Dominion Early Cloak Detection

posted on April 6th, 2010, 4:57 pm

i see 

i still think bugs with cloak detect is a good idea, just a really weak cloak detect, they are obvo not designed for it, just an addon, to give them a lil edge

posted on April 6th, 2010, 5:05 pm

With all due respect I think that would completely kill the cloaking ability of the Klingons and Romulans.  SUCH a baseline ship being outfitted with detection would render it quite useless in combat or retreat.

  Canaverals were slow, expensive, and non-spammable.  C-11's would be weak and non-spammable.

  Bugs are, by nature, meant to be spammed.  Spammed cloak detect would make Boggz very unhappy as it would really just nullify cloak too much.

posted on April 6th, 2010, 5:16 pm

if the cloak detection is too powerful, yes the spam would be bad. some ways to prevent making boggie unhappy:

limit the number of bugs that can use it

make it researched at the shipyard, any higher up the tree and its no longer early game

give it a cost

make it weak, ie high chance of failure, only works in a forward cone etc

make it only for veteran bugs, those bugs we saw in ds9 with the tachyon scanner may have been elite bugs.

give it a long cooldown, for all ships, so if one ship uses it, others cant.

make it only detect small ships, so it wont be as useful late game.

posted on April 6th, 2010, 5:29 pm

Hey Boggy. Just so you know. If there is a spammed cloak detection. It just encourages you to be more aggressive. Think of it. They can see you, you as a Romulan at nature would be inclined to kill em quick before the player notices you. Trust me. You act alot like a Romulan.

posted on April 7th, 2010, 2:38 am

Lol I'm sorry but I disagree.  Klingon ships are very hull-fragile and have a 4 second decloak.  If there are oodles of Tier1 destroyers running around revealing me I'm going to lose everything.  Klingon ships specifically are a little flying batch of supplies with weapons attached.  Every time you lose a ship you are losing those supplies that cost a TON to replace .

  Besides:  I think this idea is a GREAT one for a lesser-used ship like the C-11.  Why would you want to put another almost CRUCIAL ability on a ship that gets intentionally spammed already?  Bugs are supposed to be spammed because they are the workhorse, so it should be the job of something else to reveal cloaked units.


  Lol, why not give the Galaxy cloak detect, Engine Overload, Defensive Patterns, and some fighters too?  I mean we've seen it do a million things on the show!

posted on April 7th, 2010, 11:59 am

I always liked the idea of having the nebula cloak dedect.

posted on April 7th, 2010, 4:09 pm

For the Dominion Bug to have cloak detection  there are ways to limit the  ability being spammed.
1) Hard cap of 10  of the special ability like the Dominion  troop ship.  2) Start out with "Dogfight range " ability. The dogfight range  ability detects only at dogfight range aka , very, very short range . The range gets better  and the  cooldown time gets shorter as a upgrade nodes on the tech station gets built.  3) add a tech up node  for longer range upgrade  on the Tech station. just a thought .

posted on April 7th, 2010, 4:27 pm

meaning that a ship inside the nebula can detect ships or when a ship passes thru it enables the ship to be seen?

posted on April 7th, 2010, 4:27 pm

Boooo hardcaps booooooooooo!  :D

posted on April 7th, 2010, 5:10 pm

@boggz: hardcaps are bad yes. to address your worries of it being op, it would be a simple detection system, the chance of it detecting you would be not too high, you would be able to use skill to escape.

@dircome: i think mimesot meant the nebula class starship 

i think the nebula should be split into 3 types, the normal neb with torpedo specials, the sensor neb from tng, with the giant sensor dish, which has the sensor specials, and maybe cloak detecting abilities. and the four nacelles neb which would be a speed demon, the pulses would only be available for this speed neb and it would be a great harasser.

posted on April 7th, 2010, 5:17 pm

I do too but at the moment it looks like only these 2 are done

posted on April 7th, 2010, 5:18 pm

What if these ships were to get the Cloak Detect?
- S-7 (Expensive, slow, and capped preventing spam)
- B-5 Refit (The Regular B-5 is too cheap, lets put it on the refit. Plus you cannot spam these either)
- C-11 (Support ships need to support more, help this little guy!)

None of these are "prefered" to be spammed because of expense, time, or other reasons. We can give these guys the juicy stuff.

posted on April 7th, 2010, 6:55 pm

I could see it on the S-7, with it's very name telling you what it's there for.  It's not an attack ship, it's meant to defend an area.

posted on April 7th, 2010, 7:33 pm

Guys, this thread is about early game detection.  The S-7 is at the very height of the Dominion Tech tree.  Same with the B-5 refit.  In fact, What you're suggesting is even further away than getting the sensor station at the tech lab!

I like the idea of bugs getting an upgrade, and I agree with Myles.  There are tons of ways to make sure that it's useful, but doesn't screw the cloaking races over.  It's simply unfair that when I head off to defend a mining station that my enemy can slip away without getting attacked.  They're guaranteed a kill, while I am guaranteed nothing.  In fact, it's better for me to head to his base and simply trade expansions than to try and defend my own, even if I'm fair close to mine.  Except that all his has are dilithium and tritanium miners.  The dominion expansion has much more invested in the form of the supply miners and stations.

Baring that, the C-11 really sounds like a good idea.  Just get rid of the range extender that no one uses, bump energy beacon to lvl 2, and make a tachyon ping simlar to the canaveral's as the C-11s stock ability.  It's a vulnerable target that the Klingons can attack first, but it's fast enough to help keep the dominion getting screwed.  Either way, the bug and C-11 could be made to be effective and give the dominion a chance in the early game.

posted on April 8th, 2010, 7:15 am

I have to say that I like the range extender.  Lets me easily bring to bear the full firepower of my fleet, no matter how large and bizarre that fleet is.  Also very valuable when the artillery-range ships show up.