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- Jul 18, 2015
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Not sure if anyone else noticed this, but making a stealth perma-cloak and jam ship that can move is literally inconceivable By that I mean it is literally so impractical that it's not even funny. The thought have having one is great, that's not the problem. The problem being that the power required to make one is ridiculously huge. When read about it doesn't sound that bad. The thing is the cloaker needs 1450 power per unit of mass. In comparison, the jammer takes 50 power per unit of mass. Now you might think of that as a dumb comparison as the jammer jams your signal for other players and pirates, and cloaking makes you invisible to everything by bending light around you, but the thing is. This makes big ships, medium ships, and even little ships can't cloak without having over 75-85% of their ship being power. I literally have a picture of a ship that I made that is 66m long, 7m high, and 11m wide. The power is around 55m long. The cockpit isn't even 11 wide, it's 5 wide and 5 high. You might being thinking now that is just stupid. The other thing is, the unit per mass being so high kills making a battle stealth ship, or any stealth ship that can defend itself. Your ship would literally need to be a giant power source to cloak, speed up at a reasonable pace, charge warp, and jam at the same time. The problem with this is that there is no way around it. I can make really optimized power generators and I've even experimented with one that would work for any size rectangle and be flexible to the shape of the ship. Even it can't be small and it gives tons of power.
Think of it like this. Every movie, every game, every book even that has space has ships, small ones, big ones, and even gigantic capital ships that can cloak have high shields, warp, and move. The reason this is so impossible is because you have to add power to cloak, but cloaking requires 1450 per unit of mass., and to meet the requirement you have to add power blocks which give mass, and everyone will cover that generator so theres more mass. Then you need more power to cloak because your mass has increased and your increased mass by adding more power and hull to cover it. It's a positive feedback loop. It wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't for the fact that with the power requirement being to damn high compared to jamming or anything else. Bending light shouldn't be more power consuming than warping, which is literally changing, moving, and bending, SPACE TIME ITSELF TO GO FASTER THAN LIGHT, the cosmic speed limit. Along with the fact that every other form of art, games, movies, and books have ships of all sizes that can cloak, while moving and warping.
Cloaking should take more around 650 power per mass or lower, so one can make larger ships that can cloak, but still have to be lightly armored. You can't even cloak a small ship without it becoming huge because of power. A bigger ship that is around 1000 in mass would need 650,000 to cloak indefinitely, but that would be a ton and considering that power the engines would take and jamming that would be maybe around 800,000. The power cost and still high just not as high. I also didn't put into account the shield tick which takes power to check shields every second, so if you have a lot of rechargers then a lot of power will be taken, and the fact that you'd need a really big generator to power all that.
The one I made that can cloak, jam, and move/ charge warp. It's has a 7 block long missile launcher on the bottom and that's it, no other weapons. One block on the right of the door is where the cockpit stops and the power begins. The thrusters take 3 blocks of length a the end. The total mass of the ship is 218. I required 327k power just to cloak and jam at the same time.
Now, before this ends I must explain while decreasing the cost will allow one to cloak ships that can do damage, there are literally tons of ways to balance it. An easy way to balance being invisible is that when you fire off a weapon you become uncloaked for an amount of time. it can be base on the mass of the ship too, bigger ships can be uncloaked after firing for large amounts of time like small ships that are less than 60 mass could recloak quicker. The main problem with cloaking is you can't even make a decent looking ship and have it be able to cloak. It's a nightmares for people that want a good looking ship that can cloak, and an even worst one for those that want a ship that can defend itself in any way shape or form. Another way to balance would be making ships that are above 1000 mass can't cloak. You could also make bigger ships be detectable with scanners if they are cloaked and jamming, assuming it's powerful enough, but have smaller ships be undetectable despite the scanner power.
When you think of it like this you can make smaller craft more powerful without nerfing bigger ships. Letting only ships under 1000 mass cloak and do damage, but make it so they uncloak when they attack, yet recloak quicker the small they are, let them have a higher survivability rate. It would make smaller ships more likable and combat effective against bigger ships. Although there is the problem of smaller ships being unable to see each other so they become less effective against each other, unless you were to make a new block used for detecting cloaked ships that can only be used on ships lower than 1000 in mass, which would the time cloaking becomes impossible for bigger ships.
Think of it like this. Every movie, every game, every book even that has space has ships, small ones, big ones, and even gigantic capital ships that can cloak have high shields, warp, and move. The reason this is so impossible is because you have to add power to cloak, but cloaking requires 1450 per unit of mass., and to meet the requirement you have to add power blocks which give mass, and everyone will cover that generator so theres more mass. Then you need more power to cloak because your mass has increased and your increased mass by adding more power and hull to cover it. It's a positive feedback loop. It wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't for the fact that with the power requirement being to damn high compared to jamming or anything else. Bending light shouldn't be more power consuming than warping, which is literally changing, moving, and bending, SPACE TIME ITSELF TO GO FASTER THAN LIGHT, the cosmic speed limit. Along with the fact that every other form of art, games, movies, and books have ships of all sizes that can cloak, while moving and warping.
Cloaking should take more around 650 power per mass or lower, so one can make larger ships that can cloak, but still have to be lightly armored. You can't even cloak a small ship without it becoming huge because of power. A bigger ship that is around 1000 in mass would need 650,000 to cloak indefinitely, but that would be a ton and considering that power the engines would take and jamming that would be maybe around 800,000. The power cost and still high just not as high. I also didn't put into account the shield tick which takes power to check shields every second, so if you have a lot of rechargers then a lot of power will be taken, and the fact that you'd need a really big generator to power all that.
The one I made that can cloak, jam, and move/ charge warp. It's has a 7 block long missile launcher on the bottom and that's it, no other weapons. One block on the right of the door is where the cockpit stops and the power begins. The thrusters take 3 blocks of length a the end. The total mass of the ship is 218. I required 327k power just to cloak and jam at the same time.
Now, before this ends I must explain while decreasing the cost will allow one to cloak ships that can do damage, there are literally tons of ways to balance it. An easy way to balance being invisible is that when you fire off a weapon you become uncloaked for an amount of time. it can be base on the mass of the ship too, bigger ships can be uncloaked after firing for large amounts of time like small ships that are less than 60 mass could recloak quicker. The main problem with cloaking is you can't even make a decent looking ship and have it be able to cloak. It's a nightmares for people that want a good looking ship that can cloak, and an even worst one for those that want a ship that can defend itself in any way shape or form. Another way to balance would be making ships that are above 1000 mass can't cloak. You could also make bigger ships be detectable with scanners if they are cloaked and jamming, assuming it's powerful enough, but have smaller ships be undetectable despite the scanner power.
When you think of it like this you can make smaller craft more powerful without nerfing bigger ships. Letting only ships under 1000 mass cloak and do damage, but make it so they uncloak when they attack, yet recloak quicker the small they are, let them have a higher survivability rate. It would make smaller ships more likable and combat effective against bigger ships. Although there is the problem of smaller ships being unable to see each other so they become less effective against each other, unless you were to make a new block used for detecting cloaked ships that can only be used on ships lower than 1000 in mass, which would the time cloaking becomes impossible for bigger ships.
