Covert-Ops Ships.

[Bstaz]

Does anyone have any experience with covert-op frigs? I am getting closer to the Cheetah with a grand idea of bouncing around 0.0 space unseen, with the main idea of "recon" and just snooping.  Can you really travel without getting blown up in one of these ships in deep 0.0 space ( I understand there is still probably some risk ) or is it just a waste to spend the 1/2 my isk on a ship only to be blown up on my first warp into gate campers.   I have done some research but mainly I have found build outs for the ship and not much talk about how well you can sneak around.

[bhodi]

Yes. We have several people, including myself who fly one. You need a MWD; Cheetahs are generally considered the best covops ships due to speed and low slots so that's a good choice.


Running gatecamps:
If there is no bubble, you are invincible thanks to a bug. This means you can run lowsec and most 0.0 with impunity. Simply select your destination hit the warp to button and immediately engage your covops cloak. Anyone who tries to target you will get a "You failed to target nothing" message. Thanks to Kookman (BoB) for this tip, you annoying asshole. I hope you enjoyed your friendly fire DD last night.

If there is a bubble, follow these steps.
1. Take your time and don't panic. Nothing can uncloak you from the gate cloak so you have a full 20 seconds to follow these steps.
    1a: Count the number of campers and look for holes in their defense that you might be able to fly through
    2a: Find a destination object roughly in line with those holes, if possible. Stay away from the obvious tacklers as they will try to ram you to decloak as soon as they see you
2. Take a deep breath and double-click near your destination object to align to it. This will also drop your station cloak.
3. Immediately engage your MWD, and then your cloak. It helps to unlock and move your MWD and cloak next to each other so you can hit F1, F2.
4. Spam the warp key and you will go to warp as soon as you exit the bubble. If you were unable to find an object in space, you'll have to realign. Make sure your destination is not back through the bubble.

That's that simple. Only a very, very good, crowded, and lucky gatecamp will be able to catch you. To catch you, they have to get very close to you (to decloak you), lock you, and then warp scramble you all under 5 seconds while you burn to the edge of the bubble. This is almost impossible.


Some things to be aware of:
You cannot recloak if you are being targeted.

Your shield has a reactivation delay. In laggy situations, or if you panic and are mashing the cloak button, this will screw you. Take some time and learn how fast you can recloak and the correct timing on the align / mwd / cloak delay.

It takes about 2 seconds to fully cloak your ship and disappear from the overview, and that you WILL pop up on the overview and are targetable for this time even when smoothly switching between gate cloak and your cloak. Even if you switch so smoothly that only a tiny piece of your ship gets decloaked according to the animation, it doesn't matter. You are still visible and targetable. (I tested this on a mammoth, but have no reason to think covops is any different)

Ships, drones, and objects (except GSCs, corpses, and jetcans) will decloak you if they get within 2000m. This is smaller than you think; I've avoided hostiles who I was sure was going to decloak me.

PoS shields will decloak you if touch their edge and you will be unable to recloak within 2000m of them. This means that it is still dangerous to scout moons with PoS; you never can be sure where you are going to warp -- even warping at 100 might brush the shield and decloak you depending on your orientation. Decloaked covops = dead covops

Many people (gates leading to curse) will anchor bubbles or other objects in-line with the stargates at camped systems. This is to prevent people from escaping and make it so they have to travel through the entire length of the bubble plus burn to the gate (50km or more, instead of just the radius of the bubble).  If warp in a system and see a bubble not anchored on top of the gate but just to the side, this is likely what's going on. If you see this do not warp directly to the next stargate. If you warp to the next stargate, you will be decloaked and land outside the edge of the bubble around 50km from the gate. This is not always deadly as you can recloak, but they will know you're there and some interceptors might come and try and decloak you. Just warp in at an oblique angle (warp to a planet and then to the gate) instead.

Sometimes people will anchor objects other than a bubble off gates. If you pass through an anchored object, you will decloak and be uncloaked at whatever range you chose to warp to.

You still have a 10 second recalibration time on your weapons, so as a forward scout you should fit a scrambler but don't expect to use it on agile targets or those who are paying attention enough to be able to warp out 15 seconds after you appear on the overview.

Start accumulating sniping/scouting bookmarks, bookmarks 100-150km from different gates. They'll come in handy next time you come through this system.

In general, don't warp to anything at 0 or 100 if you can help it.

[5150]

If there is no bubble, you are invincible thanks to a bug. This means you can run lowsec and most 0.0 with impunity. Simply select your destination hit the warp to button and immediately engage your covops cloak. Anyone who tries to target you will get a "You failed to target nothing" message. Thanks to Kookman (BoB) for this tip, you annoying asshole. I hope you enjoyed your friendly fire DD last night.

How/why is that a bug?

There is one bug that you didn't mention, I encounter it frequently but still haven't found its trigger (it could be random)

Occasionally if you warp to an object (e.g. gate or station) at 0 you will not be decloaked on arrival despite being within 2km of a/the object (you will be told you cannot jump/dock because you are cloaked) I have confirmed that this is not a client side bug and that you are indeed cloaked to other players - not reliable or useful enough to give you an advantage though (if you arrived at zero you can just jump/dock anyway)

[ajax34i]

Probably because of the whole "you're visible for 2 seconds" thing.  When your gate cloak drops you're visible on the overview and they can try to lock you from there, for about 2 seconds, but the bug doesn't let them.  Then you cloak up and aren't targettable anymore cause there's nothing listed in the overview and so they can't ctrl-click.

[Morat20]

I fly a Helios. You can move and recloak pretty fast, and they have to be paying pretty close attention to target you. Of course, gate campers are generally looking for advance scouts popping through the gate -- so they're generally paying close attention. If you're lucky, you can recloak before anyone manages to start targetting you -- at this point, you probably want to alter your heading a bit just in case. Make it hard for them to ram you.

However, as Bhodi notes -- play around with it to get a feel for it. Things like "pulsing the MWD on and immediately off then slamming the cloak button". You get a full cycle of MWD speed (which is about 2k/s for my Helios) but cloak immediately.

I practiced with my covops by scanning stuff down and playing games in high-sec -- entering systems and practicing how fast I could cloak, running around setting up safe spots on the fly, and then trying to scan down people.

Hell, I actually got some nice loot that way -- found a mission runner and hung around about 5k back watching him. He died, I went up to his wreck and took his stuff. :)

[bhodi]

Ajax is correct. There should be a small window for someone who is flying an instalocking ship to be able to target and scramble you. Due to the bug, there is actually no window instead of a small one.

[Bstaz]

Thanks for all the info. It sounds like not only doable but fun as well.   Do you need to be locked to prevent cloaking or just in have someone 'locking" on you to prevent you from cloaking?

Sounds like I have some practice to be doing.  Thanks again  - Statis

[Thrawn]

Thanks for all the info. It sounds like not only doable but fun as well.   Do you need to be locked to prevent cloaking or just in have someone 'locking" on you to prevent you from cloaking?

Need to be locked as I understand it.

(I have an annoying tendency to be wrong though, might want to wait for someone thats flown one to confirm/deny that.)

[lac]

You lose the ability to cloak the moment they start locking you. Hence the 'bug' that lets you switch from jumpcloak to covert ops cloak without the possibility of getting targeted (if you do it reasonably fast).