Hopefully its some thing that lets you know if there on grid with you, maybe see were they are. But doesn't decloak.

This is definitely not a "activate module, ship is decloaked" thing. I'm assuming when they said "like finding a submarine" that it will give your ship some direction that it detected the cloak ship in, as long as it's on grid. Eventually, if you're afk, it will find you. If you aren't afk, then you would have to be stupid to stick around long enough for it to find you and decloak you.

Those who think AFK cloaking in a system doesn't have any detrimental effects.. well, you're a moron and if you don't get it by now, then me stating what 30000 other people have already stated isn't going to get through to you. Nuff said.

First of all, I doubt that. This is a anti-AFK cloaking move anyways.

But let's assume you're right:
I jump to that gatecamp with my friend, start to get a good position (this is where they would most likely know we're there) on the tornado, and start bombing. Seconds later we got a claw and a daredevil untop of us.

This change would destroy those invaluable few seconds of confusion that cloaks cause.

This is definitely not a "activate module, ship is decloaked" thing. I'm assuming when they said "like finding a submarine" that it will give your ship some direction that it detected the cloak ship in, as long as it's on grid. Eventually, if you're afk, it will find you. If you aren't afk, then you would have to be stupid to stick around long enough for it to find you and decloak you.

Those who think AFK cloaking in a system doesn't have any detrimental effects.. well, you're a moron and if you don't get it by now, then me stating what 30000 other people have already stated isn't going to get through to you. Nuff said.

I would more be for hunting ship that allows you to see position that the cloaker was in last x mins ago. That way it doesnt completely kill out current in-grid cloaky happenings, as people who actively pilot their cloakers can still zigzag around to create mess for the catcher to follow. However it would allow dedicated people to nuke afk cloakers after they spent time working, multiple hits to get supposed "afk route" that it's moving, either straight line/orbiting something and then using the current decloak mechanism to bring it out. It might take half-hour to hour to purge that afk cloaker but it would work. It wouldnt do jack nor **** for active cloakers harassing people as they could move in unpredictable patterns or warp between SS's.

However knowing CCP's track record they will implement this in a way that totally kills players actively playing their cloaky ship but fails to solve the afk cloaker problem. Aka limiting the range to spot something on the grid etc.

Give us ability to pinpoint where the cloaker was ~5 minutes ago and we'll work with that ourself. The non-afk cloaker with speed of 100m/s has been able to move 30 km total distance, putting him well out of the "land and auto-decloak" range. Multiple hits provide players points A-B-C and if they're unable to figure out where D etc is then tbh they deserve that afk cloaker.

I would more be for hunting ship that allows you to see position that the cloaker was in last x mins ago. That way it doesnt completely kill out current in-grid cloaky happenings....

We used more than 5 minutes going from warpin to a fitting spot for attack. They would know we were there and ruin our chances to attack AND survive (suicide bombing will still work).

Other than that, it sounds like an amazing idea!

We used more than 5 minutes going from warpin to a fitting spot for attack. They would know we were there and ruin our chances to attack AND survive (suicide bombing will still work).

Other than that, it sounds like an amazing idea!

I wrote long and mathematical post, then forum ate it.

Long story short;

300 m/s covop bomber creates 3 mil km3 sphere from point a (pinpoint location). Decloaker has sphere of 65 km3 where he decloaks peeps. Likelihood of success? Nil unless the covop was stationary.

In same scenario, the covop moves 70 km towards target, 20 km in 90 degree angle from that trajectory. All that in the first 5 minutes, being in a spot where enemy who lands at the spot the sb started and burns directly at target would still not decloak the sbomber.

Further in said scenario, the enemy has pinpointed the 70 km worth of direct burn and the 20 km degree turn. However active sbomber pilot has again had 90 km worth of traveling to use to throw off the tracker who again has 3 mil km3 of area where the sbomber "might be." Ofc if the sbomber warps to SS midway and spends time there, things get even more interesting.

So for active sbomber pilots the only negative impact is that after 5 minutes of being "in grid" enemy will know that you were in said grid 5 minutes ago.

But the benefits for AFK cloakers? Two types, those who orbit and those who move in straight line, the ones who sit still die to direct pinpoint warpins.

