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Cloaking Balance Proposal Evolved
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Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#1 - 2012-03-08 16:24:49 UTC
My thoughts on this have evolved since reading so many ideas.

Right now, I figure cloaked ships and local need to both change. They are both dysfunctional, but in a way that balances each other out currently. The problem is that this dysfunction affects others, who cry out,"I can see them, but I cannot stop them"

What is balanced and makes sense?

Here is what I came up with. You get to hunt cloaked ships, so long as you cannot spot them in local. I don't care if this means local chat is gone completely, or cloaking just removes you from being listed with no other changes.

You ARE trying to find a needle in a haystack, so you should need special tools. Any of the existing probing ships works fine on this, but they will need to use T2 Counter CovOp probes.

Gameplay effect: Since noone will be getting free intel on cloaked vessels, and they can now be hunted by enemy covops, deadly little games of cat and mouse can begin.
The first step of each game, unless people are psychic or making blind assumptions, will be to first figure out that the CovOps is present to be found, since they are not visible in local.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#2 - 2012-03-09 23:19:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Nikk Narrel
Here is another aspect I feel many are concerned with.

If cloaked ships are no longer displayed in local, how can you proactively keep yourself safe?
Sure, cloaked vessels have a reduced combat capacity, but the cloak lets them hold their attack to coincide with other effects.
A ratter might be fighting a challenging spawn, and might not be able to deal with the additional damage from a recon or SB.

Same concept with miners. If you have no warning, your first awareness of trouble could be seeing a ship appear, followed immediately by being pointed.

Noone is advocating to make cloaked ships easy to scan down, so the directional scanner is not likely to give much useful warning, even if you ping every 2 seconds.

The most balanced answer to this, by my estimate, is to have an Early Warning Sensor.
(Not a module, but a skill)

It won't tell friend from foe if they are cloaked, but it will do this:

It will warn once a cloaked vessel enters it's range, and can be set to issue an audible alarm or a visual red flashing light.
(How much range is fair? Your skill with detection combined with your ship's sensor strength)

I doubt anyone feels being cloaked should mean free kill mails from anyone soloing, we are here to encourage teamwork, not demand it, and this has the feel of something that allows self reliance without diminishing cloaks unfairly.

The module doesn't help you, unless you activate it. Nothing is free.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Mary Annabelle
Moonlit Bonsai
#3 - 2012-03-09 23:36:05 UTC
Hello! Finally!

I don't know how anything could be balanced without giving the targets of the cloaked ships something too!

I would want it to be practical to use on a mining exhumer at least, maybe a skill that made it cost less cap so we could make it manageable for people.

Already giving up a midslot for this, but I understand we don't want cloaked ships hunted using just D-Scans, even I can see that would trivialize cloaking.

I want the willingness to lose that mid to be my only obstacle. I should not need to give up mining non-stop because I don't want to be ganked by Opportunistic Oscar there....
Simi Kusoni
HelloKittyFanclub
#4 - 2012-03-10 03:27:57 UTC
I've got to ask, what happens if I afk in a cloaked ship in the only sanctum, orbiting an object at 100km. I can lock down the system because no one will run it? What if I just warp around randomly to all the sites, taking the same thing? And how does this hunting ship decloak me if I leave my ship moving?

Also, FYI the diminished combat capacity of a cloaky ship is irrelevant. Because the unfortunate event its decloaking usually coincides with is a titan bridge, black ops gang or super cap hot drop.

Anyway its a nice idea , but it has quite a few issues. Also on the majority of ships sacrificing a midslot means they are useless, so you'd "need" an alt to just sit there and run this thing.

[center]"I don't troll, I just give overly blunt responses that annoy people who are wrong but don't want to admit it. It's not my fault that people have sensitive feelings"  -MXZF[/center]
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#5 - 2012-03-10 15:46:44 UTC  |  Edited by: Nikk Narrel
Simi Kusoni wrote:
I've got to ask, what happens if I afk in a cloaked ship in the only sanctum, orbiting an object at 100km. I can lock down the system because no one will run it? What if I just warp around randomly to all the sites, taking the same thing? And how does this hunting ship decloak me if I leave my ship moving?

