Qweshchuns 4 Devs: Stealth Change

[War Dog]

All I know about the stealth change is that cloaking will cost 145 power per block and jamming only costs 5.

I'm curious to know if there are any other changes, because if it's just this then I don't think people understand just how powerful the jammer is...

Currently, jamming makes you invisible to all AI. Pirates, Trading Guild, Turrets, Drones, you name it. Reducing the cost so much will make jammers a common feature on small to medium sized ships.

Jamming makes defending anything not homebased impossible. My 6,000 mass ship with permajam can destroy all defenses with ease and they won't be able to do a thing about it unless they're there themselves. That's with the 50 power per block setting.

Larger ships can't defend themselves against jamming ships at all, they can't turn fast enough to bring their weapons to bear and their turrets may as well just be decorative for all they're worth.

Now imagine if jamming ships become a regular feature in the game; turrets would be useless, large ships would be sitting ducks, base defense would be impossible, combatants would be flying around each other constantly switching screens in order to find each other, etc.

Don't even get me started on the fact that your own turrets can shoot at un-jammed targets while you're jammed (or even cloaked).

The ONLY defense that currently exists is "Lag the server so they drop cloak/jam"; why it's been left like this for so long is beyond my comprehension.

 

[CyberTao]

As far as I've heard, Radar and Cloaking were changed (or planned to be).
Jamming no Longer Renders AI useless, but is s'pose to just reduce their Aim, Whereas Cloaking Prevents them from shooting, however AI will still track and follow a Cloaked-but-not-jammed Ship

Note; this treats Ships and Turrets the same; Jammers mess with the Aim of anything controlled by AI, and Cloaked prevent them from Shooting, but they will still follow you around (Like a creepy stalker)

 

[War Dog]

Ah, that's much better but what about the fact that hull is- ALL GLORY TO THE NAKEDDEATHCUBE.
(Radar jammer defense > Hull defense)^∞+1

 

[CyberTao]

Yeah, no idea about how they really plan to balance stealth :p This 145-5 e/s setup they have is just a temporary Solution to dealing with Core Drilling (Which will later be solved by moving the Navigation Marker to the center of the dimensions, and Making Turrets target the ship as a whole+Accuracy fixes)

I expect Stealth to be reworked when they redo Defenses (HP system namely), But I dont really know how they plan to do it :u

 

[Aecetym]

I've been thinking about it aswell and came to the conclusion that this is a very cheap and very powerfull thing to have on bigger ships. Now combined with it's usefullness, slow near impossible gun vs gun fights with bigger ships and the low amount of weapons to counter it, you could attack enemy ships using the jammer without even taking (much) damage.

To put this in numbers:
A 1 mill block ship would take 5 mil power/t to keep it's jammer working. Now for those that build ships over 1 mill blocks they should know the power requirements alone for the engines is bigger then that. So if a ship with + 5 mil power (and more mill in storage) with loads of turrets would stop using energy for the engines you would be able to jam for a very long time before running out of power. Yet you would be able to deal a lot of damage.

 

[War Dog]

Then they'd die to a piloted cloak ship made entirely of disintegrators.

Seriously, disintegrators took a level in broken in the latest update. I can vaporize a ship with 10mil shields this way.

 

[Aecetym]

As far as I've heard, Radar and Cloaking were changed (or planned to be).
Jamming no Longer Renders AI useless, but is s'pose to just reduce their Aim, Whereas Cloaking Prevents them from shooting, however AI will still track and follow a Cloaked-but-not-jammed Ship

Note; this treats Ships and Turrets the same; Jammers mess with the Aim of anything controlled by AI, and Cloaked prevent them from Shooting, but they will still follow you around (Like a creepy stalker)

Well that would make sense in terms of balance.

Then they'd die to a piloted cloak ship made entirely of disintegrators.

Seriously, disintegrators took a level in broken in the latest update. I can vaporize a ship with 10mil shields this way.

Well something new I learned today.

 

[Unnamed25]

Then they'd die to a piloted cloak ship made entirely of disintegrators.

Seriously, disintegrators took a level in broken in the latest update. I can vaporize a ship with 10mil shields this way.

I tried ramming a 75k shield ship against 20 mines and nothing happened..

 

[aceface]

I don't know about you but when I jam those Isanths can still see me...

 

[Proxima_Centauri]

Here's what I learned from some recent testing done with cloaking and jamming:

- A jammed ship is indeed immune to AI (they won't shoot at you, at least)
- AI can still "see" a cloaked and jammed ship. If you get close to them, they will turn to face you but won't shoot.
- Heat-seeking missiles can track and destroy both cloaked and jammed ships

I have to agree with War Dog; radar jamming shouldn't render AI useless. I'll make a thread in the support section about it.

Also, I believe that radar jamming was changed to 5 e/sec/block in anticipation of the new ship HP system

*Edit*
Further testing has revealed that AI turrets will shoot at jammed ships, but AI ships will not

 

[Johnathan Dahmnation]

Here's what I learned from some recent testing done with cloaking and jamming:

- A jammed ship is indeed immune to AI (they won't shoot at you, at least)
- AI can still "see" a cloaked and jammed ship. If you get close to them, they will turn to face you but won't shoot.
- Heat-seeking missiles can track and destroy both cloaked and jammed ships

I have to agree with War Dog; radar jamming shouldn't render AI useless. I'll make a thread in the support section about it.

Also, I believe that radar jamming was changed to 5 e/sec/block in anticipation of the new ship HP system

*Edit*
Further testing has revealed that AI turrets will shoot at jammed ships, but AI ships will not

I'm having the opposite luck with AI and jamming. I spawned a ship with the pirate faction for testing against a ship I spawned for the trading guild. It turned towards and instagibed my small jamming/cloaking observation ship when the cloak dropped. Jamming was still up and the ship turned towards me.

 

[NeonSturm]

I had a similar but not equal bugged behaviour some versions ago.

Pirate station turrets shoot at a jammed ship, but not a cloaked.
Once you cloak, you clear their target and they won't shoot you while remaining jammed.
But once you shoot them, they shoot you, though you are jammed.

They watched (looked at) me carefully protecting their core, but had a reaction time of 1 second, leaving you enough time to fly with your cloak-jammed ship behind the turret, aim for the core and fire a salvo at it before it turns toward you.