Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I spend several hours/week gas mining ATM. To date I have never been able to activate my harvesters without uncloaking. Please enlighten me to what I am doing wrong.

IIRC there was a story about it, but I never read. I don't care about lore, and if game balance violates the lore...fine by me. Game balance is much more important.

Cloak isn't broken, nor is it overpowered.

Local isn't broken.

Ultimately, people too afraid to do anything are the problem.


Cloaking is Overpowered?!

Yes, it is overpowered if you spend all of your time in a station afraid you might lose the ship you didn't have enough ISK for in the first place. The fix is to not allow AFK cloaking so that you know for sure if that other person in system is stalking you, or just sitting there while he cooks his ramen noodles?

No, the fixes are as follows:

• Trade overpriced ship for ships you can afford to lose 10 of.
• Stay in high security space and park as close to CONCORD as you possibly can.
• Wear more absorbent panties JUST in case someone is actually stalking you.
• Don't mine in a Retriever if you're a gentle little snowflake that hates being ganked.
• Take up Industry near Dodixie.

Local Is the Problem!

That stupid local list. It doesn't make any sense how we could know who's in system. Couple that with cloaking, you have two problems:

1. Scary (wo)man might be in a station, or cloaked... so spooky.
2. Local gives away that cloaky person is in system!

Yes, EVE can be scary ... you know, unless you are fitting ships properly for the situation you're in AND you've accepted that it's perfectly okay to lose ship(s). You'll be okay. There is more ISK. There are more ships. Whether the miners were ganked, or finished their tasks unharmed, the resources will be turned into more ships and parts for ships. Those wascally industrialists!

Local makes perfect sense in empire space. If you're flying in THEIR space ("The Empire"), they'll require your ship have a communication device that communicates with their communications beacons/towers. So, in empire space, you have to "report to big brother." Makes total sense in light of well... like every tightly controlled empire ever; keeping track of people is really important.


Next thing people are going to ask for is an "I'm too lazy to hunt him down" probe. One that once it finds whoever/whatever you've scanned down, just plops it right down in front of you to blap; it's offenses and defenses rendered useless by your mighty special snowflakeness.

I have a better idea for cloaking: Make it even SPOOKIER! Let us "throw our voices" on victims we've scanned down. A good "BOO!" every now and then just to keep their hearts pitter-pattering.

How's that for a new meta cloak! Rawr!

I play it all:

1. Miner, who's been suicide ganked (Guybertini is my zero! er hero!)
2. Miner, who's been cloaky ganked (WiNGSPAN! Twice!)
3. Hauler, who's been suicide ganked
4. Hauler, who's been cloaky ganked
5. Explorer, who's been ganked, blapped, cloaky and otherwise.
6. Stealth Bomber pilot who's been ganked, blapped, cloaky and otherwise.

Funny how I was hunted just fine. But the people that have blapped me have also lost the very ships they used to gank me. Maybe next those cloaky fellows (Chance Ravinne!) should **** and moan about how it's not fair that Epithals are so cheap that they're actually used AS BAIT! (EMG!) Or, what about those darned pilots who overpoweredly operate ships that have (get this) WARP SCRAMBLERS and/or WARP DISRUPTORS! (double EMG!!!)

Oh, and what about fleets? It's totally not fair that several people can group up together and gang up on an innocent little Astero! The real imbalance is that people can use TeamSpeak, and in-game chat. I mean, really, it's not fair that we can't see inside or outside of a wormhole, but we can communicate with people anywhere? We even know when people come online!

This argument about "cloaky killers" has been argued ad nauseum from the days of MUDs, then on EverQuest, then World of Warcraft - stupid rogues and thieves with their cloakiness!

The problem isn't that they're impossible to hunt. Or that they're little wussies for hiding. Or that people use actual tactics to escape them (wait, that's not related) and turn the tides! The real problem is that people want a special, refrigerated playground where special little snowflakes can't be harmed.

