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!

There is already an environment without local. It's called wormhole space. Folk interested in it can and do live there. Not relevant to the discussion. Besides, good players catch miners and ratters on a fairly regular basis, despite local, intel channels, and all the other things you're complaining about. If you "hate" AFK cloaking, no-one is forcing you to engage in it. Plenty of other ways of ganking folk out there.

The actual price tag of the ship used is irrelevant. The time to return on investment actually increases with ship price, since ship effectiveness does not increase proportionately to ship price. For example, a Nightmare, properly fitted, can cost ten times as much as a properly fitted Dominix, but it is perhaps only twice as effective at making ISK. So more expensive ships need a longer streak of "luck," since it takes longer for them to pay for themselves.

Fact of the matter is that AFK cloaking has no viable counter. It provides the cloaked player with absolute safety while undocked, which is contrary to EVE's core premise that no player should ever be safe while undocked, especially not while AFK. At the same time, a cloaked ship poses the exact same risk to others regardless of whether its owner is active or not, merely by being in space, because there is no way to determine the risk a cloaked player poses after going AFK. The cloaked player may be scanning the system, or he may be at work; there is no way to tell.

My own view is that we need an active mechanic for scanning down cloaked ships that sit in space for prolonged periods of time. The difficulty is in preventing that mechanic from interfering with active players, because cloaking is fine when used actively. There is nothing wrong with a player who camps a system in a cloaked stealth bomber, provided that player is active.

Fact of the matter is that AFK cloaking has no viable counter.

It provides the cloaked player with absolute safety while undocked GǪ

At the same time, a cloaked ship poses the exact same risk to others regardless of whether its owner is active or not GǪ

There is nothing wrong with a player who camps a system in a cloaked stealth bomber, provided that player is active.

... is forgetting a big part of what happens in null. hotdrops.

I think that thats true, outside of sov space.

but in sov space there should be some controls that allow you to force people that are not actively fighting you out of your space.

There's some good advice in post #4 of this thread for how to live with a cloaker in local. As long as you are actively flying and keeping aligned to a safe, you're in pretty good shape to avoid most of the trouble he can bring. For the case of the domi mentioned above, this is trivial. Problems do arise when you are multi-boxing 4 domis, in which case you may not get them all away in time. vOv. Whose fault is that?

Think of the poor cloaker. Whenever he shows up in a system, everyone scurries to the stations. They have 100% immunity there, and can wait him out for as long as they want. They might even go AFK! It's no wonder that the cloaker goes AFK himself.

So with the nerf to AFK cloaking, I propose a compensating buff. Ships that can fit a cov-ops cloak should also be able to fit a module which bumps ships out of station. This should save both parties a lot of boring waiting time and do away with AFK problems.

I think that thats true, outside of sov space.

but in sov space there should be some controls that allow you to force people that are not actively fighting you out of your space, a triggerable pos module that uncloaks people after a time limit. a probe that can only be used in your own sov space, a ship that connects to the ihub, whatever the mechanic is, something ought to be there to secure sov space.

while, at the same time not breaking the cloaking mechanic for people who are active.

In sov space you can plant Cyno Disrupters so hotdrops are no longer an issue, which leaves the cloaker themselves who are an easily balanced threat.

What's the problem again?

in sov space there should be some controls that allow you to force people that are not actively fighting you out of your space

Black ops hot drops work in cyno jammed systems.

Just sayin'

I am made to wonder, however, is it really balanced to have cloaked ships able to do more than use their own resources?

By that, I mean cyno hot droppers are totally blowing the curve for the cloaking pilots who wanted kills more directly. (IE: they made a nice SB, are ready to stalk out a system to hunt, but cannot get anyone to come out because of cyno fears)

Not many people point at the armaments on cloaked ships, and comment how they consider them dangerous beyond reason. Not anymore, at least, assuming that they used to.

Me, I want to hunt cloaked. I am not interested in cyno dropping anyone, but the chances of prey taking the risk I am not a cyno cloaker are not good.

While it amuses me to know I can strangle a system by just being in local, it gets dull.

I have a better chance of getting on a killmail with my logi.

Possibly the same thing they were thinking when they decided that allowing people to be shot at in even 1.0 systems was a good idea.
i.e. no place can be allowed to be perfectly safe, and if you think you have someplace that is there should be a way for someone to come along and prove you wrong.
System cloakers aren't making anyone less safe, they are just *reminding* them that they aren't completely safe.

Why are so many people defending AFK activities?

Ganthrithor - "Be a better pilot and you got no troubles"
its saying basically , mining has no place in nullsec. we all know how well hulks stand up to getting shot at. all you really need is an off rat faction bomb type. or a recon gang eventually for when they finally ignore you and go back to what they were doing.

