Cloak Overhaul

[alterintel]

Currently the cloaking device in StarMade is to power hungry, and isn't any fun to use. In any other Sci Fi genre just about any ship can be fitted with a cloaking device and it renders the ship invisible to the human eye, and most sensors.

Consequences for using a cloaking devices in the following genres:

Star Trek:
1) No shields
2) No Warp (dependent on situation)
3) No Weapons
4) On the Defiant it affective the ablative armor system. (DS9: Past Tense Part 1)
5) For the Federation it breaks a Treaty

Star Wars:
1) cloak worked both ways, IE. the ship became blind.

Eve On-line:
1) No entity within 2Ks
2) No targeting
3) Very low speed and maneuverability
4) No Jump
5) No activation of any modules
6) No docking
7) it takes up to 30 seconds to use targeting after de-cloak

Even in real life, submarines do this when they go "Silent":
1) No engines, switch to batteries, and electric motors
2) All systems that make noise are turned off. The air gets pretty stuffy.
3) No talking, every body has to whisper, and can't make any noise.

Proposals for StarMade: (Please discuss possible alternatives)
1) No other systems can be active. Basically all computers get deactivated. ( passive and active systems)
2) No Shield Capacitors (shield charge goes to zero or gets frozen in place)
3) No Power Capacitors (power charge goes to zero or gets frozen in place)
3) Very low speed and maneuverability
Less Popular possibilities
- Upon de-cloaking, shields and power have to recharge from zero, and weapons must wait to reload.
- or maybe a .5 to 2 minute cool down for all systems after de-cloaking?
- possibly any non-cloaked entity within 200m will cause cloak to fail?
- maybe even disable chat while cloaked?

Implications:
1) Ships designed for cloaking will have to decide if they want armor to compensate for lack of shields, which will further reduce their maneuverability.
2) Nuke missiles will take 2 minutes before they are usable after de-cloaking.
3) Any weapons that take a ton of energy will have to wait for capacitors to charge.
4) It will take a while to charge jump drive after de-cloaking.

Thoughts?

 

[Pacific_Jim]

Honestly, the power hunger is fine. It means if you make a stealth ship you have to specialise, with a ship that in all likelihood won't be able to stand up to similar sized vessels. All I want really want extra is a mainly decorative "armour" that doesn't count for power drain.

 

[alterintel]

Honestly, the power hunger is fine. It means if you make a stealth ship you have to specialise, with a ship that in all likelihood won't be able to stand up to similar sized vessels. All I want really want extra is a mainly decorative "armour" that doesn't count for power drain.

In Principle I totally agree with you. I just really want to cloak my Defiant.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

Hah, I can sympathise on that one.

That said, I was under the impression that in Star Trek the cloaks worked more like radar jammers anyway, with the visual effect being just that. I'm not a huge expert though.

 

[Warprider]

As long as we can balance cloaking in such a way that our ships don't have to look like shit i'm good.

 

[therimmer96]

2) No Warp

Incorrect.

 

[Valiant70]

Incorrect.

In one of the original series episodes, the U.S.S. Enterprise went warp factor 9 to escape while using a jerry-rigged cloak stolen from the Romulans.

 

[ltmauve]

6) maybe even disable chat while cloaked?

No, people will just get around that with third-party tools. Plus no other game has anything like that restriction, for good reason. It'd really seem off to a lot of newcomers.

2) No Shield Capacitors (shield charge goes to zero)
3) No Power Capacitors (power charge goes to zero)

Well, that'd make life a pain. After all, one needs power to move.

 

[GDPR 302420]

I completely disagree with all arguments I will address my counter argument 1 at a time

1) No other systems can be active. Basically all computers get deactivated. ( passive and active systems)
I am assuming this doest include passive effects and jamming but if it does cloaking is no longer viable and even if it does not your dealing with your weapon systems and warp drives being shutdown, this being bad because the only thing cloaking can be used for is spying and alpha damage, if you get rid of weapon systems you get rid of alpha damage that is a very good mechanic to have and warp drives being shutdown making an escape if you get scanned (that happens a lot) not possible

2) No Shield Capacitors (shield charge goes to zero)
You are then dealing with people being able to destroy your ships with a pistol -_- that should never be possible on ANY ship and since covering your cloaker with armour is not viable due to the power use factor that means cloakers are defenceless and their systems exposed ready to be killed by a small sidearm

3) No Power Capacitors (power charge goes to zero)
Then your cloaking will immediately expire and you will also have no thrust your pretty much screwed over when you activate it

3) Very low speed and maneuverability
Once again that makes alpha damage less effective

