Really how generous of you to be ok with something that is 100% part of the game rules.
Talk about self centered.
Cloaky camping is awesome and generates so much content.
Its also the only counter to intel / local chat / and 3rd party programs the alert pilots.
It actually makes NS dangerous like it should be.
1 Like
Especially on the forumsâŚ
2 Likes
Salt, your quote from my post is actually originally a quote from Halcyon_Fensorâs post. But the way this forum handles quotes of quoted text, makes it look like I said what you are quoting.
Just want to point out, that this comment âi think iâd be ok with cloaky camping existingâ is from Halcyon_Fensor and not me.
np, iâve never had to respond to things via quotes so hopefully my responses make sense
as you mentioned later on you are suppose to be weaker for fitting a cloak but i think the balance between fitting a cloak making you weaker doesnât do much for the strength it provides, in this case, an overpowered form of choosing precisely when to initiate an engagement.
because someone has to do something = anything that someone âhas to startâ isnât overpowered? not sure i follow and im not trying to be pedantic. it sounds like if someone has to choose to do anything i.e. shoot someone, then there is no way any of the ways that people choose to shoot each other can be overpowered? i donât think thatâs what youâre saying but thatâs the only way i can think to interpret it.
i recall posts somewhere about people mentioning that âan afk player cant do anything, so being cloaked + afk = not a big dealâ in a nutshell, a point you even seem to be making. my point is being cloaked near someone and being able to choose when to drop a cyno / get a pick squishy but expensive target is kinda silly because that threat is being constantly generated, afk or not. it means in order to be safe you simply donât use a squishy asset like a hulk, rorqual, excavator drone - it effectively makes these assets worthless.
yea but you can choose to go to wh space to avoid intel and i cant choose to go somewhere to avoid turbo cloakers that will sit around for hours in cloak being 100% safe while waiting for a target + having intel of the system via d-scan/probes. for even more imbalance i have no way to get intel on them where as they can get it on me if i do anything in space other then cloak
-fyi i donât mind if they log off, at least they canât get intel from d-scan/probes if they log off and will be going in blind if they decide to log in later
ok âperfect intelâ might be the wrong term iâm thinking more along the lines of âintel given without interactionâ i.e. no need to be in system, d-scan/combat probes.
if you are ratting/mining and a roam is going through your system they can find how many pilots are undocked and go to those locations to get a target by seeing who has been actively undocked. its not âperfectâ granted but itâs still information given by looking at a menu and is accessible from anywhere, 0 risk, no counter, etc, the same arguments I assume are made towards Local.
ah⌠i can see cloak being a lot more tolerable without the threat of a cyno field
i think your idea is a start but as of now there are ways to light a cyno field in a sneaky ship that doesnât even appear in an overview. âCovert Cynosural Field Generatorâ admittedly, those are only allowed to be fit on special ships but even things as simple as a prospect can fit cynos + turbo cloak near 24h a day if they desired while generating the potential for massive power projection
i didnât phrase this as well as i could have. iâll be more direct
1st point i read among miasma of posts: cloak in system = can harass logistics of a system, a viable tactic
my point: you can jump drive + cyno stuff around, cloak doesnât interfere with that logistical side very much.
- i assume they want logistical concerns to be a larger part of the game enabled by cloak.
between jump drives / ratting giving direct wealth that can be spent i donât think cloaking is going to be the savior to making these activities have more risk / be more of a point of content then they already are.
2nd point i read: you can just move systems and know when the cloaky actively hunting
my point: if iâm a renter that is a huge problem. i donât think you should be able to have the effect of threatening a system with cloak by being anywhere without anyone being able to do something in response.
your threat to light a cyno isnât lowered by having a cloak
fitting a cloak hardly makes you weaker for the power it projects
almost everything has a way to stop it in null, except cloak and thatâs an issue
ty for taking the time to genuinely respond and think about my ideas/concerns
yea im allowed to have an opinion and share it with on a communal board where people talk
arenât the people that have characters stationed in those entry/choke point systems cloaking as well? couldnât you hunt them down and get rid of their eyes/intel/local if you could just find/kill them, which is impossible with cloak?
Or you protect those assets. Your inability to solo farm at maximum ISK/hour with minimal risk is not a problem. Nor is your assumption that the safe-space-only assets you bought must be useful despite your utter failure to secure âyourâ space.
