Cloak Repair Button

posted on September 29th, 2011, 11:18 pm

I think the cloaked factions/ships could use a button that triggers repair and cloak together. The idea is to withdraw a ship from combat for repairs, but get it there safely with cloak. This button would help get Brels out of combat faster and would require slightly less microing.  This idea works in practice in Klingon Academy where one of the Macro ship setups was cloak/repair. The Romulans would benefit the most out of this followed by the Klingons (difference in cloaking speed.) Federation ships have heavier shields and are designed to withstand such constant assaults for each class. The Borg can just regenerate and get back into combat. The Klingon/Romulans have to repair then cloak or vice-verse this in all practical purposes is much more harder to do considering a fleet engagement. If you argue that cloaking is a huge advantage and this should be a disadvantage then answer the question of who would win in a shield disabling nebula: a Brel or a saber? I think there is a strong possibility that the brel would lose by losing a subsystem in the first volley. The point is a cloaking repair button ( not a disappearing repair button ) would be beneficial and easier to handle especially if the hot-keys don't work.

posted on September 29th, 2011, 11:42 pm

Or you can cloak and micro your ship away ...

posted on September 30th, 2011, 12:13 am

The B'rel has greater than 2x the hull of a Saber, and that correlates with greatly increased subsystem durability . Let's not even mention the 50% boost in damage or the pulse weaponry

I don't think there is a downside to this possibility, provided it is independent of cloak or repair as currently set up

posted on September 30th, 2011, 2:50 am

A possible balance is to make it like in klingon academy: when in repair-cloak, weapons aren't online/charged. No decloaking and instantly attacking

posted on September 30th, 2011, 4:48 am

A thing about this though is the necessity of manually cloaking your ships. Its a key part of micro, and we do love our micro

Basically, I think this is just like the spam build idea: turned down, simply because one of the biggest deciders of a game is how well you can manage your forces and resources. Once we start getting rid of these things that make you micromanage your forces, the game becomes more about firepower and throwing your ships against each other,  and less about strategy. I wouldn't mind this ability being included, but I'm just saying why it may not be.

posted on September 30th, 2011, 5:35 am

A possible balance is to make it like in klingon academy: when in repair-cloak, weapons aren't online/charged. No decloaking and instantly attacking

If I have this right we could cloak and do a replace weapon to a ship that's armed with only a weapon that releases "repair drones" for a limited time.  Then when the drones time out and possibly not before the button to undo the switch appears. 

posted on September 30th, 2011, 10:06 am

I like it but I use priority repair more, so there would need to be a cloak and prepair option too.

posted on October 2nd, 2011, 12:11 am

I think this idea is a great one, it would certainly help less advanced players more as less micro managing which no one is a fan of and is very overwealming for us newer players especially in online matches which are a completely different ball game to the AI.

posted on October 2nd, 2011, 12:47 am

I like it but I use priority repair more, so there would need to be a cloak and prepair option too.

This.  Definitely this.

I'd almost rather just have a macro setup where players can choose their own hotkeys, but I know that's a lot of work to implement.  I already hit ctrl-c, shift-r a lot but it WOULD be nice to have them closer to each other or even combined to one key combo.  It would certainly make cloaking races easier for new players, and it wouldn't make good players much stronger, just less frantic.

...you wouldn't like me when I'm frantic 

posted on October 2nd, 2011, 6:25 pm

This.  Definitely this.

I'd almost rather just have a macro setup where players can choose their own hotkeys, but I know that's a lot of work to implement.  I already hit ctrl-c, shift-r a lot but it WOULD be nice to have them closer to each other or even combined to one key combo.  It would certainly make cloaking races easier for new players, and it wouldn't make good players much stronger, just less frantic.

...you wouldn't like me when I'm frantic 

Hotkeys can't be setup? Damn, I'm on Dvorak and remembering that my p key is actually repair is somewhat annoying (FO is one of those games that does it by key position instead of value it seems.)

posted on October 2nd, 2011, 6:28 pm

You can change the hotkeys without screwing with multiplayer compatibility

posted on October 2nd, 2011, 9:14 pm

Really? just by changing the odfs I guess?

Tell me more!
-Can you set 2 abilities to the same hotkey?
-Can you set multiple hotkeys for the same ability?
-How many versions of "cloak" are there and how many odf files do I need to modify to keep them all the same?

posted on October 2nd, 2011, 9:17 pm

Nope, hotkeys are not set by the ODFs
Yes, you can set multiple abilities to the same hotkey
No you cannot set multiple hotkeys for the same ability
More information can be found here: Editing Hotkeys - The Hitchhiker's Guide to Fleet Operations

posted on October 2nd, 2011, 11:30 pm

No you cannot set multiple hotkeys for the same ability

That's a real shame, perhaps that's something the Dev's could look into doing, I think it would be easier than to add a new feature, and that way people can edit their input.map file to suit their own needs. 

posted on October 2nd, 2011, 11:36 pm

Hm, why would you want to have multiple hotkeys for the same ability however?  (I assume you mean something like having either or hotkeys, where you can have shift+c and ctrl+c both cause cloaking)