effectiveness of cloaking

[Taera]

ive been thinking (what a wonder! lol), is cloaking technology is useful? what i mean, does it worth to rush for it in the first like 70 turns of the game?

in one of my games, im generating enough research to reach the tech in .3 years... should i go for it? is it any good as such?

[Baron Grazic]

It all depends on your opponents.
If they only research Advanced Military 4 (or other Sensor tech), for the Ship Training and to stop the Stealth Armor - then YES.

[Phoenix-D]

If on the other hand they do like me: Advanced Military 6, Sats 3 then sensor sats in every system..cloak is pretty much worthless.

EDIT: also, mines make cloaking difficult, since cloaked sweepers can't sweep! Basiclly if your opponent isn't using mines or doesn't have sensors, cloaking is useful. If he is, its not.

[ May 28, 2003, 00:31: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[oleg]

You can get Stealth Armor VERY fast. Importantly, it is just a byproduct of usefull ship improvement. Unless your oppenent is Temporal/Psychic, he would had to invest much more research points into otherwise (kind of) useless research projects.

But after that... high level cloacking is indeed very expensive.

[Fyron]

Actually, Advanced Military Science is a very, very useful technology. Training your ships is vital. AMS is also very cheap. Researching it past 3 to level 6 to get Hyper Optics 3 is not very expensive at all.

Cloaking devices are almost never worth the investment.

[Karibu]

I have been wondering following thing: Mines claim to stop level 5 active, passive, gravitic, temporal (was there one more?) scan. Is there any way to find out where the enemy minefield is besid ramming it (in PBW where intelligence is disabled)? I think not, but if someone knows a way, let me know...

[Suicide Junkie]

Even with intel enabled, I don't think there is any real way to do it. Perhaps spying on ship/unit locations, but you'd have to get lucky and have the minefield picked randomly for the intel hit.

Just fly around some scout escorts ahead of your fleets, and carry some minesweepers with you.

[PvK]

The other thing that makes cloaking more useless than necessary in the unmodded game is that once researched, high-level detection equipment doesn't even cost any more than low-level equipment, and has no maintenance costs. So making the higher-level detectors cost a lot more and not be placable on no-maintenance units would make it more likely that there would be some places for cloaking devices to be better than stealth armor.

PvK

[tesco samoa]

i cannot remember will this work as a cloak...

Name := Passive EM Cloaking Device I
Description := Field generated around a starship which passes all energy around the ship. This field has the effect of rendering the ship invisible.
Pic Num := 237
Tonnage Space Taken := 40
Tonnage Structure := 40
Cost Minerals := 500
Cost Organics := 0
Cost Radioactives := 1000
Vehicle Type := Ship\Base\Sat\Drone
Supply Amount Used := 100
Restrictions := None
General Group := Cloaking
Family := 600
Roman Numeral := 1
Custom Group := 0
Number of Tech Req := 1
Tech Area Req 1 := Cloaking
Tech Level Req 1 := 1
Number of Abilities := 1
Ability 1 Type := Cloak Level
Ability 1 Descr := Prevents level 1 Passive EM scans.
Ability 1 Val 1 := EM Passive
Ability 1 Val 2 := 2
Weapon Type := None

or do you have to include all the other cloak abilities...

[Karibu]

Only cloack I ever use is Stealth armor and that is only because of its ECM bonus. Well, not only, because it grants invicibility if enemy does not have experience enought to have scanners of any kind. I agree that cloacking device is worthless, because all scanners are so cheap to get.

I have never been able to find out any minefield beside ramming/sweeping them. At the moment it is balanced, because you can sweep them easily after you find them, but you must have sweeper with you all the time.

There should be some alternative to it. One scanner to counter one kind of cloacking. For example: inertial nullifier would counter gravitic scanner, Electromagnetic circulator (would turn any EM signals toward ships instead of sending them away) to counter Hyper Optics, etc.

In practice, you would have to had all kind of scanners to counter all kind of cloacking. Well, Ihaven't thought this through to the end yet, but you get the idea. Also, cloacking should include some percentage to be ineffective against a scanner of certain level (MOO3).

[Fyron]

Tesco, that will be detected by any level of non passive EM scanning, and it will block only level 1 of passive EM scanning. A level 1 gravitic scanner, for example, can detect such a ship. You do not need all levels of cloaking on a component to get some cloaking (such as stealth armor), but you have to be wary of other scanning types when setting it all up. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Check out P&N PBW Version for an example of a system where the cloaking abilities are separated into different components.

[Taera]

i just realized my opponent is temporal... bad luck i guess. he's also quite experienced, to the best of my knowledge.

(and i think he just might be reading this... ohwell)

[tesco samoa]

ok... looked at it.

Now quickly explain it to me.

I believe I understand but want to confirm.

Thanks.

[Fyron]

Explain what exactly? What questions do you have?

A ship gets the highest level of each cloaking ability from all the components (and ship hull abilities) it has on it. The highest levels are used for what can detect it. A scanner can detect a ship if only one ability it has can detect one level of a cloaking type on a ship. So if a ship has level 50 in all cloaking except Temporal, where it has only 3, a level 3 Temporal Scanner could detect it (keep in mind the ability values are offset a bit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ).

[Ruatha]

One useful thing of cloaking (Stealth armour is good enough)is in multiplayer games that has "Show only own score".
By cloaking your ships and keeping them in a system where you have no scanners, you can hide an impressive fully trained fleet from your partners. So if they backstab you thinking that you are weak as they can see "all your ships" they will get a nasty surprise. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Fyron]

Well if you're smart you built a scanning sat in every system. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Well if you're smart you built a scanning sat in every system. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yep, but if you're smarter you build them in every system but one! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
And that system has a system gravitational shield and can only be reached through those systems that have scanning sats... So when the backstabbing partner ever come (If he is a backstabber), he'll get his surprise...

[ May 29, 2003, 22:06: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

[Karibu]

Sorry but I still don't get the idea why I should leave one system without scanner. There is no benefit at all.

[PvK]

There is if you have Partnership treaties, because if they are backstabbers, or if they fall for ploys from your enemies to give them a (possibly even temporary) Partnership, they will see all of your ships... unless they are in a system where even you don't have the scanners necessary to see them. In that case, your Partners (and their Partners) will not see these ships, but they will probably assume that they can see all of your ships. This can give you a good advantage of surprise.

PvK

[ May 30, 2003, 21:17: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Taera]

kinda ot, do you share long-range scanners coverage with your parthership err.. partners?