Assembly Hall

Why is it a bad thing that you, someone who chose to live in nullsec, has to be on guard whenever someone is in local?

You're acting as if it's unfair that you can't PVE in perfect safety in bloody nullsec.

All the stuff you said applies just as well to wormholer players - and know what we do? We DO act like as if there is the possibility of hostiles appearing in system at any second. We don't cry about it being "unfair" because we're not silly. We chose to live in this area, we deal with the constant threat inherent with the type of play we sought out.

If you don't want to deal with that constant threat, there's highsec.

Here are my problems with your suggestion.

The first is the false pretense that this has anything to do with server performance. The actual server cycles chewed up by people AFK in space is likely negligible. The people AFK in stations, even more so. Your argument comes across as a cheap attempt to appeal to authority, and it does not give you the appearance of impartiality. For your own sake, don't use it.

The second issue is that your suggestion is inelegant and ineffectual. For one, it doesn't cover the intrusion it serves to very passive miners or haulers. If it bases itself on ship action, a player can just park in a safe spot and start flying. If it bases itself on mouse action, a macro can be written to move the mouse. If it bases itself on player actions, a macro can be made to click the screen every so often. And if you want to counter that, you start getting into macro detection software which is prone to false positives and ends up consuming a load of client resources.

Notice how I haven't even brought into brought into question the legitimacy (or otherwise) of AFK cloaking yet. This is just a criticism of your idea even if we assume every supposition you pose is correct.

AFK cloaking has nothing to do with AFK and everything to do with the cloaking. It's not an issue with people AFKing, it's a fundamental issue with the way stealth is implemented in Eve:

Badly.

Cloaking is phenomenally stupid; Everybody in the system knows you're there, but they can't touch you. I'm a huge stealth fan in most every genre it appears. This is not good stealth. This is an invulnerability shield combined with a first strike bonus. It is an approximation of the effects of stealth, rather than an attempt to emulate its process. I've been over this many times before.

It'd take a long rant for me to properly communicate the issues with Eve's stealth, but the approximate fix is as such: It should be possible for you to watch people without them knowing that you're there. But if they do know you're there, they should be able to flush you out.

Contemplate this, then write up a new proposal.

A cloaker is AFK:

You move one system over and you can feel safe again.

A cloaker is not AFK:

There is no problem whatsoever.


Are you really bringing the servers into this argument? You know that a player that is pretty much AFK drains almost no resources?

Do you girls honestly believe that removal of local is the end-all of solutions?

Comparisons with worm space fail because 'normal' conditions are so different from K-space; probes are permanently in space, access can be controlled 99% and any potential threat can be neutralized using what amounts to generic fits. Security in worm space is a non-issue if you are sufficiently organized, the only threat comes from running into someone who has even better organization and/or will as the guys who went in and logged off until enough force was in system to do the job .. there is NO comparison to ordinary null space.

Don't get me wrong, I too want local control to be in the hands of whomever controls a given space or in the very least to be a delayed sort of thing .. where we differ is that I do not buy into the idea that it is all-important, I see it as smaller, albeit integral, part of it.
No one wants to have to spam scan and the potential benefits of K-space will never be enough (it would break the game) to justify the kind of vigilance needed for survival in worms.

So ... remove/delay local .. but do a number on local/access as a whole at the same time:
- redo the scanner to function more like a passive radar than an active, split ship detection from all other forms if necessary.
- add colour coding (IFF) to scanner and probe results.
- Make jump bridges into harnessed wormholes (think stargates) with aperture control and 'free' access to anyone, even hostile.
- Allow for a modicum of control over established, full-sized stargates such as temporary closure or aperture control for instance.
- Etc.

Sidenote: As perfect an intel tool local is, it is easily equalled or surpassed by that of a covert cloak user. Why is it that a cloaked ship can use active scanners with impunity? Why can transmissions to/from probes not be traced back to the controlling ship?
One might not be able to do much of anything while cloaked, but the power of intel and ready availability of 'da blob' they should be huntable (new probe set that amplifies emissions, scanning/probing leaves a 10-30s trail).

I'm still waiting...

Well well, if cloaked up people in systems are affecting your game play, then I have a solution for you!
Go into Highsec. Then there can be hundreds or thousands of people cloaked up next to you and it won't affect you one bit.

There you have your balance. Congratulations. It didn't cost the devs one line of work. :)

If you cannot take the heat of nullsec - move out!
It is called Nullsec for a reason, that means null security - there is no safety! Do you think the name is a coincidence? Or did the devs maybe assign this name for a reason? I wonder what it might be...

What's the risk of running a locator agent? What's the risk of looking at your star map? What's the risk of having an awoxing alt or spy to score kills? Should there be any risk for basic intel?

Even better: What if the cloaky wants to engage / hotdrop? If someone is ratting in a system looked at by an AFK cloaker, why wouldn't the cloaker think it's a trap? Maybe it's bait? Or neut fit? That's no risk?

Well removing local will not happen as ccp just boosted the fuction of local as radar on test server with faster scrolling bind to keys instead of mouse sooo any discussion about that is pretty much over.

However every mechanics needs a balance and cloaking has no counter balance. So either it should be nerfed or changed in different direction. It has nothink to do with living in 0.0. I remember same attitude back in the day from people who used nano battleships. If it works but doesnt have counter balance it doesnt mean its right.

I'm by no means asking for local in null to be changed/removed to match wormhole space, merely pointing out that the current mechanics are the root cause behind both "AFK Cloaking" and hot dropping.



So let me get this straight, the "conditions are so different" because wormhole players...

• actively keep their eyes open (via probes and dscan), rather than being lazy and relying on a mechanic that can be devalued / spoofed via afking
• have fits that are more appropriate for the situations (i.e. not minmaxed PVE fits)
• are "sufficiently organized"

Sounds to me like wormhole players have the right idea then. They know they're not in a little happy safe farm zone.

How about (read it to the end first) removing local and replacing it by constellation chat? You still have your intel and that somebody is in your constellation, but you won't see how many and who is in your current system.
So your intel channel become more valuable too, because you can keep an eye at gates and report the guy/fleet.


This!