You say that only large/huge ships can cloak atm, but that\'s kind of the opposite from the truth.
It\'s technically impossible for a ship above 750-ish (an average ship is 2k and up) mass to permanently cloak/jam due to the 1mil regen bonus limit after which blocks start generating the standard 25 power per block (versus the 150 usage/block for both modules) . At the same time I can permanently cloak/jam a ship as small as 21 blocks if built right, and anything in the 50-400 mass range can be cloak/jammed and still have a bunch of power to spare for a bit of aesthetics and weaponry.
I think we have different understandings of what \"large\" ships are. For me, the \'Battlestar Galactica\' blueprint ship is already medium-large, whilst the Deadalus is definitely large-huge. By your use of words I assume both of them are \'small\' to you. (I don\'t know their exact mass values, but at least the BG can\'t be larger then 300 mass).
As of current, StarMade\'s broken economy permits construction of ships that are just beyond anything reasonable. Yes, you can build that 8-sector long super galaxy destroyer, but there\'s no real gameplay relevantt reason to do so. All talk about any kind of balance is entirely pointless if you can theoretically build a ship that simply fills out any sort of space or can crash a server by colliding with anything.
In this thread, I try to propose a concept that will enhance ship-to-ship interaction/combat on a reasonable level, that sort of level where people actually use extremely small fighters, small frigates and non-oversized capital ships.
Accordingly, all values and equations I use and propose are tweaked towards that end. Trivially, if you would rather want everyone to have giant ships, you have to alter the way my concept is designed, but that\'s, in the end, all up to the devs to decide.
(I hope, in all honesty, however, that they stick to reasonable ship sizes. There\'s no reason to promote building oversized stuff, even less so with a limited engine based on Java.)
To that end
\"You say that only large/huge ships can cloak atm, but that\'s kind of the opposite from the truth.\" \"and anything in the 50-400 mass range can be cloak/jammed and still have a bunch of power to spare for a bit of aesthetics and weaponry.\"
is a contradiction in my mindest, as a 400 mass ship IS large to me.
Your own system still uses 50/block for jammers (just like the current jammer module) to essentially reach the exact same result of fully hiding your signature from others, so no real gameplay change there save for a few extra blocks on your ship. I do like the idea of signatures and radar jamming/boosting, but it wont really change anything but confuse new players with variable detection ranges as proposed.
The point of my concept is that ships have base signatures related to their size, opposed to the 2,5k-3k even cores got right now. If you got a small ship, you can mount a few jammers to be hard to detect. If you got medium ships, you got to mount a lot of jammers to stay somewhat covered. If you got a large ship, you need jammers or anything will spot you across 4 sectors distance. Assuming you neither move nor fire.
Of course my concept is more complex then the current version. There is rarely a chance to make a game better by reducing the stuff inside of it / it\'s complexity. As well, my system isn\'t really that tricky to understand and should be intuitive to new players (large ship = easy to spot, jammers = reduce range at which you are sporred).
unless intersection of the recognition boundary between you and the target ship is made blindingly easy to spot.
I\'m sorry, could you please rephrase that sentence? I can\'t seem to understand it\'s meaning.
So what this all boils down to is: do you want permanent and instant cloaking to be a thing in Starmade, or would you prefer to severely nerf it by only allowing it to work for a short time and adding a recloak delay?
Basically, do you think cloaking is currently overpowered or not?
My issues is that, right now, only large ships can cloak, giving them even more of an edge they don\'T need and making anything non-oversized entirely redundant. Why should you, ever, build anything but an oversized capital ship? Capital ships can field turrets, better weapons, better shields, can cloak/jam more reliably, can contain hangards, can be made more asthetically, reach the same speed as smaller craft. There is literally no reason to resort to smaller craft (even less so with current infinite-ressources-economy).
With my changes, yes, \'cloaking\' is technically nerfed. But in fact it is buffed towards smaller ships (who couldn\'t previously field reliable cloak without either giving up other systems or \'looks) and seriously nerfed towards larger ships. With my suggested changes a small fighter can actually use cloak the way a small craft in any semi-realistic space game would utilize stealth.
That said, a recloak timer of a few seconds could be usefull to prevent extreme ninja-ing with missile volleys on very poorly shielded ships, even tho it is near impossible to take down shields with missiles (without exploiting glitches).
Yes and whilst his is for sure (in my eyes) a game flaw, it\'s not related to the current discussion in this thread. Of course, even with my concept stealth fighters couldn\'T do anything to larger ships. But I\'ve made this concept under the assumption that, at some point, either the devs will regulate gigantism or server owners will (either by mods or rules).
Let me know if I completely missed the ball on what you are proposing, or what you think about cloaking as it is.
I think we both have two different positions and exspecially different viewpoints when it comes to ship sizes :P. As well, we may have different intentions and wishes as to where Starmade should go.
Overall, I think your response was a valuable piece of feedback, even when I personally disagree with most of your oppinions.