Iâve said it a million times before, but Iâll say it again: AFK cloaking is only a problem if youâre a RMT botter or a garbage-tier alliance with a skill ceiling comparable to RMT botters. Strong and successful groups donât care about AFK cloaking because they never present vulnerable targets to attack. They have PvP defenses active at all times and the only thing an AFK cloaker can do is either stay cloaked in a safespot or decloak to commit suicide. The only people whining about AFK cloaking are the helpless farmers who canât organize any meaningful PvP defense and expect nullsec to be their 23/7 zero-risk farming space.
1 Like
Howâs my favourite RMT crowd doing today?
1 Like
So, hereâs a question for you. From the standpoint of the game client, how exactly do you determine that someone is AFK? If youâre in favor of ending AFK cloaking, you have to come up with an answer to this question that isnât laughably arbitrary and is also largely infallible.
Case in point: I run EvE windowed. If Iâm undocked and watching for certain ships or pilots to undock or jump a gate (which can be a boring and tedious job), I will often have another window largely covering my EvE client leaving only my overview visible. I will be actively doing other things in other windows and the EvE client will not (or at the very least should not) register any of my other activities; yet, at the same time, I am still actively playing EvE in an at least cursory way. How can the game client distinguish between me and someone whoâs left for work for the day with their client running?
It canât.*
Which is one powerful reason why AFK cloaking, or AFK activity in general (as oxymoronic as that sounds) isnât going anywhere.
Granted, this is only one example, and I mainly do this uncloaked while in hisec. But itâs essentially the same kind of thing that AFK cloakers who are gathering intel in nullsec do. And itâs all 100% valid gameplay.
*(Unless itâs monitoring your computers activity beyond the scope of its own client, which is a huge privacy no-no.)
2 Likes
Except AFK is intentionally legal in EVE.
As is cloaking.
2 Likes
No, but you can choose to hunt them. Seriously. As evidenced by this post. Note the cyno in his cargo hold, so a refit wouldâve been required before he was âhot-dropâ capable, but the âthreatâ was real.
Well actually the problem you have here is that youâre renting space⌠why let someone else tell you where you can / cannot go? This is Eve, after all. 
This really does seem to be the central driving point of your argument, which Iâd like to think Iâve disproved with the link above?
Oh OH!!! i know, you can monitor for when the Screen Saver comes on! 
Awww u want privacy too⌠hmm, i donât know then⌠maybe the client throws up a Captcha every⌠what, 30secs or so, that you have to complete to prove your not a Bot and your at the kb?
Edit: Typo in the first paragraph âcloakâ = âcynoâ.
Regards,
Cypr3ss.
implying
implying im not trying to protect my assets
implying im only solo farming at max isk/hour
implying im implying safe space only assets need to be useful in all circumstances
implying 99.99% of eve failing stop cloaky t3s from entering their areas of space is a failure
your misplaced smugness aside, i think the safe-space only assets should at least have the option to to try and make them safe aka having actual content by attacking people or threats making them less safe. i canât secure space if a guy is choosing to be a turbo cloaker, that is the problem.
i am willing to confess i am not in a âtop 5 strongest groups in nullâ no where near and im willing to say im not amazing at pvp but i would throw a bunch of ships to try and kill a guy or even form up with some 0 pvp experience carebear types to protect an area iâm at or even try chasing down a cloaky loki/tengu around to catablob/t1 frigate it or something, but that isnt an option with their turbo cloak. we do attempt to smash the cloakies coming into system as they get closer but with blob immunity + cov ops cloak they can be insanely hard to catch and seemingly impossible if they do the warp + cov op trick quick
by your own admission you say that even the greatest powers of eve simply choose to not give targets to attack because of the power of cloak. if the response to a tool in the game is âdo not use anything too expensive, because it can die at any pointâ i think thatâs a problem when combined with the long term/risk free nature of cloak
your assumption that anyone who wishes to try playing the game should join an already âstrong and successfulâ group and have that be their main option for defense, the same option which you even said fails to do anything against cloak except not play the game via not fielding those assets as targets doesnât seem healthy for the game and is absurd.
