If mobile observatories are not effective against the cloaky camper, it is likely that the cloaky camper is not AFK.
Mobile observatories have a 99% effectiveness against AFK cloaky ships; there is only a 1% chance someone is still cloaked after 9 pings with 40% decloak chance.
If they’re not getting caught by mobile observatories it means they’re most likely at their PC and do recloak when decloaked. I’ve heard SMT can warn players when they get decloaked.
As Mobile Observatories are intended as a tool against AFK cloaky campers and you’re dealing with non-AFK cloaky campers, it’s the wrong tool for the job.
Mobile Observatories shouldn’t be turned into a tool against non-AFK cloaky players and the cloak hardening time you wanted to be removed also is essential. Imagine how the game would be if an Astero jumps into a system, lands in a bubble and gets it’s cloak instantly removed by a Mobile Observatory? How the game would be if you tried moving your capital ship through non-friendly space if every hostile could decloak you wherever you were?
Mobile Observatories are an answer against the age-old problem of AFK cloaky campers.
What you’re dealing with if Mobile Observatories aren’t effective is likely cloaky campers who aren’t always AFK.
When enemies aren’t AFK you have different options: they’re paying attention so you could bait them.
And if they are AFK but you need help catching them with a mobile observatory: There are a couple of guys in the alliance who really know how to get cloaky campers, you could ask them how they do it.
This! when I enter a system and flocks of ishtars are running to their structures to tether, I usually cloak up and do something else like some daydream of bathing in their tears
Just make Mobile Observatories function like Mobile Depots, ie: they last for 30 days after deployment. If it goes into reinforced mode it stops functioning.
If you want to essentially remove cloaks from the game, sure, it’s a good idea to have mobile observatories last longer and have a reinforcement timer.
Personally I think the current situation is healthier: Mobile Observatories exist so people are pretty much guaranteed to lose their ship if someone wants it dead when they leave it cloaked overnight in a system, but on the other hand cloaks are still a strong defensive tool.
Isnt eve a PVP based game ? So why should all the ratters and Botters be allowed to rat and bot without risk. Oh wait its nullbears again.
Guess i get in my cloaky camper and go afk again
In theory, you can already do that and just launch 10 moobs for a ping every minute. However, this would incur an appropriate cost for the increased hassle towards campers.
If all that it’s needed for is to tackle something and then open a covops cyno, it’s going to be more like 35m isk.
Are nullers so out of content now that they bring a 24 member fleet to drop on an ishtar?
Back when I still was in null, the hunter would have solo-ed that ishtar in hope that he gets something more appropriate for a 24 blops fleet in response to killing the ishtar. But then, it would also have been multiple players operating the blops, not just one nerd and his alts, and the hunter wouldn’t have stayed in one system for long if wrecking ishtar failed to provoke a response.
With 25 alts, you can biomass your hunter and skill extract/inject a new toon into a bomber with covops cyno every second day. With the recent MCT deals, you can do it every day. Nice new zkill with nothing on it.
Having to invest 60+ m isk to wreck a 35m afk troll isn’t efficient.
Which means odds that he can remain cloaked despite you having dumped 65m isk to decloak him are lower then the odds he wasn’t there in the first place and local was buggy again.
Of cause, the later situation can be workarounded by subscribing an additional toon and leaving it at a locator agent.
True bots compare the isk price of an ishtar fit they lose if it gets blopsed to the estimated lack of income they if they dock up, and stay on grid if losing an isthar is more profitable then not continuing to crab with the rest of the fleet.
It’s the player operated crabs that are scared, and it’s player alliances that are worried enough about their alliance zkill that they ask members to dock when neutrals come into local.
A player that needs to cloaky camp a system for days until he feels safe enough to try dropping his 24 blops alts is not a carebear?
I prefer if the mobile observatories decloak 100%, once on deployment, and then every 10 minutes. As it is, the chance is 40%. What’s the point of 40%?