Buncha replies-

Simi Kusoni - "Why"
Because I want sovereignty to mean something. make it important to get miners and mining groups, move industry out to null. Start by layering levels of control you can have on a system, give real borders to space. Borders that you can cross over and maraud rather then plant alts and hope for kills. I want Sov to be really useful upgrades for the sov owners. (and by certain extensions of game play ability, everyone else that is invading)

I want Local to be a sov upgrade. I want anti cloaking pulses that are an ihub upgrade or something useable in sov but not in other spaces. useable on cycles like towers (but not as short a cycle as a tower) I want ... it doesn't really matter the other things, this isnt the discussion for them.

I don't believe that you should be 100% safe in enemy territory for as long as you want to be, afk in space. Cloaked ships are the submarines of the past (and present) or the rebels/terrorists of urban warfare. we are always looking for ways to find them. it is hard work, and it often involves a lot of ordinance but something can usually be done. Why are so many people defending AFK activities?

just sayin, cloaked ships are safe until they uncloak and then its usually on their terms.

its saying basically , mining has no place in nullsec. we all know how well hulks stand up to getting shot at. all you really need is an off rat faction bomb type. or a recon gang eventually for when they finally ignore you and go back to what they were doing.

But i see a problem with "hope they get bored and leave" as the bulk of your answer.

I think there should be this probe that your ship jettisons that can't move, but stays in position for two hours and projects a field around it that decloaks any ship for 2000 meters around. Additionally you could give it 27,500 m^3 of cargo space and be able to rename it, because why the hell not?

" if you think you have someplace that is there should be a way for someone to come along and prove you wrong"
so uh something to decloak people who are afk, but not break cloak mechanics for people that are active?

Part 2; Hunt the hunters.
Use probes designed to hunt cloaked ships. Specialty item, T2.
The probes can decloak ships by either proximity, or by getting on grid with ships they have tracked, and pulsing an inverted energy wave to the cloaked vessel's power frequency. The cloaked vessel cannot reengage their cloak until they get off grid with the probe.
Stopping them is the hunter's problem. The probe just creates an opportunity if used right.
(Gate camps won't find this very useful, as probing down the newly arrived cloaked vessel will allow the vessel in question to leave before it completes.)

You absolutely cannot locate a cloaked vessel, unless they let you, or make a mistake.

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.

Why is it you feel this would not be extensively used by gate campers? you must not be a prober or a gate camper. The probes are set in place ahead of time and are activated whenever the scanner button is mashed. So, with d-scan on around the clock..as soon as they see a cloaked vessel on grid the probes are hit. no cloaks until off grid; easy kills... cloaking will be broken for this and other uses..

It's a bad plan and poorly thought out idea. I have no problem with the removal of the cloaked from local however - this is the one good thing you add.

I am still in favor of a sov dependent upgrade to the ihub

anyone at their computer wont have an issue, and its only the metagamers that cry when they realize that their alts got scanned and killed.

But again, i stress something that people like to bring up about miners in hisec, "No one should be 100% safe in space."

The gate cloak is exempt from this effect. I thought that would have been obvious, but since you assumed otherwise, I say it here and now. If the gate cloak was vulnerable to this, EVERY vessel coming through would be popped right after the analyze button was clicked by the probing ship, and the probes activated to neutralize it.
A cloaked vessel only becomes probable by engaging their own cloak when they attempt to move, (or take an action), so any prior probing would reveal nothing.

Also, the command to send the probe after the cloaked vessel is not automatic.
The situation where you want the vessel decloaked often requires assistance.
As probing vessel needs to prepare, the probes wait on a go command you deliver by right clicking on them. (Like many probe commands, you can highlight multiple if you are worried the cloaker could destroy a single too quickly. This would send as many as you highlighted to disable the cloak while it remained on grid)

Thus, the window where this probe would reveal a cloaker is much smaller than you would need in order to be useful.
(Non covert ops ships are easy targets already, they are not included in this, as the probes benefit against them is trivial)

And just so there is no confusion:
I am a cloaker.
I am a prober.
And I am a miner.
(In other words, I am active in the aspects that I am describing above)

I'm not talking about gate cloaking... you are not a covert cloak user then? The gate cloak is fine as long as you don't move - as soon as you move and try to switch to your covert cloak you are screwed.

I will start with saying I am not against people being cloaked in a system for hours even days at a time. It is a totally valid tactic and one which I would not see removed. The only broken part is indeed the AFK part. Someone should remain at least partly attentive to their account to remain undetected. That way there is a balance of effort on both sides.

Random whining, crying and screaming about AFK cloakers

Remove cloaked ships from local. Problem solved.

Cloaking is not a game mechanic to be AFK all the day.

