Hello Eve people! A buddy and I were talking about cloaked ships, and the fact that they are impossible to find when cloaked. It’s a great mechanic, but we thought shouldn’t there be some way to find a cloaked ship, albeit not easy? Our idea was to create a new ship class that is specifically designed for this purpose. 1. It would be a Tech III ship, with no high slots.
2. It would be able to fit a ship type specific EMP Pulse emitter.
3. The idea would be that this ship type would still be able to detect cloaked ships on D-Scan, but they wouldn’t be given ship type. It would simply show as cloaked ship.
4. If the player can localize where the ship is in system by D-scanning around, they would then have to warp to a close enough point, and then light the EMP emitter, much like lighting a Cyno. EMP Pulse range would be dependant on skill level starting at 0.5 AU Radius, and increasing by 0.5 AU Radius each level, max 2.5 AU radius. Then, if the cloaked ship is within the EMP bubble radius, it’s cloak would be deactivated with a 1 min reactivation delay.
5. The EMP pulse would also disable the activating ships engines for the same minute. So it wouldn’t be going anywhere for that minute.
The crux of this whole thing is that AFK cloaking is dumb. If you are going to play the game, then play it. Don’t just log in cloak and walk away just to disrupt life for everyone. By all means, if that’s what you want to do, then fine, do it. But there should be a mechanic in game to allow the hunting of this type of activity. The idea outlined above is simply designed to make cloaked campers have to actually play the game. disabling the cloak with the EMP pulse would take time and skill, as the player would have to try to localize with D-scan, and could only jump to a warpable object. (planet, moon, structure, star, etc…) I would imagine that players would easily drop bookmarks to try to put themselves out of range of the 5 AU bubble from anything and still cloak camp. Then, even if the cloak hunter ship manages to decloak the ship, it has no high slots. No weapons, no probes, and no cloak device of it’s own. That means it can’t do anything about the cloaked ship itself. It would need to rely on others to back it up. This would take coordination, especially since until it uncloaks the camper, it would have no idea what kind of ship it was dealing with. The best a solo decloaker could hope for would be to be able to identify what cloaked ships are. At a minimum it would force cloaky campers to have to monitor their surroundings so they don’t get decloaked while AFK and get dropped on.
Just an idea. Seems like an easy addition, as Concord can already do this.
Sorry, I didn’t realize that thread was for this idea. I thought it was just for people to talk about their love of cloaky camping. I don’t think I can move the thread.
The linked thread is for a bunch of angry people to rant about:
Cloaked campers scare me and I can’t play the game while I am scared.
or
Cloaked campers are harmless (as long as they stay cloaked).
The two sides just yell at each other repeating the same thing endlessly, never understanding the other person’s position. Since the argument never gets anywhere, the moderators prefer to contain the discussion in a single location.
Ok . Mods please move thread to applicable channel.
On a side note, I don’t hate cloaky campers. They are performing a function. Just thought there should be some form of counter. Cloaking is the only mechanic in EvE that has no counter.
Once someone goes cloak, they are gone. Whether it’s on the gate or in the middle of the system, you’ll never know.
This is always thrown out and is completely bunk. First, nowhere is it written that everything in EVE has a counter.
Secondly, while cloaked you cannot interact with anything. You cannot target cloaked, you cannot attack cloaked. You cannot jump a gate cloaked. You cannot jump through a wormhole cloaked. You cannot even get too close to anything cloaked.
In a way you could say cloaking is its own counter. You could also say it does not need a counter as it cannot interact with other players directly while remaining cloaked.
I do not wish to argue the merits of the counter-ability of cloaking. I simply was pointing out that it has no natural player defense. Granted not everything needs to! Cloaking can remain as it is and it would not matter to me in the least. I just thought that the inclusion of a vessel such as I’ve described above would create an interesting niche. It would not eliminate the ability to cloak camp AFK. It would simply require more strategic thought on the part of the camper.
Example: You want to camp a system. So you wrap from one point to another. Whilst in warp, you drop a BM (not bowel movement😳) approx. half way. As long as that BM is outside of a 2.5 AU radius from any warpable object you could sit there cloaked and AFK for who knows how long. It would be difficult to pinpoint where you might be even in said ship and you wouldn’t be able to warp close enough for the EMP to have any effect. You would basically have to do the same thing as the camper did, and drop a rando BM and hope it’s close enough.
So, I’ve suggested both a method of defeating the cloaked camper, and a method of defeating the defeat.
I simply wanted to add a new vector to the play style of cloakers and other players. This change would simply cause cloakers to kind of pay attention.
If you are not AFK, the obvious solution to seeing this particular ship come out would be to move around. They would never be able to get a fix on your position and they would soon give up trying. Also, if you are not AFK, then even if you got successfully decloaked, you simply start bouncing until the timer wears off, or you directly attack the declaoker ship. Either way it adds a new dynamic.
Oh, and none of this is meant to disparage any player or play style. I am not in the habit of trolling or being derogatory. I’m stating this in all sincerity.
There are many valid reasons to cloak afk for a time that are not to mess with the locals, but as a defense against a fleet you cannot defend against.
I can tell you are coming late to the game. Literally everything you are throwing out has been discussed ad nauseum in the AFK cloaking superthread. Please take some time to go through that before you think you have something new to propose.
Well, as I said. Not changing the status quo will not bother me. I do monitor my surroundings, so it makes little difference to me. Just thought it was a neat idea.
It is funny to me the amount of vehemence this topic produces.
. Mods please move thread to applicable channel.