AFK cloaker who moves in orbit can be determined by 3 "pinpoints" that seem to form a circle, with that it's easy to either check the distance to object the person is orbiting and take ceptor/just sit and wait for the afker to finish his orbit as he will return to spot a.

Direct line moving afk cloaker? Once you have a, b and c as locations "where the ship was" you can just take faster ship and burn in direct line determined by those spots, you'll catch him.

Cloaking macros without covop cloaks that move slowly? Will die horribly, truly horribly unless they logoff/start to warp between SS's.

This ofc requires eve to start keeping score where cloaking ships were x minutes ago, which increases server db load, hence CCP will most likely implement something that will be more horrible (provides direct warpin to cloaked ship/makes it targetable in grid.)

They don't need to know where on grid we are, just that we are there. The moment they see the cloaked ship was here 5 min ago message, they'll reorganize their fleet to easily tackle and kill any bombers that decloaks.

What a bomber do is wait for the enemies to relax and do some kind of error. If they get remainded every 5th minute that someone is there hunting them, that will never happend.

Also highlight + ctrl c your post before posting ^^

oh yea I need to add figures.... 60,000 people know this.

The whole idea is stupid. AFK cloakers are only a danger to afk players i.e. bots. I suppose weak minded null bears might find the presence of an afk cloaker demoralizing, but so what? The current mechanics are not broken. Leave it alone already.

The whole idea is stupid. AFK cloakers are only a danger to afk players i.e. bots.

So ...an AFK (person away from keyboard) in a cloaked ship is only dangerous to a piece of software automating a series of tasks in Eve ... Do you understand how stupid that statement is as I believe bots don't care or are not programmed to give a damn if they are being observed ? Next, caller we will be answering the question of a falling tree making a sound if no-one is there to hear it.


The only thing I believe we should have in Eve is a counter to a threat. Perceived or real. Something that can be used to nullify it. The AFK cloaker is one area that we do not have this and I would ask that a counter be developed. Whether that is a timer that disables the cloak after a long period of inactivity or a cloak needing a fuel - I would like to see a counter made

the AFK cloakers are there to remind people who think they are safe in blue space are in fact, not safe and should keep on their toes.

Most bots are programed to log off if naut or red enters local.

This thread is not about AFK cloakers by the way. Reread the first post if you think so.

"Cloak Hunters: CCP brought up the possibility of a future cloak-hunting ship or mechanic as a hypothetical; this was described as GÇÿmore like finding a submarine than pulling a blanket offGÇÖ a cloaked ship.

My random crack pot guess is- a new type of fighter that can and will only engage cloaked ships in sov space that is not yours on the 1st and 15th on any month.

My random crack pot guess is- a new type of fighter that can and will only engage cloaked ships in sov space that is not yours on the 1st and 15th on any month.

As a submariner IRL, I can assure you that finding another sub is not an easy task. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

If finding a cloaked ship is anything like finding a submerged submarine, only a small handful of players will be able to pull it off.

Which is EXACTLY my point. It seems than non-AFK cloakers are worried about some "radar" system that might detect them.

I'll betcha my Pony to your Cookie that CCP will NOT make any detriment to active cloakies - they will simply provide a way to scan down AFK cloakies.

Otherwise why bother?

Cloaking and what you can do with cloaking is not the issue and NEVER has been.

the AFK cloakers are there to remind people who think they are safe in blue space are in fact, not safe and should keep on their toes.

Don't break what doesn't need fixing.

should be like a dictor bubble of xkm range. If ur in that bubble range, you can be seen, cloaked or not.

Now, that just leaves it, to weather just that particular ship can see where the cloaker is, or, it lights them up, so everyone on grid can see them also.

" Hey guys, i found this cloaky rat-bastard. Warp to me, get ur drones out & blast him to hell! "

Makes gatecamps impossible to pass for cloakers, in turn killing covop haulers. Helps to kill nearly all *at the keyboard, getting into position" cloaky action. Doesnt touch afk cloakers sitting in SS.

Brilliant suggestion! Let's have more like this.

This is definitely not a "activate module, ship is decloaked" thing. I'm assuming when they said "like finding a submarine" that it will give your ship some direction that it detected the cloak ship in, as long as it's on grid. Eventually, if you're afk, it will find you. If you aren't afk, then you would have to be stupid to stick around long enough for it to find you and decloak you.

