Suggestion Regarding Cloaking, D-Scan Mechanics, and New Player Experience

Still here, was checking grammar on my posts… but will leave soon.

No, you haven’t read it properly, that is obvious, by the conclusions you made in the, so called, comments. You know that, as well, as I do…

No, I am not running away from argument - it just takes to much time for me, and all is ALREADY EXPLAINED in the post. But, talking to commenters that didn’t even read the post, or do not have mental and/or cognitive capabilities to absorb and think about all what is said/written - is not meaningful, in fact, it is counter productive, as ALL is already stated in OP.

Now, the most important part for me, regarding replying to you (AGAIN):

I would like to respect every one of your comments, but as I said, I am one of this side of the argument, and many on the other, so will not waste ANY of my time further - ALL IS NICELY EXPLAINED AND ELABORATED IN OP. JUST READ IT CAREFULLY, AND SWITCH-ON YOUR COGNITIVE ABILITIES. (not yelling, just accenting)

See you, sometimes, somewhere in the game. Sometimes, very casually… :joy:

o7 to all! :four_leaf_clover:

Could you explain to me, because the OP didn’t make that very clear to me, why it is that you are complaining about cloaky campers as an explorer?

There are, in my experience, two types of ‘cloaky campers’ you could encounter as explorer:

  1. The classic ‘AFK cloaky camper’
  2. The site camper explorer hunter

The classic AFK cloaky camper has as goal to target a certain system and make it unsafe all day long. He’s not there specifically to catch explorers, usually they’re there to keep an eye on a staging structure or keep an eye on a valuable moon site or keep enemy ratters from ratting. They’re largely not paying attention and their mere existence in local chat is meant to be a threat.

The site camper exploration hunter on the other hand is a much bigger danger to explorers and these are paying attention if only on a second screen while they watch netflix. After all, their goal isn’t ‘to be threatening’, their goal is ‘to catch explorers’ for which they need to be awake when an explorer enters their web.

If I understood your posts correctly, you are an explorer looking for non-combat sites:

This means many of the regular anti-cloaky camper complaints are irrelevant in this context.

Living in null sec for 8 years my part of space has been cloaky camped for periods of time. While cloaky camping does impact mining and ratting activities, I’m lucky I like exploration for my ISK, because cloaky camping does not impact explorers like me at all.

Whenever I see a cloaky camper in local chat I simply go to the next system over, after all!

You mention jumping 50 to 100 times a day. Is it too much to ask you to jump 51 to 101 times a day if you encounter a cloaky camper?

Next, the site camping explorer hunter.

Unlike regular cloaky campers these are dangerous for an explorer such as myself.

Luckily whenever I’m out in space I have access to this website called ‘zkillboard.com’ where I can paste the name of that one guy in local I cannot locate with my directional scanner while I’m waiting for my scan results to come back.

Then if that person has been flying an Astero and has killed other explorers the past few days it’s a clear sign that this person is probably camping a site in this particular system.

So what do I do as an explorer against such a possible threat?

I jump gate.

I simply scan sites in the next system and continue exploring. There’s no point in trying to run a site when I know that most likely an Astero is trying to catch and kill me.

And if I see the Astero pilot jump after me into this new system? Then I cloak up and wait it out, because now I know for certain he’s trying to catch me.

Just move on to the next system, and the next. You really have to mess up badly to get caught as explorer.

So explorer-hunter site campers are no threat to explorers either if you do your due diligence and do a background check on people who you don’t see in space, either docked up or flying some Marauder or Ishtar.

Long story short:

Cloaky campers have near-zero impact on an explorer like myself.

TL;DR:
They’re mad that cloaked players can sit invisibly in exploration sites, block or ambush explorers indefinitely, and there’s zero way to detect or counter them using D-scan or gameplay tools. They argue this creates risk without agency, especially for exploration ships, and drives new players away.

In plain English:

  • Cloaked ships don’t show on D-scan even at very close range.

  • Explorers (data/relic runners) can’t cloak while hacking and have no warning.