I am really fed up to see hostiles in my SOV with not any chance to chase them. It is absolutely enraging to know that he is here and that I can't do anything about it.

Mate slowly. You just said you want to give more advantage to ships that are atm to much powerfull.

A scond post about the same problem: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=102852&p=4


2- Cloaking should cost fuel.
It would avoid afk cloaking and make the cloak use much harder.
Covert Ops, Recon Ship, and others warp-cloaky would have an additional special cargohold for this fuel large enough to cloak 8 hours non stop or 960 activations (1 unit for 30s). For the others the fuel would only be in their cargohold.


Probing cloaked ship is an option more difficult to do. How long it could take to probe a cloaky ship? If it is fast cloak will be useless, if it is long the cloaked ship will be too far to be decloaked when you will warp on him....

Considering the danger hi-sec miners have been under and not being unable to employ an escort to avoid Catalyst ganks, this really is a non-issue. I have sympathy for those guys. They really are sitting ducks.

Holding sov means if you own the space you have to provide all the support systems too. Including a police force to underwrite your safety. You also have to accept that it is your responsibility to fight back or make yourself an unattractive target.

You can't expect to live in the frontier and not have to fend a bear or wolf off from time to time. Be prepared or go back east.

Okay so I'll admit I didn't read much of the suggestion or the comments as I've seen this stated a lot and it brings up questions to me.

1. Why is a single AFK cloaky a bad thing?
2. If it is such a large problem why not just give a cloak module an activation timer of like 120-240 seconds with cloaky ships getting a 75-99% reduction in cap costs per cycle? Or is there a giant problem with giving a cap cost to cloak mods?

1.
cloaked ship sits in system (visible in local) for five days, durring said time , player may/may not be afk, but action within the system stops. Miners dont mine/ratters dont rat, because they are afraid of the cloaked ship having a cyno and tracking down the movements of the miners/raters and dropping a combat group on them. In the game of EVE, nearly everything has a counter, not everything, but most things. Adding counters to metagaming tactics makes it more worthwhile for the small group/individual player within the whole of an alliance.

2.
there are legitimate reasons to be cloaked in a system, and there are metagame (which some argue are also legitimate) reasons to be cloaked in system. there isnt a problem giving cloaks a cap cost, or adding other long timer ways to catch afk cloaked ships.

Here's the thing. You are crying about ships that can't affect you due to the fact that it is cloaked and AFK is ridiculous.

If it isn't in local, it's basically acting like WHS, and you don't know it's there.

We are fighitng not with cloak itself but with metagaming and amout of effort need on boths sides to make them fight.

because they are afraid

His effort =0, yours to fight with him=hours of game, camping, using many man to fight with his pc.

I think there should be this probe that your ship jettisons that can't move, but stays in position for two hours and projects a field around it that decloaks any ship for 2000 meters around. Additionally you could give it 27,500 m^3 of cargo space and be able to rename it, because why the hell not?

A proposed solution:
lots of stuff

Who is crying? I dont cry i want a gun to shoot you :) And pls dont show us talks about wh, wh gives more income than 0.0 so its worth to take any risk there. Also wh is problematic for claoker himself. AFK is metagaming like someone said. Im not afraid of cloakies, people just go other systems, but i want a gun to force afkers to fight and be active, not only make people problems because they can aford PC running 24/7 and not taking any actions. Besdies did you tryed to catch clakers? Dude in ship for 30M isk, who you need to have a bite 24/7, and after he will fal into trap he will go reship and he will be back in 30 minutes. His effort =0, yours to fight with him=hours of game, camping, using many man to fight with his pc.

We are fighitng not with cloak itself but with metagaming and amout of effort need on boths sides to make them fight.

You can have one the same time cloak ships get a force undock button.

As an expert in AFK Cloaking I will now cloak up in the system you live in and kill you and your friends repeatedly until you learn how to actually deal will AFK Cloakers or until you abandon 'your' space for highsec. If you consider this a teaching experience, then you can only learn from your failures.

A compromise:


Cloaking has cycle time.

Cloaked ships do not show up in local unless they turn off their cloaks.

Cloaky ships can cloak even when affected by the gate cloak to counter this, they're covert ops ships so they hacked the gates etc etc, make up an excuse.

This eliminates cloakies being spotted and everyone fleeing.

This eliminates cloaky afking, and being able to stay in a system for a longer duratation without actually being present in the game.



This would only apply to covert ops ships, and not the ships that simply fit a prototype cloak and are done with it.

The prototype cloaks have a cycle timer but cannot be activated during gate cloak and show up in local as usual.

This change will mean that
A: Any threat is at least online and playing the game
B: You can't spam trial accounts to do this.
C: Cov ops ship get a significant buff and will actually be useful as scouting tools for low/null.