Easy fix. Just create one shiptype that is able to probe out cloaked ships. That would remove the problem.

They can’t touch cloaks without unfucking the cyno situation since a cloak is the only thing keeping your cyno boat from being insta primaried right now.

Don’t forget the US Navy’s use of the PBY aircraft to spot the Japanese strike force in the battle of Midway. Midway was a defeat that the Japanese could never recover from.

All sides of a conflict in Eve have access to cloakies. I don’t think you made much of a case as to why cloakies are bad beyond “perfect information”. I agree that in Eve perfect information is generally bad, but I think in the context of the current war you need to make a stronger case.There’s so much else that is shrouded by the fog of war that as a whole even infinite cloakies would leave plenty of fog for shenanigans. A smart commander could even try to use hostile cloakies to his own advantage. Examples:
Use the hostile cloakies to feed disinformation to the enemy. History is littered with military examples of feeding disinformation to an adversary that hugely impacts the conflict e.g. Operation Mincemeat.
Encourage the enemy to become relliant on cloakies for all of their information. It’s “perfect” after all right? Let them see your every move and become complacent. They know exactly what you are up to every single moment right? Right up until that moment when your shit hits their fans at terminal velocity because they thought they knew exactly what you were up to and grew complacent, only they didn’t know quite as much as they thought they knew.
As your adversary relies more and more on cloakies “perfect information” they rely less on other intel method like spies. Let them get all the intel they want easily from cloakies so it becomes the low hanging fruit they rely on.
Gather intel from the cloakies distribution. Even if you can’t decloak them their presence is telling you what your adversary is interested in. How many are there/ Where are they? There’s a great old cold war spy movie that for the life of I can’t remember the name of. The Russians dangle a defector to the Brits ( or Americans? ) To verify that the defector is real the Brits provide a list of ( 50? ) questions for a British agent to go to Russia ( or East Germany? ) and ask the defector. The whole thing is a Russian setup. They want the list of questions the Brits want to ask the defector because that will give them a good idea of what the Brits are interested in. The very questions themselves are valuable intel.
I think for a good leader with a cunning mind enemy cloakies could be turned into an asset to be used and abused.
Just feedback on your writing style, I don’t mean this in a mean way but I found a few times this article struck me as slighly condescending to the reader dear writer. The impression I got was that you didn’t expect the reader to appreciate just how right your argument was. Don’t make assumptions about the reader, make a better argument. One thing that I notice about articles here that advocate for game mechnic changes is very rarely do they really make a good solid job of fully justifying the need for change in the first place. That’s the starting point. Everything after stands or falls on that foundation. I always appreciate free content and the hard work that you put into the article, so I thank you for the article. I did enjoy your Dr Strangelove reference.

I think you are right in stating that the reason cloaks are broken, well one of them, is that there is no counter play. That is the only thing wrong with cloaking at this time in my opinion. Having some sort of specialised module/system that can de-cloak an AFK/streaming scout is to my mind by far the best solution. The cloaked ship should then have a chance to perform actions to evade capture. This could be the basis for some nice cat and mouse typed play. Equally there is also the chance for counter play to that. More options is better than fewer.

Your other points are good reading but there are many other forms of “perfect intel” available. I should also note that I made a point of scouting hostile stagers and fleets in a T1 frigate with no cloak, alpha only. It is harder for certain but still very possible. Following fleets gets a bit trickier as well. Spies are a thing and arguably one of the best perfect intel tools in the game is the d-scan function.

My main concern in this is that if any action were taken it may adversly effect styles of gameplay that rely on cloaks. Just think of large bomber fleets in big battles or ganking a super. The smart bombing tactics used in “pipe-bombs” could also suffer. These are all good and interesting things and I would hate for them to leave the game.

Sooooo, when the doughnut used to permacamp (for weeks at some point)
ratting/mining bears in smaller alliances, everything was ok. Now that goons are feeling the heat upon them, cloaking is terribad.

I agree with the broad strokes.

