Player Features and Ideas Discussion

And you destroy the only counter to local doing that.

Then they know its active. The whole point of the AFK cloaker is to get around local, your idea breaks this.

You just pointed to what would be broken.

Helper
Baltecs point is that afk cloaky campers are white noise that players become accustomed to and assume are always afk. So they ignore them. Then the afk cloaky camper can effectively do his weekly blops on whatever unsuspecting ratters had been ignoring him for so long.

I do not agree with that point at all for a number of reasons. But I accepted the argument at its face value because he is in error.

Baltec
You are wrong. As I demonstrated with a simple time analysis.

It can take weeks before people start to rat with a red always in local, if the cloaker has to redo his cloak every 5 hours that means they know it is active.

AFK cloaking can only counter local so long as people thinK the guy actually is afk, Your plan destroys this and at the end of the day, you are arguing to nerf something that cant move, cant target, cant shoot and has nobody at the controls.

People wont rat with you in local for several days after you attack something most of the time. Being active once every 5 hours destroys the effect of AFK cloaking and thus, the only counter we have to local.

Yea I've got to admit I'm confused now.

I thought we didn't want any solution to interfere with active cloakers; but five hours is a generous offer no? If that timespan is unacceptable to you, then you're basically saying you want AFK cloaking to exist.

I came here to see if it were possible to have two-way interaction, without putting too much strain on the hunter (because if he's dodging probes all the time, he can't very well hunt) yet assuming the "true" AFKer (logs in after downtime, stays there 23.5 hours) was something we didn't want.

Now I feel betrayed. I must assume all this "we think AFK cloaking is bad but we want a more balanced approach than just nerf it into the ground" was horsecrap? What you really think is "don't touch AFK cloaking at all". All this talk about observatory arrays and 'putting in mutual effort' was nonsense I presume? Got it.

Five hours allows to come home, log in and cloak up, grab dinner, check on the kid's homework, do the dishes and the laundry, file some paperwork and start playing in the evening with several hours on the counter still. Those who would rat with you in system for three or four hours will still be prey- those who'd leave system wouldn't have fallen for a true AFK cloaker either. I don't see how this breaks anything, unless -and now we get to the good part- unless you come out and admit you want to put in NO effort.

We talked about effort and risk- the effort to get there (risk of running into camps and all that), risking your expensive ship, the 'opportunity cost' but it was nothing but fog to obscure the simple truth you want to put in zero effort and zero risk- yet expect a 'reward' of sorts, yes?

And here I was, hoping observatory arrays and delayed local would offer more PvP opportunities for both sides (two way street and all that, remember?). But you want none of it. You're not looking for PvP at all. I understand it clearly now.

AFK cloaking needs to exist so long as local exists.

We'd get nowhere. People would cloak, go AFK for 5 hours then come back. People would still whine incessantly. If anything they might whine more because instead of literally going AFK for almost 24 hours, now everyone would KNOW that the guy is coming back in 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 hours.

You are still destroying the only counter to local, people will not rat with a red in system under your plan because they will always assume they are active simply because there is a 5 hour timer. Equally you have to be at your computer in order top cloak so no more week long AFK camping because it is impossible, nobody is going to alarm clock and run back home from work to camp a system to get kills.