Dealing with "cloaked alpha OP" fears for the coming meta...

[Cluwne]

Sure, but you can use this to passively hide any of your ships with minimal amount of blocks needed too.

How is this bad exactly? Cloaking isn't used exclusively by offensive ships. Traders, cargo haulers, spy ships and the likes, even NPCs', can use it as well without sacrificing aesthetics or becoming needlessly large.
Perhaps the capacity costs of use time and strength of the stealth drive could be in inverse proportion, so you can have weak cloaking on indefinitely but only have a limited time with strong variation.
I see it as something to embrace - there can be proper pirate ambushes now, more diverse warfare in general, dedicated miners having less heart attacks when someone appears in their sector...

And regarding the limited time. It saddens me that you went with skill-like "duration-cooldown" rather than a "charge-discharge in use, can turn off any time" mechanic.
Unfortunately that means you have to put an effect icon on the hud with cloak/scan time remaining, otherwise most players would consider it far too unreliable, tending to drop when you need it most, and avoid it altogether in favor of permanent, albeit weaker, variants.

That would help, but also make reactor switching even less viable in combat for 2 equal reactors.

Pardon me but weren't you guys pushing for specialization rather than "one ship to blast them all"? Because that is how you achieve specialization, at least that's one of the ways to do it.
Even if you weren't pushing for it, I say embrace it as well. It forces people to think more about what kind of ship they're building, rather than how to cram as much beneficial stuff as possible.

 

[Coyote27]

Maybe going after cloaking itself is the wrong approach - though I still think it's too easy to surprise-attack in the new power system. Maybe what we should be going after is increasing the passive energy use of weapons, even on a non-linear scale or disproportionately so with overdrive, to limit the ability to employ outsized one-shot alpha weapons in general.

 

[Cluwne]

There's already an upkeep cost exactly for that.

 

[Drakkart]

..., even NPCs', can use it as well without sacrificing aesthetics or becoming needlessly large....

Dude our Turrets still try to shot a target even theough their own ship is blocking the view how on earth should the ai ever become tricky enough to use all these effects i wonder... like use them to their advantage... not just turn them on and off because it is an option given by the design.
The ai is super dumb right now it does not even "know" what situation it is in yet. - I would not count on such stuff untill late beta.

 

[JinM]

I like the idea of high alpha damage weapons. As long as booth types make sense.

We should not have this talk about weapon balance until the power update is out and weapons actually are tinkered with.

 

[Dire Venom]

Maybe going after cloaking itself is the wrong approach - though I still think it's too easy to surprise-attack in the new power system. Maybe what we should be going after is increasing the passive energy use of weapons, even on a non-linear scale or disproportionately so with overdrive, to limit the ability to employ outsized one-shot alpha weapons in general.

15 per charging weapon block, 3 per block when charged is what I've heard said. (thus 20% of the charging cost required to keep it charged).
I would much rather the functional part of cloaking be removed from the chambers and instead become a part of how you build your ship, but no where near as limiting as the old system was (with chambers possibly altering how the cloak works a bit) . I do not believe allowing any ship to cloak will be healthy for the game. However (as per the devs intention) more arty/role playing ships should still beable to use it as well without being penalized too heavily.

Simply put:
=>Chambers makes it far too easy to slap a cloak on any ship (because why not??)
=>Ship design having very little no no impact on weather a ship can cloak or not.
=>The only counter play is to invest in scanner chambers and upgrades.... but then why wouldn't you instead just invest those chamber points in cloaking yourself because it's so easy?

I feel cloaking should not be directly tied to chambers and should be re-worked.

 

[Ithirahad]

It's wrong. You can get stealth 5 (out of a max 6), duration maxed and jam and cloak with one reactor.

...Yes, because obviously they're going to leave in the preliminary dev build values, and not change them at all ever... Right. Totally. Sure.

 

[DrTarDIS]

Several people have pointed out that, with the new power system, cloaked warships with high-damage one-shot weapons could well be extremely powerful and unbalanced, since they can strike without warning with oversized weaponry and the opponent could do very little to defend against it.
What can we suggest to keep this from becoming an unbalanced meta?

