Read by Council Adaptive Cloaking

[Magrim]

TL;DR
Adaptive cloaking is a module based cloaking mechanic that uses the surface area to volume ratio of a cube equal to the volume of your stealth ship, to determine the amount of modules your ship requires.

I chose a cube instead of calculating the exact surface area of your ship because first off, it would be quite difficult to calculate and second, if it was used, players would likely attempt to reduce the surface area of their ship as much as possible. Stealth cubes anyone?

The recommended amount of modules require a recommended amount of e/sec to cloak your ship. Both are variables however and can be configured to suit your needs.

• >recommended amount of modules = faster cloak but more mass. The inverse is true for <recommended amount.
• >recommended e/sec = better scan resistance but worse power spike buffering. The inverse is true for <recommended e/sec.

The modules will use all excess e/sec not being used by other systems. It will only use this; it will not draw any power from the capacitors under normal circumstances. This is how you are able to configure the power going into your cloaking field. You build your ship to accomodate your other systems, then you expand your power to achieve the buff you want.

To much e/sec will make it difficult to use your other systems while cloaked, due to power spikes disrupting the cloaking field. But it will give you more resistance to being scanned.You can put so much power into your cloak that it will be unstable to the point of being impossible to keep up.

Scanners will always passively scan. This passive scan will make your cloak work harder and because of that, they will start to draw from the capacitors. Since all excess e/sec is already going to your cloak and now it is also drawing from your reserves, you will have a limited amount of time before you run out of energy and your cloak drops.

A player activated burst scan is much harder on your cloak.

Spoiler: Detailed version

I'm really sorry for the wall of text. Bear with me if you can, there is a lot to cover.

With the direction Starmade is going; npc recruiting, quarters and duty stations, how do you guys think our cramped little stealth ships are going to fair? I think, not very good. A change will need to be made to the cloaking mechanic in order to keep up with the times, or stealth ships might become more or less impractical.

A few minor changes to the game will be required for this new mechanic to be intuitive and fun. The changes should all make sense after I'm done...hopefully.

1. Throttle control. Which I assume will be coming with the thrust update.
2. A hud for displaying more info about your energy situation such as, amount of energy stored in capacitors, the energy being used by each ship system and how much excess energy your setup is generating. All in real time.
3. An intuitive indicator on screen that tells you at a glance, how your cloak is holding up.
4. Slight change to scanners: An always on, low-power passive scan along with the same player activated high-power burst scan that we have now. Bonus : If a cloaked ship is detected, output high signal because, reasons.

Once all that is taken care of we can finally get around to stealth. My suggestion is what i call hybrid stealth modules. What I mean by hybrid is this: It will have the structure hitpoints of system blocks but also have an armor percentage and armor hitpoints. We will also have to give them more mass than system blocks, I'll explain why a little later. There will be wedges, corners, pentas and tetras just like all the other armor however, you wont have to put them on the outside in order to cloak nor will you have to build your stealth ship primarily out of them. You could build a 'cloaking device' in your engineering room out of them or use them as an accent on your ship or hide them away altogether.

The reason I went with armor that acts like modules is because i feel a stealth ship should be recognized as a stealth ship but, i didn't want to force my opinion on anyone else. So since they act like modules, you will be able to put them anywhere on your ship and hide the fact that you can cloak. I also think it will add a new dynamic to Starmade with the fact that yes, they do give some armor protection but you also want to protect them because it will affect you structure hp. I think this will give you a similar feeling of flying in a cardboard box, like we have now. Besides, who doesn't want another hull type to play around with?

These armor/modules are unique in more than one regard. First, you wont be required to have a set amount of them in order to achieve 100% cloak. Second you wont have to pump a set amount of energy into them either. There is however an "optimal" configuration depending on certain ship parameters but again, it's not written in stone. You can place more than or less than the recommended number of modules on your ship to achieve different benefits. The same goes for power. In the end you will have complete control over how your cloak performs in various situations.

Before we get into the new stealth mechanic, I want you to keep in mind that having a stealth ship in the current game has some major drawbacks like, the difficulty of building a reactor group efficient enough to run the cloak, most of your ship is made of these power reactors, if it has an interior it is usually a small one, little to no defense, mediocre offense and if scanned, your cloak immediately fails. Understand that the reason for all the negatives is because a stealth ship can pretty much go anywhere it wants undetected, which by itself is a huge advantage. So if we are going to change stealth, it will need similar drawbacks to stay balanced.