Also, FYI the diminished combat capacity of a cloaky ship is irrelevant. Because the unfortunate event its decloaking usually coincides with is a titan bridge, black ops gang or super cap hot drop.

Anyway its a nice idea , but it has quite a few issues. Also on the majority of ships sacrificing a midslot means they are useless, so you'd "need" an alt to just sit there and run this thing.

First, no cloaked ship should be easier to find than it's non cloaking variants.
To be honest, if they are at their keyboard and making an effort to avoid being caught, they should be much harder than a non cloaking ship trying to do the same thing. They should never be caught unless they screw up. This can include going afk being a screwup obviously.

Cyno issues are a separate topic, but to hot drop they need to get to you first, preventable by my Early Warning Device.
(You have a point about mids being too high a cost, it could be more practical to require a skill instead, that lets you use the ships D-Scan in the described manner instead)

If they can be tracked to a sanctum, like you said, it would be up to the hunters what they wanted to do next. Since they aren't harassing folks outside the sanctum, and can't be seen in local, I would say the cloaker is wasting their time.

As for decloaking, that's a double edged question to answer. Anything that could end up being used at a gate camp needs to be balanced to avoid nerfing cloaks ability to penetrate a system, or they would be an I-Win button for the camps everytime a cloak popped in.

My next post will have my solution idea for this.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Simi Kusoni
HelloKittyFanclub
#6 - 2012-03-10 15:56:39 UTC
Nikk Narrel wrote:
First, no cloaked ship should be easier to find than it's non cloaking variants.
To be honest, if they are at their keyboard and making an effort to avoid being caught, they should be much harder than a non cloaking ship trying to do the same thing. They should never be caught unless they screw up. This can include going afk.

Aye, my main issue with the decloaking aspect is that once you scan down a ship, and subsequently warp to it, if it's moving you obviously won't land on it and decloak it. This means in practice there'd be little difference between an AFK cloaker and an active cloaker. (Not to mention how trivial it would be to write a macro that warps around safes, nvm that that's against the ToS, people would still do it)

Nikk Narrel wrote:
Cyno issues are a separate topic, but to hot drop they need to get to you first, preventable by my Early Warning Device.
(You have a point about mids being too high a cost, it could be more practical to require a skill instead, that lets you use the ships D-Scan in the described manner instead)

Usually when you hot drop you warp in uncloaked, decloaking as you warp to target so you don't have the 6 second targeting delay. Then you burn to the target, point and pop cyno. This early warning system would benefit people running anoms with long range fits, since they'd be more likely to be a large distance from the person warping in, but it wouldn't really effect the ability to tackle and hot drop close range ships.

Nikk Narrel wrote:
If they can be tracked to a sanctum, like you said, it would be up to the hunters what they wanted to do next.

As for decloaking, that's a double edged question to answer. Anything that could end up being used at a gate camp needs to be balanced to avoid nerfing cloaks ability to penetrate a system, or they would be an I-Win button for the camps everytime a cloak popped in.

My next post will have my solution idea for this.

If you can find a balanced solution to decloaking, that'd be grand. Because otherwise this idea just changes "oh no there's a neut in local", to "oh no someone is using a cloak in this system".

[center]"I don't troll, I just give overly blunt responses that annoy people who are wrong but don't want to admit it. It's not my fault that people have sensitive feelings"  -MXZF[/center]
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#7 - 2012-03-10 16:00:48 UTC
How to pop that cloak.

Recall the T2 Counter CovOps probes mentioned in the OP? They are what must be used for this.

After scanning down the cloaked vessel, the probes can be right clicked singly, or as a group, to fly into range of the target they just located. (right click menu is on the scan results menu for this)

It might be a problem for the hunter if they send just the probes, as an obviously prepared cloaker will destroy probes if nothing else is there to provide a reason for them to survive.

Like anything being hunted, the hunter must provide the means to stop them from running away over and over.

