Since we’re repeating arguments, I’ll repeat a counter-argument.
You can dock in station with zero risk.
If you can decloak me, I want to be able to boot you out of the station in your ship. If you’re in a pod, I want it to spit out an empty ship that you can undock and try to hop into.
A ship with an AFK player faces zero risk and receives zero reward.
And a ship with an active cloak imposes zero threat. A cloaked ship cannot target, cannot shoot, cannot do anything to another ship. They can only do these things by decloaking on the same grid as the target at which point the cloaked ship is also vulnerable and is facing risk.
Botting where the player acquires something in game is not a good thing and already against the EULA. And if your argument is going to hinge on botting you have a rather weak argument.
That’s not a “counter-argument”. Anybody can dock into station, that’s an uniform safe-space. But only a ship with cloack module can have benefit of a totally risk-free space. The only moment it may be caught is on transition between locations. If it never transits, there is no way for it to be caught. With enough accounts maintaining a bunch of eyes throughout a region becomes extra-easy and devoid of almost any risk (if they never leave key systems they are placed) task. It’s simply a loophole in the whole “you are never safe while in space” concept which is at the core of the game. Implementing the said “observatory” mechanics would immediately created problems for the lazy/afk style cloakcers - as now they would have to constantly log in/log off all their accounts, not just once per 24 hours (servers downtime). That’s I believe what is the source of the frustration accompanying any such proposal - the same reason as in case of any proposal that may make life of botters or afk carebears harder. What possibly to not like about this otherwise? If you actively play as a cover ops operative hunting for your pray or actively gathering intel - you are [mostly] not affected by the change, even benefit slightly due to removal of local. If you are looking for a fight in your force recon with a your b-ops equiped squad waiting to jump on you, what to not like about guys actively trying to scan you down? Here is your fight. The only ones who oppose any such proposal are those who afk cloak and protect their “right” for risk-ridden and lazy-style way of playing. And this I see as a big problem, much bigger than easy intel through local in nullsec.
Then don’t worry because a ship that never transits from one system to the next cannot get out to NS to AFK camp you.
And what is the benefit again?
You can counter it pretty much by undocking. If it decloaks you engage him, if not you krab.
It’s not actually true (as it gives you a totally free of risk way to wait for most beneficial tactical situation), but that’s not the point. The problem is that cloack is the only way that gives you total invulnerability while in space, unless you decide to transition between systems or space and station. No other way of playing the game can give you such ridiculous amount of protection. With any other ship you must either dock, or log off to achieve the same. Or fit a cloack yourself at which point it just becomes totally retarded.
That’s not botting whatever way you look at it. You don’t interact with client, you just point your camera view at the location (gate, undock etc) and start screen capturing software. A program makes screenshots/video captures when something is moving on your screen. Streamers do this all the time, what’s wrong with simply capturing your screen and processing output? 
You could also add a script which signals you with an alarm if somebody appears on the screen. So at this point you are watching your movies in total afk, waiting for an alarm - in a total safety, without any intervention, waiting for a most beneficial encounter, gathering intel, not allowing anybody to enforce their game on you, at the same time. Again, no other module allows to do that. It’s simply a sloppy game design at this point with a lot of excuses from those accustomed to such lazy, convenient way of playing the game. Sorry, guys, but I just can’t see how you are different from whiny carebears demanding to give them a totally safe place to dwell ))
So, just an idea that ran through my head, but maybe introduce a Combat Probe NPC rat variant in any given system.
If the ship in question is afk for say X amount of time, the NPC (just needs to be one ship really) starts getting ‘closer’. After Y amount of time, they warp in nearby and begin hunting. For afk miners, this means you occasionally have to interact with the game to prevent being ‘found’ and for anyone else, this doesn’t really amount to anything.
These rats have no bounty, drop no loot and are essentially there to be a nuisance.
In the event of a cloaked ship, they will still have to ‘bump’ the ship by trying to figure out where it is (in a given time frame).
The difficulty of this rat can be scaled to appropriate space.
While this doesn’t outright do away with AFK anything, it does install a sort of penalty that says, “hey, pay attention once in a while, or bad things might happen!”
It’s not perfect, but, just an idea. Feel free to dowse it in magnesium phosphate and introduce a heat element.
Again…when a cloak is active you can’t take any hostile action. Not only that you can’t acquire any actual assets. And yes, a cloak renders you extremely safe, but that was clearly intended from the beginning, IMO. But that is balanced by the fact you cannot engage in hostile activities and to do so means the cloaked ship has to become vulnerable as well.
It is automating an in game activity…probably a risky endeavor, but hey go for it. Frankly this can be solved by adding 1 word to the EULA/ToS so as to remove any doubt.
Old Version:
You may not use your own or any third-party software, macros or other stored rapid keystrokes or other patterns of play that facilitate acquisition of items, currency, objects, character attributes, rank or status at an accelerated rate when compared with ordinary Game play. You may not rewrite or modify the user interface or otherwise manipulate data in any way to acquire items, currency, objects, character attributes or beneficial actions not actually acquired or achieved in the Game.Revised Version:
You may not use your own or any third-party software, macros or other stored rapid keystrokes or other patterns of play that facilitate acquisition of items, currency, objects, character attributes, rank, status or information at an accelerated rate when compared with ordinary Game play. You may not rewrite or modify the user interface or otherwise manipulate data in any way to acquire items, currency, objects, character attributes or beneficial actions not actually acquired or achieved in the Game.