100% serious and not being sarcastic but i donât understand - do you mean generally attack and find those players outside of the times when theyâre cloaking? or is there something iâm missing about the situation against hotdrops/cloaks? iâm very interested!
i think making renting & other political arrangements"unviable" isnât a good thing for the game personally, but i will accept your point and address it for the sake of argument. a person could still choose to cloaky camp an entire region, something iâve seen done personally; i think itâs a bit out of hand to generate that much threat for so long over such a large region of space with so little risk/counterplay. i hate to admit this but someone decided to mine in a hulk and got dropped on within an hour when i was in one of those cloaky regions- could be bad luck or a very attentive camper
maybe i should reconsider rental arrangements though, thanks for the tip
does he even know that buying plex is RMT
Obviously AFK is legal, I often go AFK while Iâm playing to grab something while I leave my ship either in station or somewhere cloaked.
Iâm not suggesting to make AFK illegal or suggesting to make AFK impossible. I only think the game would be better if there was a risk for being AFK in space.
If I leave my procurer mining some rocks while I go AFK to grab something to drink, thatâs a risk I often take. And usually I donât die. And as such, these are good game mechanics, because when Iâm online and not docked up thereâs always a risk of dying.
Iâd like undocked AFK to be a little more risky than it is right now, because cloaky AFK camping, AFK ratting, AFK mining are all too easy in my opinion. But thatâs just my opinion.
If you want to see a good suggestion that makes AFK cloaking useless, go up in this thread to 14 days ago and look for Jint Hikaruâs suggestion:
Right but you are getting a reward, the ore, the cloaked ship gets no reward only the tiny chance of random discovery from a ship that flies by.
Since there is no reward there doesnât need to be any more risk.
2 Likes
And you have that opportunity. Park a 500 man PvP fleet next to your farming operation and I bet that AFK cloaker is going to stay in their safespot for the duration of your farming activity. What you want is not the ability to make space safe, itâs the ability to remove all meaningful risk with a minimum amount of investment and no need to coordinate with other players.
by your own admission you say that even the greatest powers of eve simply choose to not give targets to attack because of the power of cloak.
No, the greatest powers of EVE choose not to give targets because they are never weak regardless of the presence or absence of a cloaked ship. If there are no cloaked ships present they are strong and difficult to attack, if a cloaked ship is present they continue to be strong and difficult to attack. The standing fleet is there 23/7 and they want people to attack so they can get easy killmails.
The only people who care about AFK cloaking are people who want to solo farm but donât have the PvP strength available to fight off an attack. They know that if combat starts they are going to die, so their only option is to farm only when local is empty of potential threats and dock up at any time any risk exists.
âdo not use anything too expensive, because it can die at any pointâ
âDonât fly it if you canât afford to lose itâ is a fundamental rule of EVE. Sorry if you donât like it, but it has always been true and always will be.
First things first, I typoâd, that should have said cyno in his cargo, the cloak was fitted and active when I found him. Will edit original.
And I will also admit that when I did find him I may have panicked, ever so slightly, with an âOh â â â â !!! Tengus decloaked on meâ cause I thought I was about to get dropped on. Locked it up started pulling range (while pointing & shooting). Fortunately for me it wasnât hot-drop fit, only links fit, and by the time my corp mates landed to assist (I was already in a âstanding fleetâ) it was dead. They also may have been a little bit grumpy because I didnât âhold the targetâ so they could get on the KM⌠but who knew it was links fit till it died!
There was some amount of luck involved (I was in the process of setting up system bounces, on stations/gates/etc) when I flew into him, causing the decloak. Had he not been AFK he wouldâve seen me coming and re-positioned and heâd probably have a good idea of where my BMs were (not ideal).
But thatâs the thing, he was AFK. Even though systems are vast thereâs only a few places that people will sit while AFK. Iâve even seen (afaict due to the way the BMs work) a corp mate âland on my safeâ using just dscan (no probes ever in system), which was an eye opener. Also Iâm aware of some very capable dictor pilots that can decloak anything bigger than a dessie without too many issues (gives people trying the cloak+mwd trick as well as T3 pilots nightmares), a sight to be seen indeed. Iâm not saying itâs easy, because it isnât, I still havenât managed to pull it off successfully, but it can be done.
