Stabilize Cloaking/Jamming

[War Dog]

We all know the biggest problem with deploying cloaking/jamming ships is that it's completely at the mercy of server lag. When the server de-synchs, the c/j field continues to drain energy, but your own ship's energy isn't updated; so the field drops when you run out of energy (which tends to be really fast).

Thus, stealth ships are useful so long as lag isn't a too much of an issue while maneuvering, loading objects, and general gameplay.

Meaning never.

Now, the issue I see here is that stealth continues to drain energy during server hiccups, but power doesn't regenerate during the same time frame.

So I suggest that, instead of draining energy, activating your stealth field instead decreases your power regeneration by the required amount.

So if you have a ship with 1,000,000 power regeneration and your stealth field requires 400,000 power, your power regen is now 600,000. If it takes more power to stealth than you generate, you end up with a negative power regen, which drains your battery.

As normal, stealth drops when your energy hits 0.
This way, server desynchs won't drop stealth since power regen and cloaking power usage are both disabled during those lag spikes.

 

[hindos]

Sounds like a good compromise to me. The faulty cloaking has made several of my designs thoroughly obsolete already :/ . Would having a delay before the cloak falls, much like the delay before shields recharge normally, also work?

 

[PizzaPress]

Agreed, this makes cloaking practically unusable. Even small ships can't keep cloak up sometimes. I recall someone saying they'd lag up the server to decloak someone, and that just ain't right.

 

[Mariux]

This could also be done for severel defensive effects and thrusters so that we won't see that crazy jumping power meter

 

[CyberTao]

Is Necro? Feels like Necro.

Still a good suggestion, and Devs should look into finding a way around the Lag-decloaks.
I feel like they may be thinking that it'll be fixed via optimizations, But Lag is always easy to force at any stage. - 3-

 

[Valiant70]

I don't think the solution outlined here is a good idea because it might not work well with ships that rely on large power tanks for a minute or so of cloaking. Client/server communication just needs to be fixed/improved.

This is a bug, and belongs in a bug report, not the suggestions forum.

This could also be done for severel defensive effects and thrusters so that we won't see that crazy jumping power meter

Looks like another symptom of the same bug. I've noticed this and it often pulls me out of overdrive while traveling.

Agreed, this makes cloaking practically unusable. Even small ships can't keep cloak up sometimes. I recall someone saying they'd lag up the server to decloak someone, and that just ain't right.

Was the player threatening to lag the server delt with? If not, you're welcome on the server where I play. Our staff would have had him for lunch. You can PM me for the IP if you like.

 

[Lecic]

I don't think the solution outlined here is a good idea because it might not work well with ships that rely on large power tanks for a minute or so of cloaking. Client/server communication just needs to be fixed/improved.

This is a bug, and belongs in a bug report, not the suggestions forum.



Looks like another symptom of the same bug. I've noticed this and it often pulls me out of overdrive while traveling.



Was the player threatening to lag the server delt with? If not, you're welcome on the server where I play. Our staff would have had him for lunch. You can PM me for the IP if you like.

If you need more power than you are producing to run the cloak/jammer/effect, it would go into negative generation, thus draining your power reserves.