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Stealth abilities in Star Trek Online
majortiraomega
Member Posts: 2,214 Arc User
With the release of the Romulan faction, all Romulans received the ability to cloak in combat via Romulan Battle Cloak, a version of Battle Cloak with a higher stealth rating. Prior to this, Battle Cloak had been restricted to Klingon Bird of Prey, which took the ability to cloak at the cost of Hull and Shield strength.
The change with the Romulan approach made standard cloaking Klingon Battle Cruisers and Raptors outdated. Romulan vessel hull and shield strength ratings are either identical or higher than their Federation counterparts. They don't suffer the hull and shield strength penalties that all Klingon ships and the Federation Fleet Defiant take for having a cloaking device. Standard Cloak is borderline useless outside of Alpha Strikes and very few people ever use Mask Energy Signature due to the out of combat nature.
Therefore, I would like to bring forward the following idea; allow the use of Standard Cloak and Mask Energy Signature while in combat. Both abilities already have a much lower stealth rating over the Battle Cloak and Romulan Battle Cloak counterparts. Naturally weapons will need to be completely taken offline when Mask Energy Signature is up, but it would bring these abilities back to viable levels. It would be a step in the direction toward bringing the Federation and Klingon factions back up to par with their Romulan counterparts.
The change with the Romulan approach made standard cloaking Klingon Battle Cruisers and Raptors outdated. Romulan vessel hull and shield strength ratings are either identical or higher than their Federation counterparts. They don't suffer the hull and shield strength penalties that all Klingon ships and the Federation Fleet Defiant take for having a cloaking device. Standard Cloak is borderline useless outside of Alpha Strikes and very few people ever use Mask Energy Signature due to the out of combat nature.
Therefore, I would like to bring forward the following idea; allow the use of Standard Cloak and Mask Energy Signature while in combat. Both abilities already have a much lower stealth rating over the Battle Cloak and Romulan Battle Cloak counterparts. Naturally weapons will need to be completely taken offline when Mask Energy Signature is up, but it would bring these abilities back to viable levels. It would be a step in the direction toward bringing the Federation and Klingon factions back up to par with their Romulan counterparts.
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Post edited by majortiraomega on
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But... I still think the Romulans should have the best cloaking technology. It was their invention after all, with the Klingon and Defiant cloaks being older hand-me downs (or something captured in battle).
I agree that the Klingon Battle cloak should not effect hull rating but still think it should weaken shields (shields are big energy signature to mask). I do agree that the passive skill Starship Stealth should do more to mitigate this on Klingon vessels.
On Federation Ships, Starship Stealth should function as ECM (Electronic Countermeasures, in modern NavEng speak), reducing an opponents accuracy. Since the Feds do not use cloaks, their ECM should be better developed than the other two.
Mask Energy Signature should be a Fed-Only in combat option to reflect the Federation's advances in creating "electronic noise" to reduce enemy lock on accuracy. Or it should have a higher bonus for Feds, lesser bonus for Klinks and minor effect for Roms whose ships are already pretty damn stealthy.
Jam Sensors should have an area effect/multiple target option to truly reflect ECM effectiveness in combat (in modern naval combat, you don't jam one ship or one missile. You jam all of them).
Er yeah just remove MES to be honest, no one really uses it and I doubt anyone will notice it going. Also it keeps cloaks squarely in the domain of being an ability of certain ships and restricted to mostly 2 factions. We also have maybe a few too many science abilities as is and they all do different things.
I do think the fed cloak should be usable in battle though but with a long cool down on the cloak. By long I mean something like 45s or even a minute.
There could be an alternative to getting rid of MES, make it a tactical skill. No reason why it should be tactical in nature and stealth is in that tree.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
The thing is, Federation and Klingon captians are at a significant disadvantage because they cannot use their stealth abilities in combat (outside of the bird of prey). Romulans have the best stealth abilities and the ability to use them in combat. I too think the Romulans should keep the best stealth abilities, yet at the same time I think Federation and Klingon captains should be able to stealth their ship while in combat. Simply allowing the use of Standard Cloak and Mask Energy Signature would go a long way in helping both factions compete with Romulan stealth. Mask Energy Signature hurts players already, it's a -20 power to engines/weapons/shields. Standard Cloak can be detected much further out compared to Battle Cloak. Mask Energy Signature is even weaker than Standard Cloak.
I don't think Cryptic should customize the skill tree for each faction, that would be a mess and a massive project. Allowing Standard Cloak/Mask Energy Signature to work in combat would be an easy change. Skill point effects should be universal for all factions, changing that area would add undesirable complexity to the current system.
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The last time CaptainGeko was asked in a podcast, he said there are no plans to add/remove bridge officer abilities due to the difficulty in reseeding the officer candidates.
The ability itself would honestly have application if it could be used in combat. Mask Energy Signature I is 4555 stealth, hiding your ship at 9km or further. Mask Energy Signature III is 4755 stealth, hiding your ship at 5.1km or further. Auxiliary power level will increase this stealth value the same way it works for cloaking. Naturally there are counterstealth abilities, but having the option to use this in combat would make the ability worthwhile.
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Yeah but even if it were done with the old empire They would still not break that treaty to show the new Romulan Empire that they are honouring their old ways with them. After all. you don't want to make a typically paranoid people go back to their old ways because of your own mistakes.
The treaty is more than likely dissolved considering the Romulan Neutral Zone no longer exists ingame. It's not as if D'Tan is going to object to the Federation using cloaking devices. After all, the Federation is providing aid in the form of manpower, supplies, starships, and protection from the Tal Shiar/Elachi. It's not as if the Federation is going to turn around and attack the Romulan Republic via cloaking technology. Starfleet is already on their new homeworld anyway.
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