Too many words, but since you wrongly assume in your title that there's a problem with AFK cloaking then I'm going to assume the rest of what you have to say is garbage as well.

I doubt CCP will ever allow an increase in ratting bonuses.

Rather we'd end up with
x0.8 for sov 0
x1.0 for sov 5

Because inflation. Recall that they buffed anoms to get some activity and hurriedly nerfed it.

Well, Suqq Madiq is an ignorant toad, but I'm sure you could tell that already.

Everything looks good except the last two points.

For the point about Local, couldn't Local be eliminated and replaced by an intelligence tool of some kind? For instance, could there be a POS module that pings every 15 seconds or so and feeds all alliances/corporations blue to the owner details about any red or neutral ships which are uncloaked and in system? This could solve the AFK cloaker issue as well, since if cloakers did not appear in this intel tool, there would be no annoyance.

Of course, this would require a counter to cloaking. Maybe a new class of Destroyers, which have access to a module which can disrupt cloaks within a certain radius? Or perhaps a script for HIC bubbles performing the same function?

Anyways, those are my thoughts.

That would require CCP implementing a new mechanic that completely replaces something that functionally works.

I fear this with all my heart good sir.

Instead, my idea hits a happy medium between the two.

Too many words, but since you wrongly assume in your title that there's a problem with AFK cloaking then I'm going to assume the rest of what you have to say is garbage as well.

Too many words, but since you wrongly assume in your title that there's a problem with AFK cloaking then I'm going to assume the rest of what you have to say is garbage as well.

With all those "boost null-sec" threads I've started to think it's either stagnating badly or at least not as fun as low/hi-sec where residents almost never ask for new toys.

With all those "boost null-sec" threads I've started to think it's either stagnating badly or at least not as fun as low/hi-sec where residents almost never ask for new toys.

Please find where I said there's a problem with AFK cloaking.

I just wanted to attempt at providing a solution to the argument, not that there was a problem with it in general.

suqq madiq

So, there's no problem with AFK cloaking, but you've suggested how it could be fixed. Why would you want to fix something that isn't broken? What possible reason would you make that leap unless you do, in fact, think there is a problem with AFK cloaking? Same goes with Local intelligence in Null. There is no problem with it. It is not broken. It does not need to be fixed, and yet here you are proposing ways that somebody that is not broken can be fixed. Can you understand why that might seem strange?

Personally, I am cool with whatever as long as jamming makes you (Zagdul) hit your burners and head for the boundary while shouting obscenities...

I was trying to break Agony's lock on me.

MissionAccomplished.jpg

I wish I had been on your comms, your tears must've been absolutely divine. Like a fine, fine wine rolling down your cheeks into the river of LOL.

This is getting waaay off topic of the post... but!

When we saw 4 rooks, 4 griffins, we started laughing and joking in comms. Nobody cared if we won that match and we just tried to bump them out of the arena for the rest of the match.

We went into that competition with very low expectations and considering how bad we are at eve were very happy with our results. Out of our 5 matches, we lost 2 won 3. Next year we're going to be focusing on it a bit more now that we've had the experience of doing it this year.

The Cloaking Debate
Another... horrible subject.

Here's my solution. AFK cloaking is a harassment tactic, it's fun! I do it and I encourage everyone to do it someday as it's pretty fun to watch ratting hubs for my hostiles decline in activity. However, playing a game while not at your computer is not really playing a game. So, lets just put a fuel requirement on non-covert op cloaking devices. Covert op cloaking devices now have a time limit and regular cloaks have a fuel requirement of ~something~ cheap, maybe heavy water. It takes space, requires a refuel and would eventually require a chronic cloaker type to be active at his computer. It provides a meta game so we can try to catch that dude's re-fueling truck. Or, I can inject a spy in an alliance and refuel them with their own supplies

In conclusion:
-This system encourages pilots to populate their space and use it.
-It allows for smaller alliances to grief larger ones who have strategically held space. If they don't use it, it's more vulnerable to attack.
-It encourages nullsec manufacturing.


Basically... It does it all.

Please find where I said there's a problem with AFK cloaking.

Lets fix Null Sec, Tech, Afk Cloaking, Manufacturing... well.. Lets fix it all.

If you think there is no problem with it, why do you want it fixed? AFK cloakers can't hurt you.

TL:DR Version

Eve is to hard, make it easier for me.

