Now that torpedoes are in, what about CLOAKING?

[SivCorp]

With the long range engagements now becoming much more commonplace, I noticed in the road map that cloaking blocks where planned.  The combat update #2 would be a great place to introduce those blocks... so we can have a defense against torps other than just point defense. 

 

Any news on Cloaking?  Any thoughts how it should work?

[Umbral Reaver]

Perhaps cloaking would be a tradeoff with shields. Say, while cloaked your shields will be off, making it something for escaping, roaming unseen, or making surprise attacks before boosting away.

[J4H3AD]

I think that's a good idea: cloaked ship can't be shielded too. Make it a risk/reward, so you have a distinct disadvantage to being cloaked, but of course the advantage.

 

Imagine a ship with powerful long range cannons or torpedoes firing from stealth. Before you realize, what's happening, you're dead. That's... scary frankly.

[A.Wolfrick]

I imagine cloak will require a ton of energy for the size of ship. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns off when you fire your weapons though as a cloaked ship knocking you out without warning or sight is a little OP.

 

However, being a sneaky sneaky sound really fun.

[Wanderer]

Would be really nice, and also make you capable of hiding your stations or ships so it wont be so easily to destroy. But if you jump into a sector with cloaking, that would be quite OP... Because you can manouvre into positions without being seen, so not being able to jump when cloaked would be a nice thing to ad on it. Also a scanner block that can detect cloaked ships should be added, becouse otherwise it would be OP als well. Or making the module do that so it gets more use? A charge-up time for cloaking would be nice as well or a cooldown for your ships, so you cant fire and escape so easily.

 

The idea is awesome and not being able to have shields is really nice, but there should be some more handicaps...

[Sir Charles]

I would like cloaking to have slowly rising energy consumption, like some turrets have. Also I think that shields and weapons, as well as boost, hyperspace and any interaction (like talking, docking etc.) should be disabled while being cloaked.

 

The only Way to find a cloaked ship should be shooting into the air since I expect those ships to get visible for a short time (1 second mabye) when taking damage.

 

My last point is that the energy consumption should depend on the ships mass (using an exponetial function leading to more and more ineffiency the heavier a ship is) making big ships impossible to cloak. Also cloaking devices should only cover a part of the ship like an integrity field generator does, with their size influencing the energy use as well as the size of the cloaking field and every single block using energy so you really get punished for cloaking bigger ships.

[Zarakynel666]

I think a simple solution to (non) cloaking mechanics in the game for torpedo defence, would be simply to make it a 'targeting jammer' for the meantime.

 

so enemies could still fire as normal, while weapons that have tracking (seeker) would simply fire off in a straight line as if no target was selected.

 

to implement this in a workable way, a key could be assigned to boot the jammer, on ships with a jammer block. this then has a cooldown based on energy generation/ recharge, or another block type.

 

this could also have a range based off the jammer block size, meaning there would be some level of skill to its use.

 

i think that rather than immunity over time it should be used much like chaff launchers or an emp, being instantaneous rather than sustained.

 

Possibly it simply would remove the square from around your ship for a brief moment, would that throw off aim. Perhaps rather than invisibility, that alone would be a game mechanic. I dont know.

 

now i have very little knowledge of how the seeking ( of both rockets and now torpedoes ) in this game works, i know that a target is usually pre-selected before firing, so i dont know if this would be possible. But thats what i see working in terms of alternate defence from things like that.

[SivCorp]

Some great ideas here!

 

I would like to add a few more, and perhaps enhance some others into a cohesive function of how it could work...

 

+ While a ship is cloaked, the shields are down, and boost is disabled.  The cloak will remove the red box from the ship, and "Ghost" the ship from view... like when in build mode and you have a specific type of part selected and the rest is faded out. 

 

+ Cloaking is achieved via blocks like the integrity field blocks, and size determines range of coverage.  They will require a VERY LARGE amount of power to run. 

- I don't like the power drain idea, for there already is enough power drain mechanics involved, nor does it make scientific sense (to me.) 

- I also don't like the idea to not have larger ships able to cloak.  Having the Cloaking blocks require power will limit their usefulness.

 

+ To defeat cloaking, Hitting the target ship will have a flash like when shields are hit.  If the cloaking field generator block is destroyed, the cloak is lost. 

+ Current Scanner upgrades will reapply the targeting box on the cloaked ship when in range.  This gives a secondary use for scanner upgrades.  Current ranges should be just fine... for I think the largest one maxes out at ~3km.  Capped max should be 5km.

 

Thoughts on this?  I like the ideas so far :)

 

[Wanderer]

I dont think the energy usage should be determined by mass but by volume, since thats how it should logically work. Also would it be nice to have something just to remove the box and the selection of what you are so you can be seen but no box gives away that its a playership. This way you could disguise your stations as asteroids... I agree that it shouldn't drain more and more, because the shield and integrity generators dont do so? Also the scanner upgrade wouldnt be worth using with only 3km, because most ships already start shooting in that range. I would like it to have the robocraft look when you're cloaked, to be seeable but hardly and that a cloaked ship doesn't perfectly let through light beams.

[pixtim]

Cloaking would be awesome. I love these ideas! I'd personally use it for a disengage mechanism.  :)

[Riftmaster]

Some ideas:

 

Cloak energy usage increases if moving, proportional to speed.

 

Cannot fire while cloaked, and after decloaking there is a cooldown period before firing is possible, which is effected by material type and other such parameters.

 

Fighters cannot be controlled while cloaked, but will follow the last order sent.

 

No interact menu while cloaked (so no communication with AI ships, stations, or even your own AI minions). Possibly add a special trading system that allows that part at least while cloaked.

 

Scanners can work while cloaked, but are much less effective (maybe half the range or something?) because obviously they must be passive.

[Texmar21]

https://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php/topic,5132.0.html

 

I posted my suggestion here. Pretty much same thing as here expect travel while cloaking. I mentioned countered measures as well.