Those who think AFK cloaking in a system doesn't have any detrimental effects.. well, you're a moron and if you don't get it by now, then me stating what 30000 other people have already stated isn't going to get through to you. Nuff said.

And what happens when every EVE player needs a bot to play the game?

Cloaky hunting

Any pulse, bubble or bombing method to decloaking a ship would be unfair and susceptible to blob warfare IMO so...

The only way this could really work is if a new ship was created that had the ability to probe out the APPROXIMATE location of a cloaked ship.

Once the cloaky hunter has the approximate location he can warp to it. Once on grid this cloaked ship could be anywhere within a 30km radius.

The next stage in cloaky hunting would involve another new ship module - The Special Distortion Field Detector (SDFD). This would be the first ship module in game that can be activated while cloaked. It has a 10 second cycle timer but once the cycle timer ends, it displays a GÇ£ghost imageGÇ¥ of all cloaked ships within a 50km radius. To update the location of the ghost image, the cloaky pilot would need to re-activate the SDFD.

And EVE should be risky if played AFK.

will haul people out of stations

and POS shields where they are sitting AFK.

"Cloak Hunters: CCP brought up the possibility of a future cloak-hunting ship or mechanic as a hypothetical; this was described as GÇÿmore like finding a submarine than pulling a blanket offGÇÖ a cloaked ship. The CSM was cautiously positive about the idea of a cloak-hunting vessel of some kind."


The whole point of cloakes is psychological warfare and/or catching your enemies with their pants down. And as I assume this cloak hunter will also be viable for combat (to fight those pesky cloakers), my fear is that every gatecamp and fleet over 5 will have one, thus being aware that there is a cloaked ship around them. This would most likely render stealth bombers (even more) useless, as all ships would either be ready to jump/warp or ready to burn toward anything that decloakes.

My friend and I recently killed a tornado just 100km away from a claw and a daredevil. We went in, used some time to get a nice spot and bombed, pointed, and torped him to death. If they were aware that we were there, the claw and/or daredevil would have been ontop of us in just a few seconds. We used stealth, which we are about to lose, to catch and kill that tornado.

I don't care how weak or powerfull this cloak hunter will be, the only thing that matter is that they know we're there. If CCP make this ship and don't also somehow buff bombers, bombers will only be usefull for POS bashing due to low amount of solo t3 battlecruiser and battleships without small drones.

"Don't fix what isn't broken." If you NEED to find a counter to AFK cloaking, find something else.

P.S.: Bombers = stealth bombers.

Makes gatecamps impossible to pass for cloakers, in turn killing covop haulers. Helps to kill nearly all *at the keyboard, getting into position" cloaky action. Doesnt touch afk cloakers sitting in SS.

Brilliant suggestion! Let's have more like this.

And what happens when every EVE player needs a bot to play the game?

...think of it in sci-fi terms. in most if not all sci-fi movies that involve cloaking devices theres always some kind of emission that can be detected. what if...

I think you're misinterpreting the suggestion intentionally, based on a biased and vested interest.

the problem with cloaking, which is why a cloak hunting ship is required does not come from actual players at their pc's actively running around gathering intel, or setting up bombing points or what not in a cloakey.


the problem stems from players whom take the idea of cloaking alts to the next level

it's now becoming a commonly used, "good profit" investment to purchase 5 accounts, train them all into a covert ops ship with cloak, cyno and covert cyno, point and web. basic skills to pilot the ship and have everything online. Once the alts can acomplish this their training is stopped.


The 5 cloakey chars are then moved into position by the owner, an enemy system in 0.0 sov space, a 0.0 npc station system, wherever theres a good chance of catching people out as they jump in, or as they're in the system ratting.


the alts are then left in these systems with eve minimised., cloaked at a safespot, 23/7.


The owner of the alts uses their main character actively, pvp's, mines, rats, wormholes, world of tanks, whatever it is that they actualy enjoy doing in eve.

