Tips for cloaking ships

[Tepacana]

I've tried to make a ship with a cloaking device, but so far, the power drain has been to much to handle. Are there any tips to help me with building a ship that can cloak?

My best guess is that you have to have insane power regeneration to counteract the drain, but the bigger the ship, the greater the energy usage.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

The cloak's power drain is based on the mass of the ship so the vessel has to be very light with high power generation to stay permanently cloaked. Most of my cloak designs are not even armed, shielded, or armored, because that simply adds too much mass to make the cloak viable. I like to use motherboard blocks instead of hull to hold everything together because they are extremely light. And make sure to use extremely efficient power reactor layouts.

 

[Spartwo]

I've recently struggled with cloaking as well. First thing to try is if you haven't already replace your current reactor block with a checkerboard design, filling the gaps with other required components. Reactors generate a great deal more energy for their mass this way.

 

[KiloZulu]

Remember, too, that cloaking is only really useful against players. Since its unlikely that you can make a combat effective cloaking ship, you might want to consider just using a radar jammer. This will give you a lot more freedom of design, while still providing you with a good deal of stealth. Even if players can spot you visually, they still have to know where to look and that they should be looking for an enemy in the first place. Without a radar indicator, that can be quite difficult.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

That's a good point. The AI may still try to shoot at you if you're jamming, but in my experience most pirates will either completely ignore you or hit you so rarely that mild shielding and a radar jammer make you effectively invulnerable.

 

[Tepacana]

Thank you all for your suggestions! I'll probably be making a ship with a jammer instead then.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

The best way to do a cloaking ship is to maximize reactor block efficiency. You do this by building long lines, crosses and/or angles. Make the reactor array take up the largest dimension possible while using the least amount of blocks.

This is an example of a small basic cloaker/jammer. Maximum overall dimensions taken up by a minimum amount of blocks. Many successful stealth scouts look like upscaled versions of this.


Push your efficiency (power output/mass) as high as you can go but don't don't bother trying to break the 2 million power regen soft cap; as the extra regen per block decreases rapidly to the point where you are just adding unnecessary mass. If you want to get fancy you can build a cloaking and jamming ship that looks like an actual "ship" by using motherboard blocks in place of hull.


Motherboards have very low mass; allowing you to cover your ship with something other than system blocks and give it some aesthetic value. Be careful though, these blocks are strictly decorative and have no armor whatsoever. It's kind of like using paper or aluminum foil for hull plating; It looks pretty, but don't get hit.

Lastly, don't expect your stealth ship to be a badass space battle-shark of doom. Warheads still suck and it's very hard to fit enough conventional weaponry AND shields to be a threat to anything much bigger than an Isanth. Play to the ship's strength and intended purposes; things like reconnaissance, covert ops, and smuggling.

I cannot confirm for sure but there was talk of a way to use the new auxilliary power blocks to make substantially larger cloakers possible. I have not tested this so do your homework and see for yourself.

I hope this helps.​

 

[JinM]

power drain has been to much to handle. Are there any tips to help me with building a ship that can cloak?

The most basic tip for cloacing ships is, that the cloaking is not possible for very small ships below 15m length or so. They also need enough energy reactor lines. Its pretty easy if you make a ship of 20m into all dimension. I bet you tried some very small design based on your logic of "more power blocks mean less efficiency" - but thats not true, up to a certain point adding energy reactors gives a bonus to the former energy reactor if laid out in the normal reactor pattern.

And here we have many examples for you to take into account.
(I linked to the entry where I posted the smallest possible scout design - if you go smaller in dimensions the energy efficiency is not high enough. As you see, no one posted full time cloaker below 13m length.)

Personally I think thats absolutely illogical, but they made the cloaking formula so that really small scouts are not possible. (and I hope they one day fix that because thats just another thing that does not work in starmades combat)

 

[Dr. Whammy]

The most basic tip for cloacing ships is, that the cloaking is not possible for very small ships below 15m length or so.

Would you like to make a wager on that?

 

[JinM]

Would you like to make a wager on that?

Nah I tried to explain it for him in easy words. He stated he was not able to build a perma cloaker at all, so the first thing he needed to know was how he can manage to build one. =)

But I am curious: whats the smallest count of energy reactors you need to perma cloack? And whats the smallest count of reactors you need to perma cloack and have full speed? I did not manage to go below 13m without looking totally strange.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Smallest count? Sorry but I don't have the exact number. But have a look at this little guy.

SR-SB1 (Dare Devil)

An ultra light deep space reconnaissance craft/stealth bomber.

Dimensions: 11m long, 11m wide, 6m tall, mass; 12.4.
Equipment: 2 torpedoes, cloaking device, radar jammer. Both the cloak and jammer can be run continuously while moving.
This was from before I learned about motherboard blocks. I could probably make it look even more 'ship-like" and put a warp drive and a scanner on it if I removed the torpedoes.

 

[JinM]

So the challenge would be to get one below 10m? :D

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Challenge accepted...

 

[JinM]

You don't have to. No one forces you. Btw. I hope you know that challenges are nothing about a competition - I am not so horny about building another stealther. Nahhh maybe I am but I don't want to compete with you

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Don't misunderstand. This isn't about competition. It's just good clean fun.

When someone says things to me like; "No way! You can't do that! That's impossible! " I have no choice but to exceed your expectations. That's what being a builder is all about; rising to the challenge and doing the unthinkable. You have to leave them wondering "How in the hell did you do that!?"

Why? You have to. Why do you have to? Because you can!

In any case, the decision has already been made. If at all possible, I must now find out if it is indeed possible to make a perma-cloaker/jammer smaller than 11 x 11 x 6.

Stay tuned...

...oh and Tepacana, take good notes... this is going to be fun.

 

[Crashmaster]

Cloaking+jamming hasn't really ever changed. Years ago small cloak ships could be and were made. These were two of my first ten ships ever. They were meant to fit in non-enhanced 7x7x7 docking areas.

Grasshopper

Unnamed

yuk

 

[terra mining corp.]

I managed to make a permacloak/jammed ship with scanners and jump drive 8l/6t/7w ,It wasn't pretty and couldn't fly/cloak/charge jumps at same time ( the final downfall getting blown out of sky by pirates at 40k!) but if smarter then I worked quite well for station blitz's.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I managed to make a permacloak/jammed ship with scanners and jump drive 8l/6t/7w ,It wasn't pretty and couldn't fly/cloak/charge jumps at same time ( the final downfall getting blown out of sky by pirates at 40k!) but if smarter then I worked quite well for station blitz's.

Curses! foiled again... You know what they say; If you can't be the first, make sure you're not the worst...

I'll try and see if I can fit engines and a jumper on it and still keep it stable. I want to see just how far we can push this.

 

[JinM]

Thats why I asked for the smallest amount of energy reactors. From this design on, I would decide what blocks like thrust or jump I would additionaly put in.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Thats why I asked for the smallest amount of energy reactors. From this design on, I would decide what blocks like thrust or jump I would additionaly put in.

Well, here's the catch. The output of those reactors is more affected by their physical layout than just block count. The total amount of blocks alone won't get you the information you need to to properly calculate. You should focus on the dimensional volume (all 3 axes) of the block groups and then add 25 regen (according to the wiki) for each block to get the most accurate results.