| Author |
Opinion regarding cloaking |
Fornax
Marshal
Raven Warriors
Joined: April 30, 2002
Posts: 906
From: Jacksonville, FL
|  Posted: 2004-12-06 18:53
Not going to bring up the other minor tweaks that others have suggested.
While I think it's neat that it may be possible for an entire K'luth fleet to decloak within 100 gu of a human faction without one side even having a clue they're here...that's kinda disconcerting. Already, with the current cloak, K'Luth sit within 5K gu but outside the ECCM/Sensor ranges and watch. Information is a huge advantage....not to mention to 'baiting' tactics that are standard.
What I'm thinking is, what if the human factions had another building type available that denies the use of cloaking within a set, limited, radius. I'd say make it extremely expensive in terms of population/power just like the SY (use SY as a basis/beginning) with say a 1K gu range.
What's the point? A little sanity but with a price. You can put a SY with minimal defenses down, or one of these with minimal defenses. Probably never both....but just knowing you can sit and modify your ship and at least get to see the enemy before they overrun you would be nice.
I'd also ask about the "old cloak". Cloaking, and all the themes around it are really just extreme variations of electronic warfare. Would it be possible to make one of the sensor suite options a cloaking option (for non-kluth)? Specifically, it should be a detuned or less effective version. I'm thinking along of the lines of basing it on new-beta-cloak but letting it be affected by ecm/eccm just like current-cloak.
Nax
_________________
|
Exavier_Macbeth
Cadet
Joined: December 02, 2002
Posts: 20
From: Phoenix, Arizona
| Posted: 2004-12-06 19:51
I would have to agree, and I am a kluth player.
As it stands we could have an entire fleet litteraly parked in orbit of an enemy planet and the humans wouldn't know it untill it was 2 late. Granted thats how i feel kluth should play it would unbalance the game quite a bit.
I am not sure what it would involve in programming but here is an idea... Use his idea for a facility and make it 1 per planet only... give it a 500gu range complete cloak cancelation... basicly an interdictor for the cloaking device... then if possible have it do a pulse effect for the other 500gu that intermittenly cancels the cloak... That way at 1000gu we have a chance of being spotted (kinda like a sencor ping you get when someone comes out of hyperspace into an ECM field) and at 500gu cloak cuts out all together and can't be activated...
This way if the defenders arn't paying attention we might be able to sneak into 500gu of planet however any closer and cloak would be usless...
that way we can get close and use our stealth near planets but there is a chance of an active defence seeing were we are comming from... And then at 500gu cloak drops all together...
Just an expansion on his suggestion...
The power drain is interesting to play with as if our managment in that area isn't bad enough lol... I hope kluth get reactors because we will probobly need them. Even on scouts I can't keep up with the UTGO equivilent because I burn my power out before I get into weapon range... I don't have the pres at moment to test bigger ships so couldn't tell you if the same thing goes with them...
Anyway so far I like it 
_________________
He has returned.
He who brought the dark ones.
He who poisoned our paradise.
How will we greet him?
With swift and certain death!
|
Fatal Rocko Willis
Fleet Admiral
Fatal Squadron
Joined: March 01, 2003
Posts: 1336
From: Kentucky
| Posted: 2004-12-07 02:01
I like this Idea... Kinda like having a Star Trekish Dampning Field.. you know the one that prevents people from getting a lock-on and transporting someone... but then again they did have a sort of dampning field that prevented scanners too... I see a total cloak and decloaking of someones bow as stated above to be akin to the ST: Nemesis movie... that Romulans Cloak was a "pefect cloak".... you didn't know where it was till it decloaked OR you just happened to get a lucky hit... then everyone shoots at the impact point... But no matter what.. I think Kluth should not be able to fire cloaked... and in return maybe up the armour on them as a counter alance since they would have to fight without the cloak like the rest of us... I think no other faction should have a cloak.. the ability to cloak, slink around and then attack a target is what makes a Kluth a Kluth...
Rocko
_________________
|
Fornax
Marshal
Raven Warriors
Joined: April 30, 2002
Posts: 906
From: Jacksonville, FL
| Posted: 2004-12-07 21:07
I'll backoff further comments after this one just to get other ideas, but...
I don't know the 'big picture' of all the balance tweaks planned. Overall, I'd say that it sounds like Cloak is going to get a 'neutral tweak'. Yes it's 100% effective (unless you're beaconed) but it takes more power AND there's things you can't do at all. And, once some sort of fade-in/fade-out delay is implemented, it won't be instant_decloak_eat_hot_death.
But, while it may, overall, be a wash -- individual tactics will change. Some specific types of actions will get much more effective while others will suffer.
Baiting will become possible at closer ranges - I see K'luth hiding within the 1k gu dictor limit to act as 'beaters' - when ships pursuing 'bait' jump out, they're in a better position to stop them from retreating.
Nax
_________________
|
Ragglock
Marshal
BIOnics Industry Syndicate
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 1955
From: Denmark
| Posted: 2004-12-08 02:04
one thing i dont like
having to decloake to start jump that takes precius seconds of any emergency jump you need to make
15 sec to turn ship dred size is an very long time to be decloaked in battel
and even then lag and other things like psi mountet weapons on human ships can sometimes make it impossible to just issiue one command so if you have to make 2 key strokes to get out makes it truly deadly
so either automate the decloaking when (j)ump gets hit
or remove the function for the decloake / jump
_________________
P:@12 C:$38
LOVE the smell of human flesh in the morning smells like MVictory
|
BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2004-12-08 03:49
The fact is we havnt seen the other changes!
The kluth are going to be able to turn faster (to my knowledge). You also have considerably more powerfull weapons on a first strike basis....
_________________
|
English
Deutsch
Nederlands
)
