Dominion Early Cloak Detection

posted on April 5th, 2010, 5:42 am

I was wondering if the dominion could get some earlier cloak detection than they do now.  For the other races, it is much easier to get to their basic tech station and research cloak detect.  For the dominion to remain competitive, they have 3 avenues for their build order.

1:  Build 2 yards and pump out bugs until they can get their economy up, including supply stations.  Then go for the tech lab.
2:  Be Breen and just spam breen cruisers.  Looked down upon for obvious reasons, because of everyone’s favorite overpowered passive, SSEC.
3:  Be puretech and quickly tech up to B5 battlecruisers.  Also looked down upon for obvious reasons.  Hurray for ships with no downside or counter!  

So right now, spamming 16ish bugs and then going for the tech lab while you make s-2s is the only viable way the race remain competitive.  If you’re doing that and building supply stations, which you must, it is quite a long time before you can ever hope to have any form of cloak detection out.  Not only is it a while before you have the cash to build the lab, but you have to build the really expensive sensor station just to be able to use decloak as dominion. 

I guess what I’m looking for is some form of either stock or early ability, as building the tech lab realistically doesn't happen until the middle phase of the game when you’re building S-2s and bombers.  It doesn’t have to be some amazing ability, just anything to help with cloak retreats, so that a player can respond to hit and run tactics by races who receive cloaks stock on their vessels.  It’s sad when you get hit, and your semi-nearby ships go to respond, only to have the attackers cloak and you have no way of getting at them. 

Getting to the tech lab would be possible with only one construction yard when the new dominion cruiser is introduced.

//www.fleetops.net/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,3/topic,6164.msg101841/#msg101841

//www.fleetops.net/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,3/topic,7124.msg118179/#msg118179

Now while I don’t mind the dominon’s early gameplay style being changed (Yes I do Yes I do!!! ), I guess I’m concerned that spamming this new cruiser will be similar to spamming breen cruisers.  Not to mention it becoming the only build strategy dominion players will use, especially if they want cloak detect. 

Regardless of that, I’m still worried that it won’t fully address the fact that early cloak detection for the dominion is difficult to do while building enough ships to defend and building supply stations and microing the resource ships to get the economic flow right.

One thing I’d like to see is perhaps the bugs get an anti cloaking ability.  In the show, we’ve seen them use anti proton beams, perhaps they could have a special that allows them to ping a small area similar to the canaveral’s tachyon scan, but perhaps smaller.  If a research is required, it could be done at the construction yard, similar to how it is done for federation ships.

Anyway, just a thought.  I want my dominion ships to have a chance against those pesky cloakers, especially when the Dominion are supposed to be great at that.  :2guns:

posted on April 5th, 2010, 8:26 am

Smells like an opportunity for the C-11 to have a use!  Mobile support with cloak detect!!! 

posted on April 5th, 2010, 11:45 am

i think the bugs should get a forward firing cloak detect only, so they fire it and any ships in a forward cone are detected.

the c-11 should get the canaveral's tachyon ping, it should be stronger than the canaveral's. because we saw in the show that the dommies were anti-cloak kings. maybe the canaveral's could be reduced a bit.

posted on April 5th, 2010, 12:35 pm

I think dominion ships in general would have a passive cloak detection device, not a ping one. After all, I'd think we should consider the logic of how their views work. Jem'hadar have keen eye sight, and some of the more experienced ones were rumored to be able to see the distortions of the backdrop of space from cloaked ships. To me it is logical to have this incorperated.

posted on April 5th, 2010, 12:54 pm

i dont think for all ships for two reasons:

1) way op

2) why would they put it on anything but the bugs? nearly all their fleets have bugs, bugs act as their scouts in the show, the bugs should have the detection.

posted on April 5th, 2010, 1:54 pm

what if dominion bugs would get a shot range tachyon ping with around 10 seconds cooldown?
that way the wont detect everything, but some bugs in mixed fleet would cover the whole fleet with pings.

of course the cooldown would have to get shorter with lvelups, maybe even an increase to medium range with officer r veteeran level.

posted on April 5th, 2010, 4:17 pm

Lol ....


    @Gamer:  Really? ....

    @Myles:  Bugs?  Really?

posted on April 5th, 2010, 4:43 pm

Boggz, zzz, don't be so cynical.  But i have to agree with you, mostly

Bugs have that antipropon thingy. Asides, that it is unrealistig to work (If subspace distortions can bend light around the ship, a-matter beams will be bent around it as well) it covers a linear "area" only. A proper implementation would be a invisible, really fast moving probe of the canaveral which has tachyon dedect of dogfight range. This is rather undhandy and only realistically effective at short range. So you can put t whereever you want.

posted on April 5th, 2010, 4:50 pm

i dont get your point boggz explain more clearly.

posted on April 5th, 2010, 8:20 pm

I'm not actually too concerned about early cloak detection for Dominion for a number of reasons really. One, the 16 bug start is not going to be that feasible soon (you should rely on the other early units as well) and so teching up should be easier and more of a priority early on. Similarly the Dominion, as well as other factions, should get more varied start strategies in the next few patches.

Two, it isn't a uniquely Dominion problem. Early Generix strat carries the same risk for instance

posted on April 5th, 2010, 8:33 pm

Well, the romulans can cloak, so the klingons can't know where their ships are!   And that Intel center is pretty after you start building generixes.

posted on April 5th, 2010, 8:36 pm

Not saying notin'

posted on April 6th, 2010, 1:10 am

i dont get your point boggz explain more clearly.

  A cloak detect on BUGS with a 10 second cooldown?  Really?  Why not just trash cloak altogether?

  THAT'S the point I was trying to make with "Really?"  .


  I do agree that the Dominion have a difficult time detecting cloaking races.  This is only slightly made up for by the fact that they can truly put out numbers that certainly the Romulans cannot match, or the fact that the Klingons really run out of supply too quickly to keep up.  B'rels and Bugs may be a relatively decent match for one another, but the supply-cost of B'rels is much harder to lose than Bugs.

posted on April 6th, 2010, 10:42 am

i never said 10 second cooldown boggz :S what were u reading?

a longer cooldown would be very appropriate, and it would only be forward firing. ie not op.

the c-11 should get a better detection suite, the canaveral should have a weaker suite, because the dommies are great at cloak detection.

posted on April 6th, 2010, 4:08 pm

i think the bugs should get a forward firing cloak detect only, so they fire it and any ships in a forward cone are detected.

the c-11 should get the canaveral's tachyon ping, it should be stronger than the canaveral's. because we saw in the show that the dommies were anti-cloak kings. maybe the canaveral's could be reduced a bit.

  Ah well here's what I was referring to with you suggesting Bugs have a cloak detect.

The 10 second cooldown thing was Dna.  Mah bad .  He just built on your idea of Bugs with cloak detect so I must have misread.

what if dominion bugs would get a shot range tachyon ping with around 10 seconds cooldown?
that way the wont detect everything, but some bugs in mixed fleet would cover the whole fleet with pings.

of course the cooldown would have to get shorter with lvelups, maybe even an increase to medium range with officer r veteeran level.