Saying this screams "I don't understand the mechanics of nullsec or warfare with limited information."

I understand it perfectly, but a person who is afk can't exactly do anything to hurt you.

Continue to broadcast your complete lack of understanding.

Is it willful ignorance or just ignorance?

Please enlighten us all about how a person who is AFK is hurting your game play.

If you feel you can't do anything with an AFK cloaker in your system, then it's all on you. There's plenty of people that find ways to continue activities regardless of an AFK cloaker.
Granted that most people don't & would rather complain about it or stop playing.

"AFK Cloaker" is a name. The act is simply remaining cloaked in a system. It causes some players to become overly cautious.

The entire point, and the only reason it is something people do, is because of the fact that it is impossible to discern what the cloaker is doing. He could be a bomber looking for an easy gank, a scout reporting intel, a cyno waiting for an opportunity to bridge a hostile fleet in, anything really. Players who aren't used to this ever-present threat become nervous and may even refuse to undock. In the middle of a war, an excessive amount of cloakers in system can mean a whole lot of things, and ops sometimes need to be planned around them to misdirect the enemy, bait them or avoid detection.

If they are looking for an easy gank, they are not AFK.
If they are reporting intel, they are not AFK.
If they are looking for an opportune moment to bridge in a fleet, they are not AFK.

AFK cloaker is the name for people that sit in a system cloaked for 23.5 hours a day & never actually do anything, which seems to affect people more than people doing the above. The above scenarios are not AFK cloakers, they are people playing the game.

You're arguing semantics and further proving my point.

If arguing facts makes you feel this way, then I don't know what to tell you.

Use your damn brain, man. I refuse to believe it is this hard for you to grasp such a simple concept.

It is a name. The whole point is that no one except the pilot "afk cloaking" knows if he is afk or up to something. That is literally the only reason it is a viable tactic. afk cloaking does not specifically refer to the case of the pilot actually being afk.

I see what you're trying to say but generalising doesn't make you correct any more than insulting some one that disagrees with you does.

I read all of your words, but the main problem with Null Sec is your Mega Blob and Blue list.

I read all of your words, but the main problem with Null Sec is your Mega Blob and Blue list.

nerf friendmaking

Endless blue lists should be nerfed...if you want to make friends...go on Facebook.

Subscribes to massively online multilayer game. Plays solo online single player game.

Did I say Eve should be played solo?

I read all of your words, but the main problem with Null Sec is your Mega Blob and Blue list.

I read all of your words, but the main problem with Null Sec is your Mega Blob and Blue list.

Warning: I'm not an expert on sov mechanics at all. What I say from here on should not be taken too seriously, as I've made it a point to avoid playing the nullsec politics game and have never had the opportunity to learn first-hand the workings of sov. I've read the wikis, but we all know that's not the same. Now, on to my point...

I kind of like the idea of making POCOs the controlling factor of sov. After all, it makes sense that planetary systems would be the ultimate objective of controlling a star system; the vast and unseen empires of Eve aren't the ships in space, but the people on the ground. The billions upon billions of individuals who toil down below, who we seek to conquer and exploit.

It would also add a bit of a "terrain" feel to combat, where you fight from location to location in a system, moving from one to the next in a war of conquest.

As for the "problem" of afk cloaking: DO NOT TOUCH MY COVOPS CLOAK. Period. Timers and fuel requirements just make long-term scouting operations a practical impossibility. It utterly defeats the purpose of covops cloaks, and you might as well yank them out of the game. No, a thousand times no.

zagdul you a ****** ofc you would want a nerf to cloaking in your systems

I understand it perfectly, but a person who is afk can't exactly do anything to hurt you.

AFK is not playing the game...period.

I am not much a of a jew

well , I dont really want scrubs hanging out in fade annoying the **** outta me with recon stuff and reinforcing crap .


those are pretty good ideas zag but its just gonna **** "older" players like me off and every high sec pubby is going to hang out in null sec

Alliances that dont have the numbers for null sec can either do recruiting or stay in low / high sec .( npc nullsec )

however .... null sec could be a bit like the recent FW ... alliance owned stations could have agents which give you missions in Regions your alliance holds sov in . They will be sort of like upgrades ... those agents will be paid by "alliance" , for example : a lvl4 agent is going to cost the alliance 50mil a month ( which really isnt much for an alliance budget .

