Stealth meta post power update

[Magrim]

Not really sure what the consensus is about the current meta of stealth in the game. I'm posting this to get my thoughts out there and to discuss the direction it seems to be headed.

To my knowledge, there is going to be a "stealth drive" that requires chamber capacity to cloak your ship. More cap = longer cloak. Permacloak possible if enough cap is allocated. The problem I have is the barrier for entry has been removed and I forsee nearly everyone having a stealth drive on their ship. Is that a bad thing? That's up for debate I suppose, but in my mind it's taking excellence of design and converting it into a point system.

In the current build you have so many variables to consider when building stealth ships like mass, regen, bonus regen efficiency, dimensions, and that's before you even give your ship a role with weapons, defensive systems, thrust ratios. There is so little wiggle room, changing one component will likely necessitate the change of other components. You have to know what you're doing and this is what I'm going to miss when the power update drops.

I realize though a lot of players would see that as tedious but for me it's engaging "engineering" a cloaker that does a good job and looks decent doing it. I'm not sure how to get back to making them a challenge after the power changes, I'll have to get some hands on first, but it seems like it will be so watered down. Imo stealth ships should be the epitome of tech in starmade and should reflect that by being expensive and challenging to build.

That being said, I'm not saying the old system is the way to go. There are alot of great suggestions for steath here on the forum. Hell, I think I've got 3 of them. A good number of those suggestions would be a better fit for stealth than what's about to happen to it. It's also possible that there is more to it than they have let on and I'm just freaking out over nothing.

 

[Az14el]

From the systems 2.0 stream highlights it seems like a cloak capable stealth-drive will take ~90% of your "reactor capacity" or whatever it was called, not leaving a lot (but some) room to power other systems beyond their basic functionality or at much size;mass. Don't remember if they mentioned it or it was displayed in the video/stream but jamming would take considerably less, hopefully still some substantial amount to represent current jamming e/s costs in balance, i find that cost pretty suitable at the moment

As far as the move away from dimensional/ratio requirements, it does seem to dumb down the engineering side of things, especially for smaller ships like cloakers, though for myself I'd like to see some more of the mechanics and potential choices of the new reactor system before i can really be sure how it compares to the ol' sticks and %'s in terms of depth.

Imo, dimensional req's in power gen weren't really the way to go in the first place (lookin at you 'stabilizers'), just because small scale construction needs a bit of a break from those req's design wise, a 100 mass fighter/cloaker i built recently uses a powerline thats around 170x30x30 caltrop, the cloaker doesn't need all of that (only... most of it) it's actually the tiny chaindrive that made me go so far, go figure. Comparitively my 647k doesn't need a literal 1mil+ meter caltrop power line just to keep up on travel time :u

 

[Edymnion]

I'm looking forwards to the change, actually.

Cloaking in the game now is pretty broken and in desperate need of a revamp. I'm really looking forwards to being able to build a legit klingon or romulan ship that isn't just bare systems.

 

[AtraUnam]

I'm looking forwards to the change, actually.

Cloaking in the game now is pretty broken and in desperate need of a revamp. I'm really looking forwards to being able to build a legit klingon or romulan ship that isn't just bare systems.

Agreed. right now either you can perma cloak or you can't cloak at all.

 

[Cluwne]

Fun fact: you may not need to be invisible indefinitely.
I wonder how would the cloak function.
In other words would it be like an ability with set duration and cooldown or a limited "charge" of sorts that you consume while cloaked and regain while uncloaked.
The latter would be much more preferable.

 

[Magrim]

Imo, dimensional req's in power gen weren't really the way to go in the first place (lookin at you 'stabilizers'), just because small scale construction needs a bit of a break from those req's design wise, a 100 mass fighter/cloaker i built recently uses a powerline thats around 170x30x30 caltrop, the cloaker doesn't need all of that (only... most of it) it's actually the tiny chaindrive that made me go so far, go figure. Comparitively my 647k doesn't need a literal 1mil+ meter caltrop power line just to keep up on travel time :u

I agree wholeheartedly. The dimensional requirements are awkward at best. It also affects the look of the ship too much imo and I'll be glad to see it go, but along with it goes the challenge of "engineering" a highly specialized ship and this is what im afraid will be lacking in the new system.
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I'm looking forwards to the change, actually.

Cloaking in the game now is pretty broken and in desperate need of a revamp. I'm really looking forwards to being able to build a legit klingon or romulan ship that isn't just bare systems.

Agreed. right now either you can perma cloak or you can't cloak at all.

Not being constrained visually is something I'm looking forward to as well.

Fun fact: you may not need to be invisible indefinitely.
I wonder how would the cloak function.
In other words would it be like an ability with set duration and cooldown or a limited "charge" of sorts that you consume while cloaked and regain while uncloaked.
The latter would be much more preferable.

That's the thing, there wasn't much info about stealth in the stream. Could be because there just isn't anything else to say about it, in which case there will be no challenge in building. Deciding where to place the drive will be the only challenging part.

 

[Edymnion]

That's the thing, there wasn't much info about stealth in the steam. Could be because there just isn't anything else to say about it, in which case there will be no challenge in building. Deciding where to place the drive will be the only challenging part.

It could be entirely because beyond "Lets make this part of the reactor" they haven't put a lot of thought into it yet.

I mean, currently a cloak is a single computer block, thats it. Its not exactly like there was a lot of challenge in it beyond power in the first place.

 

[Magrim]

It could be entirely because beyond "Lets make this part of the reactor" they haven't put a lot of thought into it yet.

Very true.

I mean, currently a cloak is a single computer block, thats it. Its not exactly like there was a lot of challenge in it beyond power in the first place.

Making a ton of power isn't the challenge I'm speaking of, it's building a purpose built craft that can cloak. You could argue that you can build a solely cloak capable ship with the new system by only having the stealth drive on board but really there would be nothing about it that would set it apart from anyone else's ship like there is with the old system.

I'm not advocating power lines and that nonsense, only for the building process of a cloaker to be a challenge in some way. Like you said though, they are implementing power first and I'm jumping the shark here. Later on they'll likely flesh out individual systems, so in the meantime I plan on digging into the new system and perhaps work up a suggestion or two.