Decloak Smartbomb
What makes you think this will make a difference? they aren’t going to still be on grid so this won’t decloak them
Well good luck asking for more advanced “decloaking” techniques (i’d agree that they are desperately needed to make this game more an interesting and tactical cat&mouse game again in which both sides can pressure the other… and push them on their toes (attention-wise))… People will throw a pile of nonsense upon you and bury you under non-arguments and personal insults.
They just like the imbalanced power of their cloaky alts that are pretty much untouchable and still need close to zero attention while being able to decloak and cyno in or tackle or kill something at will.
I had been toying with several ideas in my head during that post, yes. And Im aware of the limitations of them in many ways but havent perfectly fleshed out the idea itself in my own mind. So please bear with me, as I like the idea itself this topic has proposed.
The Mass idea is one taken from WH Mass counters, something already hardcoded into the game for travel through WHs so could be changed slightly to give smaller fleets faster cyno timers than large fleets and would ultimately, at least in my mind, force more cynos for larger fleet operations like the big 100-250+ vs 100-250+ battles to be fought in stages. Where youd need to control the ground and protect the cyno moreso for the larger groups to be able to cyno in. Though this would favour defenders and those who “hold the ground” on the grid more.
The total mass itself of a tick could be calculated and then the total time for that tick could be sent to a count down timer on a characters screen until completion. This information could be relayed to FCs so they know who, or how many, are within each jump timer limit.
I like your idea of spool up though in general and would make that a constant minimum and then increase using mass or just position in line, again position in cyno queue is something CCP has in their logs, so just straight capping it at 1, 5, 10, 15, etc ships to do the increased time would suffice. I think generally it would just mean that either ground has to be held initially precyno or that those who jump early would have to be a QRF (Quick Reaction Force) style and engage to secure grid, rep cyno ship, etc in order to continue the invasion. Think controlling the beachhead at Normandy on D-Day. Or the ships would eventually get flung all throughout the system that are in the jump queue and disorganized and unable to fight immediately because the cyno has been killed.
So the values would have to be tweaked for sure for each incremental jump timer increase, or else youd lose a lot of functionality of cynoing for small, medium and large scale battles.
I think ultimately its about less than instant force projection that scales with the amount of ships, mass, etc thats going through the cyno. The irony is that given a successful integration of some incremental value could be used for ansiblexes as well.
Why not give the new Odysseus a role/other bonus for a new way to hunt blops? Its role hasnt been fully cemented yet and would make an incredibly interesting platform to use for such shenanigans.
New probes that can ping for cloaky BS only actively like a submarines active systems. Giving general areas only that expire in a short time frame, then must be relaunched and pinged in ever decreasing AU values till a relevant “grid” can be locked down ( much like the old probe system where each AU decrease meant brand new probes and means you carry them as ammunition that runs out). Then a shorter ranged Dscan module is needed to sweep the grid space to % roll a decloak of at least 30sec-1min. Couple this with combat probes to warp cloaked on grid to the ship and tackle.
This would force the hunted hunters to be active enough to dodge the new probes or combat probes in the end, or warp off after decloak to a new safe spot.
In general I am open to most ideas, but I prefer simple solutions. I like the credo of the old Blizzard™ games that were incredibly successful, like WarCraft, StarCraft, Diablo etc: “easy to learn, hard to master”.
Adding another rather complex mechanic for jump timers where noone can on the fly estimate how long his fleet will need to get throug a jump imho simply disturbs fluid gameplay. I perfer a rather simple set of timers to memorize and then the focus shall be on good execution and decisions made on-grid.
Also if you delay fleets too much, make timers too long, it might become almost impossible to reinforce large fights. Because if the opponent has 500 ships on grid and you need to bring your own ships in waves of lets say 50… then those 50 will be decimated to 20 by the time your next wave arrives. Or if they can arrive all at once but at a longer timer, no cyno ship in the world (or even multliple) can survive that long.
K.I.S.S. = keep it simple stupid. Someone should understand and memorize how cyno-jumping works after reading the “show info” page of his jump-capable ship or the cyno generator. No one should need an in-depth guide to have a clue how long it takes to bring a 131 man fleet from A to B.
