In a devblog released a short time ago, CCP gave a few details about Mobile Observatories, a new deployable coming soon to Tranquility (and currently available for testing on Singularity). According to the devblog, “this deployable will bring a new tool into the mix for defence against cloaking-based incursions into lowsec and nullsec regions. No mention was made of wormholes or whether this deployable would be allowed there or not.
Further context indicates that this deployable will periodically ping a system and have a chance to decloak any cloaked ships. Ships that had recently reactivated their cloaking module will have a special buff that allows them higher resistance against these pings. This clearly shows that CCP has no problem with active cloaking but, instead, has a problem with players being inactive in space.
This new deployable is aimed to target the plague that is AFK cloaky camping. Cloaky camping occurs when a capsuleer uses an alternate character to camp out in a system, cloaked, unable to be seen or combat probed by anyone in the system. This method is used to drive down activity in the system and some of the most famous examples of this were performed by ex-CSM representative Olmeca Gold and ex-Bomber’s Bar guru Mar5hy.
Once we have had time to observe this new module in action on Singularity this post will be updated with specifics but it seems pretty clear that the time has drawn near for cloaky camping to meet its end. There will probably be further tweaks to this as testing continues, much like the recently announced nullification changes and we will keep you updated as the changes progress.
