Pro-tip...

It isn't your system.

Cloakers have counters. They're called "balls". Be alert, go about your business. Bring a friend. Use DScan and keep your eys open. Want to afk while mining? Too effing bad. You're doing it wrong and deserve to get popped.

Damned whining kids wouldn't last ten minutes in a hole. In my days we didn't even have DScan. You had a buddy sit on the front of your ship with a pair of binoculars AND WE LIKED IT!

So the cloaker wasn't afk after all?

Non sarcastic solution:

EVERY ship in a system that's isn't using an active module (cloaks don't count towards this)
That isn't moving
That isn't chatting on local
DISSAPPEARS from local after 15m

Problem solved

Maybe this is the upcoming changes to local in the works and I'm just profetic.

But what about bots used to stay on local used by afk cloakers you ask?
Well botting is bannable. And if miners can bot then why not afk cloakers. If either gets caught they get banned.

Oh let's make this only in systems in null sec.

Why shouldn't you be able to afk cloak?

Usually this is because people want to be able to harvest isk in peace without bad people putting you on edge. You want it safe so you can mine, rat, or run anomalies. You don't want to have to worry about checking your scanner or split your profits by doing these actions in a fleet or mine with protection.

If you take even the simplest of precautions you can render afk cloakers completely ineffective, but people just don't want to do that.

It's a legit playstyle and already has an effective counter.

I can, in all honesty, say that I have no idea what the hell you just said.


Look, the "solution" (like one's actually needed) to afk cloaking is simple. Well, the "solution" is to be aware etc. However, a change they could make to eliminate the complaints about afk cloaking are simple in concept.

1. When you cloak, you disappear from local.
2. When you cloak, you also can't use local. Your cloak cuts you off in both directions. Intel gathering would need to be done actively, with probes, dscan or simply looking around.
3. To prevent cyno abuse, when you uncloak put a delay on being able to light a cyno. 15, 30, 60 seconds... something balanced.

This would give cloaks more of a true meaning, where you're actually hidden fully. It would also put the intel gathering into "manual" mode instead of simply scanning local to see who's there. It would also add to the sport for cloaked hunters... they could be more stealthy in finding and engaging targets. However, it helps the prey by at least removing the threat of an immediate super-drop on their heads.

The only place I see potential for this is null sec. But it needs balance. The balance would be that neither the people holding sov could cloak, nor others in the system. Introduce the "System wide anti-cloaking field", like the cyno jammer.

The old philosophical question:
If a cloaker is afk in a system, does he still make little children scared?

Can you please use spell check or google translate?

Anyway, I'm guessing you mean bots. Botting is not a cloaking problem it's a banning problem. Handled separately.

They do, the cyno jammer, they cant hot drop their caps and super caps in system. Of course, you cant bring in reinforcements that way either, but hopefully, if you have a station in system, you have the resources there to defend it as well.

Something to keep in mind... they're not your systems. Sure, you may have the dominant force in there. You may have sov, upgrades, etc. However, you don't own the system. At best you currently control it. If someone else comes in and decides to afk cloak, tough crap... they have as much right to be in that system as you do. Due to numbers, sov etc. you can do more... that's the benefits of having control. However, he's as entitled as anyone else to be there, even if it's cloaked, sometimes afk and sometimes gathering intel.

Just because you have control in the system don't think you're entitled to fluffy pillows and bunnies in space. You still need the balls to maintain your influence and control. If that one guy cloaked in there somewhere shakes your entire system's operations then perhaps you're not as ready to control it as you think.

Cloak self-counters: all you can do while cloaked is observe. Dropping cloak to do anything at all makes you detectable.



So your problem isn't one person afk cloaking in system, but the sudden appearance of a 60-man blops fleet. When local suddenly spikes up 60 people, it doesn't matter whether they came in via cyno or gate, you do the same thing: get to your POS and keep your head down.

There's nothing an afk cloaker can do to you that someone bouncing safe spots or simply logging off in space and coming back later can't do. It sounds to me like you just want to be able to rat and mine risk-free. That's what highsec is for.

Hunting Cloakies

Kind of a proposal for a new mini profession.
Skill: Cloaking counter measures
Items: Huntingprobes, Tachyon Emitter

Description:
Huntingprobes can lokate hidden ships with a deviation of about 200 km (or off grid max)
Tachyon Emitter locates cloaked ships on grid. Mechanics described below.

Once you tracked down the cloaked ship (whether the player is afk or not doesn't matter) you can warp in on him (with your friends) and will land somewhere
near his last location. if he is not afk he will warp away as soon as you arrive at grid. Maybe you can catch him with bubbles.

Arrived at the location where he should be you activate your tachyon emitter modul. This will send out an circular puls (or sphere if you want to think in 3D)
(like ecm burst or SB) and will reveal you the location of the cloaked ship. Depending on the distance (and ship type) to you this info is more or less accurate
and point you in a new direction to fly to. Getting clother to the target will increase accuracy of your scan until you found it.
Multiplayer addition: if multiple ships on the grid have this tachyon emitter installed and use it simultaniously the information of all ships will be combined
and narrow down the location of the target. if all the ships stand on same spot (or cloth together) there will be not much profit but if the spread out in different
directions flying in a line with 30km between each other the common result will triangulate the signals and display it to everyone who scanned. (maybe this link
should be limited to fleet since you would help your enemy finding yours while hunting his cloakies ;-))

Further more it should make a difference if the ship is flying or standing. A standing ship can reduce its emission to near zero so it will be harder to detect.
Flying will increase emission and results in greater accuracy of the scans/tachyons.
It also depends on the ship you are hunting. A little stealth bomber is much harder to detect than a cloaked mothership right?

Maybe this brings space for a new ship type like a counter recon vessel.

some constructive criticism or additional thoughts are appreciated.


It is quit interessting how many people are that intelligent to know that a cloaky who attacks someone isn't afk. guys, you are greate thinkers ;-)

So, what's the problem...?

Is it the AFK cloakers that are causing these issues? Is it cloaking or is it just AFK in general?

Having people disappear from local when they cloak will not help as you don't know if they logged off or just cloaked up. If I wanted to "play" with your mind I could then do 2 things: log off or cloak which would effectively remove me from local on both occasions thus rendering the argument that I'm in a "cloaky" obsolete. I could cloak up a number of times and then just log off for the rest of the day/night thus making you more paranoid, thinking I have cloaked, am still in your system and ready to hot drop a fleet on you at any moment while all along I'm running incursions on an alt making money 40 jumps away.

If, however, the AFK issue itself is addressed than we might be on the right track. If you go AFK for more than lets say 30 mins you get logged off automagically (that is not a typo, I did that on purpose). This would remove you from local and make you guys who are paranoid about cloakys appearing off your starboard bow a little less paranoid, would it not? Oh, no it wouldn't, because the ones that are still there in local....well, they might not be AFK after all.....

The same could go for stations also seeing as I could have my corp/alliance all log in and sit in a station all day while being afk thus giving you the impression that it's not a good idea to hang around due to the fact that you might get blobbed by all us AFK'ers.

However, setting an auto logout for being AFK will effect all you AFK miners out there and we can't have that now can we...

My opinion is play cautiously, if you don't want to risk it then don't be out there. Expect the unexpected as it will happen and when it does just be ready to GTFO as fast as possible. If that won't work...bring some back up or even better:

have your clone up to date!