Periodicly they check the alt accounts, see who's in local, see whats on dscan, and investigate further. if theres a target that's good, batphone the friends on voice comms, light cyno, kill, cloakey alt goes afk again in its safespot, people that were dropped in go home and go back to ratting/mining.



people claim this tactic is "psyops" - and then call you pussies and say it's you're own fault for letting a single "afk cloakey" prevent you from doing what you're doing and the such...

but the simple fact that having the cloakey cyno alt, and multiple ones, with chars that have never left a NPC corp so the victims cant "retaliate" by bringing the fight to the owners of the cloakey alt (not that most of them can once they get hotdropped and realise who the owners are anyway, its generaly the much bigger alliances that use this tactic to "ease their boredom", or "for teh lulz" of it.



so my opinion - bring on the stealth hunter CCP

People actively at their pc using their cloakey toons will not be affected, they'd be aware that someone is hunting for them and be able to take defensive precautions.

The other type of AFK cloaker however, the ones that have forked outa lot of money to keep their cloakey alts active, will be hella pissed, as they rely on the fact they can leave the alts afk 90% of the time and check them only now and them at the owners leasure. A cloak hunting ship would mean they'd start getting killed/podded regularly as the people whom are in the systems where these alts are placed are active in comparison to the afk cloakey.

the tactic will become unviable and they'll be left with a heap of people unsubbing alt accounts and QQing on the forums - allways bringing up false reasons - ie "it'll prevent me from setting up a bomb point on my bomber wtf man qq?" rather than stating the real reason they're pissy.


As the fact it seems im the first person to mention Cloakey's used in this manner - it seems its still classed as a dirty lil secret yes?

the problem with cloaking, which is why a cloak hunting ship is required does not come from actual players at their pc's actively running around gathering intel, or setting up bombing points or what not in a cloakey.


the problem stems from players whom take the idea of cloaking alts to the next level

it's now becoming a commonly used, "good profit" investment to purchase 5 accounts, train them all into a covert ops ship with cloak, cyno and covert cyno, point and web. basic skills to pilot the ship and have everything online. Once the alts can acomplish this their training is stopped.


The 5 cloakey chars are then moved into position by the owner, an enemy system in 0.0 sov space, a 0.0 npc station system, wherever theres a good chance of catching people out as they jump in, or as they're in the system ratting.


the alts are then left in these systems with eve minimised., cloaked at a safespot, 23/7.


The owner of the alts uses their main character actively, pvp's, mines, rats, wormholes, world of tanks, whatever it is that they actualy enjoy doing in eve.

Periodicly they check the alt accounts, see who's in local, see whats on dscan, and investigate further. if theres a target that's good, batphone the friends on voice comms, light cyno, kill, cloakey alt goes afk again in its safespot, people that were dropped in go home and go back to ratting/mining.



people claim this tactic is "psyops" - and then call you pussies and say it's you're own fault for letting a single "afk cloakey" prevent you from doing what you're doing and the such...

but the simple fact that having the cloakey cyno alt, and multiple ones, with chars that have never left a NPC corp so the victims cant "retaliate" by bringing the fight to the owners of the cloakey alt (not that most of them can once they get hotdropped and realise who the owners are anyway, its generaly the much bigger alliances that use this tactic to "ease their boredom", or "for teh lulz" of it.



so my opinion - bring on the stealth hunter CCP

People actively at their pc using their cloakey toons will not be affected, they'd be aware that someone is hunting for them and be able to take defensive precautions.

The other type of AFK cloaker however, the ones that have forked outa lot of money to keep their cloakey alts active, will be hella pissed, as they rely on the fact they can leave the alts afk 90% of the time and check them only now and them at the owners leasure. A cloak hunting ship would mean they'd start getting killed/podded regularly as the people whom are in the systems where these alts are placed are active in comparison to the afk cloakey.

the tactic will become unviable and they'll be left with a heap of people unsubbing alt accounts and QQing on the forums - allways bringing up false reasons - ie "it'll prevent me from setting up a bomb point on my bomber wtf man qq?" rather than stating the real reason they're pissy.


As the fact it seems im the first person to mention Cloakey's used in this manner - it seems its still classed as a dirty lil secret yes?

So basically force everyone to ditch bombers or get a bot which act defencivly once a cloak hunter is doing something? Still don't get how CCP could ever make a ship/module that saw AFK cloaker but not normal cloakers.

Will be interesting to see what happends.

Edit: and people paying for 5 extra accounts should be good enough reason for CCP to leave things as they are

No, moron.

No, moron.

