To entertain myself, while I agree that cloakers are an annoyance and nothing more, they can collect intel and even prep a hot drop, but if you are prepared to deal with them (or aligned and paying attention), then they aren’t too big of a deal. In my case, with present mechanics, if you decloak and tackle me I will MJD to a safe distance (already aligned) then just warp as you maintain direction and speed in mjd. If you are close enough to scram, you are close enough for my drones to quickly hit you as well as my neut. With a few exceptions, in the time it takes you to drop cloak, tackle, cyno, another pilot to bridge, the fleet to react and jump, then load grid, lock, and get extra tackle, I have plenty of time to explode or neut out the tackling ship and warp off. Plus most pve ships pay for themselves long before I loose them anyway.
However on a physics standpoint, cloaking should be nerfed. The main ways to detect anything are visual, radar/sonar (or similar such as gravametric), and thermal. From my understanding cloaking in eve, effectively bends light around the ship, making it NEAR invisible to the naked eye, while reducing EM emissions to a point it is extremely difficult to detect on scanners. Because of that, the current mechanic is if the ships gets within range it decloaks automatically. AKA you’re close enough to detect its EM emissions and/or see the telltail shimmer of light refraction. I do agree there should be modules made for larger ships that interfear with cloaks on a larger field, say 200k for ship based, that makes a sphere that interfears with cloaks. Perhaps a citadel fit version that covers multiple AU, if not a whole system. HOWEVER, this doesn’t take into account thermal. Ships require life support, and while eve lore says even capuleer ships do have a crew for day to day operation (Although its not a REQUIREMENT), this means there is heat generated as part of life support. This, in turn means waste heat radiates through the armour of the ship and out into space creating “hot spots”. Also the engines and reactors of the ships generating thrust and power likely cause at least some heat generation. Granted pure capsuleer crewed ships likely have contained life support so little to no waste heat generated by life support. This waste heat gives a clear way for cloak detection systems to function. Make it a range based active scanner, that scans the area around you for “heat signatures” at range. Make it give false readings too, all sorts of things CAN make a heat distortion. Then as you close in with the scanner, give it a secondary, far more precise EM detector, so detect the lower EM emissions to verify if there is a cloaked ship. Explorer ships and non cloaky recons would be perfect for this module IMHO. Example give recons a 100k range, 20 for EM and 100 for heat detection. Give explorer ships 30 / 150 (they are meant for exploration with a much stronger sensor suite). Then give battleships 75/250. if you make a citadel fit make it in au. 5 au for EM, and 25 for heat, and make it automatic, so that anyone who has docking ability who is in space can “interface” with the citadel and scan down the signatures to further investigate.
Beyond that, lore around local channels would give credit to getting rid of it. I could go either way, I play everywhere HS on alts, LS (facwar as well as 'bear stuff in LS), and predominantly live in nullsec. Concord established “local” networks for communication and pilot tracking, as you jump in, your transponder and ships on board computer link into the network. As concord has no presence in nullsec, it would make sense for local to go away. HOWEVER, as concord tied this system into the gate system (which is why wormholes don’t have it), it would make sense for concord to have established it into the entire gate system, even nullsec. So lore wise it could go either way, especially if they just announced that “pirate factions have begun to balk at concord interference, and so concord has decided to remove tracking from any gates outside of empire control”. As a player I understand it would increase the risk (as a nullbear, increase the fun with the risk), and likely decrease (better balance) the isk income. Intel would only come when people have snuck in and attacked. Well established groups would still be able to form and defend, but it would make safe living hell for smaller groups.