I say CCP should give the special little snowflakes a quiet little place to call their own. Where no one ever dies. Instead, just like the rest of the universe, there are limited resources... but at least they'll not melt there. They can squabble over who gets the Planet IV, Asteroid Belt III next time it respawns with arbitrary "lists" of who's next.

While i feel cloaky camping and hunting is something that should be in game. We do have to look at the facts( at least if you are a logical sane person that has any grasp on reality)

- Cloaky campers operate with near 100% invulnerability. All you have to do is get to system and cloak up. You can then do whatever you wish and then occasionally kill a MTU, industrial, noctis, site runner, etc when the residents start to ignore your "threat"
- If HS miners or mission runners had the same level of invulnerability that cloaky campers have there would be pure outrage and so many ragequit threats the forums would crash.
- Everything in Eve should be destructible, Nowhere should be 100% safe, and you should not be invulnerable to being scanned, hunted, or killed for long periods of times while in space ESPECIALLY when you can do so while AFK for long periods of times.

So i came up with a solution to this problem. It not only is a solution to the cloaky camping issue but can be used for hunting those that like to ninja and sneak around. No one should be able to do anything in space without risk... whether afk or not.

* Mobile Cloak Decalibration Unit
- 100 m3
- Uses "X" amount of fuel( Liquid ozone, heavy water, stront, isotopes, w/e) per cycle( meaning you have to keep it fueled)
- launched like MTU/ MDs
- Cannot be used in highsec.

I came up with 3 versions:

* Version 1: System wide
- Once activated this shows on the overview and becomes an object you can warp to. ( like a cyno kind of)
- 100k shield, 100k armor, 300k hull, standard resistances for S/A/H.
- Cost about 20-25 mil at current material prices.
- Has a system wide effect regardless of system size.
- 1 minute cycle timer
- Has a 10% chance to deactivate and decalibrate a cloak per cycle. This chance is on the per cloak basis( so each ship has a separate chance) . This affects all cloaks friend and foe.
- Upon successful decalibration, the ships cloak will deactivate if active and a re-calibration timer of 5 minutes will startregardless of type of cloak. Ships that have online cloaks that are not being used that may also get a re calibration timer( IE: It doesnt matter if the cloak is active or not). Ships with an offline cloak will not be able to online the cloak if they are affected by the decalibration.
- If you fail the " chance check" while going through a decalibration timer, the timer resets.

*Version 2: Limited System Wide
- Once activated this shows on the overview and becomes an object you can warp to. ( like a cyno kind of)
- 100k shield, 100k armor, 300k hull, standard resistances for S/A/H.
- Cost 15-20 mil
- Has a 20 AU range
- Cannot be placed within 20 AU of another unit of the same type.
- Decloak and decalibration works the same as version 1.

*Version 3: Local Units( this would be a group like anchorable warp bubbles with different sizes)
**Small unit:
- 20k shield, 20k armor, 50k hull, standard resists
- does not show on overview, must be scanned down,very hard to scan
- 2.5 AU range
- Cannot place another unit within 2.5 AU
- 1 min cycle
- 100% chance to decloak and decalibrate for 1 minute
- Cost about 2-3 mil isk

** Medium Unit:
- 30k shield, 30k Armor, 60k hull, standard resist
- does not show on overview, must be scanned down, moderate difficulty to scan down.
- 5 AU range
- Cannot place another unit within 5 AU
- 5 min cycle
- 100% chance to decloak and decalibrate for 3 minutes
- cost 4-6 mil isk

** Large Unit:
- 50k shield, 50k armor, 125k hull, standard resist
- Does not show on overview, must be scanned down, easy to scan down.
- 8 AU range
- cannot be placed within 8 AU of another unit
- 12 minute cycle
- 100% chance to decloak and decalibrate for 5 minutes
- Cost 9-12 mil isk

---

Personally version 3 is my favorite as both sides have to be more proactive. and it limits the ability of the units more while still making them effective tools. You should have to work harder to remove a cloaky camper but it shouldnt be nearly impossible.