Running these missions will put the ratting / industry indexes of the destination systems up . so a -0.1 system could still have a better ratting index than a -0.9 one if enough missions are beeing run in this system . A mission is going to pop a public beacon in the destination system as soon as its accepted . This will also open up a lot of PVP opportunities .
A LVL4 NULL SEC MISSION will be like a lvl5 Empire mission for example . this also encourages people to work together . form fleets and just do **** as an alliance / corp .

I am not much a of a jew but it looks like a nice way to get "unused systems" a bit more crowded and get their ratting / industrial index up .

Instead of having the ships and things produced use less resources make it so you refine like 1.2x from only RAW or COMPRESSED ore and ice. That way you don't have to track every item for a different reprocess rate.

Also change it so that the time to produce is maybe .8 instead so you are making things faster.

Then if you want to change production. Make science jobs faster in 0.0 and T2 invention have a higher chance of success or give out BPCs with more runs and/or better PE than high sec.

Now you have mining/refining raw materials worth it. People will buy ore move it to low sec to compress then ship it down to refine. You have 0.0 Productions more friendly specially for things like Jump freighters. You have Science jobs have more of a point because you research faster/invent better. The best part is they don't have to keep track of identical items refining into different things because only ore/ice would refine into a different amount.

zagdul you a ****** ofc you would want a nerf to cloaking in your systems

Simpletons look at my proposed changes and view them as nerfs.



People with wits to them and a brain on their shoulders will see that they are balancing suggestions to shut the argument up.

Cloaking and local are issues that have been argued to death in other threads. There is more to the OP then just those two ideas........ALOT MORE!

TL;DR :

Lets boost tech even more

I fell Local should have been killed along time ago for null sec. If wormhole guys can deal with it so can the rest of eve.

I cant shake off the idea that WH Space is how Null should have been from day 1

I cant shake off the idea that WH Space is how Null should have been from day 1

...I am illiterate...

Zadgul, you just mentioned some good points that need improvements and i do agree with most of your ideas in their large lines, however there's far too much other stuff that need changes so small entities are attracted by this little "skirmish" stuff we like and this means also some work on travelling abilities and docking possibilities (non the least)

But over all +1

Only mess with AFK cloaking after AFK mining has been fixed.

Removing local completely from null sec would make warping cloaked with a cyno horribly over powered and very unbalanced.

The way WH's work and Null are COMPLETELY different, what works for one will not work for the other and all sides of the sandbox need to be considered.

EDIT:
Not to mention how horrible finding fights would be if it were removed. Local is also used to find hostiles to shoot.

EDIT:
The issue with local is that it's too easy. As soon as someone enters local, you see them and this is a problem. You should only see them if they decloak while you're in local with them. I'm of the opinion that if someone is cloaked in a system before you entered, they wouldn't show up. However something would have to be done to counter balance warping cloaked with a cyno. This concept in known space would be pretty horrible.


Potentially adding a stat to covert ops cloaks that equipping the module increases CPU of cynos making them much harder to fit both. And if you did fit both, you'd have to completely sacrifice tank giving someone a chance to get out.

Here's my solution. AFK cloaking is a harassment tactic, it's fun! I do it and I encourage everyone to do it someday as it's pretty fun to watch ratting hubs for my hostiles decline in activity

Thoughts?

Sorry but if you are watching you are not afk.. The truly AFK are not a problem or a threat.. please stop calling it that.

I agree. However, I feel if I'm going to throw the wolves a bone by delaying local until a decloak, I'm going to attempt a compensation for the sheep by throwing them one also for ~something~ surrounding using cloaking as a griefing tactic.

As I said, I love doing it and it's hilarious watching current ratting indices drop like a rock when you do this. But the fact remains that it's a one sided tactic that has no counter or recourse. I think it'd be pretty neat for both sides to have a chance, even if a slim one, to kill each other.

Any mechanic that lets you influence your enemy (whether they be ratting, missioning, mining, small gang or fleet pvp) while you aren't actively playing is enormously stupid; end of story.

Would be inclined to agree if you could prove they were AFK as opposed to very patient or running multiple alts.

Good ideas Zagdul.. nice start to the discussion.

