A common problem I have encountered is the serial AFK cloaker. Log in, go deep-safe somewhere, and just leave and go to work for 8 - 12 hours.

I understand cloaking is a good chance for intel, but its only useful if you are active.

An alternative solution to the cloak-fuel I have thought a fair bit about and quite plausable to a cloak, is a degredation of the cloak the longer it is activated continuously, and a cooldown as you approach the maximum cloak time.

It would work a little like this - You activate your cloak, and for the first 30 mins you can remained cloaked with no penalty. After the 30 mins, you begin to suffer a leeching of your signature radius which will gradually creep up over the next 30 mins, until the hour mark where your signature radius equals that of your uncloaked ship. Visually you will still remain cloaked, however you can be scanned which will allow proximity decloaking.
As well as the leech, after the 30 min mark of continuous activation, the cloak will incurr a 5 minute cooldown, with a further 5 mins added at the 45 min and 60min mark.

No cooldown or leeching in the first 30 mins of activation, so you can deactivate and reactivate as much as you want, which will reset the clock.

This will not disadvantage those who want to use the cloaks as they are intended, ...

... and will not reduce the effectivness of the cloaked ship, but will purely stop people cloaking in a system and walking away for 12 - 23 hours.

OP...

AFK cloaking was "born" because the instant you enter a system, you appear on local. Because you are now the ONLY non-blue person in local, the "natives" in that system will immediately dock/cloak/POS up until you leave or are destroyed.

The only way to get around this is to cloak up in some random spot in the system... and sit... often for hours. In doing this a cloaker "devalues" local as an intel tool and effectively forces the "native" to alter tactics.

How can you alter tactics? Easy.
- Spare a high and mid slot on your ratting battleship for a heavy energy neutralizer and a long point... and make enough room in your drone bay for 5 Warrior IIs. Congrats, you are now immune to Stealth Bombers (or, can escape them at the very least).
- Cloaky Recons got you down? Easy... they have a decloak timer of about 5 to 10 seconds where they cannot lock anything... add in actual locking time and you have a good 7 to 12 seconds where you can escape. If you stay aligned to something, you can warp off as soon as they appear on your overview.
- Are your haulers being popped at gates/jumpbridges? Before you move something have a fast locking, high-alpha Tempest/Tornado meet up with you at the gate/jumpbridge. Ships that use the Cov-ops cloak are quite fragile compared to other ships in their class... and most are not fitted for buffer (btw... fitting your hauler completely with cargo expanders means that you migh have trouble withstanding ONE lousy bomb).
- Move systems.
- If you real fear is not the cloaker itself, but the hotdrop they can call in... opt to using smaller and/or "cheaper" ships that you can escape/replace more easily. For example: an Ishtar may not be able to clear out a sanctum the way a Marauder can... but it's MUCH cheaper and faster (and "small" to boot, which means that torps won't be as effective against it).

cloak-fuel

Wow what a new and exciting idea that has never been brought up before at all.

I'm sure CCP will jump right on this exciting new idea.

Well, I predict much better success for your idea if you can come up with a coherent motivational argument from the outset: Why is an AFK player a threat to you? Otherwise, we'll see several pages of futile back-and-forth which essentially repeats previous threads, and whose length depends entirely on the quality of trolling involved.

Holy Crap Batman, someone offers a suggestion for constructive comment, and you don't have time to take it up and make any constructive comment, but you manage near a full page of "Trolling" on your own.

You 'Trolling" is completely negative in content without adding anything of use to the thread - Do you ever actually use you account for anything other than "Trolling" the forums?

A common problem I have encountered is the serial AFK cloaker. Log in, go deep-safe somewhere, and just leave and go to work for 8 - 12 hours.
...
An alternative solution to the cloak-fuel I have thought a fair bit about and quite plausable to a cloak, is a degredation of the cloak the longer it is activated continuously, and a cooldown as you approach the maximum cloak time.

It would work a little like this - You activate your cloak, and for the first 30 mins you can remained cloaked with no penalty. After the 30 mins, you begin to suffer a leeching of your signature radius which will gradually creep up over the next 30 mins, until the hour mark where your signature radius equals that of your uncloaked ship. Visually you will still remain cloaked, however you can be scanned which will allow proximity decloaking.
As well as the leech, after the 30 min mark of continuous activation, the cloak will incurr a 5 minute cooldown, with a further 5 mins added at the 45 min and 60min mark.

....
Prey

no problem with afk cloakers imo but i still do love the idea of the old 'sonar' destroyer idea, i think it adds gameplay and more uses for destroyers = win

Any idea that kills AFK cloaking would have to be accompanied by some kind of associated buff, this game is weighted heavily enough already in favor of allowing people to avoid combat. Nerfing sand box PvP even further is unwarranted, and it certainly isn't worth doing purely to give an extra use for dessies.

Not really, no. Black ops warping cloaked isn't particularly useful when the vast majority of targets are going to be docked up when your cyno 5 toon enters local.

30 second time delay on local would be more useful.

Lets get to the real point in this discussion.

• You want somebody's cloak removed because you don't feel safe.

Well, lets take the two only possible sides of the cloaked person.

1. They are away from the keyboard and therefore they are no threat to you whatsoever.
2. They are at the keyboard and are playing against you.

The first point shouldn't bother you, and the second point you should get used to because everybody is playing against you! That's the whole point of EVE!

These afk cloaking whines are always people basically saying "i want that cloak removed so that person gets killed and i can mine in peace."

It's the same as agreeing to play chess then telling the other person they are not allowed to take any pieces! Stop being such a wimp!