CCP can’t market the game on the notoriety of nullsec and J-space being “lawless space” where anything goes, bubbles abound, and pilots need to look over their shoulders constantly because bad guys will stab them between the ribs the second they look away from the monitor… but then allow nullified interceptors and T3Cs, covert ops cloaks (particularly when combined with the throwaway cost of stealth bombers), zero-commitment AFK cloaky camping, and other cheap cop-outs to enable virtually risk-free gameplay in “lawless space.”

(Ironically, it always seems to be the mouth-breathers who claim EVE is supposed to be “dangerous” farting around all day in cloaky nullified Tengus).

As an ex member of Signal Cartel, and long time wander and explorer of the EvE universe, there is a whole style of gameplay that Nul Sec have absolutely no idea about. From the big Nul block point of view cloaking might be broken, but there is a whole other slice of EvE that relies on cloaking. CCP need to balance the needs of all the players, not just PAPI and Goonswarm.

What would be better is if CCP could find a way to deal with alts. Alts are what should not be a thing moreso than cloaks. Unfortunately I have no idea how CCP could actually prevent alts– even if it weren’t in their financial best-interest to enable them. I think we can assume we’re stuck with alts, so lets talk about cloaking ships themselves.

Let me begin by saying that I’ve been working extensively with cloaked ships for a ~*long time*~: like, since 2007 or 2008. I’m gonna make an argument here that I’m not sure you’ll like, but here it goes: cloaks are not the problem– it’s the adjacent, connected abilities and game mechanics that are causing serious problems for EVE.

Your example of intel streams is one example: streaming simply wasn’t a thing when cloaks were originally implemented. If you wanted intel from a cloaky scout, that person by definition had to be at-keyboard, because otherwise there was nobody to narrate the happenings of whatever faraway system they’d been assigned to.

Another example is nullified ships. Prior to the introduction of interdiction nullification, scouting– even with a covert-cloaking ship– required some degree of skill and presented opportunities for counter-play. If a group wanted to prevent cloaked ships from recon-ing a system of particular strategic importance, they could simply stick a hell-camp on the relevant gate. Since any scouts would need to run that gatecamp in a bomber, covops, or recon ship, there’s a good chance that a competent camp could decloak and kill their ship on entry. Today, by contrast, it’s trivially easy for players to simply fit a cloak on a travelceptor or shell out for a nullified, covert T3C. By flying either of these ships, they immediately render themselves immune to the vast majority of gatecamps (they can still be tackled by RSB’ed interceptors flown by certain pilots located in Europe with favorable internet connections but that’s a whole different stinking shit-pile of a game mechanic that feels extremely exploit-y and also needs to change).

The third problem is blackops bridges. Again, I’ve migrated to a gameplay style that essentially revolves entirely around blackops-bridging, but hey: there’s a hotdrop arms-race going on and I’m not about to forgo powerful tools that my enemies are gonna use on the basis of some kind of moral objection. Blackops bridges are broken A/F and have been for a long time. There’s no way players should be able to use a blackops bridge to field combat-focused ships like stealth bombers and covert-T3Cs. The fact that you can easily teleport tens of thousands of DPS– provided in the form of cheap, disposable frigate hulls– onto whoever you want, while also benefitting from extremely good range and lack of aids-accumulation is broken. Like, completely and utterly disgustingly broken. The covert hotdrop meta has completely destroyed so many aspects of the nullsec ship meta. It’s changed the way we rat, it’s mandated the use of cap / supercap umbrellas, and it renders the geography of space totally irrelevant. Bomber drops are difficult to effectively counter, trivially inexpensive for the attacker to lose in the event that they actually are obliterated by some smartbomb autist, and criminally overpowered. Hell, it’s barely even possible to catch the bridging BS provided the pilot isn’t completely incompetent.

I’m not sure what to do about AFK intel-stream alts. I personally find it disgusting the way alt-armies are being utilized in today’s EVE, but that applies to so many areas of gameplay. For a single human player to have two, three, four, or even five active accounts that they use in a normal way doesn’t bother me so much, but when you see these people running fifty characters, all in minimal-SP, barebones cyno bomber alts that allow them to fish entire regions solo, it’s pretty gross. The same goes for people’s personal farming-armies. CCP should probably find some way of dealing with it.

