Sydonis
Caldari
Xoth Inc
Firmus Ixion
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Posted - 2007.06.14 21:19:00 -
[1]
OK, question - how do you know that he's actually AFK all the time?
I've stood 12-hour watches at a gate before now during long ops and trust me, I hate the idea of a 30-minute inactivity timer... why? Because most of a cov-ops pilot's life is sitting there getting bored and occasionally changing vector to stay in sight of the gate or POS or whatever else they're assigned to. Not to mention they *may* actually want to go and eat at some point... (also, do you count typing in channels as "activity"? If so, the macros guys are going to use that anyhow in a private convo between them probably to make it harder to detect - one pulse every 25 minutes would probably do it). :(
The point is, a cov-ops frigate is good for two things - one is hiding the other is scanning. It needs the hiding to do the probing. It needs its prey to be used to the fact that it's around so they stop logging off and start to act normally. This is the way of the covert pilot.
If you make covert ops ships probeable, you'll end up with no covert-ops pilots in the game except the wannabes who use alts to fly them. The serious cov-ops pilots, like myself, will simply look for a ship that can actually shoot back - right now, a locked cov-ops is a dead cov-ops. It even takes around 30 seconds to kill a pod, guys...
If you want security in 0.0 mining ops, take an escort and post pickets a few jumps out like anyone else (oooh... shock, horror, you actually might need the very cov-ops pilots you're trying to cripple).
Sorry for the sarcastic tone, but anyone that says that cov-ops need to be nerfed is obviously wearing a tinfoil hat that's a few sizes too small. Now, on the other hand, Recons are a different matter - an afk recon you can nerf if you want - they can hold their own in a fight to a degree and are larger, so can take a bit of punishment, but cov-ops frigates need all the help they can get.
And lastly, non-coverts really do need to be nerfed. Nothing annoys a cov-ops pilot more than having the ratting apoc you flew 7 or 8 jumps to find just log off or cloak as soon as you arrive. My solution? Have all cloaks probe-prone, but have each assigned a value. This value, combined with the sig radius of the ship, will provide the likelyhood of the ship to be found. Yes, I do include the cov-ops cloak in this, but it should give such a high ECCM rating as to be near-impossible to find. A cloaked Apoc would hence be an easy target to find when compared to a cloaked interceptor (pretty low risk).
Two other measures I'd like to see are a bomb for the new bomb launchers and interdictor launchers that would disable a cloak inside that blast radius (for one cycle - just long enough for an alert inty to lock him) and an increased time delay for non-cov-ops cloaks - if they want a decent lock time, let them train for it.
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