4) Upon de-cloaking, shields and power have to recharge from zero, and weapons must wait to reload.
- Maybe even a full 2 minute cool down for all systems after de-cloaking?
The worst of the lot, this means absolute zero alpha damage capabilities and it screws over people who attempt to use alpha damage
5) possibly any non-cloaked entity within 200m will cause cloak to fail?
That makes spying and observing ships no longer useful the best you can do is look at their small fighter from 200m and squint
6) maybe even disable chat while cloaked?
nope, thats just BS

 

[DivineEvil]

As far as I'm concerned, the best way to make Jamming Cloaks work in current environment you need only to:
1.) Have power requirements initially low, but growing additively each 0.5 second as long as these systems are active. The heavier the ship, the fewer seconds it can maintain the active Jammer and/or Cloak.
2.) Deactivating or running out of power puts both on cooldown similar to heavy weapons.
3.) Shooting any weapon from ship or it's turrets instantly disables Cloak.

Also, Jammers and Cloaks should have their respective slave blocks added, which would increase power efficiency in return for occupying a given ratio of ship's total mass. Basically the same way defensive Effects already work. There's just no excuse for them to being an exclusion of the rule, and it also ruins the crafting demands.

 

[alterintel]

I think I am being misunderstood. I only want to offer alternatives to the current cloaking system, so that more ships can be cloaked. Every suggestion that I've offered is to this end. I want what everybody wants. If nobody wants cloaked battle ships, then thats what people want.

In one of the original series episodes, the U.S.S. Enterprise went warp factor 9 to escape while using a jerry-rigged cloak stolen from the Romulans.

I happen to like the idea of jumping while cloaked. I was simply offering a bone to people who would want to nerf cloaking in exchange for cloaked battle ships.

1) No other systems can be active. Basically all computers get deactivated. ( passive and active systems)
I am assuming this doest include passive effects and jamming but if it does cloaking is no longer viable and even if it does not your dealing with your weapon systems and warp drives being shutdown, this being bad because the only thing cloaking can be used for is spying and alpha damage, if you get rid of weapon systems you get rid of alpha damage that is a very good mechanic to have and warp drives being shutdown making an escape if you get scanned (that happens a lot) not possible

Cloaking would include within the Mechanics Radar jamming, so you wouldn't need a radar jammer and a cloak. My original intention was to also disable passive effects as well, but this is all up to the community and to the programmers. If the ideas here aren't widely accepted, then there's no chance they will be included in the game.

As for Alpa Damage: If people want Alpa damage, lets figure out the best way of making that happen. But as of right now, the power requirements for cloak make alpha damage very difficult at best. I had assumed that the reason for the high power cost of Cloak was in-part to reduce alpha damage. I thought low alpha damage is what people wanted. Me personally, I like alpha damage.

2) No Shield Capacitors (shield charge goes to zero)
You are then dealing with people being able to destroy your ships with a pistol -_- that should never be possible on ANY ship and since covering your cloaker with armour is not viable due to the power use factor that means cloakers are defenseless and their systems exposed ready to be killed by a small sidearm

So maybe the shields are only down while cloaked. When you de-cloak shields come back up online with full charge? again, this is up to you guys.

3) No Power Capacitors (power charge goes to zero)
Then your cloaking will immediately expire and you will also have no thrust your pretty much screwed over when you activate it

Maybe as an alternative to draining the power bank, power generation while cloaked can be reduced by 50% or something like that?

3) Very low speed and maneuverability
Once again that makes alpha damage less effective

I think this is a good one, but only while cloaked.

4) Upon de-cloaking, shields and power have to recharge from zero, and weapons must wait to reload.
- Maybe even a full 2 minute cool down for all systems after de-cloaking?
The worst of the lot, this means absolute zero alpha damage capabilities and it screws over people who attempt to use alpha damage

Yeah, I don't like this one either. I was just throwing a bone, to those who may want to nerf cloaking.

5) possibly any non-cloaked entity within 200m will cause cloak to fail?
That makes spying and observing ships no longer useful the best you can do is look at their small fighter from 200m and squint

For the purposes of spying, I agree with you, this would be a no-go. Unless the programmers finally give us a zoom for sniping.

6) maybe even disable chat while cloaked?
nope, thats just BS

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work either.

To sum up... Wouldn't it be so cool to have a Klingon Bird of Prey, or a Romulan War Bird?
Thanks for your comments.

 

[Valiant70]

I like these:

1) No other systems can be active. Basically all computers get deactivated. ( passive and active systems)
2) No Shield Capacitors (shield charge goes to zero)
3) No Power Capacitors (power charge goes to zero)

4) Upon de-cloaking, shields and power have to recharge from zero, and weapons must wait to reload.