For the rest of us who field sane numbers of characters, I think CCP could eliminate most of the negative consequences of cloaking by simply adjusting the host ships and their abilities:

– Make the covert jump bridge only sling covops frigates, blockade runners, and force-recons– none of these ships are as good at insta-tackling as bombers, nor do they do appreciable DPS or scale well with large numbers. These are ships that are actually designed for recon rather than combat– they’re a good fit for the bridge, contributing intel and logistical capabilities that can augment a combat effort, without prosecuting an engagement directly. No more bombers. No more covert T3Cs or Stratii.

– Rework the tech 2 battleships: put covert cloaks on the ships known as Blackops while retaining their current logistics capabilities (Bridge modules, big fuel bay, etc. Maybe throw them a fitting service and a scan-probe bonus, to boost their utility?). Rework Marauders to fit the role that “combat blackops” are currently shoe-horned into: a ship with weird T1 cloak bonuses that drops via covert cyno and brawls. If people want to drop big DPS ships via covert cyno, let them do it in their tech 2 BS hulls like real men– this at least offers some risk and opportunities for big baiting plays on the part of the “targets.”

– Remove interdiction nullification from the game. Full stop. It’s a toxic, garbage mechanic. Kill it with fire.

I feel like these sorts of changes would go a long way towards alleviating the oppressive impact of today’s covert meta. Just eliminating the perpetual threat of bomber / T3C hotdrop would revitalize whole classes of ships and modes of gameplay that have been hunted to extinction. Killing interdiction nullification would actually demand some level of skill and attention from scouts, while also giving defenders a shot at preventing enemy scouts from accessing key locations. Forcing people to risk some assets if they want DPS to pour out of a covert cyno would balance the risk:reward for covert hunting while providing opportunities for clever defenders to land some appreciable counter-dunks.

I’m not a fan of the idea of killing AFK cloaking entirely. “Perfect intel” cuts both ways– if I’m in hostile space, yes– I can sit “invulnerable” in a safespot with my cloak running until downtime. But the perfect intel situation is mutual: I know you’re there, but you also know that I’m there. Defending players are free to sit in stations or on tether all day, observing whatever they want. They can field cloaked ships too. The old truism remains applicable: an AFK, cloaked ship is not a threat 😛

With covert bridge mechanics adjusted, a cloaked ship floating around in local no longer poses the constant threat of twenty-five thousand DPS-worth of bombers spontaneously appearing at any moment. With nullification gone, keeping cloakers out of your space by policing your stargates becomes feasible.

We tried blackout. Removing local (or removing cloaked users from local) is clearly not a viable solution to the intel problem. Blackout failed miserably by tanking PCU, and that was an “even” deprivation of intel– neither the defending nor attacking parties could see each other in local. If people un-subbed over blackout (mutual blindness), surely the prospect of ~*only the attacker*~ being removed from local via a change to cloak behavior would be even less palatable to the average EVE player– even if that ability had a time-limit. Remember– it’s the *at-keyboard* cloaker you have to worry about– not the AFK one.

IDK– TL;DR: I think cloaking has to stay as long as local stays (which evidence from Blackout suggest that it should). If CCP adjust the capabilities of the host ships, the cloaking itself can be made less-problematic. Alt armies are disgusting but I don’t see how (or why) CCP could choose to deal with it effectively (and where would you draw the line in terms of acceptable numbers of alts?).

Making a cloak use fuel is just an annoyance and making it use cap still keeps it practically infinite. The best solution following your line of thinking would be making cloaks have a limited charge that can only be refilled by docking.

Work as hard at getting good as you do at finding shit to cry about and you won’t have to cry about cloaks anymore.

This article was fucking stupid and you should apologize for writing it.

Are you new to eve? I feel like you must be new, otherwise you wouldn’t be trying to rehash the same argument people have had for years. And the reason why we got the storms.

Every fc I have flown with wants a d-scan of the enemy comp. Not a local count. Having a live feed really doesn’t help anything except having eyes on a fleet setup on the other side of the gate.

Besides that spies are so prevalent fleet comp, number and even ship fitting are already known.

