Cloaks come in two flavors. Regular and Covert Ops. Regular cloaks are Prototype Cloaking Device I and Improved Cloaking Device II. They work the same, but the penalties of the Improved cloak is reduced.

Covert Ops Cloaking Device II can only be used on specialized ships, namely Covert Ops, Stealth Bombers, Force Recons and Blockade Runners. Strategic Cruisers can also use them if fitted with the Covert Reconfiguration subsystem.

The benefit of cloaks is obviously that you're invisible. You cannot be seen, you won't appear on the overview, and you can't be scanned or probed out. You will still appear in the Local chat though.

All cloaks have the following penalties:

• You cannot target anything
• You cannot activate any modules, but any active module will finish its cycle.
• You cannot launch or control drones.
• You cannot interact with any object in space, ie loot wrecks or open canisters.
• After decloaking, you cannot target anything for a short time. (30s for Prototype, 20s for Improved, 10s for Covert Ops.) This penalty is reduced by the Cloaking skill.
• After decloaking, you cannot cloak again for a short time. (30s for Prototype and Improved, 3s for Covert Ops.)
• You cannot cloak or remain cloaked if you're within 2000m of any object.
• You cannot cloak if anything has you locked, hostile or friendly.
• You cannot fit more than one cloak. If you have more than one, neither will work.

Prototype and Improved cloaks have the following additional penalties:

• You cannot warp.
• Your speed is reduced by 90/75% for Prototype/Improved respectively.
• Your scan resolution is reduced, increasing the time it takes to lock something. This penalty applies even if the cloak is inactive.

Note that you CAN use the directional scanner and the scan probe interface while cloaked, however you must be uncloaked to use the probe launcher.

By: caneb [ Editor ]