  • Cloaked campers can:

    • Sit in sites for hours

    • Deny content

    • Instantly kill explorers with perfect info

  • The explorer can’t:

    • Detect them

    • Force interaction

    • Make a skill-based decision to avoid loss

Their core complaints:

  • This isn’t “emergent PvP,” it’s passive denial.

  • It’s illogical that ships are visible in local but undetectable a few km away.

  • It disproportionately punishes new/returning players.

  • It rewards patience and mechanic abuse, not skill.

What they want:

  • Some form of short-range cloak detection or

  • Ability to hack while cloaked (with penalties) or

  • Exploration-specific countermeasures that give warning or escape windows

What they’re not asking for (despite the tone):

  • Total safety

  • Removal of PvP

  • Removal of cloaking

They’re basically saying:

“PvP is fine. Losing because the game gives me no possible response is not.”

And yes—there’s a thinly veiled “fix this or I’ll leave a bad Steam review” at the end

Why the fu¢k are they doing sites in systems with people in already in them? I automatically assume that any neut is already in the site and I move on, that’s basic fu¢king logic.

That makes this thread even more ridiculous.

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I agree, this original post could have been reduced to 2 sentences and not lose out on its content.

My answer to all of it: cloaking is a legitimate part of the game. And covert ships – the ones that are really the problem – they have a number of disadvantages and countermeasures that balance them with non-covert ships. They have a targeting delay, for one. There are Mobile Observatories. A single cloaky ship is not an army in itself and can only take on a limited number of hulls by itself. Just pay attention, do your research and you’ll be fine.

Your arguments are exactly of those who do not do that research and think that the game has to be fed to them on a platter. This is EVE. There is no free lunch. You have to catch your lunch yourself. Or avoid becoming a lunch by being smarter and better than others.

What’s illogical about it? That’s the whole purpose of a cloak! To be undetectable.

No it does not. Cloaky ships are only a problem for null sec bears who are disproportionately afraid of them. In most cases in null sec, if you have paid attention to intel channels, you know the ship the cloaky camper is using, and you know the kind of targets he is capable of taking on solo – all you need to do is undock in a ship he CAN’T take out on his own. It is as simple as that.

And to your point – new players are not affected by cloaky campers at all, because new players spend their time in high sec and nobody hunts targets in high sec in a covert ship! Jeez. This has got to be one of the most idiotic suggestions I have ever heard. And there are a lot of those.

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Correct me if I’m wrong, but arent BlOps and Bombers the only ones without a targeting delay after cloak? I checked the commonly used cloaky ships and these were the only two types I saw with that bonus.

If you assume a neut already in system is camping any sites in there, you won’t get caught by a camping BlOps, so you’ll always have time to GTFO if you’re paying attention. The align time of your exploration ship should never be below the sensor recalibration time of a cloak.

Tips to help you see people decloaking in your site:

  • Go to your overview, make sure you have all standings settings have a background, then set everything that isn’t friendly to blink.
  • Make sure your analyzer window does not cover your all of your overview or your selected item window. You see blinking color, you warp out immediately.

For extra safety, once you’ve locked all the cans, you can keep a celestial in your selected item window. That way you’re ready to warp out at a single click the instant you see anything with a background on your overview. The blinking helps you see it faster.

Cloaky camping of exploration sites is less of an issue than generic cloaky camping, because no self-respecting explorer is running a site with a neut in system waiting to ambush them.

Also, if you’re travelling 50-100 systems to find sites, you need to learn how site spawn mechanics work. It’s a lot more efficient if you already know where to look for clusters of sites instead of hoping to find one every jump.

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Look, I just want to know why, if you’re so ■■■■■■■ smart, are you not more successful?

If everyone else is so dumb, should you not be more capable of outplaying them without needing the rules of the game changed to accommodate you?

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this is the loss they are mad over. Buzzard | Teodo Dastem | Killmail | zKillboard

If you look at the killers killboard you will see they solo kill explorers all the time.

If I was hacking with that player in local I would expect the decloak, so either have backup ready or move on.

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the alliance makes perfect sense too.

