Cloaks and docking on hostile stations: Spice it up a knotch

[Binski]

I've been recently playing with the idea (in my head) of how things would look if cloaked vessels were allowed to 'dock' on any station or planet, regardless of their rep. Before you cry its insanity, hear me out.

PVP wise, all this would result in are more death by docking.

Smuggling wise, if the ship got cloaked before docking, it's fair game.

RP wise, the big winner, is that people could now RP 'hostile dockings' like boarding stations and infiltration. Things like prison breaks, theft, intel gathering, and clandestine meetings, could be achieved better and allow for more accurate activities on the server with regards to our RP actions.

The catch? Well you can't undock cloaked, so if and when you choose to resume flying, you have to survive the undock, and face whatever consequences you left outside waiting for you. Also if would make you PVP dead, you could also be considered a 'prisoner' if your ship does dock on a hostile station or planet and can't escape. The docking, depending on where, would be at your own risk. Infiltrating a lone station might be possible, but larger areas with many stations nearby would be much harder to survive getting out of again. Especially in the cases of defended POB's, if a ship could not undock without being destroyed, as a prisoner, could then secure their safe release from the owner.

I've often wondered how cool it would be if we could cloak and land on a planet that is hostile, and sell our stolen cargo, or smuggled goods, sneaking them in and escaping in a very traditional 'getting shot at on the way out' kind of way.

Ships could sneak in for prison breaks, kidnappings, hostage situations...planting bombs or great heists, etc. I think it would be fun to try to sneak onto the populated colony worlds in a hostile ship for clandestine purposes. Unless you only undock when alone in a system, you're always launching blind, and might be screwed if you undock to some police or navy lurking within range. A smuggler might then go unnoticed, despite bad rep, but isn't that what police and navy should be doing? Watching their skies to make sure no terrorists or rebels are coming and going? Lib navy should be watching for Xenos or Rogue infiltrators on Manhattan...and even pirate smugglers should have the option to smuggle stuff to the core worlds and lawful bases, and deal with the consequences.

The poll is to see how the idea goes over, comments and other suggestions welcome. The question is, do you think it would be cool to open up Sirius and allow cloaked docking (with a few exceptions of course, like POB's, however, even that could open up for new' anticloak' platform or 'shield' that provides detection for bases as well, to build and prevent such things from happening).

PS - My last thought was about the new Cloak Disruptor. After thinking about it, I actually find that allowing cloakable docking on hostile/neutral bases would give a very good purpose to the Cloak Disruptor. The problem with them is that at reasonable ranges, it can be hard to get another ship with them, unless you know where they are heading. Ships using these new countermeasures could actually set up checkpoints at planet docking rings and other hot sell points, and use scouts to 'listen' for cloaked vessels. If used properly, it would be possible to try to snag a smuggler in an attempt to get past them.

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[Corile]

PVP wise, all this would result in are more death by docking.

/thread.

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[Tyria Regalia]

Haven't used a cloak yet, personally, but I agree with your argument on its use for roleplay purposes.

[Fluffyball]

Pretty good for roleplaying a spy... I'd all for it, in fact.

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[Antonio]

Landing on the admin base in delta?

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[Remnant]

It sounds great in theory. Although in practice, it'd never be used with that intention. Very rarely will you find someone actually going along with that.

It'd also be a bit weird, if you're working in a station, and suddenly an enemy ship uncloaks in your hangar. Or someone else tries docking, and finds an invisible ship in their spot. Or mere tech stuff.

[tommyt127]

If this is implemented...
Step 1 - buy cloak
Step 2 - dock on lost battlestar
Step 3 - profit $$$

Edit: just seen antonio's post

[TheFreelancer]

Heres my problem with docking on hostile stations

-If they dont give you permission, and dont open up the dock, you cant really get into the station, unless you brought some lads to storm the station (which would be unrealistic on like a VHF!)

-It would make it too easy to park your ship anywhere, and when you die or somthing, just respawn there, or potentially undock to a large cannon in your face!

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^ A Massive Eejit ^

[Plan-B]

This will mess up things - i can see a flock of unlawfuls undocking a npc base in a main or "trading" System - yes youre correct then a massive pvp Action may happen - but why? to annoy some Traders ? to "poke some gamefun" in an area ? noone will be safe anywhere! a wild slaugtering will be the result!

sure i like the thouhgt of spies but what RP sense do they make? theres marinenachrichten or privateers and too much of "quasi" ones. this should do for spies!

this reminds to pob's - theres a detailed Docking list - just think a corsair docks an outcast base - wheres the sense? this only leads to Trouble! or do you expect a message like "the bomb has been planted" ?

if you want to increase Server Action with this (by more pvp) - think of These beeing pi***ed getting slaugthered after 30 mins trade flight! - by the way Traders still havent a Chance to escape - now again much easier to kill undocking a pirate from the traders (known) trade target *bravissimo*.

and pirates legal in house space is a no-go!

[Binski]

Landing on the admin base in delta?

It sounds great in theory. Although in practice, it'd never be used with that intention. Very rarely will you find someone actually going along with that.

It'd also be a bit weird, if you're working in a station, and suddenly an enemy ship uncloaks in your hangar. Or someone else tries docking, and finds an invisible ship in their spot. Or mere tech stuff.

Well I figured there'd be a few exceptions, maybe snubs being exempt from the ability would make sense. However think of it more like a 'secret' docking, like attaching yourself to docking port by force or hacking the docking system to give you a hangar regardless. Although, I suppose it would be mostly planets that would be the best part about it, especially for smuggling reasons. In theory once you make it into the atmo you uncloak and manage to land ok. I'm reminded of the episode of Firefly where they sneak up on a station and forcefully dock to board it temporarily. Again because of being exposed upon undocking, permanent stays on hostile bases would be impossible, unless you wanted to be considered a 'prisoner' perhaps. POB's should probably remain exempt, but most npc bases are just buy or sell points for commodities, so why not let some plausible smuggling go down? So...I suppose if not all normal npc bases, planets for sure, and maybe not snubs. Pirates could actually steal Nobium and sell it on Denver, if they had the right tech, and still need to watch themselves on the way out. The other big use I saw was things like prison breaks, if inrp characters went to jail like some have, you could show evidence of any ship docking on the prison, ships not supposed to be able to, to signify an 'attempt' to get inside. Really its about opening up opportunities enticing unlawfuls to come in close to populated areas and allow for some chase/evasion scenarios to play out around the whole concept. Park a couple of ships with Cloak disruptors over manhattan by the mooring fixture/docking ring, and have a couple of scouts or other ships around, and you can totally force a cloaked ship be visible before docking, preventing them from docking altogether.

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The Further Exploits of Captain Antares (August 2015) │ (alt) JonasHudson
*Argo | Special Operative ID (Approved Request)* | Argo Compilation Video
################ *Proposed OF Challenge System* ################
############### The Book of Piracy (Piracy Tutorial) ###############
############### Binski Alamo (Youtube Channel) ###############