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Honestly, blops is in my option a little to over powered. I cant fly a solo BS like i use to before for the fear of just getting dropped on and thats it. Cant run, Cant fight. People have talked about a spool up time and i think thats a good idea to give you the ability to reinforce fights as needed but also stop that instant drop that kills smaller fleets.
I have seen a nice juicy fleet coming through my system, while i was docked alone. I immediatly messaged some guys and they got ready in seconds, i got into a falcon and dropped this poor gang looking for a good fight with a complete imbalance of power they just cant do anything about. Just like that their fun is ruined, we get a small joy and go back to sitting doing nothing.
This game is huge but feels so small and limited. Every day i slowly lose the want to undock. Unless its for a regularly scheduled fleet where we have numbers. The solo, small gang stuff feels so so very dead now a days. But its the most rewarding feeling iv ever experienced.
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a spool up time is a nice idea, but I would also want to see a timer on being able to re-cloak after jumping.
They should be vulnerable after the gank as well before they can jump out. if they jumped into a system and had to wait 10-15 minutes with no cloak before they could jump back out, they would have to be prepared for a counter offensive even if the initial kill is simple.
it would not do a lot for a defensive drop in space you control, but it would make a diffrence in using them offensively.
I really don’t think the answer to this is in a change to the current mechanics of the blops ships.
All that does is hurt an established and well enjoyed part of the game. The answer is in additional mechanics or changes to the over arching decloaking system. Nerfing ships or gameplay directly often just upsets everything and everyone. However adding a robust and balanced counterplay that is engaging and balances the original mechanic is just good game development.
I really feel the answer to this is in either general improved decloaking or additional dedicated counter blops probing/decloaking. This is where there is plenty of room for a new ship type, new mechanics etc. And it leaves the blops mostly as is.
Then you don’t adress the current problem. Which is that BlackOps are way too oppressive against smallscale pvp gangs.
You solve absolutely nothing by giving them a tool that could probe or decloak them after roflstomping the whole gang in a few seconds.
Low-Sec and Null-Sec seem really appealing… NOT.
God Mode? 
You all realize you are playing the game not ccp?
If you want to break up the blocs form a group and fight them.
one 20 man corp with 23/7 entoces links can wreak havoc on a bloc.
Break their stuff. Blue ball. Repeat.
Pretty much yes. Someone linked zKill stats saying that Blops have a 20 to 1 kill:death ratio. Meaning that a blops group will, on average, kill 20 ships before one of the blops die, and that’s the lowball version. Practiced blops groups are probably more of a 30:1 ratio
Between that and podding, gate camps, smartbombing, bubbles, tackle traps, awoxing, corporate theft, espionage, scams, contract fraud, market manipulation, price fixing, war declarations, extortion, ransom demands, harassment, asset seizure, sovereignty eviction, structure destruction, loot theft, ninja salvaging, intel leaks, logistics interdiction, cyno trapping, jump route denial, baiting, griefing, reputation attacks, time-zone warfare, burnout pressure, and permanent loss of ships, cargo, implants, and territory, it definitely makes me want to stay in hi-sec and not lose my time, energy and isk in quadrants of space I don’t belong to.
I don’t really have much of a dog in this fight, but looking at zkill, it seems like what kills blops the most are other blops, and that does seem like a bit of a balance smell.
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High sec isn’t really any better. The wolves are fewer, but they have even less counterplay because they get to try an infinite amount of time until they land that “you’re already dead” tackle on you.
The only counter to a blops drop is an even bigger blops drop.
So fewer wolves + CONCORD. That already seems more like better odds, especially if I don’t fly bling and watch what I transport.
Most of the items in this list are also present in highsec. Some of them are even predominantly present in highsec.
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I hope you’re not telling me that Hi-Sec is more dangerous than Low-Sec and/or Null-Sec or I’m going to have to reread everything I’ve read about EVE so far.
What I’m telling you is that your perception of what activities take place in which area of space is out of alignment with reality.