These topics are so crazy to read, most people don’t even realize how stuck they are in their bubble of uncreativity, stuck to the boring, unchallenging, time-wasting, vet- & blobfavouring gameplay we have right now. Always crying that “this would break the game” “that would break the game” “this cannot be done” “that cannot be done” and being so wrong over and over again.
It reminds me of the discussions we had around the 2000s when fine-tuning StarCraft and Diablo II, it was ridiculous what people argued for outright crap mechanics (which equals the cloaky-camping of EVE today) and when Blizzard finally changed it (sometimes it took years to do so) exactly nothing bad happened. People realized it actually was an improvement (and would have been right from the start) and a few weeks later absolutely nobody wished to return for the previous version.
I’ll keep saying what I think on the matter: This current cloakymechanic (together with Cynos of course) is bad as hell and could use improvements towards a more active gameplay on both sides. Options for people to put active pressure on cloaked ships which forces the cloaky to be really active himself trying to evade their tools. And no, I don’t mean 1 click every 14 minutes to recharge the cloak defense, I mean the real threat of being found and decloaked within a few minutes by gameplay actions of the opponents if not paying constant attention, evading their actions and knowing how to react.
And @Gerard_Amatin ,rest assured, all fears of stuff “being abused” can be adressed. Of course the goal is not to enable to defenders to “just drop 100 MoObs to have a ping every few seconds”.
It absolutely isn’t, but really, I am not in the mood to explain such basics. Your example asks for “impossibilities”, I only ask for “balance”. That difference is fundamental.
The point of 40% is I assume to keep mobile observatories as an anti-AFK cloaky tool, rather than a anti-cloak tool in general.
After all, mobile observatories haven’t been added as an anti-cloak tool, but as an anti-AFK cloak tool. CCP made sure that these deployables have a low impact on active cloaking gameplay.
As result of the 40% chance based ping you won’t reliably decloak and bother cloaked enemies at any ping, but over the course of the full 9 pings of a mobile observatory you have a combined 99% chance to decloak the enemy ship per mobile observatory if the target is AFK.
This chance based ping makes mobile observatories an excellent tool against AFK cloaked players.
Often when people complain about mobile observatories being ineffective it’s because these players do not understand the intended target of mobile observatories: AFK players who leave their ship overnight in a hostile system, not cloaky campers who pay a minimum amount of attention.
No ?
Being AFK makes the threat non immediate, just as much as being in system but not visible and ATK.
Let’ be clear : if it was not making them a threat, they would not be here. They do that precisely because it makes them a threat.
And you can also rat in a corvete and the cost is recovered after 0 site.
What an argument.
No ? He just need to use a timer to recloak each of his toon mid-warp to another safe … safely.
And remain AFK the rest of the time.
And when he is active, and his alts ready to jump, he can hunt.
depends on the price of the item.
Depends on what is needed. You don’t need to bridge ALL the fleet all the time.
iron maiden in the actIV was death of barbs
Or are you talking about the bowazon seeking arrows that were invisible if spawned from more than 2 screens ?
Don’t feed the troll. He knows that he’s making a strawman, but can’t stop itself from making gross exageration that would need you more energy to explain that he used to make his troll.
If the player is able to recloak mid-warp and be AFK ‘the rest of the time’ this player is clearly not asleep or at work.
Yes, I realise that ‘AFK’ is a scale and that being away from your keyboard for 10 minutes could also be considered AFK.
Mobile observatories however are designed to be effective against players who are AFK for well over an hour, not against players who click once every 10 minutes.
The issue is, that being a threat to people should require to be active all the time you are a threat.
I think, maybe the cloak should not make you probe scan immune. They should only provide d-scan immunity (like covert cruiser), AND target immunity on grid (which is why, target recalibration and range limit) , but would still require you to be active least you can be probed down and your trajectory can be guess with several passes, and you then can be hunted.
Please tell me why my idea is stupid (I’m sure it is, just I don’t know why)
(I’m sure it is, just I don’t know why)