The problem you are having, is you're not seeing the whole picture. You don't even take local into account, when deciding upon any change. That was the mechanic my question related to.

Answer me this. When someone is AFKing, what mechanic are they using to interact with you?

The fact that you can AFK without a cloak and cause the same psychological effects, should speak volumes. But I have a feeling it's falling on deaf ears.

The only reason AFK cloaking even exists is because of local, without it there is no reason to. If the cloaked ship is removed from local then there is no point for extended AFK periods, if the cloaked ship is blind to local when cloaked they must d-scan or use probes to locate ships.

TL:DR Local is the reason behind AFK cloaking.

Nope. Truth. There is no need to AFK cloak in Wormholes because no one knows who is actually there. That means people who live in wormholes have to be constantly paranoid and take precautions. Not so much the case in 0.0 space.

Every time I enter a populated 0.0 system with my main in a normal combat ship everyone warps away from whatever activity they were doing and over to a station or POS. Then they either log off, wait me out, and/or call in several dozen people to remove my one ship.
As it stands... the only way to get at the industry of a system without bringing in a sizable force of my own and laying siege to the system or to AFK cloak (thus "devaluing" local's intel) and strike when people get complacent (which they shouldn't ever be).


WIth regards to the "AFKing without a cloak" that Mag was alluding to...

I can fit an interceptor to perma run a MWD and fit a cyno to it... blitz into your system... then warp to a safespot and MWD off into some random direction... and do so indefinitely will little to no chance of capture.
The Interceptor reduces the sig radius of the ship with the MWD on... equipping ECCMs makes more difficult to probe down... and having the right implants can increase the difficulty even further. And even if you do, by some miracle, manage to probe the inty down... it will be almost off grid by the time you come out of warp (because it's moving at 4 to 5000+ m/sec).
At any point in time, the player can decide to "become active" and activate the cyno wherever he/she pleases.

So no... the problem you have with cynos is with cynos... not specifically with cloaking ships.

As far as cloaking specific ships go...

- the only cloaking capable ship that can immediately target after decloaking is the Sealth Bomber. All other ships have a minimum 5 to 7 second delay before they can begin targeting... which itself takes another 2 to 5 seconds before achieving "lock"... which gives any ship a minimum of 5 to 10 seconds to escape before it can even be pointed (which is more than enough if a person has kept their ship aligned).
- cloaking capable ships generally have lower "direct" combat effectiveness compared to their T1 counterparts. The Stealth Bomber epitomizes this as it has almost no tanking ability beyond its sig radius. This means that such ships MUST choose "unfair fights" because the odds are not good otherwise.
- Black Ops ships are the shortest range "jump ship" in the game. That means they need to be VERY close to their targets to launch a strike. They also have "fuel issues" (not much capacity) which makes Black-ops drops in enemy space a logistical nightmare for amateurs.

Not for the reasons it exists in null. You're being disingenuous to say otherwise. This thread is about those null reasons.

Stopping this here specifically.
Null is intended to require this. If you prefer to not need group effort, please play in high sec.

Risk free and reward free, under current game settings. As these two are equally non existent, they are in balance.

While true you cannot be found under normal circumstances, you also cannot mine, shoot rats, or run missions.
It is already well established they cannot shoot other players while cloaked.

Those poor solo PvE ships, having such a hard time in an area designed for groups... who would expect it?