The idea of a cloak hunter isnt to destroy all forms of cloaking. IT would still permit you to cruise around in a hound as per normal. However if you choose to spend an extended period of time in a system with a cloak hunter - you're chances of being found are increased.


the same as if you jumped a non cloaked ship into a system that has someone in a prober. How long you last is completely up to you're piloting skills and what defences the enemy as setup (have they got bubbles on all the gates, all the celestials? are they guarding the customs offices? how many probes? how quick can you bounce around safes's? etc)


if you're active, at you're pc, you should have warnings to let you know someones hunting for cloakey's/ Be it a "De-Cloaker Probe" that can be seen on Dscan just as combat probes are. If your'e active at you're PC - you see it - you react, you live.

if you're afk - you dont - you die.

And by you're logic with the multiple accounts that everyone botting should be left alone and not banned too right because they're paying for an extra subscription, yeah? Tosser.

In other words, ruin bombers completely and recons to some extent (for other use than force multiplier). Yes, that totally sounds like something CCP would do (sadly no sarcasm intended).

Oh well, thank god my covert ops 5 can still be usefull for the covert ops probing bonus.

Edit: and no, I did not mean botter should be left alone. I am saying that it would force all bomb users to use bots.

"Don't fix what isn't broken." If you NEED to find a counter to AFK cloaking, find something else.

The solution is a balance in the middle.

absolutely brilliant - you've made up your own new feature based on a phrase and then made an angry post about it!

If you remove local channel from null-sec then the players would also need to drop from all their other chat channels except for Corp?


The local channel is a system wide field of comms, that in turn facilitates access to the New Eden information Arrays?

If null-sec local is "unsupported captain, we are in deep space" then you'd also have to lose access to women-gamers-of-EVE.

How would you give intel across a/n alliance/s?

Removing local completely in null-sec is wrong, toggling access to all channels is probably the only feasible way of "remaining invisible" to local. You can't exactly pay a CSPA charge if you are "unable to connect captain, we are in deep space"


As for the sub-hunter: Any range limitations would generally eliminate the chance to detect an AFK cloaker. Time based would surely be the correct way to detect. It excludes Gate Camp blockades at say Taisy, it prevents safe-spots at edge of grid. However, it still doesn't prevent Bot-cloaking (which is against the EULA anyway).

Worst impact a probe/modular ship could have on EVE is if the system has 4 planets and there are 6 cloak-hunters.

With CovertOps/Recon/BlackOps being avenues of skill, having the counter at equal skill-point distance from newb has to be equivalent in terms of effort to counter.

The counters to cloaky's are thus:

They're either flying wet paper bags or impotent where DPS is needed with few exceptions. They can't do anything while cloaked. In most cases, solo, if they uncloak they're quickly dispatched. They can't recloak when targeted and can be decloaked within 2km any object save other cloaked cloaky's.

Under current mechanics, adding a ship specifically designed to find and kill them will pretty much render them useless. And you can be sure that there will be 5 at each gate camp and double that in each fortress system.

I think the only reason this is being considered is because of Falcon.

The easiest way to keep claoks as powerful as they are, but to stop long term AFK cloaking (IE log in, go to enemy system, cloak and then go to work for 8 hours) is to simply have the cloak have a very long cycle time (like an hour or two or something) and not be able to auto repeat. It would need to not run the whole cycle when deactivated though, so you can still uncloak, shoot folks and recloak again in fairly short time, like a 5 second minimum reactivation delay.

This would allow for enemy system disruption, as long as you are actually playing the game and not gone to the pub.... The tactic is valid and valuable, but as I have ever said, if you want to have any effect in game (even purely psychological) you need to actually be playing the game, not away from your computer for half a day.

Its a hard thing to stop the afk abuse of claoks but still keep the power of cloaking ships.

fyp ;)

nobody is afraid of a manticore

The easiest way to keep claoks as powerful as they are, but to stop long term AFK cloaking (IE log in, go to enemy system, cloak and then go to work for 8 hours) is to simply have the cloak have a very long cycle time (like an hour or two or something) and not be able to auto repeat. It would need to not run the whole cycle when deactivated though, so you can still uncloak, shoot folks and recloak again in fairly short time, like a 5 second minimum reactivation delay.

Another solution:
Reintroducing POS module: System Scanning Array

Imagine: local removed in 0.0.
Onlined SSA gives local back, owner can choose for whom (corp/ally/everyone or based on standings).
... BUT... this module has also a drawback. It disrupts all cloaks in entire system, so no one can use them.