And really, why do we need to go past “20v1” here? Cloaks aren’t a problem in that situation, being out numbered 20 to 1 is. If the other side has that much of an advantage you should be forced to dock or die.
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We should be able to force him to produce them. If he’s not ready then he should either run or die.
Why does it matter? They can run with zero chance of getting caught (just like any ship can, cloak or no cloak). Literally the only time your changes have any effect is when you’re preventing people from keeping their name in local when they log out so that RMT bots don’t auto-dock.
Besides, you’ve already admitted that you hate PvP and won’t participate in it. Why do you keep pretending that you are going to attack the cloaked ship even if you could catch it?
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Assuming local disappears, why wouldn’t you want cloakies to come up on probes? I mean, if the target has probes, it requires one additional module that still gives him worse intel than local does now (as the probes aren’t instant, unlike local).
Further assuming those probes are restricted to ships with probe bonuses, target requires at least one friend/alt to have the same safety local offers now, no super-safety on super-carriers.
So, I don’t have any issues with cloakies being visible on such special probes.
But I would have issues seeing them on dscan - it would be far too trivial to counter them even better than with local. Just keep spamming that stupid button that should be removed anyway.
Because some bears are more special than 20 other customers and are entitled to their space 
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The problem with probes is that with just a few seconds, you can launch and ping… and you instantly know there is a cloaked vessel in the system.
Does not matter that you don’t know where it is, you’ve pretty much made the cloak worthless by knowing its there.
Not to mention how that with completely break WH Space.
The other problem is there is no way a probe generates the kind of power to reveal a cloaked ship.
To me it would have to be an anchored, vulnerable structure and because it is invasive aoe it would have to be banned in empire space.
If what you say is true, no one should die ever, anyway. We can all just warp around with no chance of being caught. It’s amazing anything ever dies at all.
At some point you just need to stop and admit you want to hunt soft targets from a mechanically safe position. Yes, it means you are indeed the weak one here… but you are twisting yourself inside out trying to justify cloaks as they are.
It’s not about RMT bots. You don’t balance for those anyway, you just ban them. It’s about active and rewarding game play. It does not matter that I personally dislike PvP. As keeps being shouted around here, I can have friends who do. Rather than having those friends hang out with nothing to do, they should have the option of hunting the cloaker in some fashion. But they don’t. The Nanny Button reigns supreme.
At some point you will get around to explaining why someone should be allowed to be so safe deep in hostile space with active hostiles hunting them that they can walk away from their keyboard for an unlimited time sure in the knowledge that they will be just fine, while the people you want hunted have to be hypervigilant with a 50 man pvp fleet on station even when no one else is there.
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Compared to no local and no probes, true. But always compare to the current situation, not some hypothetical one.
Right now you don’t even have to launch and ping to know there is a hostile in the system. So, with my proposed change you require an alt or another player to have worse safety than now (proposal = 1: delayed chat + only rough number of people in local; 2: slow anti-cloaky probes usable by specific ships; 3: cyno spool-up and penalty to ships jumping through) .
There are many other possibilities in addition to the probes, say cloak requiring fuel or having cycle time or having chance to fail, all would have similar end effect. I prefer probes due to requirement and ability to actively counter cloaked ships. Cycle time would be somewhat acceptable, though I dislike it as all the responsibility and work is on the cloaky side. Fuel is annoying and limits long expeditions, while chance to fail would be problematic as simple RNG decides your success or failure.
Sure, such local nerf helps all hunters, not just cloakies, so it might be considered unfair that the cloakies get the nerf are relatively weaker after the change and require a boost. However, they would still remain the ultimate hunters in a landscape more favorable to hunters - so I believe those ships would be more useful than now.
There’s nothing wrong with cloakies - AFK or otherwise. The problem is cloaked plus covert cyno. If some single cloaked ship wants to camp and try a target of opportunity, fine. But when they can drop 100 ships in a moment … you can’t keep a defense fleet up for that. This is where it’s broken because these guys just rape at will. They shut down entire systems by parking one of one hundred alts there. Look at their KBs.
