I’d like to propose a feature that lets players remotely cloak an unpiloted ship they own, with the understanding that it’s still vulnerable if someone goes looking for it. The idea isn’t to make anything perfectly safe. It’s just to let a larger hull act as a mobile base while keeping the usual risks in place.
A common use case would be flying an Odysseus into a system, parking it in a safe, swapping into a smaller ship for whatever you’re doing locally, and then cloaking the bigger hull from a distance. It can still be decloaked and probed, so the risk is still there. This is mainly about making solo logistics a bit less painful.
It would give solo players a workable way to “backpack” into a system for a short stretch without needing a structure. You might lose the ship you’re flying around in, but you wouldn’t automatically lose the entire mobile base unless someone actually hunts it down.
You only control the ship that your pod is in. Once you leave a ship, you no longer control it. If CCP were to add this feature, where would it end? If I can activate a cloak module on a ship I don’t control, can I activate shield boosters or hardeners? What about weapons?
If you want to control two ships at the same time, multiboxing is the answer. Use a dedicated alt to fly the Odysseus.
Not only that, but none of your bonuses from skills apply. If you eject from a ship that has low structure, it may explode when your bonuses go away and its HP drops to zero.
If CCP were to add this feature, where would it end? If I can activate a cloak module on a ship I don’t control, can I activate shield boosters or hardeners? What about weapons?
You’re framing this as “controlling two ships,” but that’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m not asking to activate weapons, hardeners, prop mods, or anything that requires piloting input. I’m talking about setting a passive state on an unpiloted ship I own. EVE already lets us interact with objects in space without “controlling” them, like deployables, structures, mobile depots, and so on.
The ship would still be decloakable (via Mobile Observatory and/or a set time limit for how long a ship can stay cloaked with no one in it) and then probeable, so the normal risks stay in place. Just a way for solo players to use a larger hull as a mobile base without needing an alt or a structure.
Cloaking isn’t passive. Every module on a ship, with the sole exception of rigs, requires pilot input. And since you aren’t in it to pilot it, you can’t activate a cloak…
Others already have. If you want to bring two ships, bring two chars.
Else make compromises in fitting so you can so whatever you want with one ship, at a lower efficiency tho… working together as a group should be rewarded.
If you eject from a ship, you are basically abandoning it, it ceases to function without a pod. I see no reason why we should change that. “better solo play” is a bad argument for changing designs in a massive-multiplayer-online game.
Some of which you can use to accomplish (more or less) what you’re trying to do. But ships are different. Every ship requires one–and only one–pilot. A ship without a capsuleer is just a dead, abandoned hull, floating in space.
For years, people have been doing what you’re trying to accomplish, by using an alt to sit in the mobile base ship. If you want to nomad like that, sub two accounts and fly the base ship with an alt. It’s really just that simple.
Btw, from a purely pragmatic standpoint, CCP is unlikely to implement any feature that reduces the need for multiboxing. It’s probably the only thing keeping the game alive.