door system if possible.

Do your opponents consider the intruder too tied up, so they are willing to risk exposing other assets?
Maybe they hope these other assets might act as bait, and cause the cloaked ship to delay long enough to be stopped...

A second ship, acting in support of the first, would have two possible missions then:

1 attack exposed targets. Should the hunter switch to the second ship, the first is free to then engage it as well.

2 As the hunting ship closes on the first ship, it teams up with the first and pops it before defenders arrive in numbers.

Keep in mind, they can't warp to help the hunting ship till it reaches grid, or else they will warp to the location it was at when they triggered the warp.
The second cloaked ship can warp directly to it's partner, and if timed right, arrive immediately after the hunter does.

It can get complicated, but whoever plans out more could have a genuine advantage.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Linkxsc162534
Silent Scourge
#172 - 2014-08-26 21:22:19 UTC
Likely if theyve already gone far enough to know that your in systerm, why go after another target. Remember, if they hunting you they probably saw your name in local when you jumped in or logges. If they see someone elses name, youre still their target.

To some extents you might be better off actually cloaking and hiding just offgrid from their station so that probing you down is harder w8th other ships that may be there.

Probably not but they arent really risking other assets, in the case of nullsec, most people are crammed in just a couple systems, and if they feel threatened, theyll just do what they do now, run and hide. Or leave to the neighbor system and try to catch you on gate, because even with this mod you are never going to actively catch a bomber or recon, theyll just keep running till you get bored.

Hunter wont switch to the second ship though unless perhaps both of the stealths are in the same system. Remember first they have to probe you, which with covops, theyll keep warping every couple minutes if they see probes on dscan.

Hunter would not be closing on first ship alone, hunter would have a fleet to catch the twrget. After all the best hunters would be covops, but they arent worth crap in a fight. They bring 3-4 pple with them, and then you and your friend stupidly decloak and take potshots at a frigate with your torpedoes, and you get killed by their support. Could have just warped away.

And why cant they warp to help the hunting ship? The hunting ship could be squadleader and just hit "warp squad to destination" bam whole squad lands on grid within seconds of eachother. That, or you warp your hunter to grid while cloaked (covops again) and wait for support before decloaking and running your scan.
Linkxsc162534
Silent Scourge
#173 - 2014-08-26 21:28:01 UTC
Also here would be my defense strategy for hunting a cloaky.

Fire up dscan, jump from planet to planet messing with range, remember the big groups could just drop someone on every planet to do this.

Narrow down available areas, probe him, ship woukd be max probe skilled covops with a full probing fit, cloak and warp fleet to target, fleet brings along a hic, land on grid, warp bubble, run scanner, charge over with an interceptor, decloak/tackle, procede to kill. My covops might get shot or bombed, but hes still dead.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#174 - 2014-08-26 21:55:01 UTC
Linkxsc162534 wrote:
...

And why cant they warp to help the hunting ship? The hunting ship could be squadleader and just hit "warp squad to destination" bam whole squad lands on grid within seconds of eachother. That, or you warp your hunter to grid while cloaked (covops again) and wait for support before decloaking and running your scan.


Remember, while I am not specifying a specific package of changes to local, it must not list cloaked pilots under whatever version it uses.
Seeing the first or second cloaked pilot's name in chat would not be possible.

Ahhh, that's the fun of scanning down probe contacts.
Only the ship equipped with the module can see, and by this means lock onto, the section of space in order to warp to it.

The only means it has to share this information, is to lock the cloaked ship normally, thereby decloaking it.

Now, the other ships can follow the hunter, but they cannot warp with the hunter to the target signature.
(Haven't used scan probes lately, I don't recall being able to fleet warp to a signature after scanning it down)
In either case, the module can't share the information like that.

