Making the Cloaking Generator Effective

posted on February 17th, 2010, 6:28 pm

yep, future Romulan features will work with the Cloaking Generator and the Intelligence Center and i will make sure that both are equally attractive some should also make it into 3.1.2

posted on February 17th, 2010, 6:32 pm

yep, future Romulan features will work with the Cloaking Generator and the Intelligence Center and i will make sure that both are equally attractive some should also make it into 3.1.2

Can someone say... Phase Cloak Generator?

posted on February 21st, 2010, 4:48 pm

What would be the se of a stationay hase cloak generator? 

posted on February 21st, 2010, 4:51 pm

It would allow the enemy to fly straight through your station, instead of around it. Ships moving around cloaked things tells the enemy something is there.

Probably a joke suggestion, though.

posted on February 28th, 2010, 9:16 pm

Well, the rommies dont have a real punch right now but I think this is okay, if you give them the ability the sneak and stealth to the victory.

While every other race simply spams and overruns enemy races, I think the romulans should be a little bit... more false faced.

For example: The borg just crush and assimilate the enemy by pure power. In the future, they may expand these abilities by "adapting" and making the assimilation more efficient. This is outbalanced with the fact, that they dont have cloak, any real specials or sneaky things.

The dominion is similar, but lacks in early game. If you made it to the battleships, you are on the go.

The klingons have in my eyes too many ships I dont use. I tried against the AI and found many ships useless. Maybe I am not good enough in handling the micro or the advantages/disadvantages of their fleet, but I think, they are a little bit... unorganized. Also the Negh'Var is in my eyes underpowered. But thats another topic.

The Federation is perfect for slow expanding through turtling and give the top of the fleet via Warp-In a good front fodder in order to effectivly use the rest of your fleet. I am satisfied with them.

The Rommies... well, I like them. They have many systems, many options, you can play around with methods and strategies, BUT none of them gives you a real punch. The higher power-output for your weapons after decloaking goes for... decloaking. Why not making it like the Federation and give them 5 over-powered shots that have to reload after 30 seconds?
I have to cloak and decloak for this effect... well, not good for defending. And the romulan defense is something I could laugh about. Their turrets may only be strong if they could fire under cloak, but they fall too fast. I thing a "ring net" would be awesome for them. Give them the stats they already have, but put a "support station" here and there that will recharge the shields of a ally within a certain radius, like the generix support refit. THEN their turrets may have an effect in my eyes. The starbases also fall much too fast and dont deliver a good punch. Romulans are sneaky, so give them something like the borg have with their holding beam... some kind of buffer-field, that will decrease the power of enemy weapons.

Also the first warbird of the romulan warbird-yard (forgot its name) it.. useless. It can fire, and fire, and fire, and will never deliver a punch. Its like a saber in large. Only the holding-disruptor is useful, for about 6 seconds...

I dont know what to say, but I think, the sneak and hide tactic of the rommies should be given an eye, that the player will profit of them. Make a cloaking generator that will permanently cloak friendly stations in a certain radius, but can be revealed via tachyon pulses. Give their miners with a refit the ability to cloak. It should be some kind of "If you didnt look on the enemy list, you wouldnt know, that they are even there - and then they rush over you like a storm and you dont know what befalls you" 

For the klingons: I need more experience I think, but a little structure would be good. The role of the ships is not very clear, I struggle to get them very effective. While playing the dominion, I know what I do. When I play the Fedrats, I know what I do. Even by the borg I know what I do. By the rommies, its a little bit chaotic and for the klingons, I dont even see land. *g*

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 12:26 am

Hi Sheva!
Don't worry too much, the nat patch will bring back some punch to the rommies i'm sure. Nevertheless the rommies are made for sneaky attacks and thus always weaker than all other races in terms of ship's numbers.

As the rommies ships are only really useful at surprise-raids and not for the real punch, they are of course not useful for defense at all. So you are particularly right, that there needs to be something done about the defense. "support" stations are a good idea, as well as the "jammer turrets" proposed in this thread. The d'deridex should be a mobile defense platform, but currently it is not, as it is too weak and not possible to be microed at all, as the cloak can be removed by tachyon dedection. But this is valid for all rommies ships concerning defense.

Solutions to make ships usable for defense:
*) Make them stronger (boring)
*) Add a "jammer" so you can micro your ships out of combat by cloaking them.
*) Making support-abilities much stronger.
*) Forget about ships for defense and create an advanced stationary defense (much stronger turrets or support or jammer turret).

