So, I’m looking for something new to do in EVE, I haven’t really played much in a while and never did covert-ops stuff or much in the way of stealthy exploration, if at all possible.
The question about cloaks is mainly how do gate camps in Null decloak you.
Is it always the instant target and microwarp at you method?
If not instant target, what other tactics are there to uncloak you?
There is a time delay when breaking Gate-cloak and cloaking, yes? My understanding is this is because of server ticks. If you break gate-cloak then this counts as an action which at a minimum requires 2 server ticks, correct?
3a) So my follow-up to #3 is if you set your cloaking device to your mouse wheel, can’t you rapid fire your cloaking command?
3a) cont’d, therefore can’t you just spam your cloak command until the server automatically registers you as decloaking at the gate (gate timer times-out) and therefore the first command you give on your uncloaked server tick is to cloak?
3a) final: therefore wouldn’t that make your cloak command competitive with instant-targeting strategies and because a target still needs a tick to complete the lock, you win and cloak?
Wow thats alotta ground to cover. So to save 50 paragraphs for every1 else, I’ll tell you the most important thing. 70-80% of the time, gatecamps dont kill ppl, panic kills ppl.
The problem with getting your cloak activated is that you cannot turn it on while you have the gate invulnerability timer. If you time it just right, you will only be visible for 1 tick, but you can’t spam the cloak button because if you hit it more than once, the second click will deactivate your cloak and force you to be visible for the entire cloak cool down timer.
Unless they have a ship, drone or container within 2000m or an instalock ship (you can’t cloak while locked), you can cloak.
If you repeatedly activate your cloak you risk uncloaking once you’re cloaked.
The most common way to get caught in a cloaked ship is when you land in a bubble right on top of a well placed container, because they expected you to warp in from that direction.
If you jump gate into a bubble and it’s a busy camp, try to crash back if you can.
If you jump gate into a bubble and it’s barely camped (only a couple ships far from your ship) you can try CovOps cloak up and move in a direction without decloaking objects. Feel free to slightly change directions based on how they move.
If you jump gate into a bubble in a metaliminal storm that does not allow cloaking, you’re dead.
Burning back to gate is usually suicidal. Usually the edge of the bubble + celestial to warp to is much closer, but if you must- Few people understand the psychology of dealing with the gate camper. A normal traveler will panic and immediately pull over to the side. This is wrong. It arouses contempt in the camper heart. Make the bastard chase you. He will follow. But he won’t know what to make of your blinker signal that says you are about to turn right. This is to let him know you’re pulling off for a proper place to talk. It will take him a moment to realize that he’s about to make a 180 degree turn at speed, but you will be ready for it. Brace for the g’s, and fast heel-toe work.
Also warp to celestial in d-scan range of next gate if traveling thru and suspect camp.
As people have said, you need to time your cloak activation to get it on the correct tick for instantly cloaking. An easy way to do it is (with sounds on) is to active the cloak module on the “dr” of “warp drive active”.
When doing it without warping, it’s just a matter of practice. If you tap the cloak button twice half a second apart when breaking invuln cloak, you should activate the cloak on the first tick but not accidentally disable it again. With a little practice, you’ll do it right 995 times of 1000.
You have a 1s window to activate modules like afterburners and microwarpdrives when your cloak starts. Activate these for a short burst of speed in your cloaking to pull some distance from where you initially appeared and re-cloaked.
When a fast ship wants to burn at you to decloak you, they’ll go for 1 of 2 strategies:
burn where you appeared
watch the direction you start moving, and burn to intercept you
Trying to avoid getting decloaked is a game of psychology. Assuming you start off in a bubble, a good approach is:
Break gate cloak by starting to move towards the edge of the bubble (waiting for a gap between ships)
Immediately activate cloak and AB/MWD
After a couple of seconds, when people start flying to intercept your route to the edge of the bubble, make a 90 degree turn away from them
You bait them into flying the obvious direction, then dodge away into a gap in ships and slowly creep a longer route out of the bubble.
Against a skilled interdictor pilot, you should be able to get away with this in most T2Cloak+MWD or covert ops ships. I’ve done this successfully a number of times in a plated AB pilgrim that handles like a brick.
Alwys try to come in from an odd location. As others said, preferably from in d-scan range.
Panic kills more players than anything else. I’ve had players slide their ship within 5k of my cloak but with the above plan and having faith in my tactics (i.e. not panicking) I got away most of the time. Your not going to win all the time, but that doesn’t make it any less fun!
