Directional Scanner, aka D-Scan.
(NOTE: This is NOT to change targeting. Do NOT change how targeting works, do NOT make it so Cloaks can be targeted while cloaked. This is NOT a weakly veiled anti-cloak/cloak whiner thread.)
[THIS WOULD NOT, include the invulnerable Gate Warp cloakiness. You know when you gate somewhere, and you’re invisible and invulnerable for a little while, so that if you’re lagging your ship doesn’t unfairly get insta-locked and nuked? That. This would not be included in this. That would not be changed by this at all. Leave that feature as is.]
Make D-Scan increase your ship’s Signature Radius by a given amount, let’s assume 50 for the sake of discussion here, every time you hit the button, while the D-Scanner is on and actively scanning. Think of it like Active Sonar in movies. Every time you pulse a ping into the water around you, everything in the water within hearing range can hear it.
So, as D-Scan is an active scanner, make it show up a little more loudly to everyone around you in range to “hear” you, when you use it, when they scan using their D-Scan also.
Then, it becomes a little more of a strategic tool, rather than just one more interesting nothing tool.
And, I hate the Cloak Whiners, I really do, the stealth is the whole point of cloaks. I LOVE that cloaks make you completely invisible. That said, the danged cloak whiners arw annoying, so to give them a little bone to maybe shut them up, perhaps if you are cloaked and use your D-Scan, it “leaks” past the cloak, every time you press the scan button, so that IF someone happens to be scanning in your direction, they momentarily get to see you on D-Scan or Probe Scan for that moment you happened to D-Scan, and they happened to scan in your area that very same moment.
If they don’t have their scan focused enough, you might only show up as an anomaly or something other than a ship, or maybe you’ll show up as a ship, but only for that single ping, and then until you the Cloaker and your target scanning for you both hit your scan pings at close enough timing, you completely disappear from scan, like a Cloak is meant to be. You only show up, while cloaked, if you are ACTIVELY pinging with your D-Scanner, AND your target is ALSO actively scanning in your direction. So that if you stop pinging, you just disappear from any follow-on scans the target executes, and they lose track of whatever it was they picked up. You “go silent” again, and scoot somewhere else, and can ping again perhaps. Maybe they’ll pick up something else if they scan in the direction of your new cloaked location.
Also, maybe if you are cloaked, the cloak can boost the fidelity of the D-Scan for the Cloaker, and actively alert the Cloaker pilot to the presence of a probe that might have “seen” them as they D-Scanned, so the Cloaker has a warning when they D-Scan while cloaked, so they can move locations if their scan gets picked up.
I seriously don’t see the point in most cases, of using anything but the widest and farthest scan area of the D-Scanner at all times.
Maybe also, if you’re cloaked, you can use Scripts to change what type of “leak” your D-Scan gives off, so you can make yourself look like a possible BS in one pingn or a Mag-Anomaly in another ping, then a structure in another ping, then a shuttle for another ping, etctera.
Again, Do NOT change how targeting works, do NOT make it so Cloaks can be targeted while cloaked.
I love cloaks as they are.
I am not sure I like even my own suggestion.
I do think that it would make Cloaking a more dynamic “cat and mouse” game though, AND would give Good Cloaker Players one more tool to intimidate with.
Imagine a single Cloaker, in a Cloaked Racing Build, ping a few pings of D-Scan on the “south” end of someone’s base, then skedaddles to the “north” side while the target corp investigates the last known “south” ping location. Then, a minute or so later the Cloaker pings from the north side. Then the East side. Then while the corp they are tormenting is investigating the last known north ping, the Cloaker moves back to the exact same south spot, and pings from there.
Again, Do NOT change how targeting works, do NOT make it so Cloaks can be targeted while cloaked. The WHOLE POINT of cloaks is to be invisible. I just wonder if it might be possible to make the D-Scanner a more dynamic tool, and make it so that it can be used WITH a cloak, to ratchet up the stress on a targeted corp, by “leaking” a little signal past the cloak. It also would make Cloaking a bit more interesting and strategic, I think,
to have to use the base level crude tool a bit more carefully, and have a few more bells and whistles on it, to tell you if your “signature leak” might have been picked up by another ship’s probes or D-Scan. Something that, as the Cloaker, is still easy to counter, just by flying to a different spot or just constantly circling at different distances around your target, but that isn’t just sitting in one spot spamming it constantly.
It can also be a counter to Bots, as it forces them to move while D-Scanning, or get got maybe.
It’s a small change, I think, but one I feel might make the cloak whiners shut up, and might give more tools to Cloaks and the D-Scan tool.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Cloaks and D-Scanner as they are, I just think this might give both more utility and dynamic use, instead of purely static use.
Constructive thoughts, please?
If you think this is stupid, feel free to say so, but please TRY to also say WHY you think it is stupid.
Simply whining and saying “yOu jUsT a ClOak WhIneR” is just as unhelpful and foolish as the cloak whiners whining about cloaks and trying to nerf a tool that should NEVER be nerfed. I want MORE features for cloaks… NOT less.
NEVER NERF CLOAKS!!!
CLOAKERS FOR LIFE!!!