I don't like these:

3) Very low speed and maneuverability

5) possibly any non-cloaked entity within 200m will cause cloak to fail?

We already have scanners. We don't need a proximity failure. Collisions could cause a cloak failure though. That actually makes sense.

These are junk:

- Maybe even a full 2 minute cool down for all systems after de-cloaking?

6) maybe even disable chat while cloaked?

[DOUBLEPOST=1434686841,1434686705][/DOUBLEPOST]

Well, that'd make life a pain. After all, one needs power to move.

It would require some reworking, but thrusters could be allowed to consume the power produced each tick without that power needing to be stored. I really think power needs such a refinement anyway.

 

[alterintel]

4) Upon de-cloaking, shields and power have to recharge from zero, and weapons must wait to reload.

And this wouldn't even necessarily prevent alpha damage. Anything with a Cannon linked is going to have a very reduced reload time.

As far as shields go. Don't de-cloak in front of a turret, or have better armor

It would require some reworking, but thrusters could be allowed to consume the power produced each tick without that power needing to be stored. I really think power needs such a refinement anyway.

Maybe the power capacitors only discharge down to 50K which is the default Core value.

 

[ltmauve]

So maybe the shields are only down while cloaked. When you de-cloak shields come back up online with full charge? again, this is up to you guys.

They'd come up with the same charge they had before you cloaked.

 

[alterintel]

They'd come up with the same charge they had before you cloaked.

so basically when you cloak, all systems become isolated from power, and they only get what charge they already had, until you de-cloak.
So when you de-cloak you're basically bringing the generator back online?

 

[ltmauve]

Yeah pretty much.
I suppose weapons would freeze in their recharge and whatnot.
Though passive effects should stay on.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

With the upcoming changes making different blocks have different mass I have a question that might be relevant, is cloaking power consumption tied to mass or block count? If it were mass that help some, with hull blocks accounting for half as much as before.

Down the line I would be up for a stealth hull, weighing 0.01, but costing as much as the advanced armour and contributing nothing to defence.

 

[alterintel]

With the upcoming changes making different blocks have different mass I have a question that might be relevant, is cloaking power consumption tied to mass or block count? If it were mass that help some, with hull blocks accounting for half as much as before.

Down the line I would be up for a stealth hull, weighing 0.01, but costing as much as the advanced armour and contributing nothing to defence.

I am so hoping that the new update will include some structure that we can build some decent cloaked ships with. And who knows. But even with the mass update, I don't know if it will be possible to cloak a battle ship..... Here's to hoping.

 

[bigmonmulgrew]

Incorrect.

kinda incorrect. Cloaked ships could go to warp but their power signature became much easier to detect meaning that in most situations if you wanted to stay invisible you stayed at low warp or out of warp depending on the sophistication of your enemy
[DOUBLEPOST=1434734502,1434733630][/DOUBLEPOST]Ok I'd suggest that a cloaking system continues to use power for a short duration, say 10 seconds, after decloaking rather than the power being at 0 when cloaked. This would allow cloaked hit and run attacks, which kinda seems a big point of cloaking but since the cloak is still draining the power after you decloak its likely that your opening volley will drain power reserves forcing you to then recloak and evade or tank a few shots on your lightweight stealth ship, not healthy.

I'd suggest that a cloaked ship has its shield capacitors remain full but any ship based weapons fire should bypass shields. Decloaking should have a delay to raising shields meaning if your stupid enough to decloak in the line of fire of an enemy then its going to hurt.

Cloaked ships shoud show a marker on the hud at a distance determined by the power usage. They will not show visually but if your sitting next to someone using a lot of power they will have a rough idea where you are.

I don't think disabling chat is a good idea but again perhaps making using chat show a marker in the hud for a few seconds would be a cool idea meaning breaking radio silence gives away your position.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

I am so hoping that the new update will include some structure that we can build some decent cloaked ships with. And who knows. But even with the mass update, I don't know if it will be possible to cloak a battle ship..... Here's to hoping.

I'm hoping if there is a possibility it's still very difficult to pull off. A stealth ship should be unable to stand up to a "regular" ship of similar mass in a one on one fight, just for balance reasons. A cosmetic option to improve the look of a ship without improving its chances in combat would definitely be nice though.

Saying that, after a bit of thought I might be for a curved power cost for cloaking, where upto a certain mass it's cheaper to pull off. Means you might be able to get your Bird of Prey type ships working fairly effectively, but cloaking still wouldn't be overpowered.