I guess the point Iâm trying to make is, just like everyone else, if youâre out in space and youâre not paying attention to what is going on around you, youâre not safe. And if thereâs someone being ânot safeâ in your system you can get to them, you just need to be a little creative
And I think this shows why I have disdain for renters⌠itâs not that I want to make it âunviableâ, itâs that (imo) Null Sec is out there to be conquered and if an Alliance/Corp thinks it owns an entire region they should be able to secure/defend that space. How does that work when theyâre in every system in the region? You need to draw out their drops, and counter them, that is the counterplay. Use that guy in the Hulk, but put a cyno on him, and when he gets dropped, drop them back. If the Alliance/Corp/Entity is unable to do this, then maybe they donât deserve that region after all, and should consider moving.
And yes I understand that some entities in this game are capable of dropping much larger amounts of stuff on people, so need to get creative. Iâd like to think the intro of jump fatigue has helped with this, as you can (usually/sometimes) see the build up of forces âon your bordersâ so you know not to drop your dreads, cause theyâve got supers & titans on standby.
Regards,
Cypr3ss.
have a 500 man fleet to beat a cloaky guy, i see
by your logic nothing should ever be changed if you have enough isk to buy it again, absurd
the only people who argue against afk cloakers are people that canât understand that people want to interact with ships in their null sec region and canât win a fight normally, or whatever ad hominem fallacy you want throw out 
i suppose there is some counterplay⌠iâll concede that. i think the option to force such a response and having the only option against the cloaky camper is to hope you can bait him into making a mistake is an uninteresting interaction completely dictated by one side and very powerful.
against some of the cloaky t3 cruisers my group has tried putting a skiff/VNI out but the cloakies donât always take the bait while still generating the threat of them returning/paying attention to get an advantage while remaining cloaked. where as the side âbeing cloaky campedâ (for lack of a better term) has to be active while undocked at all times. this disparity in power/investment seems wrong - the only option iâm hearing from you and that other fellow is to have an entire defense force ready 24/7 and to not be able to crab + reship according to the situation. i think the reshipping part of the game is interesting and part of what makes eve great and that one module forcing such a response is very good for the minor investment in fitting/training it.
If youâre not trying to achieve the above, which you appear to claim youâre not.
Then why do you need to reship at all? It is possible to âcrabâ in a pvp fit ship, it may not be ideal, but it is possible (and works). Now the âcloaky camperâ doesnât know if that VNI has a cyno or scram/etc and that may prevent them from engaging at all. So now you can do whatever you like cause theyâre the ones hiding cloaked (scared of being counter-dropped).
And again, itâs not the only option. There are many, but if thereâs someone in âyour spaceâ donât be surprised when you need to do something in order to move them on. Also if theyâre not taking the bait one of two things. 1. theyâre afk, so do what you like. 2. They think itâs bait, so do what you like. Honestly, a name in local isnât a threat, Iâm not going to go through every iteration of âwhat might happenâ, but with some creative thinking Iâm sure you can come up with something.
I guess the other point is you need to be in a group that is willing to engage in spaceship battles. In my example there were two other corp mates online with me at the time, but without question they immediately undocked/stopped what they were doing and warped to me. They had no idea if âbad thingsâ were on their way, cause Iâd called âcloaky tengu dropâ on comms, but they were willing to fight. If youâre out there by yourself you will have issues.
Regards,
Cypr3ss.
That is an interesting suggestion (i.e. removing cloaked ships from local, and denying local to cloaked ships) but the renters/carebears who generally fuel this whole AFK cloaking fire will absolutely hate that change and the non-AFK cloakers who are actively hunting ships will love it.
Why?
Because it still leaves cloaked ships largely able to hunt down juicy targets while it gives said targets even less warning than they have now.
Hell, Iâd be all in favor of that, and Iâm a huge proponent of AFK cloaking.
Be careful what you wish forâŚ
No, have a 500 man fleet to beat whoever happens to show up. Thatâs the difference between the strong and the weak. The weak can only react to a threat, usually to run and hide. The strong act preemptively to show a greater threat of their own and discourage everyone else from even considering an attack.
the only people who argue against afk cloakers are people that canât understand that people want to interact with ships in their null sec region and canât win a fight normally, or whatever ad hominem fallacy you want throw out
Nerfing AFK cloaking is not going to let you interact with anyone. The sole effect would be that when people go AFK they would log out instead of staying logged in cloaked in a safespot. The result of this is that local becomes a more accurate intel tool for RMT farmers, but no additional PvP interactions ever happen.
Spotted the RMTer. 