Player Features and Ideas Discussion

you too. In high sec afk cloaking doesnt make sense.


yes, and cloakers are part of the risk. Its all fine.

Cloak fuel is an interesting idea. I didn't read a lot of this thread because there seemed to be a lot of unentertaining flaming going on. So If these suggestions have been mentioned before, forgive me for reinventing the wheel.

Cloaks could have a cycle time on the order of 5 minutes, like the siege or triage cycle does now.

I suggest liquid ozone as the cloak fuel.

A cloak's fuel consumption could be based on the module type, the pilot's skill with cloaking, and the mass or class of the ship. Ships designed to be used with cloaks, like blops, coverts and recons would receive substantial bonuses to fuel consumption.

New ship class specific (frigate, cruiser, battleship, capital) cloaks could be introduced, perhaps even the recon cloaks and the black ops cloak modules to handle those special cases.

As a consolation to such changes, other bonuses for skill with cloaking could be introduced, like the reduction of the ship velocity and scan res penalties - yeah more numbers for the servers to crunch.

Removing a cloaked ship from local sounds interesting but I can imagine the lag caused by a squad of stealth bombers decloaking on a fleet. How about just getting rid of local? It might cure some lag.

I have no opinion about AFK cloakers

There should be a requirement to play sudoku while cloaked and you must complete each puzzle one after the other at an increasing rate, and if you fail to complete it before clicking uncloak, your cloaking module gets fried.

Let me add to this thread real quick. I have and still am living in HOT DROP CENTRAL STAIN. Anyone who lives in stain knows you do nothing if certain people are around and there are systems you do not fly through.

The only way to counter the afk cloaking if you want to make money in stain with reds in local, is to actually communicate with your alliance and corporation and get a "standing fleet" going to counter any second. Also, you have to have spies everywhere and have your own characters in known titan bridgeing systems of the people camping you. You have to stay informed at all times.

I am a mission runner in stain. I make a good amount of money. Am I safe? Absolutely. I never do anything unless i am well informed of what is going on in stain.

Remove local, problem solved

You have to ask yourself, what mechanic are they using to interact with you, whilst they are AFK?

You see local gives you instant, 100% risk free, intel 23.5/7. So that covert ops cloak, is not so covert.
So then you ask, how do you subvert that intel and use it against people? Well you go AFK and thus try to subvert it's readability.

The difference is that the local's intel is a guarantee, but the psychological effects from AFKing are not. Therefore this method only really works on a select few. From what I've seen, that select few are more often than not from renter Alliances.

Changing local to a delayed chat system like it is in W-Space will actually remove the reason that people afk cloak in the first place, and that reason is to lull the enemy into a false sense of security. An enemy that is always present is easily ignored.

I personally hate the fact that local is used as a 100% accurate intel tool. I have ratted for days on end with an afk cloaker in system, while he was active and ambushing the unsuspecting drake, I always showed up a little to late to help. Do you want to know my secret, I had a really good friend that I really enjoyed playing with and we ratted in two tengu's and you know what our isk/hr went up not down. Oh well I didn't lose a ship and I increased my payout, afk cloakers are the best thing to happen in a system I am ratting in.

On the opposite side I have been the AFK cloaker, I was active a lot more than I thought I would be. I was constantly checking up and watching the locals move around in there POS's or undock and redock trying to bait me out. It was funny to see how they smacked me in local only to recieve silence. I watched as they planned coordinated ambushes for me waiting to strike at a moments notice, all the while wearing down there will to stay vigilant. Then when they are sure that I'm not there, when they think they are safe, I strike!

Wrecking havoc I watch my d-scan as more and more pvp ship undock from the station wanting to kill me, counting down the seconds to see them land on grid. Heart pounding weapons overheated come on just a little more, BOOM the ship pops and I engage my warp drive as the ships meant to save there comrade land just moments to late, the flash from the explosion still disapating into space. I start bouncing safes as I repair my weapons with nanite paste and reload my launchers, cloaking back up, settling in for another long wait to the next kill.

Removing instant local will take away the need for me to stay constantly logged on to achieve the same effect, now I'm not one to want a complete imbalance. I would like to somehow modify the cloaking systems so that active pilots are easier to detect and see that they are hunting. Activity should mean vulnerability, scanning and moving and warp should all leave hints an clues as to where I am and what I could be doing. I am totally opposed to cloak detecting probes to identify and kill safed up cloakers, after all they are in deep space and should blend in perfectly with the background as per there cloaking system.

I hope that this answers your question and maybe provided a little bit of insight into the other side of things. Nullsec is not supposed to be safe, it was never intended to be safe. PVP should be a requirement not an afterthought. This change will see a lot of people leave nullsec, this is true, but if you cannot handle the risk of losing your ship to gain a higher reward, what are you doing in Nullsec in the first place.

Respectfully,

Gerrick Palivorn

U Mad Bro?

Protip: Pro's don't get mad, they adapt.

Did you even read the previous pages..?

INB4TRANSPORTSHIPSFULLOFCLOAKFUEL

actually I didn't, but thats fine too even if they bring a transportshipfullofcloakfuel :)