Gate camps won't find this very useful, as probing down the newly arrived cloaked vessel will allow the vessel in question to leave before it completes.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#8 - 2012-03-10 16:14:43 UTC
Just a detail point, noone should care about an AFK cloaker, as local would no longer be broadcasting them to the system.
(As described in my OP)

I would consider it to be fair that the cloaked vessel has no access to local while it's cloak is active either.
Now, they could decloak a few moments, see local, and then try to hunt someone... but to do that, they would also appear in local to be seen.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Simi Kusoni
HelloKittyFanclub
#9 - 2012-03-10 16:22:00 UTC
Nikk Narrel wrote:
Just a detail point, noone should care about an AFK cloaker, as local would no longer be broadcasting them to the system.
(As described in my OP)

I would consider it to be fair that the cloaked vessel has no access to local while it's cloak is active either.
Now, they could decloak a few moments, see local, and then try to hunt someone... but to do that, they would also appear in local to be seen.

Yeah, but id keep those cloak hunting probes out 24/7. Moment I see a new signature with the right strength... There's your cloaker.

[center]"I don't troll, I just give overly blunt responses that annoy people who are wrong but don't want to admit it. It's not my fault that people have sensitive feelings"  -MXZF[/center]
Asudem
Black Spear.
#10 - 2012-03-10 16:38:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Asudem
Im not sure what I should think. NSec miners can be protected by a Rorqual, since that ship laughs about any cloaked freak who tries to kill it - at least if the Rorqual rightly fitted to its purpose or course. This also means the Rorqual can use its capital shield transporter to keep shield buffered Hulks alive until reinforcement arrives. So solo cloaking is quite risky even against miners. Ratters might have an alt or more to compansate the same effect - at least I would. The only real danger is the cyno on that cloaked ship. It can mean a covert and blackops gang will jump in or a capital fleet or a titan bridge will ruin your day

Either the probes or the detection modules arent any use. It would probably making afk cloaking a bit more dificult, but thats all I can imagine it would do. IMHO it wouldnt reduce the danger those cloakers can provide.
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#11 - 2012-03-10 17:20:53 UTC
Asudem wrote:
Im not sure what I should think. NSec miners can be protected by a Rorqual, since that ship laughs about any cloaked freak who tries to kill it - at least if the Rorqual rightly fitted to its purpose or course. This also means the Rorqual can use its capital shield transporter to keep shield buffered Hulks alive until reinforcement arrives. So solo cloaking is quite risky even against miners. Ratters might have an alt or more to compansate the same effect - at least I would. The only real danger is the cyno on that cloaked ship. It can mean a covert and blackops gang will jump in or a capital fleet or a titan bridge will ruin your day

Either the probes or the detection modules arent any use. It would probably making afk cloaking a bit more dificult, but thats all I can imagine it would do. IMHO it wouldnt reduce the danger those cloakers can provide.

Detail clarification:
It would make AFK cloaking entirely pointless, if not foolish. While AFK, the cloaker is inflicting no damage, and is not warping to different locations.

This means:

1 The cloaked vessel would be poppable if still on grid with it's last probe scan. The probe as described would home in on the signature once on grid when sent to do this. (A new scan would be required if it warped to a new location, something an AFK pilot cannot do)

2 Noone could see it on local, so outside of those willing and able to hunt it, noone would know or care if it was AFK in system.
(You cannot be afraid of something if you don't know it is there, ignorance is bliss)

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Asudem
Black Spear.
#12 - 2012-03-10 17:46:35 UTC
1. So in other words if you scan me, you can warp to my grid. Fine. And then? Im not sure if there are so many dumbasses who just stand there while cloaked, at least Im always moving while Im cloaked AND afk. For example my Nemesis: While you initialize warp, Im already 1km away from the position you spotted me. While you warp to me from lets say 50 AU, Im already away about 6 km from my original position. That would mean, the chances to find me became slim, especially if Im heading into a direction where noone will warpin. You would need aditional fleet mates to fly in any direction to find me while you run against the clock. With every second I move about 350 km. Means every minute that passes Im already 21km away from my old spot. I was flying through heavy camped gates in a cloaked Iteron with the same strategy - well, less speed of course -, but the same result. I escaped every time. They were looking for me in Interceptors, flying in any direction and with every km I weaseled away, I was harder to find.

I admit, you would have a chance to find cloaked afkers, but the chances are still slim. And to be honest, it would keep me smiling while afking.