Now using a script to warn/alert you while you are AFK is now disallowed. Problem solved.
I like that “clearly” part, feels so reassuring )) As if there haven’t been a bunch of “clearly intended” mechanics changed drastically over last years. But you can keep re-chanting it if it makes you comfy
It doesn’t automate any activity, as there is no activity in the game from this account, as you’re afk cloacking. You are automating something on your desktop, yes, but that doesn’t affect the game’s client. It’s an extremely ambiguous subject to govern with EULA, and simply won’t work well for anybody. Not to say that unlike botting or any other active automation of in-game actions, you just can’t detect it, at all, without installing some spying software/drivers at user’s machine. Even if it would be prohibited, it wouldn’t be changing anything as you can’t really enforce this rule.
Disallowed to use a script which notifies you that something is changed in one of the window opened at your computer’s desktop (one of which completely by chance happened to be Eve Online’s client)? Now, how do you suggest to enforce and/or detect something like that? I can have several windows opened on my screen, and my script actually should notify me about changes in other program’s window, Eve just happened to be within the screen region it scans ) This just doesn’t make sense. Even if they clearly forbid this, this effectively the same as if they would forbid to run game when you have certain picture installed as background on your desktop. No one would ever regard this rule seriously, and they wouldn’t be able to check whether somebody follow it unless they install spyware at your machine. It’s useless and governs nothing. I actually don’t make up those things, I’ve seen setups like this discussed by guys who ambushes explorers on sites in nulls/wh (so they just hang for hours in total afk with alarm set while lazily watching TV, enjoying total safety, and checking occasionally what sets their alarm). It’s there for years, and nobody cares whether it’s forbidden that much.
You may continue trying to justify it with “BUT THEY CAN’T ATTACK IT WHILE CLOACKED” but it’s clear that they granted with too much convenience of enforcing their play on others, while giving zero opportunity for others to do the same to them unless they will choose to reveal themselve; it’s too much “coziness” for Eve Online, and clearly stands out from the main concept. No activity in the game can be conducted as effortless and risk-less as this. There is zero punishment for a lazy play like this in a cloacked ship, while there is punishment for every other lazy play in the game. Yes, clearly like intended, totally not broken 
The best cloacking experience would be similar to the submarine warfare. Where you can easily turn from a hunter into a victim any time if you’ll play it too lazy and forget about situational awareness. This is clearly what is intended, to me.
Cloaker dudes are only rough if you dont pve in a pvp ship or dont have boys nearby or fly overly expensive stuff alone however the cloaked ships cant hurt you meme is kinda old. A ship that hunts cloaked ships cant hurt you till it finds your cloaked ship so is that equally cool? It cant hurt you while its probing you down…
AFK cloaking is not a problem. Cloaks are not problem. Players who are AFK can’t do anything. Cloaked ships have shockingly low DPS. Even uncloaked cloaking ships are gimped in that they have less tank EHP and DPS. The problem is the interplay between cloaks and local. Local is too good an intel source, and AFK cloaking only works because of local. The solution is as you noted, change up local and add in a structure that allows for the detection of cloaks…this has already been suggested and is somewhere in the design pipe. Until then…there is no need to change cloaks.
Nope, no need at all…
unless you want 2 sided gameplay instead of the current completely one sided gameplay that is completely skewed to predatory PvP players and screws any other playstyle.
So just log them off. they aren’t doing anything. They can’t do anything. They don’t need to be logged in. Everyone’s happy if we just log them off.
Seems like a solution that would work for anyone since you’re claiming AFK cloaked toons don’t do anything.
Maybe that’s what EVE needs, a boot timer.
Haven’t interacted with the screen in 30 minutes? It auto-logs you. Attempts Safe Logoff if possible, otherwise, port disconnects.
Honestly, I’ve only ever even seen one other MMO that has no boot timer, and it was some little Korean thing with like 800 players.
Or remove them from local!
@Duo_Roman or only update local if your active. Both the afk dude who has to spin his camera to update and the docked dude must spin z ship every now and then. And why not remove docked ships from local too they are not even in spac… Prolly makes no sense any way ya slice it.
NS ratting does not need a buff.
There you go…I prefer the increase in uncertainty. You get exactly the same effect, right? 
EVE does not need this. That some players want it does not render it something that is needed.
Anyone can fit a cloak too.
Being docked and being cloaked share the same risk/reward profile. No risk, no reward.
And if you never undock you can never get caught either.
As someone who lives in null, I can tell you that I do this. We keep eyes on many systems, we have intel networks. Why shouldn’t someone be permitted to do the same?
You make the faulty assumption that it is conclusively a problem. You assert it is, I assert it is not.
Spoken like someone who has never done a blops drop. You aren’t “looking for a fight” in blops, you’re “looking for a gank”. I don’t want a fair fight when I drop my deemer on you… that’s how I lose a deemer.
Or is the problem krabs that feel they have the “right” to unimpeded access to their space, without being forced to be ready to fight someone? You have the right to nothing. If you want to take away my ability to wait you out of a station at a time when the circumstances are best for me, I want to take away your ability to wait in a station until the circumstances are best for you. Sounds like a fair trade to me - yet you seem to disagree?