First, I would like to do away with the mass based mechanic. It makes perfect sense for a jump drive calculation but, not so much for a cloaking field. I know, I know, this is a game, it doesn't have to make sense. But, how about we use the surface area to volume ratio? The reason is the fact that the ratio of any object decreases as the object size increases and we are going to use this fact to combat stealth titans. Now, instead of using the actual surface area of your ship, (which would promote stealth cubes and spheres) we take the volume of your ship and calculate the surface area of a cube of equal volume. This way everyone starts out on equal footing with the freedom to build their ship how they see fit.

Next, instead of using the ratio to directly calculate the energy requirements, we use it to calculate the number of hybrid modules needed for complete cloak. The reason is the algorithm can be adjusted to exclude ships beyond a certain volume by requiring more than 100% of the ship to be made of these modules, which of course is impossible.

This is what I had in mind. The modules will require a certain amount of power to operate normally. The design of your ship determines the amount of energy the modules receive. The way it works is the modules will only use excess regen not being used by other systems. It will become apparent why when i cover the benefits and drawbacks of pumping more or less energy into your cloak. The only way I could see to make the power vary without making a slider or something is to make it a design choice.

Lets say for instance your ship needs 100 modules and each one needs 100 e/sec to cloak your ship fully. 10,000 isn't a lot is it? Here is where it gets interesting, you build a reactor capable of producing 100,000 power. Your other ship systems use 50% of that power to operate, the other 50,000 power goes to the cloak. Yes, all of it. Since you designed your ship to put more power into your cloak, you should be rewarded, right? Yes, you will have a stronger cloak because of it. This will be an important aspect when we discuss the change to scanners.

At this point I feel like we should talk about the buffs and debuffs you get from deviating from the optimal setup.

• The hybrid modules affect the mass of your ship and the speed at which your cloak is established
• Power affects power spike buffering and scan resistance

The modules have mass, much more mass than normal system blocks and as such the more you install the more massive your ship becomes but, at the same time you will cloak faster. As for power, when you use more than the recommended amount, your resistance to scans will increase but, any power fluctuations will affect the field stability. If you put insane amounts of power into your cloak you will have a strong resistance to scans but, it could be so bad that simply using your thrusters will drop your cloak.

Lets go through some combos:

• More modules and less power
  • Cloak faster, better power spike buffering
  • More massive, worse scan resistance
• Less modules and more power
  • Less massive, better scan resistance
  • Cloak slower, worse power spike buffering
• More modules and more power
  • Cloak faster, better scan resistance
  • More massive, Worse power spike buffering
• Less modules and less power
  • Less massive, better power spike buffering
  • Cloak slower, worse scan resistance, don't achieve full cloak

It should be noted that it wont be a simple on/off mechanic. When you initiate your cloak it will take time for your ship to go from opaque to transparent. Since the number of modules is determined by the surface area to volume ratio, the game will recommend a large ship to have more modules than a small ship. If you place the recommended amount of modules, it will always take the same amount of time, no matter the size.

Using the example from earlier, you have a ship that is recommended to have 100 modules but, you only add 50. This time you build your ship to give your cloak exactly 10,000 e/sec, the same amount you would need if you put 100 modules on it. Even though you have fewer than the recommended modules, you are giving it enough power for a full cloak. The modules are working harder at a higher frequency which is why they are more prone to power fluctuations but also give you a stronger cloak. I know, it's just a bunch of RP mumbo jumbo but, it sounds cool.

Lets say you double the modules but halve the power. You will still cloak because each module operates more efficiently at low power because of some magical techno babble reasons. Allowing you to cloak faster and manage power fluctuations better.

The only way you wont be able to fully cloak is if you don't put enough modules on your ship and don't give it enough e/sec. Using the same example but this time you only give it 50 modules and 5,000 e/sec. The ship will cloak but will only be 50% transparent.