Yep, one glance at that person in local chat while exploring would’ve made me be very careful:

They are very clearly solo hunting explorers and you would be crazy to decloak a Buzzard in their system and expect otherwise.

I once did decloak in such a system on purpose to see if I could hack a can before the camper decloaked on me.

I couldn’t, he already decloaked on my first can.

Luckily I had seen their setup and knew they had about 5 seconds to lock me, so I was gone within that time.

Usually I don’t take the risk though. Just move on. Go to the next system.

Correct. Odysseus is the newest ship that can fit the Covops Cloak, and it does not get targeting delay reduction. Cloaking skill is what reduces the sensor recalibration time otherwise and at level V that is 5 seconds for Covert Ops Cloaking Device.

This.

Besides some busy home systems or systems with active mining fleets it’s rare to see more than a handful of people in a system. Usually it’s empty or only a couple of names in local.

If you see three non-allied players in a null sec system and spot a Venture and Ishtar on dscan that means one player is unaccounted for, who is possibly a threat to an explorer.

Either move on to the next system, or paste their names in a tool like zkillboard to check what kind of characters they are and what they’re likely up to.

Doing such a check would’ve shown that the player in the system the OP lost their Buzzard in was in fact in a Loki hunting explorers like the OP.

You failed at piloting - didn’t warped off in time and/or didn’t used dscan all the time.
You failed at preparation - you haven’t checked who is in local with you, and you continued doing a site with a neut in local.
You failed at intelligence, you have 0 arguments, and you are just insulting others, while writing some of the most utter nonsense suggestions and “claims” ever heard. Pretty much everything you wrote is disastrously bad and is pure ignorance towards any kind of logic.

Its very clear that you have zero to none in-game knowledge, and going by your replies you have zero to none chance to learn anything. You are even threatening CCP that if they don’t listen to you, and do as you demand, you will leave a negative review on Steam.

EvE is niche game, from the start its not meant for wider audience. I haven’t seen such sad soul in a long time.

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I doubt the OP will learn, but for anyone else who comes across this section:

Being one-shot by a Loki while flying a Buzzard is a failure of piloting, preparation and intelligence.

As someone who has been both the Buzzard and the Loki in this engagement:

  • your warning window is about 6 seconds, because of the delay a non-bomber ship has before they can start locking you after decloaking (a good Buzzard fit warps away in 3)
  • the detection is twofold, first when you see the Loki pilot in local chat and could have done some intelligence research (paste their name in zkillboard, see what they are up to) and second on your overview the moment the 6 second countdown starts,
  • and the meaningful decision making for the explorer is to choose to risk hacking in that solar system or to go to the next one.

In other words, with better piloting you would warp off in time, with better preparation your ship would be capable of warping off in time and by doing intelligence you could know in advance that that pilot in local is likely to shoot your explorer so you can be prepared to warp off.

An explorer who gets one-shot by a Loki has made mistakes to get into that position.

A good explorer will know how to avoid it.

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Hi,

I have a PhD in Clinical Psychology, and I am currently completing my specialization in psychoanalysis and systemic therapy. Between all of my responsibilities the only hobby I have in last 15 years is EvE, so I am quite familiar with basic game mechanics and interaction between Explorer doing relic and data sites and somebody hunting those explorers.
I found very interesting how you mentioned intelligence dozen of times, and your judgments on level of intelligence of other players which tried to explain you some of the basic mechanics in the game.

Why am I writing this? Well it is time that somebody evaluate your intellectual capacities, in a professional manner. I wont use any fancy wording and will put main methodology of determining one intelligence in few simple steps.

Intelligence = ability to learn, reason, understand complexity, solve problems.

Ability to learn

Do they notice when new information contradicts their beliefs? No
Do they update their views after being shown evidence? No
Do they avoid repeating the same mistake? No
Do they adjust future behavior? No

Reasoning process

Do they distinguish facts from opinions? No
Do they recognize logical inconsistencies when pointed out? No
Do they avoid jumping to conclusions with limited data? No
Do they consider alternatives? No

Ability to Understand Complexity

Do they recognize that multiple factors affect the outcome? No
Do they acknowledge uncertainty when information is incomplete? No
Did they understand the risks? No
Do they understand second-order consequences? No

Ability to Solve Problems

Do they try alternative solutions when one fails? No
Do they plan steps instead of acting impulsively? No
Do they evaluate whether the solution actually worked? No
Do they define the problem before acting? No

Result summary:

Consistent “yes” answers across situations show strong intelligence: the person recognizes mistakes, reasons clearly, and learns over time.

