Player Features and Ideas Discussion

What were you saying about false equivalency? What were you saying about logical fallacies.

I completely understand your argument though Mike. So does Sonya. In fact she was pointing out certain aspects of your argument, then you engaged equivocation because you did not like the implications.

Why? Stations give you safety and the ability to earn isk by trading, cloaks give you safety and a degree of mobility without the ability to earn isk. Balance.

And basically risk free cyno-ing from citadel to citadel

Why should an ATK cloak user have his game nerfed?

Why cant you just set Cloaking on a 30 min timer. Every 30 minutes Cloak will need to be reactivated or the cloak comes down. Another idea if you are cloaked up and inactive after X amount of time it logs the pilot out of the game.

Because Stations aren't modules. It's really that simple. Modules provide a ship functionality in space. Stations are a safe place for your ship to park. They aren't the same, or even comparable except in the most superficial way.

Everything in space is supposed to be at risk of non-consensual PvP. That cannot be provided by a module, as a module must be on a ship that is in space to function.

I would add to this that the "station like safety" that Mike is going on about is only if you are at a safe you only know about and you do not move from it. Thus, the safety is very limiting…not unlike with a station. My point about jump clones is that you probably have more safe travel than you do with a cloak. If anyone is engaged in a false equivalency here it is Mike. Mike wants everyone to believe that once you slap on a cloak and activate the module that’s it. You are as safe as if you were in station. My arguments against this is that it is only true in a very limited context. It is not true if you are on grid with others. That means it is not true if you are near a station, a POS, some other structure. It is not true with gates. With a cloak you do not get the risk free travel you do with a station. Granted the station is limited in that you can only travel to where your JCs are. So with a cloak you trade off that absolute safety for a greater range of destinations. Why this is seen as unbalanced by Mike, IDK. Strikes me as reasonably balanced.

AFK cloaking is not a counter to local based intel systems. AFK cloakers still show up in local and will be reported in intel systems based on local.

AFK cloaking is also not a requirement for hunting or intel gathering. If you are AFK, you can't watch what's happening in the system you are in. If you don't look for targets or intel you are neither hunting nor gathering intel.

AFK cloaking is, however, a tool of asymmetrical economic warfare. AFK camping an established and upgraded system will reduce member as well as alliance income and readiness, and render system upgrades useless. It can obviously be used to do harm.

AFK cloaking is not balanced. The only counterplay is for a larger group of players to be on constant alert, as neither the extent of inactivity nor the escalation potential can be known.


Proposal:
after 30min of being active, cloaking modules will enter a second mode where the ship can be probed (including model of ship) but is still not visible on grid or on d-scan. After 60min of being active, cloaking modules will force shutdown and enter a "reload" cycle of 2min. Reload cycles can be triggered at any point during module activity. Timer resets on gate jumps.

An interesting angle, but still full of tremendous differences in almost every important detail.

Sure you can travel with jumpclones---each of which had to get where it is somehow, and is also in a station and therefore out of the play area. In addition, the jumpclone requires a bit of training to get, a bit of ISK to buy, and more than a bit of faction grinding or else maintaining your own stations to create in the first place. All in all, much more effort than cloaking at a safespot requires.

There is no need for any special reload cycle on cloaks, they have one built in that is reduced on most cov-ops capable hulls.

Cloaks do require specific training to use, and work best on specialized hulls. I don't favor scanning them with casual effort from any generic ship. They should require equivalent effort to counter, which means combat compromised hulls, specialized equipment and specialized training.

Regardless, any such solutions should involve active gameplay not in direct control of the cloaking pilot, just as the 'solution' to the PvE pilot doing his thing involves active gameplay not in his direct control. Both should be forced to react to things they don't like so long as they remain in space.