Scanners will have to be fixed up to combat all the op cloaked ships running around. I mentioned giving scanners a passive scan, one that is always running. When a cloaked ship enters a sector in range of a scanner running it's passive scan, the cloaking field will start to destabilize. The modules will 'fight' the scanner and attempt to maintain the cloak, drawing more power to do so. The modules are already using 100% of the excess regen so they will have to pull the extra power from the capacitors. If allowed to go on for long enough, the capacitors will be depleted and the cloak will drop. Now you are basically dead in the water and due to the scanner dropping your cloak, the enemy knows where you are. For a moment you wont have the power to move let alone fight back or even recharge your shields.No matter how weak a scanner or how resistant a cloak, the scanner will eventually force the cloak to drop.

If a player is in the scanner, actively performing high-powered burst scans, the cloak will destabilize and drop at a much faster rate. If the scanner is powerful enough it could drop a cloak in a single burst or its passive scan may be sufficient to drop a powerful cloak quickly enough.

Well that is my idea for a change to the cloaking mechanic, if you read all of it, I owe you a cookie. I intentionally left out numbers and algorithms, one: because i suck at math and two: It would be damned difficult to balance this without tons of play-testing.

I may have forgot some stuff or need to clarify so, if you got questions I'll try to answer.

 

[alterintel]

It's a well thought out system. I like the idea of cloak modules and configurable power draw. I don't think the armor aspect is necessary, and it may even be a distraction from your main idea. But it would be cool to have another armor type. Also there may need to be more balancing. I believe there should be a bigger penalty for using cloak:

( a couple possible examples)
1) lower the speed cap
2) no shields at all
3) no charging of jump drives (you would have to charge your jump drives before you cloak)
4) old WWII submarines had to use battery power while submerged instead of their diesel engines, maybe something similar?

I think most people would agree that the current cloaking mechanic should be changed, but it's probably low on the priority list right now.
It's always dangerous to talk about cloaking in the forums because inevitably somebody will focus on one aspect of the idea that's bad and then the whole thread goes down hill from there. Hopefully this thread will stay civil long enough to get a decent discussion first.

 

[Gristle]

I like the ideas presented in the OP. Definitely would need tons of play testing to get it balanced, but isn't that what this stage of development is for and why we're here?

 

[Magrim]

It's a well thought out system. I like the idea of cloak modules and configurable power draw. I don't think the armor aspect is necessary, and it may even be a distraction from your main idea. But it would be cool to have another armor type. Also there may need to be more balancing. I believe there should be a bigger penalty for using cloak:

( a couple possible examples)
1) lower the speed cap
2) no shields at all
3) no charging of jump drives (you would have to charge your jump drives before you cloak)
4) old WWII submarines had to use battery power while submerged instead of their diesel engines, maybe something similar?

I think most people would agree that the current cloaking mechanic should be changed, but it's probably low on the priority list right now.
It's always dangerous to talk about cloaking in the forums because inevitably somebody will focus on one aspect of the idea that's bad and then the whole thread goes down hill from there. Hopefully this thread will stay civil long enough to get a decent discussion first.

This suggestion does have the potential to make stealth ships op as hell but, everything can be balanced through the algorithms used. That being said I do like the idea of no jump charging and no shields at all while cloaked. Another drawback could be that if you allow a scanner to drain your power to the point of collapsing your cloak, there could be a cooldown applied to power generation, meaning you really will be dead in the water for the duration of the cooldown. You would be very vulnerable at that point.

Imagine; You are scouting an enemy station, they have a passive scanner running but you have enough energy in your capacitor to hold your cloak for another minute or so. Little do you know, another player has just entered the scanner and is charging a burst scan. When it hits, your cloak will drop and you will be unable to do anything until the coodown expires......good times

The speed cap is kind of already there. When you put more e/sec than recommended your ship will become more prone to power fluctuations. The reason I asked for throttle control was specifically for this. If you hammer down on the thrusters your cloak may drop however, 50% throttle may be the sweet spot in keeping your cloak up and moving at the same time.

I'm not sure about only using batteries while cloaked. It would make it so you will always have a limited cloak time which would definitely be a drawback but, it would sort of do away with the whole configurable power draw part.

 

[lilheartless]

the no shields thing is complete bs It totally negates using cloak offensively having cloak on your ship already means that you have less weapons shields whatever than a ship without cloak

and cloaking while in combat to re position and surprise your enemy should be a valid tactic

I will however concede that you should not be able to RE generate shields while cloaked that would be imbalanced but it should not take away the shields you already have that makes little to no sense whatsoever.