Occasional “no” answers are normal human error, often caused by stress or emotion, not low intelligence.

Repeated “no” across categories is a concern because it suggests persistent difficulty with learning, reasoning, and adapting.

Defensive denial or blame-shifting points to a judgment or ego problem that blocks learning, regardless of raw intelligence.

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I came across your comment Milenna, only because it was the last one posted when I revisited this thread for the first time since my own final post, solely to edit and slightly correct my statement about shifting to the marvelous and relaxing game X4: Foundations. That is the only reason I saw it. I was not reading comments after my last contribution, and I will not do so going forward.

However, this particular comment deserves a response, because it is both incorrectly framed and factually misrepresented.

You mentioned that you hold a PhD in clinical psychology. For the sake of clarity, I hold a PhD in applied mathematics - a field that is fundamentally grounded in logic, formal reasoning, and rigorous analytical intelligence. Without comparing disciplines competitively, it is nevertheless true that mathematics provides an exceptionally clear framework for understanding logical structures, causal relationships, and interaction dynamics in complex systems, including human interactions.

Every single question you answered with “No” reflects a biased, non-professional, and quasi-mediocre analysis. The core issue is methodological: the analysis was performed without properly examining the initial post. Instead, the questioner assumed the right to judge and analyze while bypassing the foundational text entirely. This is not analysis; it is projection.

More importantly, every one of those “No” answers is, in fact, directly attributable to later commenters - not to the original post itself. This is easily verifiable. Read the text carefully. Every word carries specific logical weight, intent, and meaning. When done properly, it becomes evident that the denials and negative attributions originate exclusively from subsequent commenters. In that sense, your analysis unintentionally (I sincerly hope so…) demonstrates precisely the lack of intelligence and rigor displayed by those commenters.

Do not confuse ironic replies or ironic outwitting that appeared later in the thread with legitimate foundations for psychological analysis. They are not equivalent. They are reactions, not premises.

Many commenters engaged solely to oppose something, without properly reading - let alone understanding - the original post. I responded respectfully to all reasonable comments and provided arguments where someone proposed something presented as a “solution” that objectively was not. When confronted with clear evidence, several commenters did not even attempt refutation. Instead, they remained silent and substituted personal opinion for fact. You know very well what psychology calls that - just as I do.

At this point, I will certainly not revisit this post, read additional comments, or respond further. I am replying now only out of collegial responsibility, to inform you where your judgment and analytical process failed, for the reasons outlined above.

Regarding what followed: as a matter of personal integrity, I was unwilling to delete the post. I would have done so only if corporate members had explicitly asked me to - which they did not. They left the decision to me, and even before that, I had decided not to erase it.

What happened instead was a permanent ban - within a timeframe of roughly 4–5 hours - starting from the moment I began extracting my belongings, all (lot of them…) of which were stored in corporate and alliance structures. From a psychological perspective, this behavior aligns with over-inflated egocentrism unsupported by substance, often resulting in fixation-driven egomania: removing someone not for misconduct, but for refusing to delete a post in which they fairly and respectfully defended their position.

History has a very clear name for censorship and social exclusion based on written word and expressed opinion… You know it. So do I.

By the way, all my assets are safe. None entered asset safety. And yes, I know you are happy for me in that regard. That outcome was achieved solely due to foresight, forward thinking/sensing, and - unsurprisingly - intelligence. Not an easy task under docking bans, access restrictions, and similar constraints.

In conclusion: intelligence combined with personal integrity outweighs almost anything else. A healthy adult existence is directly and unequivocally connected to both.

A sincere “o7” to all people of goodwill and intelligence who may read this.

Bye.