Like i said before it’s naive to assume that you can ever remove spies from Eve Online, I have had spy alts in other alliances, they have had no idea, that is part of the game.
But still not one person has given a justifiable reason to have perma cloaking as a fair tool in the game yet, they have simply come at it from different angles, be it about my alliance, or about meta gaming with spies, or about using cloak drops to counter cloak drops… not one person in this thread has said to me “perma cloaking is a fair mechanic in this game because of x” because it’s not a fair mechanic.
We did but you refuse to listen. Just because you disagree with the reasons or refuse to listen doesn’t mean that our reasons aren’t justifiable. You just want to be lazy and have CCP change the game to suit you rather than put in a little effort to use the many tools at your disposal to either counter the problem or avoid it.
I’m sorry, I’m reading through the thread and there isn’t one answer here that has given a justifiable defence to perma cloaking.
I’ve had explanations as to what perma cloaking is used for, which was somehow linked to local chat
i’ve had a lot of people explaining that I’m whining
I’ve had people explaining that my alliance is bad?
I’ve had stealth is good as a tactic to counter the blob
I’ve had “get rid of the spies”
I’ve had “just use dscan”
I’ve had “leave the system they are in”
I’ve had “you’re going to reduce the effectiveness of cloaking devices until they are worthless”
Not one of those answers was good argument as to why there isn’t a counter to perma cloaking with zero risk.
The one about it’s a counter to blobs was close, but I’m not calling for cloaking to be removed entirely, just changed so it can be countered somehow.
Many posts in this thread had ideas on how you can deal with the campers you are facing. Every time you are offered a potential solution you then respond “but the spies”. So the problem isn’t that you can’t bait, counter drop, empty out and camp them, rat in a different system, spread out your staging, etc. All ways you can fight them.
Instead it all goes back to spies. Something that changing the mechanic has nothing to do with and won’t help you.
This is exhausting, yes there are many many solutions as to what to do to kill them once they have done their cloaking business, once THEY have initiated the attack, but there are no ways in game to find the invincible pilot who is cloaked, why is this?
FIrst off, you can see them in local BEFORE they attack, so you can initiate various tactics against them.
Next, The cloaked pilot can’t hurt you. They can’t do anything until they decloak.
There is no way for me to sneak in your keepstar and assassinate you in your sleep. You are invincible while hiding in it. You can hide unlimited ships in it and change ships instantly to hard counter anything that comes into system. Why is this?
Perma-cloaking is a fair mechanic in this game because:
While cloaked, the ship is unable to perform any meaningful interaction with its environment.
Logging off and docking are functionally equivalent to perma-cloaking, except that logging off removes the camper from local and docking is not usually possible for a hostile camper in null.
The transition from “cloaked” to “uncloaked” comes with meaningful time penalties, except for a few specialized ships. The specialized ships are either paper-thin or expensive.
Cloaking itself is the counter to a multitude of other techniques, such as roaming blobs. Removal of cloaking would render many playstyles defunct, such as solo nullsec exploration.
Because of local. AFK cloaking needs to exist because local is an overpowered intel tool for RMT botters and renter trash farmers, and any anti-cloaking tool would immediately remove the ability to stay logged in and present in local for an extended period of time. The result of this would be that nullsec farming becomes effectively 100% safe as it would now be virtually impossible to get into position to attack before the farmer warps back to station and docks until the threat leaves. Therefore cloak nerfs are not even a valid topic of discussion until local is removed.
1: That’s not entirely true, a cloaked ship can not directly affect another ship however it can setup assaults from other ships, or as mentioned drop a cyno beacon for other ships to use as a warp in… but this doesn’t really explain why they need to be cloaked indefinitely.
2: That’s not really relevant to cloaking, logging off and docking do render you invulnerable but they also limit your impact on combat in the game severely.
3: Again this is very true, but what’s stopping a cloaked ship from having a total cloaked time of 30 minutes to an hour or so before having to uncloak again for a period giving rise to the opportunity to hunt them? - As a counter argument to this - there is no time delay on a sabre popping a bubble, it can decloak and do that instantly - which is very impactful on the game - invincible unseen static tackle.
4: As i’ve stated before, I’m not calling for the removal of cloaking, I love stealth ships, the mechanic is great, but I think there needs to be a limit on how long you can remain cloaked for, or a way to find someone who just stays cloaked all day.
