Player Features and Ideas Discussion

This would be OP as hell in wardecs. Currently, while at war, you can continue your normally scheduled hisec activities by not being AFK and by watching local and by generally being vigilant and careful. This is how it should be. With covert cynos in hisec, any neutral alt can sneak up and drop a ganksquad on you. Allow me to explain why this is stupid.

If you get wardecced, your targets should be able to harass you, shut you down, and chase you where you go, and if they do none of those things, and you're not terrible, you can operate under a wardec normally. This is good, because it means that the attacker has to actually attack to prove themselves a sufficient threat. However, if you introduce covert cynos, all you have to do is throwout a wardec, and suddenly no amount of vigilance or preparation will allow you to defend against a cyno from a neutral.

Back before the retribution wardec changes, I was involved in some hisec wars for a few months. After losing a lot of wardec isk to decshields and the like, we learned how to get a kill on pretty much anyone, no matter if they were watching local like a hawk. We had a neutral alt join corp while in-space and next to the target, the neutral would just instantly tackle the target, and we'd warp in from a system or two away to do a cleanup. It was pretty OP, and CCP rightfully removed that tactic when they revisited wardecs.

You do realize black ops BS have a limited jump/bridge range?

I too would like to see covert cynos used in high sec but understand balancing them could become difficult. Cliffs at bottom.

It has already been argued that cynoing covert ops haulers into a trade hub would be a bit OP. The closest low secs that I could find to Jita, Amarr, Rens, and Dodixe are 4 jumps (Pakkonen), 3 jumps (Ami), 3 jumps (Uplingur), and 4 jumps (Seyllin) respectively. I noticed that Ignoitton is only 3 jumps from Jita so maybe there is another one or two closer but the point is that low sec is already pretty close to trade hubs. Perhaps a cyno jam for covert cynos needs to be implemented for all major trade hubs and bordering systems. Effectively only giving covert haulers a 1 jump advantage over current low sec entry points close to the trade hubs.

Another concern is covert cynoing onto a neutral alt when at war. I don't see an issue with this. If you are worried about having a neutral alt drop a gank squad on you, then you have already failed if your corporation doesn't already have neutral eyes on them. This mechanic would work both ways. This would further promote the intended purpose of War Decing. Now I haven't been in a highsec war dec is quite some time, but when I was, it never felt like I was actually at war. There was no concern really, just that I now had opportunities to shoot things that were flashy. When you are at war, there should be a feeling of around the clock alertness. You shouldn't be allowed to freely visit security agents or trade hubs. YOU ARE AT WAR! and there should be consequences. Since this would deter people from pveing, people might actually fight back. This would also encourage corporations to hire mercenary assistance.

Lastly, if people really are that concerned about this being too op in logistics or war deccing, then when a covert cyno is used in high sec, that person should receive a suspect tag but for a shorter duration than current. Maybe 5 or 7.5 minutes.

Cliffs:
Covert Cyno Jam all major trade hubs and bordering (connecting directly to trade hub) systems.
Keep covert cyno mechanic the same. (you can jump to an alt/neut covert cyno)
Make covert cyno pilot suspect for a shorter duration than current suspect timer.

Interesting suggestion.

First, a blops BS has the same range as a titan. This is measured in light-years, and has nothing to do with jumps. Here is a list of systems reachable from Jita with Jump Drive Calibration 4. 5 is preferable. You could be a couple regions away and your prey would never know it unless they have your blops toons on contact list.

The easiest way to do this is to, as it was said above, have an out of corp alt sneak up on your target. You don't need tackle to light the cyno. But from decloak to secondary tackle established takes a relatively long time. Only the slowest ships or mission bots (death to all missioning bots) would be caught. So you will need to land primary tackle with the cyno ship. Since this is a suicide gank, your cyno toon will lose sec status. Before long he won't be able to do his mission any more. Time to grind sec status or pay for it using tags.

Another thing to consider is the delay before CONCORD arrives on grid. You basically have to run things like a suicide gank. In higher level security systems, CONCORD could arrive quickly enough to kill the cyno and prevent the blops attempt from succeeding. In .5 systems, you will likely all arrive on grid.

In this way, the sec status system is not only preserved, but strengthened. Higher risk = higher reward. Higher level agents are generally found in lower security space. If you screw up, you won't get a second chance. Getting a covert frigate or bomber into someone's mission space, especially through an acceleration gate, is not the easiest task.

What about blockade runners? Not really an issue. They can only fit for about 12km3 of cargo at the most. Jump Freighters and titans cannot jump or bridge to covert cynos. The blops limited fuel bay would make moving large volumes problematic and impractical. So while that would not benefit players with large volumes of of stuff, it would benefit those with small volumes.

Pure pve characters won't like this change. But it seems pretty balanced to me.

Another way to do this would be to engage on grid, decloak falcon, light cyno, and jump in long range blops BS for fire support. Anyone with a month of training can do this. Again, seems balanced. Its a hi-sec version of hotdropping.

Supported.

yep.

lighting a covert cyno for corporations at war should incur a short timer much in the same way that using a nuetral repper would.

and the fact that jump frieghters and titans cant use covert cynos, we arnt going to be seeing a huge increase in products moving around. When I thought of this idea, I already took into consideration that this is a viable feature that all ccp has to do is flip the switch on with not much coding to do.

this will also make wardecs much more proactive and not just a matter of people camping/avoiding trade routes/stations. The aggressing attackers will actually start having to look for their targets instead of simply waiting for one to fly through between jita/amarr-dodixie-rens-hek, as we all know all roads lead through caldari space, lol.

+1

Not all of highsec though, there should be a cut off for jumping in. By the way, you guys are aware theres a lowsec system 3 jumps from Jita right? I've personally used my carrier more than a few times in highsec wars, to move a bunch of ships to different operating systems within a short amount of time.

and you know what, the main reason why highsec is so terrible right now and I like low sec and even null sec so much better is the fact that you spend way to much time in transit to your fun spot. another idea would be to allow jump bridges to high sec pos's that require charters along with the LO. either way, blopsing around is still fun.

Wow, didn't see this topic (maybe it wasn't in "features & ideas"?, at least it's not mentioned in common ideas topic) and created my own.

This argument was countered in the second topic.

ISDs, if there's a way to merge 2 topics please do it. Both have valuable thoughts in them.

You know nothing. Covert cynos keep active for 1 minute.
Falcon can be killed no problem, if you don't know how then it's just your problem.
Someone have already suggested in the second topic to allow people who are in war to jump to corp/alliance covcynos only.

And last but not least - local as a source of intel (that's what you currently use to see enemies in the system) is highly overpowered. I repeat, LEARN to use d-scan and you will see someone combat probing you, and don't matter what's in local because sooner or later its use for intel will be nerfed.

I repeat here too, I haven't yet seen any problems about covcynos in highsec which cannot be solved easily. All I see is few carebears afraid of doing anything and too damn lazy to use anything except local.

p.s. Cynos can't be lit inside an anomaly with gates. Stop ignoring this.