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

[Antikristianos]

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

oh forgive me! i didn't check vor a new version every day.... but thank you for pointing it to me.

but there is still no reason to complain about the system. and thats because the devs already said that it is not finished and will change.
so its time to make suggestions on how to improve but not to whine about how bad it is.

 

[TheProdigy22]

Along the lines of balancing, doesn't the power priority menu help with that? What I mean is cloaking could have priority, then there wouldn't be enough power to spare for weapons systems. If weapons have priority, the stealth drive may not get enough power to keep perma-cloaking.

Also, having multiple reactors is somewhat not ideal, because the chambers need time to have their full effect. If that wasn't much of a problem though, balancing how much power a ship needs to cloak wouldn't be too hard, it would just be a lot of guess and check.

Maybe cloaking could take into account not just mass, but what systems are on the ship and how big they are. It could take more power to hide a ship that uses a lot of power, i.e. if they have massive guns to charge up or a lot of shield to keep up, that's a lot of power being used, which could make the ship harder for its jammers to hide.

That last proposal is just an idea, not something I want to see in game; it would take a while to implement I assume.

 

[Nickizzy]

The thing is that chambers don't use power, they use RC. And RC/=Power.
The cost of cloaking is slower speed, less tank, a weaker JD, worse scanners, or less damage. Which is probably worse.

 

[PriZm]

the "cost" is also having used all the RC (reactor capacity) for one skill tree that is rather easy counterable. Iirc stealth power 3 (or 4?) + jammer chamber + cloaking chamber already uses all the RC available.

 

[Calhoun]

oh forgive me! i didn't check vor a new version every day.... but thank you for pointing it to me.

but there is still no reason to complain about the system. and thats because the devs already said that it is not finished and will change.
so its time to make suggestions on how to improve but not to whine about how bad it is.

Facedesk. If we don't talk about it, no one knows about it. If no one knows about it, we get people like you who say "everything is fine", and it doesn't get fixed.

Look through the post, no one is "complaining".

 

[GDPR 302420]

oh forgive me! i didn't check vor a new version every day.... but thank you for pointing it to me.

but there is still no reason to complain about the system. and thats because the devs already said that it is not finished and will change.
so its time to make suggestions on how to improve but not to whine about how bad it is.

So we just not talk about severe inbalances which will guarantee they will never be remedied by the developers (who have admitted on several occasions that they do not actually play the game outside of testing)?

Bruh

 

[Omega563]

Attenuating shield strength (making shields weaker) when cloaked would add a good reason to stick in a fight once uncloaked and anyone trying to use a cloak to escape a fight runs the risk of being hit after cloaking and the shields being breach far easier than they would have been when uncloaked.
Additionally when hit by a weapon while cloaked a dissipating shield graphic could render around the area hit to show some of the ship to the attacker making landing another shot or lots of shots possible. When the shields are depleted the cloak should drop making the ship visible once more.
This would help to encourage players not to concentrate on having a massive alpha damage single shot weapon as they would have to stick out the remaining fight with small guns outmatched by there opponent. Miners, transports and other civilian ships are not adversely affected as they would want to stick far away from combat and would likely cloak at the first sight of hostiles, that being said it would definitely reward tactical piracy.

General lore for the shield attenuation when cloaked would be something along the lines of altering the shield to allow light to be redirected around the ship unimpeded.
The shield graphic could be the result of the dissipation of a weapon blast, disrupting the altered shield frequency and briefly reducing the effectiveness of the cloaking effect until the energy of the blast has been negated.

 

[TheProdigy22]

The thing is that chambers don't use power, they use RC. And RC/=Power.

RC being reactor/chamber capacity? I believe that's just to have the stealth drive. I thought you had to have enough power to use the stealth drive, not just reserve capacity for it. I could be wrong though, I haven't tested it out in game yet.

 

[DrTarDIS]

so, "permanent" scan duration + 2.0 scanpower = always visible cloakers. the hard-counter even has rc to spare, allowing long-range scanners, extra mobility or offence/defence... so sensor-stations(or scout fleets) Should be fully capable of stopping cloaker-pokers.

Just sayin

 

[Edymnion]

So what if we make stealth attacks essentially be suicide attacks?

As in, while cloaked:

1) Shields are down.
2) Weapon range is halved.
3) Cannot cloak again while weapons are recharging.
4) Cloak drops at the moment you fire.
5) Cloak drops if anything undocks from you.

That way you could still pull off a high alpha damage strike from cloak, except you have to get CLOSE to do it, and you're a sitting duck afterwards. Plus the bigger the alpha strike, the longer it takes to recharge, the longer it takes for you to recloak. Means you better kill that target in the first hit, or use smaller weapons that will allow you to recharge quickly and re-enter cloak. Because otherwise, you're a sitting duck that is WELL within weapons range of turrets and anything else nearby.

 

[DrTarDIS]

So what if we make stealth attacks essentially be suicide attacks?

As in, while cloaked:

1) Shields are down.
2) Weapon range is halved.
3) Cannot cloak again while weapons are recharging.
4) Cloak drops at the moment you fire.
5) Cloak drops if anything undocks from you.

That way you could still pull off a high alpha damage strike from cloak, except you have to get CLOSE to do it, and you're a sitting duck afterwards. Plus the bigger the alpha strike, the longer it takes to recharge, the longer it takes for you to recloak. Means you better kill that target in the first hit, or use smaller weapons that will allow you to recharge quickly and re-enter cloak. Because otherwise, you're a sitting duck that is WELL within weapons range of turrets and anything else nearby.

wat? why?
It costs you less RC to counter a cloaker than it costs the cloaker to be a cloaker. Balance seemed fine in PvP with my buddy, long range scanners are actually kinda scary-useful.

 

[Cluwne]

So what if we kill stealth ships completely?

No thanks.

 

[Edymnion]

wat? why?
It costs you less RC to counter a cloaker than it costs the cloaker to be a cloaker. Balance seemed fine in PvP with my buddy, long range scanners are actually kinda scary-useful.

Problem seems to be that the scanner has to be manually activated to keep people from making logic driven perma-scans. Which means you're either manually pressing Scan constantly, which you're unlikely to do unless you already think a cloaker is nearby, or there is no defense.

More uses to cloaks than just ambush attacks.

 

[DrTarDIS]

Problem seems to be that the scanner has to be manually activated to keep people from making logic driven perma-scans. Which means you're either manually pressing Scan constantly, which you're unlikely to do unless you already think a cloaker is nearby, or there is no defense.

More uses to cloaks than just ambush attacks.

scan duration level 5 = PERMANENT SCAN, ALWAYS ON. Costs 0.1% of mass in e/sec.
SCan power chamber lv 1 = scan 2.0, which makes up to lv jam targetable, and ALL levels of cloak visible. = 4 chamber/levels left on a scanner ship that can detect/go after a 2-left cloaker/jammer.

 

[Edymnion]

scan duration level 5 = PERMANENT SCAN, ALWAYS ON. Costs 0.1% of mass in e/sec.
SCan power chamber lv 1 = scan 2.0, which makes up to lv jam targetable, and ALL levels of cloak visible. = 4 chamber/levels left on a scanner ship that can detect/go after a 2-left cloaker/jammer.

Ah, I had not seen that one. Okay, that definitely makes the balance better.

If you've got the option to perma-scan, and choose not to use it, thats you running the risk, and its your fault if you get hit.