Also, I believe I already specified this module was mutually exclusive to being fitted with a cloak.
As far as fitting would work, it would be treated the same as a cloak, and unless I am mistaken, you cannot mount two cloaks.
(Implied if not stated directly, the whole duplicating requirements may not have been clear enough)

Forgive me if this was not clear in the OP, noone has mentioned it before now.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Linkxsc162534
Silent Scourge
#175 - 2014-08-26 22:14:49 UTC
Yes but you saw them come into system, you can see them leaving system, and you can see them both on dscan, you you know theyre there.

So they warp cloaked and call their friends, not hard, we do it already while getting bombers on sniper gangs.

And what in cant be shared? You can squadwarp to the the hunter, yeah its a couple seconds slower, but oh well.

And even if mutually exclusive to a cloak, you scan them, use a depot to refit, then warp to the grid while the location is still on your scanner menu. Land on grid while cloaked, when your there bring in another person with a scanner and no cloak, and your attack ships.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#176 - 2014-08-26 22:25:10 UTC
Linkxsc162534 wrote:
Yes but you saw them come into system, you can see them leaving system, and you can see them both on dscan, you you know theyre there.

So they warp cloaked and call their friends, not hard, we do it already while getting bombers on sniper gangs.

And what in cant be shared? You can squadwarp to the the hunter, yeah its a couple seconds slower, but oh well.

And even if mutually exclusive to a cloak, you scan them, use a depot to refit, then warp to the grid while the location is still on your scanner menu. Land on grid while cloaked, when your there bring in another person with a scanner and no cloak, and your attack ships.

So long as you are fast enough for their location to still be valid, you might have them.
Your reputation as a hunter would be owed that kill mail.

Now, if they are matching your efforts, and not being sloppy, then they are harder to spot, and may have already left the grid long before you arrive.
And if you swapped out for a cloak, and they weren't standing still, how will you decloak them?
(And this assumes you somehow know exactly where to go without the hunter module)

I believe you might be good at using the module, but many players could make your play session interesting as well.

I wish we could find out more directly.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Linkxsc162534
Silent Scourge
#177 - 2014-08-26 22:42:09 UTC
Well see they got this whole test server thing that we could use, but we can never use it unless the idea get approved by the devs and they go and add the change to that server for testing...


But again might i point out, on the whole effort thing, a cloaky ship is great and all.

But if trying to hide in a ship that isnt a covops cloak or blops, again you run into the problem of being caught too much more easily.
They cant warp around cloaked, and if they want to move, they have to pop back in and out of cloak, and by extension, local. So defenders know theyre there much more easily.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#178 - 2014-08-27 13:31:40 UTC
Linkxsc162534 wrote:
Well see they got this whole test server thing that we could use, but we can never use it unless the idea get approved by the devs and they go and add the change to that server for testing...


But again might i point out, on the whole effort thing, a cloaky ship is great and all.

But if trying to hide in a ship that isnt a covops cloak or blops, again you run into the problem of being caught too much more easily.
They cant warp around cloaked, and if they want to move, they have to pop back in and out of cloak, and by extension, local. So defenders know theyre there much more easily.


Cloaked ships, in the context here of being in hostile sov null territory, can generally be expected to be covops capable, if not a BLOPS directly.

Passing the stereotypical gate camp in a non-covops ship? If you overcome this obstacle, you may already have ideas on how to do the rest.

The regular ship cloaks, which are easier to spot, are also harder to hunt in hostile space, because you have to lose your own cloak in order to attempt this.

Trade offs like this, I feel are good for interesting play.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Anthar Thebess
#179 - 2014-08-27 13:39:47 UTC  |  Edited by: Anthar Thebess
So issue is in cyno mechanic not in the cloak.

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Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#180 - 2014-08-27 14:08:03 UTC
Anthar Thebess wrote:
So issue is in cyno mechanic not in the cloak.

Again, (as I pointed out earlier to another post), I respect the point you are making, but this thread is detailing an idea that is contingent upon balance existing for it.

I would point out that I believe hot-dropping may need to be included in whatever package would exist. This is something I would expect.

If you want to have a discussion in another thread about hot dropping, I would be willing to contribute to that.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...