Cloak

posted on January 10th, 2009, 7:49 am

personally, i think cloak becomes kinda usless in fleet ops, cus its so easily detected, right from the begining you can see where cloaked units are, and cloak detection can be reserched so easily, i think if it was not detectable it would even out the klignons and everything so much, now i know most of you will say no to that but i think it would be so much better, but heres an idea, it take a long time to reserch, no more pinging, cus that makes it so easy, and more sensors, you have to push a button to scan for cloaked things, and it is a hit and miss thing 50 50 cnahce of finding one

posted on January 10th, 2009, 7:53 am

How do you make it harder to detect? I think something in the stock game odf's might control that.

posted on January 10th, 2009, 8:06 pm

by doing what i say, taking out the ping and such, and then making the tech harder to get, and then making the scan a 50 50 hit or miss, or somthing like that

posted on January 26th, 2009, 12:08 am

I don't think 50/50 would be good since traditionally people would send in fleets. If even one of those ships is detected then the defending player may just move every ship to intercept the area or force fire artillery to hit the remaining cloaked ships thus destroying the surprise.

I think rather than making it an arbitrary chance of discovery, they should simply make it more of a micromanaging effort to find the hidden ships. At the moment, you only need to click a button and all is revealed but let's say you had to play a "game" to find the cloaked ships. Let's say you had to take different types of scans of an area: let's say three types of scan. By comparing each scan you can triangulate a rough position and react accordingly but no individual scan will give you a particularly accurate result. Only the combination of the three would let you triangulate the position.

That way, the Romulans would have a chance to mount their attack while the defender is working out where they are but if they delay too long then they eventually get totally discovered within a certain area.


I think this could be integrated into the current UI by having three scans instead of the single Tachion Scan. You could use the minimap to compare scans and with additional scans you can eventually triangulate the position of the fleet. The problem I can see with this is that the minimap is too small so it'd be difficult to provided accurate positions.

Ideally there would need to be a whole new UI dedicated to scanning alone. You could access the new UI using the Tachion Scan button and a screen would pop up giving you three buttons and a larger map. Each button represents one of the scans used in triangulation and by clicking on the map in areas within you LOS you can try pinging the area for results. You first scan might give a false reading but further scans with the different buttons would allow you to home in on the cloaked fleet. When the fighting breaks out you can then close the scanning screen and return to the action but the scanning info would not be available on your minimap so you'd have to rescan if the enemy cloaks again.

Obviously this would take a lot more effort to implement (if it's even possible) and the Romulans would probably need to be completely rethought to prevent unbalancing the game but it'd add an interesting dynamic and make cloaks more useful

posted on January 26th, 2009, 1:33 am

I think there is a stock odf command that might effect how effective the cloak detection sensor are.

posted on January 26th, 2009, 2:39 am

A tachyon scan is fine.
But for the standard sensor, how would it be if instead of an individual sensor constituting tachyon cloak see-thru, we were to implement it as a form of tripwire.
Like in Redemption 2 STNG

A tachyon sensor grid would be needed to see cloaked ships- and only once they cross the sensors. We would need a minimum distance between 2 sensors to constitute a grid line/perimeter.
Starbase tachyon scan would be fine to reveal cloaked ships. But for sensor arrays we would need an actual array to constitute an area of space in which cloaked ships can be seen.
Same will hold true for scout sensors.

We can add tachyon upgrades to Fed,Kling and Rom upgrade stations. As the tachyon is upgraded the need for an array would diminish. and each sensor would be able to act alone.

For the Dominion and Borg we would need another implementation.

Dominion tachyon research would conduct the same effect of needing a grid.
Dominion tetrion scan will be another upgrade that will be available only once doms build their upgrade station.
This tetrion scan upgrade will be available from the regular research station, but it's access will depend on the building of an upgrade facility.
Starbase scans will be as usual and display cloaked vessels in the area specified.
Once tetrion scan is researched, then sensor station, scouts, and the advanced weapons platform will not need arrays to detect.

Borg will not need arrays. their tree can continue as usual. Especially since they take longer tobuild and are usually expensive. So by the time they arm up, they will need to see the incoming ships for their defense turrets and limited ships at least to take some action.

This way cloak will become a little more interesting at the outset. And detection will involve more skill at the outset.
Once we have ships coming the concentration on cloak as a tactical advantage can dissipate as each side advances and researches more.

We will certainly need to balance the costs for the feds, Roms, Klings, and doms in regards to buildable sensors, and research cost for the initial tachyon ability and the subsequent advancement.

Any ideas?

posted on January 26th, 2009, 2:42 am

Perhaps a slightly different way of approaching this would be to have the tachyon scan just show the player that there are cloaked ships present. In otherwords, perhaps an exclamation mark would appear on the screen as the icon for each ship present, but the player could not tell what type of ship was present. Thus, a smart player might send in a fleet of cloaked scouts as a diversion, and as the ships are cloaked the other player would not know what counters to send. 

posted on January 26th, 2009, 2:47 am

exclamations look ugly from a graphics point of view.
Dunno if ppl would find it appealing to see queer !!!s on their screen and scanners.
But let's see what ppl think 

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on January 26th, 2009, 3:42 am

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on January 26th, 2009, 10:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I just meant any sort of generic symbol indicating there is something cloaked, but you don't know what it is until it decloaks (or a more detailed scan is made...?)

posted on January 26th, 2009, 9:18 am

Maybe we can restrict it to only pings on the minimap, and introduce a Klingon or Romulan ship that sends out fake cloak signals.

posted on January 26th, 2009, 3:44 pm

no fake cloak signals. 
that'll mess things up.

posted on January 26th, 2009, 3:54 pm

Fake Cloak signals do sound sorta Romulan-style. It fits with their deceptive nature.

posted on January 26th, 2009, 3:58 pm

I'd love seeing the AI to use cloaked ships. ATM I just spare the ressources to detect cloaked ships, if I play against AI. Also cloaked Scouts stay undetected nearly everytime, as long as there is no nebula.

posted on January 26th, 2009, 4:16 pm

I actually really like the idea of the fake cloak signals as a countermeasure to the Tachion Scan. You could use it prior to an attack to catch the enemy off guard. You could quite easily balance the Fake Signals ability against the Tachion Scan and it seems like it could be fairly easily implemented

posted on January 26th, 2009, 5:12 pm

So, almost like the fake radar signature type thing that Halo 3 had, but in starship form? It's kinda been done before, right? Creating false sensor images, or holo-images? I like it.