2. Dangerous. What you cannot see is something that can ambush you. If the cloaker is not seen in local while the non-cloakers are, it would be a more dangerous outcome than in WSpace. And noone wants to scan 24/7 for cloakers. If you are aware of the cloakers present in your system, you can trigger counter-strategies like those I mentioned and such things. In easy words: It will hit you completly unprepared.
Miss Whippy
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#13 - 2012-03-10 18:03:13 UTC
[Insert 'Cloaking is Fine' comment here]

[URL="https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=82348"]UI Iteration isn't enough, we need to start from scratch[/URL]
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#14 - 2012-03-10 19:22:32 UTC
Miss Whippy wrote:
[Insert 'Cloaking is Fine' comment here]

Hi Whippy

This kills the cloak from local, not just a one sided cloaking nerf.

The consensus has never been cloaking is fine, but that it should never change unless local did.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#15 - 2012-03-10 19:33:20 UTC
Asudem wrote:
1. So in other words if you scan me, you can warp to my grid. Fine. And then? Im not sure if there are so many dumbasses who just stand there while cloaked, at least Im always moving while Im cloaked AND afk. For example my Nemesis: While you initialize warp, Im already 1km away from the position you spotted me. While you warp to me from lets say 50 AU, Im already away about 6 km from my original position. That would mean, the chances to find me became slim, especially if Im heading into a direction where noone will warpin. You would need aditional fleet mates to fly in any direction to find me while you run against the clock. With every second I move about 350 km. Means every minute that passes Im already 21km away from my old spot. I was flying through heavy camped gates in a cloaked Iteron with the same strategy - well, less speed of course -, but the same result. I escaped every time. They were looking for me in Interceptors, flying in any direction and with every km I weaseled away, I was harder to find.

I admit, you would have a chance to find cloaked afkers, but the chances are still slim. And to be honest, it would keep me smiling while afking.

2. Dangerous. What you cannot see is something that can ambush you. If the cloaker is not seen in local while the non-cloakers are, it would be a more dangerous outcome than in WSpace. And noone wants to scan 24/7 for cloakers. If you are aware of the cloakers present in your system, you can trigger counter-strategies like those I mentioned and such things. In easy words: It will hit you completly unprepared.

Hi Asudem

I presume you skipped over the part where I explained the details of what happens after the cloaked vessel is probed down.
Nikk Narrel wrote:
How to pop that cloak.

Recall the T2 Counter CovOps probes mentioned in the OP? They are what must be used for this.

After scanning down the cloaked vessel, the probes can be right clicked singly, or as a group, to fly into range of the target they just located. (right click menu is on the scan results menu for this)
If this is not clear, by in range it means within range to pop the cloak, or 2km currently

Nikk Narrel wrote:
It might be a problem for the hunter if they send just the probes, as an obviously prepared cloaker will destroy probes if nothing else is there to provide a reason for them to survive.

Like anything being hunted, the hunter must provide the means to stop them from running away over and over.

Gate camps won't find this very useful, as probing down the newly arrived cloaked vessel will allow the vessel in question to leave before it completes.


There was also described an early warning system, which evolved into a skill allowing you to set your d-scan to cycle continuously and give a warning if a cloaked vessel entered it's range. (It cannot tell if the cloaked vessel is friendly, or it's specific location, it just triggers an alarm as deescribed)

Thank you for allowing me to explain these points again, as I am sure you aren't the only one who missed seeing the details above.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Asudem
Black Spear.
#16 - 2012-03-11 00:50:37 UTC  |  Edited by: Asudem
Nikk Narrel wrote:
Thank you for allowing me to explain these points again, as I am sure you aren't the only one who missed seeing the details above.


You are welcome. But I think you should improve this idea if it should be useful to you. Maybe you need to rework it completly, cause there are some points you have to consider.


Nikk Narrel wrote:
If this is not clear, by in range it means within range to pop the cloak, or 2km currently


There are some facts about warping you should be aware about: warping to a location means warping to a point mostly and hopefully within 5km. The other thing is, warping to a moving target means warping to the location where your target is right at the moment you initilized your warp. If a target is in warp, such as a fleet mate, you will warp to the location where your mate was while in warp, which can be somewhere between your mates start and end point of his travel. So I hope you see that this idea is quite impossible except you change the warp to location syste. You cannot correct course while in warp.


