Suggestions for new anti-cloak tech.

posted on February 20th, 2009, 10:04 pm

After read on the reman subfaction thread about how unbalanced the scimitar would be ingame, i decided to think up new ways to counter this, and as a side effect thought it would be nice to have other ways of detecting cloak rather than generic anti-cloaking tech in the game no (scan/tachyon grid etc.)

How about Whenever a ship is fired upon by a vessel that can fire while cloaked, i.e. the scimitar, the victim will auto-return fire, with say 10% accuracy, with a burst or torps, pulse phasers or short phaser bursts like Nemesis.
This would be a passive ability, or a toggle ability that uses special energy for either many ships or just a few, depending on how the scimitar is implemented.
It would have to be pretty good if the scimitar had a better than average cloak ingame.
If firing while cloaked was on more than just the scimitar and the kvort - (maybe a brel that can always fire while cloaked?) then this could loosely be added to every armed ship, but reduce the accuracy in that case.

Another application of this basic idea could be an ability on maybe 1 or 2 ships per race that has some new way of dealing with cloaked ships in the immediate area, so we could turn down some of the anti-cloaking technology we have in the game now.

These are ideas for the races against any types of cloak.

Federation: Either one of the science ships or the sovie (maybe mixed-tech?) should have an ability as described above, or can (again like in nemesis) fire phasers 360 degrees and then fire torpedoes towards anything hit by them.
Also as a side note i would like to see a real tachyon detection grid implemented by a fleet of ships. Don't know how hard it would be put in though...

Romulan: Tachyon Burst: This ability could be an aoe that fills an area of space with tachyon particles, which would make any ship passing through visibile, cloaked or uncloaked

Borg: Collective Reactions: If a cloaked ship does any action other than moving (firing, transporters, spec weapons, decloak etc..) within a short radius of a borg ship armed with a holding beam, then the holding beam is automtically locked on and the cloak is disabled until release. In addition, if a ship equipped with a cloak is assimilated, then all enemy cloaking devices of the same type (of that faction and player) are useless against the borg. (Maybe further devisions between ship classes to stop overpoweredness)

Dominion: I'm not sure on abilities for dominion, but with their advanced technology, maybe they could just have the tachyon detect on bugs, or maybe an option for the hyperspace artillery to home in on the nearest cloaked vessel? And if there is non it could backfire and self-inflict minor damage.
Or maybe some nebula generation that disables cloak in an expanding area for half a minute.

Klingon: Also not sure on, but a possible idea is that a ship could detonate "viridium charges" around it in an area of effect that would allow tracking of any enemy ship in the aoe. You would then be able to pick up the signal "over two sectors away"

posted on February 21st, 2009, 11:05 am

some interessting ideas. noted down

posted on February 21st, 2009, 11:21 am

Besides the bugs with tachion dedection, I appreciate your ideas. Cloaking shoul be a real tactical advantage and thus difficult to overcome. 

posted on February 21st, 2009, 3:24 pm

I agree, cloaking is a vital part of romulan and klingon tactics, just making almost anything be able to see through makes it useless.

So either that has to be better balanced or cloak has to go for good, and that would take away much style and flavour from all races who use them.

posted on February 21st, 2009, 6:37 pm

You want a good anti-cloak? Put collisions and friendly-fire in game.

posted on February 27th, 2009, 3:15 am

Agree! Also, I love your ideas but how about the ability to convert a Nebula (too bad they aren't buildable?) or a Remore to lose 10 offensive value and 10 defensive value but gain the ability to scan medium range for cloaked ships and when stationairy artillery range for cloaked ships? xD

posted on February 27th, 2009, 1:38 pm

Mmm, that would be cool, maybe the nebulas sensor special also pings cloaked ships in the aoe and you can see them if you get within normal sensor range?

posted on March 2nd, 2009, 3:39 pm

On subsidary question:

Are there any different ways to achieve invisibility regarding star wars technologie?

And:

Would Armada2 allow different values of effectiveness concerning detection or even cloaking itself? If it was possible, you could start a race between cloaking and cloak-penetrating within a game .

posted on March 2nd, 2009, 4:27 pm

darth mauls ship had a form of a cloaking device, and to the second question i belive there are ways to do it.

[Tyler]

posted on March 2nd, 2009, 5:48 pm

Last edited by Tyler on March 2nd, 2009, 5:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Would Armada2 allow different values of effectiveness concerning detection or even cloaking itself? If it was possible, you could start a race between cloaking and cloak-penetrating within a game .

In the stock game, the Cloak Detection sensor had odf code that might make it possible. I never tried and all races have it the same by default.

// Detect class
detectClass = 3