I have a complete grasp on reality. Which is why, in spite of me NOT flying cloaky 95% of the time, I see where the sanity is actually lacking. But, I'll let you dig the hole...



They have to expose themselves to attack. Otherwise they're no different than docked persons, or persons that are simply not there. A skilled player can scan your ham down with impunity. Cloaking is merely a convenience. I know, RL stalking sucks. But this is a sandbox (game). And I think the word you were looking for was "impunity," as you most certainly know that cloakies are nowhere near 100% invulnerable. Ask the 35 cloakies that lost their ships today, and that was ONLY the Nemesis cloakies.



Cloaky types RARELY even attack in HS, unless it's a wardec, kill-right, or a criminal. As for the alts they use to scout out victims... most of them don't even cloak up on their alts. Furthermore, most of them don't even bother with an alt. They just "track" a belt, and dscan it. HELLO RETRIEVER, MY HONEY(POT)!



Really, so I should be able to kill you in a station? Sweet. I'm good with that. See you in your captains quarters!

I digress... anyway:

Look up Nemesis on the killboards. It's a cloaky ship. Note that today (Feb 15), about 35 have already been lost. So much for invulnerable. Once they uncloak to attack, the only advantage they had was getting the jump on you. Should CCP nerf players that don't pay attention, and don't notice too?



Well, "solution" is a strong word. What you came up with was a nerf. You basically negated a core aspect of every MMO since they were MUDs - that is, some characters can hide. At least, in EVE, they have to do it from a distance of 2km. In every other MMO, you don't even know they're there stealing right from your 8 backpacks/bags.

Again, you're wanting to fix what isn't broke. What do you care if someone is AFK invisible? I mean, I know the answer - I've been around a while. It really irks people that they have to feel uneasy because someone may be in a station... or maybe not... or maybe they're just out of dscan range. Or, maybe they're jumping in and out of system. Or, maybe... maybe we can just put little warp-to-able dots on the beta map indicating where everyone in the entire galaxy is; that way we can just not have to worry about mechanics or who's stalking us.

Or... maybe space can be a spooky, spooky place where, at any given moment, a cloaky can SPRING his trap! Or, some gank-squad can warp in and blap you before you can even open a context menu. Maybe space (and EVE) was intended to be just that spooky.

Maybe CCP invented a solution for all of this... like, I dunno... fleets, corps, groups doing an activity together. Or, what if they added a way for you to EARN ISK?! That would be so cool. Then, when some ganker splashes your capsule's aqueous goo into space, you can purchase a NEW ship... that would be awesome. CCP, take note, I've solved the problem!

I was particularly fond of the attribute I did actually read... your totally arbitrary pricing.

I manage to go for weeks on end without getting ganked. Even on a character I only started 3 months ago I've managed to COMPLETELY avoid being ganked... mining and plexing in low/null/wh. Not. One. Death.

Because I know those cloaky bastages are out there, stalking, watching... AFKing. I once saw an AFK do 6000DPS! (not really)

You can move the Decloaking units around system. They anchor like MTUS. You also have the advantage of sticking these by POSes or even within range of the new citadels guns. The idea is you have to hunt for the cloaky.... and if your cloaked in a t3 cruiser do you really want to chance going AFK with people dropping these units around system? You can drop these at bookmarks So a cloaky camper would literally have to warp somewhere and then burn over 8 AU from the furtherest warpable object to be relatively safe.

+1 for this alone!

Let's talk about counters then.

Please detail my counter for the warning to all in system that I have jumped in, before I've even loaded grid.

A warning they get with 100% zero effort or investment.

Which is why local in sov null should be tied to a deployable structure, similar to an ihub. You have it, you have local, it gets blown up, you lose local.



They do. It's called local. Watching local and using something like pirate's little helper means anyone PvE-ing outside of WHs should literally never get killed.