One thing that comes to my mind is this: Cloaking drains weapon charges. When cloak is activated, all weapons lose charge, and they remain uncharged while the cloak is active. Only when the cloak is dropped do they begin charging again. This could help prevent alpha strikes from surprise becoming a sure way to win, and it'd make sense thematically too perhaps as a ship in hiding might need to power down its weaponry to avoid heat/power signatures leaking out.

cloaking is paper, scanners are scissors, scissors beats paper.
Armor is rock, paper beats rock
mobility is vulcan: vulcan runs away from rock, is disproved by paper, and smashes scissors.

I don't see a "problem" so much as a "danger element" to people who are specced wrong vs a narrow range of opponents. If cloak-pow becomes a thing, scan-snipe becomes another.
If run-and-gun is a thing, graound-and-pound is a counter.

Balance, it's not about "there are no risks", it's about choosing a side and fighting what you can win, and running away from what you can't win.

 

[Calhoun]

...Yes, because obviously they're going to leave in the preliminary dev build values, and not change them at all ever... Right. Totally. Sure.

Why do you think I mentioned it.

 

[Az14el]

actually the giant several literal billion damage m-b swarm on that light cruiser over there will only deal a small fraction of its damage, because the first few hits just disappeared your titan anyway leaving nothing else for the rest of the volley to hit.

no worries!

 

[Ithirahad]

15 per charging weapon block, 3 per block when charged is what I've heard said. (thus 20% of the charging cost required to keep it charged).
I would much rather the functional part of cloaking be removed from the chambers and instead become a part of how you build your ship, but no where near as limiting as the old system was (with chambers possibly altering how the cloak works a bit) . I do not believe allowing any ship to cloak will be healthy for the game. However (as per the devs intention) more arty/role playing ships should still beable to use it as well without being penalized too heavily.

Simply put:
=>Chambers makes it far too easy to slap a cloak on any ship (because why not??)
=>Ship design having very little no no impact on weather a ship can cloak or not.
=>The only counter play is to invest in scanner chambers and upgrades.... but then why wouldn't you instead just invest those chamber points in cloaking yourself because it's so easy?

I feel cloaking should not be directly tied to chambers and should be re-worked.

"slapping" a cloak on any ship comes at a penalty of other rather useful functions. Being able to cloak doesn't magically stop you from being susceptible to other people ambushing you from cloak, for starters. Only good scanners do that. You also lose all kinds of possibilities for defensive - and potentially offensive - options and bonuses, and pass up on potential warp and sublight speed boosts that can get you where you need to be faster.

 

[Calhoun]

"slapping" a cloak on any ship comes at a penalty of other rather useful functions. Being able to cloak doesn't magically stop you from being susceptible to other people ambushing you from cloak, for starters. Only good scanners do that. You also lose all kinds of possibilities for defensive - and potentially offensive - options and bonuses, and pass up on potential warp and sublight speed boosts that can get you where you need to be faster.

You're right, it does come at the expense of other options. The problem is (with values as is), it doesn't matter because the benefits vastly outweigh the sacrifices. You can have a ship capable of destroying another vessel ten times it's size with one shot at zero risk to itself. The things you're passing up don't even begin to balance the advantage you've gained.

 

[Antikristianos]

i don't see any problems withn the cloaking mechanic at this time...
i decent build ship should be abel to counter high alpha strike missiles with decent AMS systems... and the cannon an beam weapons will probably shoot right true the ship but wont do that much damage becouse they miss the AoE Damage needed...

and even so ther are scanners/jammers wich now will work through the chambers too... if you have a big enough ship your jammer could eat your power as good as any decent weapon... now the will not need any... i think from what i read its actually well thought thrue and should work out pretty good!
every system has its counter and so should it be.

only thing i would suggest is that the decloaking scanner should perhaps be an permanent scan field with chamber controlled range and strenght. so it will get stronger the closer an enemy gets to your ship and the max strenght and range would be controlled by the chambers and the set options.

that would be a decent counter for stealth ships comming close enough to shot you fom 100meters with a 1B Dmg Nuke wich cant be shot with an AMS system ;-)

 

[Cluwne]

In Zero-K cloaking has several conditions where it gets temporarily disrupted.
In particular:

• The unit takes damage. Damage-over-time effects will prevent cloak from reactivating for an extended period of time.
• An enemy unit comes within proximity of the cloak.
• The unit is attacking.