Nikk Narrel wrote:
There was also described an early warning system, which evolved into a skill allowing you to set your d-scan to cycle continuously and give a warning if a cloaked vessel entered it's range. (It cannot tell if the cloaked vessel is friendly, or it's specific location, it just triggers an alarm as deescribed)

Thank you for allowing me to explain these points again, as I am sure you aren't the only one who missed seeing the details above.


So that system is even worse than the system with local channel. Through local you can tell if its friend, neutral or red. The DScan module thing would leave you with constant warnings while wasting a slot in your ship for less information...
Nikk Narrel
Moonlit Bonsai
#17 - 2012-03-11 19:26:51 UTC
Asudem wrote:
There are some facts about warping you should be aware about: warping to a location means warping to a point mostly and hopefully within 5km. The other thing is, warping to a moving target means warping to the location where your target is right at the moment you initilized your warp. If a target is in warp, such as a fleet mate, you will warp to the location where your mate was while in warp, which can be somewhere between your mates start and end point of his travel. So I hope you see that this idea is quite impossible except you change the warp to location syste. You cannot correct course while in warp.
Ok, here you have a misconception. It points out my belief that my explanation was complete was in error, as it homing in assumed the following to be obvious. My bad.
The probe warps to the on grid location it had probed, and then it's behavior shifts to home in on the target like a small drone, and at similar speed to one. (It would try to orbit at a range within the specified 2km, making it necessary for the vessel to attempt to destroy this probe in order to recloak, or warp to another location)
This behavior only requires the previously scanned ship to still be on grid, and persists until one of three things happen.

1 The probe is recalled to the probing ship
2 The probe is destroyed
3 The target ship warps off grid


Asudem wrote:
Nikk Narrel wrote:
There was also described an early warning system, which evolved into a skill allowing you to set your d-scan to cycle continuously and give a warning if a cloaked vessel entered it's range. (It cannot tell if the cloaked vessel is friendly, or it's specific location, it just triggers an alarm as described)


So that system is even worse than the system with local channel. Through local you can tell if its friend, neutral or red. The DScan module thing would leave you with constant warnings while wasting a slot in your ship for less information...

The Mid-slot was dropped, it's just a skill now. It did not make sense having so many ships remake fits and rebalance for a function that should be inherent.
If your friends are in cloaked ships, they really need to throw you a bone, and not spook you through the alarm function.

For uncloaked ships, no alarm sounds. But then, you can see them in local anyways.

Upgrading Local to Eliminate All AFK Influence What if Local Chat changed, Hunting the Cloaked...
Asudem
Black Spear.
#18 - 2012-03-12 00:38:12 UTC
bump
Simi Kusoni
HelloKittyFanclub
#19 - 2012-03-12 00:45:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Simi Kusoni
Nikk Narrel wrote:
The Mid-slot was dropped, it's just a skill now. It did not make sense having so many ships remake fits and rebalance for a function that should be inherent.
If your friends are in cloaked ships, they really need to throw you a bone, and not spook you through the alarm function.

For uncloaked ships, no alarm sounds. But then, you can see them in local anyways.

So... there's a skill, once you've trained it an alarm goes off if you're on grid with a cloaked ship? Boy is being in a bomber fleet going to be annoying.

Not to mention the fact that it kind of kills other aspects of the game, I mean how do I get warp ins for fleets now? Say a bunch of guys are gate camping from an off grid pounce spot, aligned to the gate. I've flash scanned them, and they didn't notice the probes. Now I can't go and get a warp in or watch their fleet because they'd know I was there.

Similarly, have you considered how this would effect wormholes?

*EDIT: Also, sorry if it seems I'm trolling your ideas. It's just got a lot of issues with it, I am actually pretty against AFK cloaking (both from a PvP and care bear perspective) I just don't think this idea is, in it's current form, the way to fix it.

[center]"I don't troll, I just give overly blunt responses that annoy people who are wrong but don't want to admit it. It's not my fault that people have sensitive feelings"  -MXZF[/center]
Asudem
Black Spear.
#20 - 2012-03-12 01:01:35 UTC
I still dont know whats wrong with the system. Droping local will only make it more dangerous, KSpace would become to WSpace. There is pretty much you can do against cloakers who want to tackle and kill single targets, basicly not being alone is the first and most important step. And if the cloaker drops a cyno, its pointless to change it anyway.
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