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 2:15 am

The D'deridex will get more powerful soon enough - I just know that the Romulan defense force will lurk in the shadows 

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 8:56 am

just to make it official, the cloaking generator now opens new and interessting ways of defense in 3.1.2

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 9:39 am

<------Excited!

[Sheva]

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 10:59 am

Last edited by Sheva on March 2nd, 2010, 11:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well, I want to give a longer summary on single ships, then stations. Maybe it could help a bit.

Romulans:

Constructor - Mogai class:
I think it should be possible, that you are able to cloak the constructor ship. Every constructor up until now may have a special. The klingon constructor can fire weapons, the dominion one can be used in two modes, the borg one got a massive defense. Only the romulan and the federation constructor got no special ability. For the feds I think it is okay, because they have a good defense and a good amount of hitpoints - also they have got enough strength by warp in to secure their expansion.
The rommies are sneaky and they lack on firepower and heavy defense, so they should be able to sneak unseen. A cloaked constructor may help you to hide your base building so that you are abe to evade critical losses much better.

Freighter - Fakairu class
Here the same. The freighter should be refittable by balanced costs. You can switch the freighter to the advanced cloak, that will enable the cloak while shields up and when the special energy is out, your shields go down, but you stay cloaked. With this, your freighters can cloak under fire, so they dont get destroyed immediately and still are able to retreat. Of course, this refit comes to costs, that make it a little but questionable, if this will really be needet, but the option would be nice. You can harvest moons from much further away and cloak the way back.
The advantage still stays fragile, because the center of your mining operation is your mining base, so it wont help you just to cloak the freighters because you have to defend your base - this fact wont change.

Talon - Scout
Well, THIS ship could mede interesting. You have a cloaked scout and may be able to use it as an passive or active spotter. While the scout is cloaked, you may fire with the Serkas guidet volleys of quadcobalt torpedos (I will tell you later something to this class) that have a much higher hitchance. Also other torpedos will hit better, even on small ships. The active target-probe will also give you the sensor-data of the enemy ship and will last for 30 seconds.

Rhienn:
The disruptor refit needs like any other Romulan ship a condenser like the Avalon. So you dont get the stronger disruptor volley not only after decloaking, you get it after a certain reload time. This is much more logical and is also fine, because after declaoking your shields are down and you only have a single shot with higher damage. Thats not really hit and run, its more like "Hello I'm here, you can shoot me now" Also the multi targeting disruptors only do a small amount of damage. It should be increased. The torpedo refit is nice for now, and could be used against the borg. For this, I think it would be nice, if this ship yould last longer against heavy strikes, so make it more resistant against beam wepons and give it on higher ranks an egm suite. So it can better withstand beam weapons and wont get hit so easily by torps. With that, this ship would be better for combat.

Shirke:
When you beam over the infiltrator, you may click on a subsystem of the enemy ship that will disable it. Of course, you may want to click on the shields and then give an exessive strike from the ship itself, so you may be able to destroy other destroyers with this ship or take advantage of a cloaked cruiser nearby (like the torpedo refit rhienn) to wreak havoc on the enemy. It wont help me to have an infiltrator just to see what the enemy sees. Its nice, but wont really help.

Griffin:
I really never used this ship. The sensor jammer is too ineffective. It may be cool to have this ship to make the enemy having a fire-break for 6 seconds, but I think it would be nice, if you can make this ship affecting a single target. You get a bonus on the sensor jammer, if an enemy saboteur is on board. If the target is also hit by a sensor probe from a scout, you WILL deactivate sensors and weapons. The time the enemy systems are deactivated depends on the rank the Griffin got.
Zero: 6 seconds
One silver: 7 seconds
Two silver: 8 seconds
First gold: 10 seconds
Second gold: 12 seconds
The saboteur will make sure, that the jammer will work and may have a chance, to destroy the sensor subsystem or even destroy the weapon system. You can cripple an enemy ship by such a infiltrator operation. But you need 3 things for that. A scout, a saboteuer and a griffin. The saboteur in not availble on the griffin avatar, so you can only do it with the intelligence center. You may activate the saboteuer also to deactivate life support and my cripple the enemy engines, so you can easily capture the enemy ship. But thats only a sidenote.