Adopting similar condition that temporarily make ship visible should balance cloaking.

• IIRC damage disruption is already in, though it disrupts permanently. That's not desirable either. The DoT thing would become relevant in future universe update.
• Decloak range would scale with ship size, effectively preventing Death Star from sneaking up to your airlock and firing a nuke salvo, without making stealth bombers impossible.
• Finally, it only makes sense for the cloak to fail momentarily when you're firing your death beam.

 

[Calhoun]

i don't see any problems withn the cloaking mechanic at this time...
i decent build ship should be abel to counter high alpha strike missiles with decent AMS systems... and the cannon an beam weapons will probably shoot right true the ship but wont do that much damage becouse they miss the AoE Damage needed...

and even so ther are scanners/jammers wich now will work through the chambers too... if you have a big enough ship your jammer could eat your power as good as any decent weapon... now the will not need any... i think from what i read its actually well thought thrue and should work out pretty good!
every system has its counter and so should it be.

only thing i would suggest is that the decloaking scanner should perhaps be an permanent scan field with chamber controlled range and strenght. so it will get stronger the closer an enemy gets to your ship and the max strenght and range would be controlled by the chambers and the set options.

that would be a decent counter for stealth ships comming close enough to shot you fom 100meters with a 1B Dmg Nuke wich cant be shot with an AMS system ;-)

You don't see any problem because you haven't gone and tested it.

 

[jayman38]

Maybe cumulative weapon sizes could contribute to cloaking power drain on a geometrically-escalating scale, so that a working cloaker can use a few relatively small weapons and turrets, but can't field alpha-strike-level weapons while remaining cloaked for any amount of time. This would severely limit cloaker power and size on an attack playstyle, while still allowing civilian ships of enormous size to cloak. The math would be easy, at least. (Logical explanation/lore: it takes more cloaking power to hide powerful weapons than light weapons.)

Players with an attack playstyle will still enjoy skill-based game play, where they have to use their limited weapons in a cloaked ship. It will take them a lot longer to engage a target. However, it should present a fun, not-impossible challenge to attack a target that can now absorb more hits. The target can still have fun in the engagement by not being one-shotted at point-blank.

Assuming that values for the weapon power drain formula(s) are placed in the config, cloak players can always host their own servers where heavy cloaking alpha strikers can be built and played if they want that.

 

[Antikristianos]

You don't see any problem because you haven't gone and tested it.

Actually NO ONE has gone and tested it... and still ppl see problems! so whers your problem with me seeing none?
i have read the availabel data for the power update and watched the stream to ghet all availabel information.

and i can't see any reason for anyone to complain about it at this point.

 

[Calhoun]

Actually NO ONE has gone and tested it... and still ppl see problems! so whers your problem with me seeing none?
i have read the availabel data for the power update and watched the stream to ghet all availabel information.

and i can't see any reason for anyone to complain about it at this point.

Dev build is out and about laddie, a fair few people have tested it.

 

[Nickizzy]

You can have a ship capable of destroying another vessel ten times it's size with one shot at zero risk to itself.

With the chamber update we could nerf weapons so the 20:1 ratio would be impractical, without chambers. The current meta would just be lots of weapon chamber and a little max speed chamber. That would make it a trade off between health and damage. A miner doesn't need weapons, so it gets a salvage bonus chamber and armor/shield tanking chamber.

 

[GDPR 302420]

Combat cloakers should be a thing

Being able to easily slap a cloak on anything and turbofuck anything that can be loaded onto a server should not be a thing