 

[Magrim]

the no shields thing is complete bs It totally negates using cloak offensively having cloak on your ship already means that you have less weapons shields whatever than a ship without cloak

and cloaking while in combat to re position and surprise your enemy should be a valid tactic

I will however concede that you should not be able to RE generate shields while cloaked that would be imbalanced but it should not take away the shields you already have that makes little to no sense whatsoever.

Honestly, I tend to agree with you. I'm pretty sure there are enough variables built into this idea that it can be balanced without the need for external penalties. If I am wrong however the no shield thing should be one of the last added because, it would be a death sentence in most scenarios.

No charging of the jump drive I could live with though. As well as a speed cap if I had to.

I like the ideas presented in the OP. Definitely would need tons of play testing to get it balanced, but isn't that what this stage of development is for and why we're here?

I absolutely agree. We are reminded almost daily that the game is still in alpha and that's the whole point of being in alpha. It's an easy thing to forget sometimes though.

Im also glad you liked my ideas but, was there anything you felt needed improvement?

 

[faylew1012]

Wow, this is a well thought out change to cloaking. I think it should just be modules not armor, but it would be an interesting dynamic.

I have a question, will this change allow us to build cloaking ships that actually look decent and have a spacious interior?

 

[Dire Venom]

Wow, this is a well thought out change to cloaking. I think it should just be modules not armor, but it would be an interesting dynamic.

I have a question, will this change allow us to build cloaking ships that actually look decent and have a spacious interior?

+1
Idea needs more refinement however is very good and I can't wait to see cloaks get a make over : )
I also think there should be a way to 'track' players jumps, e.g scanning soon after someone jumps will show you their jump destination or the area. Cloak ships would be great at tracking, and following players to discover where their secret base is

 

[tr0njonen]

This is by far the most intuitive idea I've seen for a cloaking revamp so far. Personally I would love to see this kind of system in the game... And so would my poor unfinished Klingon Ships.
But all in all one idea keeps coming to mind... STEALTH TORPEDOES.

 

[Asvarduil]

This is by far the most intuitive idea I've seen for a cloaking revamp so far. Personally I would love to see this kind of system in the game... And so would my poor unfinished Klingon Ships.
But all in all one idea keeps coming to mind... STEALTH TORPEDOES.

I want to figure out a cool way to make stealth mines. If I could get really ridiculous and find a way to legitimately make stealth, self-replicating mines like DS9...I would wet myself with glee.

 

[Magrim]

I have a question, will this change allow us to build cloaking ships that actually look decent and have a spacious interior?

That all depends on how the devs balance it. If they make the recomended power draw of the modules a crazy amount then it wouldn't be much different than it is now. However there are other variables they can use, such as mass or cloaking speed, to balance it out. They wont be constrained to only power consumption if changes need to be made.

If they dont go too crazy with it, then it is entirely possible to build your ship aesthetically anyway you want. The only constraint would be the drawbacks from going against the recommended amount of modules and power. If they do that part right, then noone will be able to make an op stealth ship and they will all look good.

+1
Idea needs more refinement however is very good and I can't wait to see cloaks get a make over : )
I also think there should be a way to 'track' players jumps, e.g scanning soon after someone jumps will show you their jump destination or the area. Cloak ships would be great at tracking, and following players to discover where their secret base is

What areas should I work on? Can never get enough constructive criticism.

I agree with you about the scanners mostly. Maybe not telling you the destination but instead giving you the direction, allowing you to follow their warp trail. Also with this system you wont be able to follow them indefinitely if they have a scanner.

STEALTH TORPEDOES

Hehehe. Glad you like it

I wish someone from the CIR would comment and give me some feedback or tell me my idea sucks lol.

I want to figure out a cool way to make stealth mines. If I could get really ridiculous and find a way to legitimately make stealth, self-replicating mines like DS9...I would wet myself with glee.

Not sure how to make them self-replicating, but it would be sweet :D

 

[Ithirahad]

Ninja mines would be the ultimate troll griefing tool. Imagine surrounding the spawn sector with those little buggers. :P

 

[ltmauve]

As well as a speed cap if I had to.

What about instead of a speed cap, the power consumption of the cloak increases as the ship goes faster? After all, more effort to hide something moving fast.

 

[Zekester81]

STEALTH TORPEDOES.