Leahval
This ship can defend itself good, but... thats it. I dont build ships so that they just survive, they should destroy other ships WHILE surviving.
The level 2 ability should last longer, lets say 16 seconds. The level 1 ability is okay I think, but should also given the chance to deactivate a random subsystem for 10 seconds.
Level 3 is for self-defense, but is only useful, if you make it in time. So, an auto-repair would be cool, that will maybe make your special energy to a negative amount (battery) and you have to wait, until you are back to enough special energy. But with that, this ship will last much longer.

Generix:
Frigate refit:
Well, well. This thing "could" be nice, but there are just too few ships with a defense of 20 and less. Make it like the klingons: Give this ship a shield softeing disruptor volley so that all kinds of projetile weapons can pass though enemy shields, if the defense value is at least 1,5*offensive value of this ship and less. So this ship may be like the K'Vort with a shield breaking torpedo, but will may be able to do this in group attacks, so you may be able to cripple an enemy battleship with that.

Support refit:
I'm satisfied with that ship. Maybe more defense.

Spectre refit:
Why shields up while cloaked? Who needs that? Can I do something with that ability? Why not fire weapons while cloaked?

Serkas:
Here it comes. Two fire-modi. The first will be the one you know, good against stations and larger battleships. The second is like the steamrunner, a guided torpedo.
Also, increase the defense value. This ship is cost intensive as hell and destroyed sooo fast. The steamrunner can at least fall back, while the Serkas is destroyed by the first volley.
Special ability on the two gold-bars is not only the faster reload time, but also "shields-hardening". This ability will harden the shields for about 6 seconds, so that no fire can break through it. Good for activation before cloaking.

Eresis
Dint know, never used.

Cehlaer
A bad joke. This vessel does not make any effective damage against the enemy. It may be purely beam weaponary, but for this, it should decharge the shields of enemy vessels in an effective way. But this ship fires, and fires, and fires, and nothing will happen, while it is destroyed very fast by itself. This ship shall counter the Excelsior MK II. It may counter a sabre or a monsoon up until now.

Norexan:
It is pretty fine, but... it just lacks something I dont know.

D’deridex
Give this ship a fear factor. Also give it a stronger "defend the fleet" ability. The jammer uop until now is just too weak to be effective. Something like "link warbirds together with a special charger beam" that will increase the defense ability of all linked warbirds and give them advanced targeting abilities. Also, the shield-reg rate is increased. With this, the more warbirds you have, the more effective they are. Something like that...

Tavara
I love this one. Only... make the Covered Ops able to beam over on fully crewed ships.

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 11:17 am

on behalf of the Romulan Galae i just have to note that the Cehlaer actually wins against an Excelsior-II, even without using its ability

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 1:56 pm

I'm really looking forward to these changes

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 2:02 pm

Shirke:
When you beam over the infiltrator, you may click on a subsystem of the enemy ship that will disable it. Of course, you may want to click on the shields and then give an exessive strike from the ship itself, so you may be able to destroy other destroyers with this ship or take advantage of a cloaked cruiser nearby (like the torpedo refit rhienn) to wreak havoc on the enemy. It wont help me to have an infiltrator just to see what the enemy sees. Its nice, but wont really help.

I'd disagree, I'd disable lifesupport so I can capture it.

D’deridex
Give this ship a fear factor. Also give it a stronger "defend the fleet" ability. The jammer uop until now is just too weak to be effective. Something like "link warbirds together with a special charger beam" that will increase the defense ability of all linked warbirds and give them advanced targeting abilities. Also, the shield-reg rate is increased. With this, the more warbirds you have, the more effective they are. Something like that...

I'm loooovving iiiiit. 

posted on March 2nd, 2010, 10:13 pm

on behalf of the Romulan Galae i just have to note that the Cehlaer actually wins against an Excelsior-II, even without using its ability

Although of course the Cehlaer gets outnumbered by Excel II's  . To be honest, I think that the Romulans are and will be fine once they get their cost changes and new stuff. I don't think such dramatic changes as are being proposed here are necessary. Just to pick on a few, the Frigate Refit is quite nice right now, even unsupported. You switched the Leahval's level 2-3 abilitiies - I think you are thinking of patch 3.1.0 and below  - the Leahval right now is the mainstay of the Romulan forces for most fleet actions because of burst damage, and great repair possibilities (not to mention it's super passive). Also, boarding abilities will be fixed next patch (the Tavara's included) . I do agree however that the Shrike's infiltration ability is useless! I can get that better with a simple scout or two, and for a prolonged time!

posted on March 3rd, 2010, 4:11 am

Not to mention for that for the cost of fewer than 2 shrikes, you can get intel center, the mother of all "scouts"!