This thread is cloaked...

[Magrim]

...damn, ran out of power

I've given some thought to the stealth mechanic, and while I am, to a degree, content with how it works I know plenty of players would like it changed.

Stealth plating . Not my idea but i do like it. People want to build a good looking cloak ship covered in hull but cant due to the power requirements. This stuff could have the same armor rating and hit points as run of the mill hull, or maybe even less. The point here is to have some sort of drawback to using it, and giving it next to nill defensive capabilities is the best I've got.

It would be required to have the plating linked to the cloaking computer. The plating itself would be "energized", making it the component that draws ship power. The balance of such a setup can be worked out later, I just want to see what you guys think.

Now here is the tricky part:

Do we leave cloaking mass based and make each block of stealth plating cloak a certain amount of mass? In which case you could have a lump of it in the center of your ship if you so desire.

Give it an area of effect (cloak bubble), cloaking blocks adjacent to it? Meaning you could have a layer of the stuff under your hardened hull.

Or perhaps it could be similar to the way occlusion culling works. If there is active stealth hull between you and a normal ship component, you will see nothing. In order to achieve a permanent and perfect cloak you will have to first have to have the e/sec to support it but also cover every square inch of your ship in stealth hull.

As far as making this block in every color, I'm not sure I would go for that. I think a stealth ship should be recognized as such. But that is just me, and i don't want to inhibit anyone else's creativity, so perhaps instead making this hull the only one that can be linked to a cloaking computer allow all hull and armor to be linked. They would of course require different e/sec to stay active depending on the benefit you gain from having such armor. Point is, if you want to have your blueberry lollipop cruiser to cloak then by all means, go for it.

So, leave a comment, tell me what you think. Point out any drawbacks I'm just not seeing.

 

[ltmauve]

Actually, what about a "cloaking field" block (not solid) with a perfectly invisible texture that is transparent when off, and then nontransparent when on? You surround your ship in it, and then when you turn it on it matters. Then attacks would punch a hole in it, give you a reason to try to destroy more of the hull, so even if it cloaks you can still see it.

Not sure how to handle turrets with that though... Though I'm not sure how your suggestion could handle it either. Perhaps link up the docking port to make sure you have that ship invisible?

 

[Magrim]

Your suggestion is similar to the third one in the op, in respect to damaging the hull. With that one, if you lost hull in combat, whatever it was occluding would become visible. And since this hull is weak, it would be very easy to lose it in combat.

As far as docked entities are concerned, I'm of the opinion that they shouldn't cloak unless they also contain the cloaking computer and the hull. When the mothership cloaks it actives all cloaking computer on all docked entities. If the docked entities dont have the e/sec to support a cloak, they would of course draw power from the mothership.