Cloaking Rebalance v2.0
All cloaking devices now require the use of Helium Isotopes (or equivalent). You can still afk cloak, but eventually you’ll have to refuel your ship at some point.
• Solves semi-permanent cloaky campers
• Doesn’t penalize active cloaky campers or regular use
Regular Cloaking Devices
• 2 units of helium isotopes per cycle (0.06m / 30 sec)
Covert Ops Cloaking Devices
• 3 units of helium isotopes per cycle (0.09m / 30sec)
. . . . .
50m3 of helium isotopes now provides (as an example):
• ~7 hours of regular cloaking time
• ~4.5 hours of covert cloaking time
Ok, so I have a buddy in a covops warp to me cloaked, jettison a container of isotopes, I decloak for a couple seconds, grab the container, recloak, and warp to another safe. Takes all of 5 seconds…
Yes, although it requires a second ship and the refueling process. The idea was that a single ship can’t perpetually remain cloaked 24/7 because eventually they’ll need to refuel. Containers disappear after a while and mobile depots can be easily scanned down.
What is wrong with mobile observatories? Inconvenient for you? Or never heard of?
Must be “never heard of”, because your premise of being able to cloak 24/7 is wrong since their introduction. Even if not, 24/7 is wrong due to the existence of the downtime.
You can still cloak 24/7 (even with the presence of a Mobile Observatory) - you just can’t perpetually be afk. But the Mobile Observatory only lasts 2 hours. And even with downtime you can still safely logout and re-login whenever.
Having a fuel requirement means that at some point you either need to a) refuel or b) leave to refuel.
So how does this genius idea account for the cargo volume differences between cloaked ships? I can see blockade runners with their cargohold become the de-facto long-term cloaky campers.
not entirely sure if I like it or not, just a few hints:
use Liquid Ozone, Strontium or HeavyWater instead of Helium Isotopes, because those are harvestable almost everywhere, not just in one area of the game
all ships with a bonus on cloaking should get a special bay so they don’t need to use regular cargo space to fill their role
I am not sure if your proposal can fullfill the most needed task tho: Forcing the cloaky to constantly pay attention if he doesn’t want to be found. If people can still cloak for hours and hours, always with the option to cyno in a fleet at any moment, adding “fuel” would only add some effort every now and then, but neither bring entertaining options to those who want to catch the cloaky nor entertaining options to the cloaky trying to actively avoid being caught (cat/mouse gaming). It would be the same situation like now, just with needing one more alt to do the refuels or a quick refueling trip once a day, but it wouldn’t increase active gameplay (aka player interaction). I don’t think it addresses the main problem that is “threatening others with a cynofleet while being literally uncatchable if doing at least 2 clicks every 15 minutes”.
Sure, helium or similar mass equivalent fuel works. “Cloak” seems to be one of those key trigger words on the forums that immediately brings out the cloaky campers in defense.
Truth be told if you own sov you should really be able to deploy a permanent decloaking structure. Under Equinox there’s an associated cost in terms of what you’d have to give up to achieve this, so it’s not that unreasonable.
Well, if that one is indeed wanting to lurk around for hours and hours with minimal effort and then “headshot” someone with a rightly timed “cyno up”, then what else is he? Exactly a “cloaky camper” right?
I mean, the whole point of these ships is to keep a constant threat up with as little activity required as possible so one can easily do it on an alt with almost no risk, until the locals attention tire out at some point (which is inevitable) and then quickly blob them before they can respond.
Sometimes I am really confused how people can even defend this type of gameplay as “valuable”. shrugs. Hotdropping is (in my book) really the lowest form of PvP in this whole game, way lower even than gatecamping or ganking ;). Interestingly enough, the people doing it tend to think higly of themselves just because they use multibillion ISK blingmachines en masse for a 1 minute kill (90% of the time, rare exceptions). shrugs again
People who are against the idea of cloak fuel could just be any other cloak-user in the game. Pretending that anyone who is against the idea of cloak fuel is a cloaky camper is dishonest.
