Player Features and Ideas Discussion

…until it uncloaks and turns your “easy-mode gank” into a slaughter (of you).

Why would I say something I don't want. In particular, why why would I say that I want something that's the exact opposite of what I want?

The fact remains: AFK cloaking is not a problem. Local is. Of the two, it's the latter that is in the process of being addressed by CCP, for obvious reasons…

The problem is that all the suggestions (aside from IA's idea of disconnecting the cloaker from the local channel) either requires more than is necessary and thus ruin the role of cloakers, or they give up too much information about the cloaker at no cost (and with local, there already is too much information to begin with — so the suggestion just makes it worse).

Above all, none of them actually try to balance the cloaking part of equation — they just want cloaks nerfed into the ground (or as close to it as they dare suggest).

Probably not, but again, that's a people-problem, not a mechanics problem. It's the most trivial example of why the whole “you can't do anything” whine is brain-dead nonsense.

I've watched too many WW2 submarine films I think...you know, with a sub settling itself on the sea bed and shutting down everything in order to avoid detection (not a naval person, so no idea if this actually works/ worked). Which was part of the thinking. Complete immunity from detection would mean gimping your ability to react quickly, not great if you are hunting, but fine if all you are doing is watching.

Should mention that I have long been a supporter of getting rid of Local in 0.0. Preferably alongside a re-think of the entire D-scan/ probing mechanic to give players a way to get similar levels of info only if they are prepared to make an effort for it.

At the very least Cov-ops cloak should remove you from local, even if other cloak types don't. Not very covert if everyone knows you're there.

Guess what? Staring at screen where not much happens is what w-space dwellers have to deal with every day.



Remove cloaked ships from local and you've removed their incentive to sit AFK cloaked. Any "requirement" to be at the keyboard to periodically do this or that is easily bypassed by bots. So you achieve nothing except adding incentive to use bots for yet another thing.

That's because you're not looking at it from outside the little box of the "afk cloaker" idea.

These probes allow for the presence of a cloaked ship to be detected in wormholes. That's breaking cloaks, nerfing them to the ground. You completely destroy the ability for someone to sit unknown and undetected for hours or days on end observing the inhabitants, gleaning information about active times, strengths, regular inhabitants, habits, etc. Simply by letting them know you're there, whether or not they can catch you, you're changing behaviors and screwing up the intel. You change habits. Someone that may have kept defenses to a minumum to conserve fuel now onlines all they can, making an invasion more difficult for example... or offlines and beings removing valuable loot from the hole.

You also fail to address that these now forcefully change the entire paradigm of wormhole living to require training for and using these cloak detecting probes. They'd effectively become mandatory as everyone would push for the same cloak breaking tools that everyone else would have. You'd basically force the wormhole community to traing for things they had no desire to train for. In my example, if I recall off my head, Cloaking V would take 28 days plus to train for. That's a lot of time I'd have to waste training a lot of skillpoints that would better serve me elsewhere.

It more than breaks cloaks. It breaks wormholes... for no reason whatsoever.

Stop right there. That isn't even remotely close to anything I've proposed. The only thing I've come close to which was even remotely touching how cloakers can be found by external means was liking the idea of cloakers being able to shut down every major system of theirs except the cloaking device to avoid being scannable. The only thing I'm actively proposing is requiring that cloakers be at the keyboard and able to do some sort of thing to keep the cloak from disengaging. I only want the act of actually camping a system to require effort, instead of being a case of logging in, pres cloak butan, go to work/sleep/**** the missus.

Sure. We already have a highly useful scanning system.
What you're proposing fails to accomplish anything other than to make long-haul recons impossible. That's a whole different kind of bad. It also isn't what we're discussing here.
Nice straw man.
But sure: it's nice to see that you agree with me.

Also, I think you need to realise that we're discussing the OP's idea in this thread, not yours. Your idea has been stomped into the ground in numerous other threads, so don't get all huffy about how people keep discussing it rather than your interjection.

I don't remember posting any of that, could you please point me to where I said it.

How many AUs does it reach? Is it a tool which'll reliably, if used as often as it's allowed, will give everyone a chance to get out of the way before your cloak kicks in and removes you from any and all scans? Will it tell people if they're about to get ganked with sufficient time to spare to get out?


Ah, I see I made a boo boo. I meant those who roam around into ratting/mining systems and just gank the odd ratter every now and again, not necessarily you specifically.


I can live with even just having to press a button every once in a while. RP it with charging the cloak flux capacitor or whatever.

You're still adding an element of failure that doesn't currently and doesn't need to exist. If' I'm cloaked up outside a POS and nature decides it's time for me to lose weight in a hurry I shouldn't have to worry about how quickly I squeeze one out before some form of cloak-breaking mechanic kicks in and gives me away. If I need to get up and go to dinner, I want to stay cloaked up and in watch range of the POS... logging out exposes my ship for a long enough period to give me away. Having to log out during a busy time in the hole gives me away... I'd should be able to afk if necessary until the residents are offline allowing me a safe time to logoff unseen.