Playing a sniper anywhere other than in the redline.

Oh look, a reason to proto up the cloak.

It took me less than a second to cook up.

Shall we go down the list I can cook up between now and getting home from work?

I can be a scout just fine. Have been since 1.1 when they were bad. I can lurk, and scan, and surprise JUST FINE without a cloak, and that is the point. I have no reason to use anything more than a basic one to give me brief seconds of invisibility. If I need to drop my cloak to scan, then I should just run a basic cloak.

My question was why spend the SP skilling into proto cloaks? Why spend the isk on proto cloaks? Why bother with the fitting cost of proto cloaks?

Currently there are incentives to being cloaked for a long duration. Proto cloaks add another tool to your arsenal because you can use them to sneak into heavily contested territory and provide intel to your squad like strike locations for orbitals. If you can't see, then there is no reason to put on a module that allows you to be deaf, defenseless and ewar blind for 40 seconds. I'm not gonna hack a point cloaked when I can't tell if someone spawned behind me or not. Cloak is fine, and your eyes are fine, but if you are better at scouting without cloak, and you are essentially an ewar blind, deafened, defenseless, and still fairly noticeable scout (because if you are hiding in your opponents blind spot then you don't need to be cloaked) while cloaked, then why bother with anything more than a basic cloak, or even use one at all?

I do this with my PLC scouts, and it won't help you evade infantry if you can't see them. Maybe with swarms as they don't own infantry like the PLC. It's also hard to use your ears to track tanks and dropships while cloaked. They love to hide behind things, and hearing where they went is the easiest way to track them down. Maybe to check the overhead map? Seems excessive to my fitting costs though. I can see the use of a cloak maybe, but not really the benefit of a proto one. Could you explain more? Why not RE's or a nanohive instead?

My skills are for passive ewar. If I run a scanner, I probably don't need ewar mods, and should run HP mods instead, which is the opposite of what people seem to want scouts to do. And if a teammate is scanning, then I still don't need the passive ewar. Cloak seems to be better suited for slayer scouts come 1.9.

Fair point, though I'd argue that a sniper scout benefits little from having ewar. (I still do precision for my snipers, but I also stack plates and a cardiac for covering ground, as using dampening and range mods aren't worth it.)

I did ask the question of why, so please do. That's the point of this topic, discussion. If there is a problem like I see, then we flesh out a solution, if there isn't, then we have ideas on how to use modules that had their usefulness adjusted.

And a proto cloak yields little advantage over a basic in most of those circumstances. they either rely on one or more people not seeing the shimmering in an extremely dangerous situations. Not saying people aren't blind, but any strategy that relies on you enemy to be unobservant/stupid it is risky, and one that relies on it for 40 seconds while you are blind and deaf probably needs reevaluation, or requires a mic which isn't fair to people without means, or who speak other languages.

If you could tag a target, or put markers on locations without having to be squad leader, then it would be very different.(Looking at an enemy directly doesn't make them light up for your squad anymore, just you)

I tend to run 2 precision, but if cloak reduces my range to 5m, then I don't wanna use it for sniping, and should probably not run ewar if I do. That's the whole problem. Why use a cloak if doing so negates the 4 slots you invested in range/precision? If it is just in case, then you only need a basic (maybe sometimes advanced for very specific situations). It might be nice to have for the 1% of the time that the extra damping/duration might help, but you can free up a lot of fitting space buy just toning your cloak down. And I don't fit my suits for 1% situations.

Cloak works largely because while you are cloaked you can wait until the exact moment to strike, or you need to slip by someone for just a few seconds. When cloak changes tomorrow, then you either don't bother with a nice one, or you can use it on a suit with 800ehp because you didn't invest the high/low slots on something that you don't benefit from when you cloak.

Is the thing I kept seeing topic after topic about have scouts are too good at slaying people not based in large HP totals and shotgun surprises? This changes nothing for them. But what the role is designed for (as that is what 3/4ths of scouts have a bonus to) is scanning, and using a piece of equipment that only scouts can use well, only to have it negate your bonus sounds like a terrible thing to invest more than minimally in.

My assertion is quite the opposite. My emphasis is that if your focus is ewar, then you shouldn't be cloaked ever, but when you my find a need, you only need to for <15 seconds when cloak has the huge drawback of ewar blindness. When ewar is up, I can hide in your blind spots. Lengthy cloak durations allow you to provide intel for risky recon far more effectively and easily. Assessing enemy numbers in a small building/corridor, giving scans to the squad leader of OB strikes, or scans for your main offensive so your main force can fight efficiently. You know, scouting.

My point now is that if you can't do reconnaissance as effectively with it on as you do with it off, then there is no reason to use a better cloak, and more that it is the long cloak duration that allows you to do better recon. I can sit outside a small building and see red dots inside, but I can't see their suit rolls, or visually confirm scouts inside. I can give an okay strike location, but not one that is as guaranteed to kill all the enemies. I can sit behind my allies at the front and scan, but I can't see the whole of the enemy front and pick off stragglers from within their area. Active scanners do the scanning thing just fine for a squad (and soon to be entire team), but come with a warning that let's them know. A scout is supposed to see them without them knowing and provide intel, hence the ewar bonuses. The fun parts/useful parts of being a scout can be done from 100m away by any suit with a scanner, and the need for a scout to do actual recon will be much lower, and scouts can instead focus on being stealthy light assaults. That sounds like a boring game state to be a scout in, and it also sounds like an item in the game that has little reason for use over it's advanced counterpart, and that should not be the case for anything in the game.