The answer is to strip the covert cyno from cloakies. If you want to hot drop 100 ships you should have to slow boat in on local or light a regular cyno. Keep covert cyno, but should only be usable by a ship that can’t cloak. The danger of having a covert cyno lit should not be 24/7 which is what a cloaky with covert cyno provides.
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Im sure my proposal has been discussed before, just mentioning it here for the record.
The main issue is the AFK cloaking with 3-5 alts and leave the computer(s) until DT. There is no counter to this. I dont have a problem with cloakies if they were forced to be active behind keyboard to actually play the game. As long as cloakies even t1 cloak with a t1 frig can go into a system in nullsec and just sit there until downtime, is ridicoulous and game breaking.
My proposal is that the cloak will trigger a countdown every 5 minutes, 1 min countdown, that pops up on top of ships capacitor, a random drag button (something like the one on iphone, to unlock the phone in the past), the drag button must be dragged to confirm the cloak to continue. To ensure bots doing this or click macros, just randomize the location right above the capacitor. If the drag button hasnt been confirmed the ship decloakes. Easy, and the people in system can scan down the ship and kill it. Problem solved, cloakies and covert cyno can continue to work like they always have, but this ensures a player behind the cloaked ship. And, if someone wants to camp 23/7, well they have to sit behind the keyboard atleast, 5 min at a time.
Also if the automated decloak happens, a timeout to recloak for 2 minutes will occour, to ensure enough time to be able to combat scan the players ship, so somebody cant use a macro to enable it every 6 minutes.
For those who reply with “what if I am trapped in that system, and have to go to work?”, well, 2 things here.
First, you can safe log within 30 seconds, and come back later.
Second, you dont want to be cloaked while at work in anything expencive as your network might break while being at work, and decloak you anyway, so better be in control of it and safe log and come back to the game later when you are in front of your computer.
You are a bad person and should feel bad.
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reported to CCP
Why should anyone care about a t1 cloak in system? You don’t. Even a T3 Loki cloaked in system is of limited concern. Might they gank a miner? Sure but it’s not unreasonable to demand that folks sucking free isk 25/7 from ore sites be able to defend from one ship.
The problem is covert cyno. You can have rorqs with carrier escort, which is fine vs. one cloakie, but with covert cyno they can drop 100 ships on you. Moreover, they know what to drop at any time bc they’re cloaked watching you.
That’s the imbalance. You can’t field a defense against an unknown variable offense that can appear instantly unannounced, and will only appear when they can beat your on grid defense.
No ship should be able to both cloak and light covert cyno.
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If the ship is cloaked how do you know if it is T1 or not?
And you can counter drop 100 on them in turn…without a cover cyno…which is exactly what Goons do in Delve.
You can also send out scouts and see who is in the nearby systems…
Do ratters have to do this downright stupid bs every 5 mins too?
I mean we don’t want Botters ratting do we?
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What does ratting have anything to do with cloaking ? Im talking about a mechanic in Eve that theres no counter to. Its basically a BOT sitting AFK. Atleast just give us ensurance someone is sitting in front of the computer. Its a multiplayer game., not player vs afk !
If you are talking about botting for ratting, there are other mechanics from CCP’s side that can identify bots - hence why some people are being transferred to Yulai in a supercap.
Yet another proposal to nerf the game play of those not causing the problem.
This is why @Jint_Hikaru asked if ratters would have to click a button every 5 minutes to keep ratting.
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The reason afk cloaking is done is to combat alliance isk making operations i.e. ratting and mining.
There are many many activities in null that can be done and not just ratting. My point is that theres not a person behind the wheel while logged in. In citadels, atleast you can count how many are inside the cidadel, and the citadel can be dealt with (attacked).