As an explorer with a limited cargohold I definitely do not want to have it full of ‘cloak fuel’, and I think it’s a bad idea.
Because it is fun and requires sov holders to put effort into safeguarding their farming grounds. That is something that has been on the decline for way too long and cloaky camping is pretty much the only remainin attack angle that demands this from sov holders.
What boggles my mind is how people can defend tedious fuel mechanics as something desirable.
Interaction and friction between players is what makes a PvP game fun.
Now if the interaction or friction is unbalanced it’s an issue, but I don’t see friction itself as something undesirable.
On topic of cloak fuel: it’s a bad idea because not only does it make the interaction with cloaked ships more fun, it also has big negative consequences for every other cloaked ship in the game aside from cloaky campers. With so many side-effects for a suggestion targeted against cloaky campers it’s bad.
You are right with that. I too don’t really like the fuel-idea, for exactly that reason (and I don’t think it would solve the current issue at it’s base). I can imagine a lot of situations where you could need a (short time) cloak without the intention to camp a system for hours with a cynofleet in the back for a cheap kill. And it would be pretty inconvenient to not being able to use any cloaking device because you don’t have fuel available at all times.
Nah, you mix up things here. The “cloaking” definitely isn’t fun. Because if you would be honest, the “cloaky” itself is mainly an alt being afk and doing a handful of clicks per hour to prevent being decloked by a possible MoOb ping. What you think is “fun” is the kill, the action around that hunt and the possible reaction of the dropped one (which is highly unlikely to be dangerous, but at least could happen once in a while). And I can agree with that being funny.
And no one wants to take that away. A mechanic where you can’t “cloaky camp” semi-afk any more would be absolutely sufficient, because that would force the cloaky to actually play the game actively if he wouldn’t want to be caught sooner or later. And with "actively* I mean a lot more than 2 clicks every 14 minutes to keep the cloakdefense timer up. I don’t want to deny you your fun of hunting, but please let it be challenging for the hunter and not just a waiting-for-the-right-moment contest.
This has been suggested before. It was a bad idea then, its still bad.
The current system ostensibly came about due to mass scale camping by groups like Aunt Jemimma Southern Kitchen. Despite protests that AFK cloaking was a legitimate gameplay and AFK cloakers were not a threat, access to the the mobile observatory shut down the industry almost overnight.
The game is in a much better place, the only way which this could be iterated on would to counter the new bots using macros to cloak every time the observatory pings.
Yep its another idea that looks reasonable, though with all of 5 seconds is revealed as awful.
So? Someone has to log in a blockade runner for a few minutes and then log every now and then to top up.
Secure containers take quite a lot of time to kill
But have a reinforcement timer that makes them invlun, though no mechanic to stop them from just getting picked up and put back down again.
Does nothing against bots/macro, has no multiplier efffec, weak EHP, does nothign to force hostiles from system, is single use…
Without the refuling process having any kind of exposure, this is meaningless at best and a step backwards at worst.
Indeed, though at least now droppers have to commit more than a rookie ship with a cyno fit.
For who?
People still get dropped on these days, get better hunters or find dumber prey.
it’s one of the few ways to keep bots under any kind of control.
in any case, people have been whining about cloaky campers ever since cloaks were introduced.
there’s plenty of ways of dealing with them, including the mobile observatories.
Those still whining about cloaky campers often just want to be able to AFK their Ishtars or Gilas in 0.0 space.
Hunting for targets to drop BLOPS onto requires a fair bit of skill. D-Scan, combat probing, actually landing hard tackle, staying alive until the fleet lands, etc.
Many times I’ve had a target slip out of my grasp and had to abort the drop.
Check out Martino Fabbro’s YouTube videos to see what’s involved. They’re a bit old now, but the basic process is still the same.