Just add homeworld style proximity sensors that will reveal those pricks.

Just think of it like a nuclear submarine, which could potentially stay under for months. Messing around with fuel mechanics is just silly and annoying. Instead, distinguish between passive and active sensors, and only allow passive ones while cloaked. Severely gimping sensors and communications would be a lot simpler, and more in line with the stealth weapons of reality. No tactical overlay, and only limited information in the overview like an object’s size and velocity with the exception of the sun/planets/moons etc.

I don’t know about burnout of the modules, there are definitely “lifestyles” in this game that rely on cloaking to survive many of which don’t have 24/7 access to a station, but I do agree that decloaking others ships should be possible, and they should be scannable, just not possible to warp to. A cloaked ship should show up on a Dscan which would allow you to gather your intel without making cloaks pointless entirely.

The fact that *any* game mechanic has no counter-play is a serious problem and should always be fixed immediately. The only people who would get mad at “adding counter-play to a mechanic that lacks one” are the very people who are exploiting that mechanic for their own benefit, so their opinions don’t matter.

There’s a simpler solution than fuel. A cloaking device, when activated, should begin a countdown timer just like reloading missiles. (It could be a long timer, say an hour or two.) But at the end of that cycle, it doesn’t auto-cycle; the user has to push the cloak button again to start a new cycle. Even if there remains no way to detect a cloaked ship, this creates two excellent wrinkles: 1) the few seconds of visibility (and showing up on D-scan) in between one cycle ending and a new one beginning, and 2) the possibility that an AFK user would fail to re-cloak, allowing his/her ship to be hunted. Everybody wins, except the cloaky campers, and I believe I’ve already said what I think about their opinions.

The major problem with working on cloaks is in fact their use.
For null they are a pain to the point that many would like to see them gone entirely.
But then for wormholers it’s not just a small part of the life it is your life. Every ship you fly has a cloak fitted or in the cargo because cloaks are life in wormholes.

I do agree cloaks are obviously a problem in area’s of the game but most of the idea’s in this article would be terrible for wormholers and fuck them over yet again and thus why it is so difficult to balance them.

I did like the idea below though of the bridge rebalance taking bombers off of it as dps and making Marauders the blops dps LET ME HOT DROP MY KRONOS!!!!

Making cloaks have a cycle time and cause low heat buildup, a very very small ammount, is an interesting thought too. Eventually it’d burn out and you’d need to dock or stay uncloaked long enough to repair it. Plus cloaky hunters would be going into a fight with damaged weapons and a lot of high slot heat if they took too long or traveled far.

The best option for cloaking is simple. Make all cloaks operate like mining crystal or laser crystals (not just covert cloaks, yes all cloaks). The cloak burns out, destroyed and removed from the game in 6 hours of cloaking (or depending on some type of skill). The damage is not repairable nor can a person reprocess the module. It removes isk from the game as well. And also promotes lots of indy jobs all over the galaxy (more resource usage). If you think about it. Cloaking that bends all frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum must be generating a lot of heat and use a lot of power. So much that the equipment in question can not survive it’s own operations. The other thing CCP can do is cloak failing. That cloaking device has 30 % chance of failing to cloak depending on the module grade. And also for every several minutes a ship remains cloaked the cloak failure shifts to a greater chance of the cloaking device deactivating and/or burning out while cloaked. Promoting hunters to scan down and killing them and also to stop cloaky campers from just cloaking up in hostile system going to their job for several hours and then returning home uncontested. They will have to sit at their computers constantly.

So you guys camp us for years and use the tactic all the time and when it starts to hurt you, you want it gone well sorry but it’s what you did too us.

Wow. What’s hilarious about this is that Imperium has been on the other side of the argument for years. The exact same arguments about perpetual cloaking, cloaks using fuel, etc. As long as cloaky camping was to your benefit, you were quick with a HTFU response. Why should anyone say anything but HTFU to you now that you’re the one whining about it?

This sounds like it’s written by a null bear who wants to krab on their bots without the risk of being attacked.

Cloaking is totally fine.

No need to change it unless you want to pander to bull bots.