Item Database:Ship Equipment:Electronics and Sensor Upgrades:Cloaking Devices

Note: This is a high slot item.

Cloaking devices allow a ship to maneuver while remaining completely undetectable by outside sensors. While all ships are cloaked after jumping through a stargate, cloaking devices allow them to stay cloaked and move about at minimal speed. Active modules cannot be activated while a cloak is active. Covert Ops, Recon, and certain Transport ships are most commonly fitted with cloaking devices, employing the use of the specialized Covert Ops Cloaking Device II, which allows completely unhindered impulse movement and even warp capability while under the veil, the former two ship types being essential for gathering intel.

Activation:

Cloaking Devices cannot be activated in the following cases:

• If you are targeted and locked by another ship or module.
• If you are within POS shields.
• If you are already cloaked after jumping through a stargate.
• If you are within 2000m of any celestial object. This includes other cloaked ships and incoming missiles, even if they aren't aimed at you.

Tips:

• You can activate a cloaking device while other modules are active. When any cloaking device is activated, all other active modules will finish their current cycles and deactivate, and cannot be reactivated until the cloak itself is deactivated.

• While probe launchers and other modules can't be activated while cloaked, the On-board and Directional scanners of your ship will still work, therefore enabling limited scanning capability without getting scanned yourself.

• Any object that comes within a 2000m radius of your ship will disable the cloak, leaving you open to attack. Ships that fit the Covert Ops cloak are less susceptible to forced de-cloaking due to their unhindered movement capabilities, but other ships may be at risk if they were unable to conceal their position by cloaking quickly enough. Interceptors, for example, can fly towards the last visible area and possibly de-cloak the hiding ship.

• The automated cloaking that activates after jumping through a stargate is a different process. Therefore, you first need to deactivate the stargate cloak by moving or awaiting for it to deactivate before activating a ship-based cloak. Done quickly enough, one can immediately recloak and avoid being potentially targeted by hostiles, and thus buying oneself time to continue aligning safely toward the next destination.

• A good technique when caught in a Warp Bubble is to align to a planet, activate a MicroWarpdrive(MWD) or Afterburner(AB) for one cycle only (either by disabling Autoreload or by going "red," which means to queue the module for deactivation), and then activate a Covert Ops Cloaking device. This way you have a better chance of escaping the bubble, as the velocity bonus of the MWD or AB remains for a short time thereafter.