I have some problems to add - from a "just a grunt in the alliances" standpoint taht I think needs addressed more than anything


Time Required
What about those of us that cannot log in every day? or even every other day? Most alliances tell us the fack off. Having a life and living in 0.0 are incompatible in my experience.. and going on a fleet op with less than 5 hours to stay on eve? yeah.. not going to happen.

my wife HATES it when i join 0.0, and my physical health suffers (i stop hitting the gym/mountains as much)

Rich Alliance, Poor Grunts
Alliance rakes in the dough - grunts have to rat/mine to make money (which to a certain extent is fine) .. but in the time invested to fund PVP was too much.. especially considering how money flush the 0.0 alliance i was in was.

but then, maybe our ship reimbursement program just sucked nuts :P

The thing is, game mechanics in EVE reward time. It's the nature of the beast and very few things will be able to change this, it's true for empire or null sec.

The difference between null sec entities and empire is that Alliances, or corporations for that matter, hire you in to support the space. We don't have 'concord' in null. It's up to each warm body behind a computer to provide security or defend. Therefore when you chose to take up null sec life as your style of gameplay in EVE, you have to make some sacrafices.

Now, just like with choosing what aspect of EVE you wish to enjoy, choosing an entity in EVE online who caters to your playstyle is also important. For example, in my alliance there are multiple corps who all have different atmospheres. Each corp is asked simply to contribute towards the betterment of the alliance and they are all required to bring ~something~ to the table for the ultimate goal of power, isk and control of space. How the corp chooses to contribute and devote their time, I just ask that their contribution is on par with what everyone else brings to the table. Many null sec entities operate in this fashion, so lumping all of 0.0 life into a time sink, or lack of fun sink is just not an accurate assessment. It's very possible, you just never got into the proper corporation who supported your playstyle.

To address the concern with Rich Alliances / Poor Grunts, this can't be more accurate. As it stands right now, there is very little, if any benefit to a grunt participating in the betterment of an alliance and this isn't because null sec alliances aren't trying. It's because the majority of isk sinks which are incurred are done in null sec. Sov bills are a huge sink. Not to mention the sheer costs of being an effective null sec alliance. The amount of isk involved is astronomical and so far, CCP has done nothing to make it easier, only more expensive with less forms to generate new isk for null sec. For empire, it pretty much remains static, however for the people in null sec, unless you're an organization who can compensate losses during wars, you're really not able to stand on your own as a Grunt. This is why my ideas for improving sov and the rewards for inhabiting it begin to take form as a positive way for individuals to feel as though they are contributing in a positive way while increasing their income.

Even PVPers help.

It's very much a top down way of distributing isk and alliances are forced to tax members simply to survive. It costs my alliance roughly 150b a month just to operate on a daily basis.

the game mechanics in any MMO reward time.. the problem with eve is sometimes the continuous time blocks you must put in are too large [10 hour fleet ops for 10 minutes of combat SUCK]

Then the alliance should be reimbursing pilots for ships lost in defense ops - whether or not they're official defense ops.

it's possible.. for now i'm dicking around in RvB until i burn throught the ships i bought for this purpose. then i'm going to go isk ***** for a bit and figure out what i want to do.
[quote=Zagdul]The problem is that current efficient ways to generate isk in this particular MMO are encouraged by solo behavior due to penalties for being in a group.

[quote=Denidil]
yeah they're trying to use cost of sov as a way to control sov size. it will never work. just put a ******* hardlimit on how many systems you can have sov over and be done with it. more entities in 0.0 means more drama => more war.

Hard limits on how many systems an alliance can hold is a horrible idea. That removes the sandbox in that if I want to have a powerful large space empire, I can. You suggesting to remove that doesn't support this playstyle.

Instead, encourage alliances to not want vast swaths of space because maintaining it is more of a hassle. As it stands, isk costs aren't a valid deterrent, it's actually an incentive to take more. More space = more available moons = more income. The way to do this is by making smaller areas more valuable but challenging to maintain. The amount of warm bodies behind the computer will become more of a factor in how much space is manageable for an alliance rather than simply their military might. Smart entities can fortify their space and make challenging space difficult.

hard limit on sov size is a stop gap until they can re-implement the sov system from scratch to be something that encourages many small, and a few moderate/large, organizations in null.

make holding sov require a activity in systems, and make it worthwhile. once we can pos-spam to our hearts content (see CSM minutes about removing 1 moon=1 pos limit) change the sov mechanics to require mining (ice/ore + ring), combat (ratting/pve of some nature), and some sort of "tower activity index" (ie stuff done at poses) or something.

ie made SOV based on activity in the system, not "we shat a 150m ISK module with double reinforce timers down".