That would be an interesting development indeed. Cloaking mines, torps, and drones could be a lot of fun if the AI was able to use the cloak function, or if it could be activated by logic.

To Magrim:
I haven't made a cloaking vessel yet so don't know much about it as it is now and I also didn't read the detailed description. Does this system deactivate when fired upon now, and would it work like that with the suggested changes?

 

[Magrim]

What about instead of a speed cap, the power consumption of the cloak increases as the ship goes faster? After all, more effort to hide something moving fast.

Never cared for the speed cap idea either, seemed to artificial. I like your idea though, it's somewhat similar to my original suggestion. In it if you built your ship so that your cloak used more power than it needed to, you may not be able to use the max amount of thrust, at the risk of the cloak dropping. The benefit would be that you are harder to detect.

I dont know, this suggestion might be too complicated for starmade. But then again people have made some wild stuff with logic and to me that shit is real complicated.

That would be an interesting development indeed. Cloaking mines, torps, and drones could be a lot of fun if the AI was able to use the cloak function, or if it could be activated by logic.

To Magrim:
I haven't made a cloaking vessel yet so don't know much about it as it is now and I also didn't read the detailed description. Does this system deactivate when fired upon now, and would it work like that with the suggested changes?

You would be able to make stealth mines but a very easy counter to it would be a small unmanned scanner in the same sector doing its passive scan. No matter how resistant to scans a cloak is it would eventually fail due to being repeatedly scanned.

Yes ships do currently decloak when fired upon. I didnt cover it, even in the detailed version, but i imagine it would be much the same. Unless you built your cloak to be very good at handling power fluctuations the drawback being your scan resistance is shit. However it would be dependent on how powerful the weapon is.

Overall this suggestion would require alot of playtesting to get it balanced just right but it would be something I hadnt seen in cinema or gaming....there could be a reason for that lol

 

[EricBlank]

I really like this suggestion, actually. Certainly better than using straight up power consumption.

I'd also like to know if we could potentially detect an object passively. Have passive sensors on the craft. Not the scanner array we have now that you're using to stress the cloaking device and cause it to eventually fail, but other forms of sensors that simply detect objects without having to drop their cloak field. With such sensor technology, the player could be alerted that an object might be nearby, after a period of time, if the object is doing a few things:

- Has mass (unavoidable, you always have mass and thus always have a gravitational affect on the world around you. This would mean eventually you could be spotted even if your cloak doesn't drop and you're doing little or nothing, and the closer you are to other objects the more obvious the effect on them i.e. the more likely other players will get indication that you're there and accurate position data.)
- Collide with another object (you impart kinetic energy on the object, therefore you must have momentum. Therefore, you must exist, and be there, and they probably have an idea of where you were based on the velocity you imparted on the object you struck, and where that object was when it was struck. Don't follow players into an asteroid belt if you dont know how to dodge surprise asteroids)
- Emitting energy (using thrusters, firing or being struck by weapons or tools, recharging shields) - it makes sense the cloak might be able to hide energy emissions in some cases, and be stressed further by doing so.

I don't think the cloak should necessarily fail all on its own when another ship tells its pilot "there's something right here like seriously it just hit us/its using lotsa thrusters it cant hide/its really massive" but players and AI should be given information to seek this target out, like a guessed location indicator on their HUD. In that way, the player or ai can choose whether or not to engage or even acknowledge the cloaked craft or change destinations without the pilot of the cloaked vessel being aware they've been compromised.

The cloak, then, prevents the direct detection and observation or targeting of a craft. You don't show up on their HUD or visually except if they detect your presence through other means or your cloak fails. You can't get missile lock on a cloaked target, but might score a hit if it's still near the spot a recent indication showed. Or flail wildly in the dark when you didn't even get any indication there's a cloaked craft nearby, maybe you really were being followed and you're not just paranoid.


So then the cloak isn't just something that makes you completely undetectable on its own. You also would want to maintain range, keep your craft small, avoid obstacles, and reduce your activity level. That way you're not just invisible to scanning arrays and off the radar for a time (since according to the rules in the OP your cloak will eventually fail if there is a scanner antenna around) but not affecting the world around you as much and thus other players won't get information about your presence or location as quickly or at all. Until the cloak fails and suddenly the radar starts pinging a solid object.