As a separate point, back in the day before black ops, and when cyno dropping wasn’t a major thing the perma cloaking mechanic made complete sense, it was very balanced, your impact on the battlefield was directly proportional to your ships capabilities, what you could do was directly limited by what your ship was capable of, but with the introduction of black ops bridging and the mass use of cynos, it’s made the perma cloaking feature of these ships absolutely overpowered as a tool.
No one should be completely safe for ever once they have undocked in their ship, especially those that wield such a powerful weapon.
Okay so how long a time period do you think someone needs to remain cloaked for to setup an attack, 24 hours, 12 hours, 6 hours, 3 hours, 2, 1… ?
Surely if someone is in a system and not docked up they should be vulnerable to attack of some form?
If it’s all about intel then why do perma cloaking stealth ships have access to cyno beacons and black ops beacons, surely if it’s just about providing intel then it makes more sense to separate perma cloaking from an extremely powerful tool like that?
I still believe that your main gripe here is about cyno dropping. Perhaps an argument to add a deployable cyno inhibitor that worked against covert cynos would get more traction? I don’t know.
There is a perception that cloaking is an all-or-nothing feature. Anything you do to break it enough to allow you to hunt AFK cloakers is going to have a huge effect.
Because of local, sometimes it can take several days or even a week to set up an attack. Remember that you know they are there. You can look up their killboard. You can come up with a strategy to deal with them. Conversely they have the choice of when to start the engagement. Its a game of patience. Are they willing to wait it out to get the juicy target? Are you willing to “bait” long enough to lure them in or leave system long enough for them to come out so you can get them at the gate?
So does cloaking. A cloaked ship passively sitting there in a safespot has zero effect on combat. All it does is remove the ability to use local as a tool for protecting farmers and RMT botters.
3: Again this is very true, but what’s stopping a cloaked ship from having a total cloaked time of 30 minutes to an hour or so before having to uncloak again for a period giving rise to the opportunity to hunt them?
What would be the point of this? An active player who is focused on defense is impossible to catch. They can warp between safespots faster than you can chase them while waiting out the cloak timer and then resume cloaking. No hunt will occur because success is impossible. The only effect would be that AFK cloaking is no longer possible and the presence of a name in local means that RMT botters and renter trash know that an active threat is present and that they need to stay docked.
Okay so how long a time period do you think someone needs to remain cloaked for to setup an attack, 24 hours, 12 hours, 6 hours, 3 hours, 2, 1… ?
Indefinitely, as long as local remains in its current state.
If it’s all about intel then why do perma cloaking stealth ships have access to cyno beacons and black ops beacons, surely if it’s just about providing intel then it makes more sense to separate perma cloaking from an extremely powerful tool like that?
Because it’s about countering intel, not about providing intel. Long-term cloaking removes the ability to use local as an intel tool by putting a name in local 23/7 and therefore removing the connection between “name in local” and “active threat is present”. Cynos enhance this ability by keeping the local presence at a single name and hiding the fact that a fleet is nearby until the attack is launched.
That’s not a bad suggestion, I think the combination of perma cloaking and having the weapons that those ships do is too much power with too little risk.
I’ll show you the killboard of the alliance I’ve been on about and you decide whether you think it’s balanced or not:
bare in mind that these stats are for an entire alliance, not just a good pilot… now please tell me that the cloaking/cyno/structure mechanics are working as intended.
Lol the vast majority of their kills are from camping the HED pipe. They are well known in the area for what they do. As long as you keep sending ships through HED, there will be people camping that pipe. Really the fact that simple farmers exists there is caused by you not defending your space. They are always in the same systems camping the same gate. Again, a problem with your alliance and not an issue with cloaking.
Why is there very little risk? Why are you assuming that the people being attacked with these ships are helpless perma-victims who can not fight back and kill a covert ops ship/fleet?
(The answer is that they are helpless perma-victims whose only PvP strategy is to dock up and whine on the forums about how unfair it is that they can’t farm 23/7 with zero risk.)
This isn’t true, if you’re out in space providing positioning, warp ins, live ship intel, or preparing to attack someone you’re active in combat.
Which is really how it should be, I’m very much of the belief that If I’m undocked I’m piloting my ship, I’m there fighting in it, not just alt tabbing out until someone messages me to do something on discord.
Well we will have to disagree on this point, I don’t think a cloaked vessel should have an endless window to line up it’s attacks or utilise this mechanic.
Right, I understand, but surely that pilot should have to be active on that account, playing the game if they want to just sit in a system all day, where there is one side of the coin there is the other and I don’t believe having someone in a system 23/7 to neutralise the local counter intel aspect should come without any risks whatsoever