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A Thread about not cloaking ;)
erhardgrund
Member Posts: 167 Arc User
Hey there. I visit the forums quite regulary but i noticed that basicly every week there is a thread or two about fed needing cloaking devices or battle cloak.
While i wouldnt mind that to much i think it would be nice to revamp the whole cloaking system at some time.
Heres what came to my mind while reading some of those threads:
Non cloaking ships:
Should have in inbuild cloakdetector.A triggered ability much like the nebula console but with a chance to find something in a 60 degree arc infront of the deflector, range is 7.5km .
It works like a spotlight. Activate it and it stays on until you switch it off.
Once you have ship in the cone of the spotlight you can detect the ship instantly and lock it as a target after 3 seconds.
The claoking ship should be allerted though once it is in the cone.
If the ability is switched off the target remains targetable for 5 seconds if it remains cloaked
Standart cloakes should be a bit more resistant to that ability, beeing seen but only beeing targetable by a 50 percent chance every 3 seconds. Ships with a console cloak would only be targettable with a 25 percent chance of a target lock every 3 seconds.
Havinga claocking device would deactivate that ability as it betrays the steath of the user.
Using the ability on non cloacked target ships will give you a 5 second damage bonus bonus similar to the ambush bonus cloaked ships enjoy.
This only works once per activation. Cooldown would be 20 or 30 seconds.
While active the same captains ond boff abilities are disabled as would be in a claoked ship.
That system would somwhat level the playing filed in PvP and give a nice boost to noncloaking vessels. While having claoks be still usefull and giving sandart cloaks a bit more use compard to battlecloaks.
As for Fed having cloakes. Personally i wouldnt mind cloaks but id find it better to give each faction something specific. Having most fed ship and some Klingon having cloakbreakers and leaving standart cloaks and battle cloaks to romulans is imho a better way to keep a bit diversity.
Id stick with optional cloaks for the Fed Dread, the defiant and the avenger.
The only ship id give a battlecloak on the fedside is the aquarius as it suffers from its raider weapons layout but having none of the perks like flanking damager or battlecloack in its present form.
Thoughts?
While i wouldnt mind that to much i think it would be nice to revamp the whole cloaking system at some time.
Heres what came to my mind while reading some of those threads:
Non cloaking ships:
Should have in inbuild cloakdetector.A triggered ability much like the nebula console but with a chance to find something in a 60 degree arc infront of the deflector, range is 7.5km .
It works like a spotlight. Activate it and it stays on until you switch it off.
Once you have ship in the cone of the spotlight you can detect the ship instantly and lock it as a target after 3 seconds.
The claoking ship should be allerted though once it is in the cone.
If the ability is switched off the target remains targetable for 5 seconds if it remains cloaked
Standart cloakes should be a bit more resistant to that ability, beeing seen but only beeing targetable by a 50 percent chance every 3 seconds. Ships with a console cloak would only be targettable with a 25 percent chance of a target lock every 3 seconds.
Havinga claocking device would deactivate that ability as it betrays the steath of the user.
Using the ability on non cloacked target ships will give you a 5 second damage bonus bonus similar to the ambush bonus cloaked ships enjoy.
This only works once per activation. Cooldown would be 20 or 30 seconds.
While active the same captains ond boff abilities are disabled as would be in a claoked ship.
That system would somwhat level the playing filed in PvP and give a nice boost to noncloaking vessels. While having claoks be still usefull and giving sandart cloaks a bit more use compard to battlecloaks.
As for Fed having cloakes. Personally i wouldnt mind cloaks but id find it better to give each faction something specific. Having most fed ship and some Klingon having cloakbreakers and leaving standart cloaks and battle cloaks to romulans is imho a better way to keep a bit diversity.
Id stick with optional cloaks for the Fed Dread, the defiant and the avenger.
The only ship id give a battlecloak on the fedside is the aquarius as it suffers from its raider weapons layout but having none of the perks like flanking damager or battlecloack in its present form.
Thoughts?
Cruisers ftw!
Post edited by erhardgrund on
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Comments
Still waiting to be able to use forum titles
A 60 degrees cone infront of your ship out to 7.5 km is quite a volume of space where cloaked ships would be seen and targetable shortly afterwards. So it would be rather hard to get behind a shp thats manouvers to look out for cloked sihps.
Especially when there are multiple ships searching.
Having it 360 degerees would be somewhat too powerfull imho and , it would be a bit impractical as it , same with a rear arc version only, would be akward to use as the camara perspectice wants to llook forward or on target. It would require to look out rearwards all the time. I just think it wouldnt be fun to use it that way.
And a competent commander, taking the long way around the searchcone and managing to evade it especialy from multiple ships should be rewarded with its ambush bonus wich he, in the current system even gets whatever he or she does.
The Deflector Dish is not the ships sensor array, although sometimes it's used to boost the sensors. Heck half the solutions in Star Trek seem to be playing with the Deflector Dish.
Perhaps a new power would solve the problem, High Energy Scan diverts a small amount of weapons power to Aux for a few seconds and does a couple of 360 degree scans. It could even be a device. Of course if the other Captain is running lots of Aux his Cloak is better and his skills in Stealth counter those you have in Sensors.
If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why.
When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
I agree that a directional cloak detection would be pointless in PvE, and never used in PvP.
The problem isn't cloaks, the problem is balance. Too many clicky damage abilities, too much shield bypass, too much cool down reduction, too much healing.
There will never be balance though, so the best start would be to get rid of the silly trinity. Engineers in cruisers wanted more damage, so we got A2B, which is exploited by all classes. Sci wanted more exotic damage, so now tacs run around with FBP which is more damaging due to APA.
Throwing out buffs and heals needs to go. It allows teams to build hitters with no heals, no damage healers, and super focused scis. PvP would be much more playable if every ship had to sacrifice some design space for heals. This is why 1v1 is pretty much the only easily playable PvP
Finally, there needs to be better balance and themes amongst the three sides. FEDs should get a minimum of 50% higher hull and shield hp than their counterparts. KDF should be the highest damage faction, full flank bonuses and more tac console/weapon slots. Rommies should be about trickery, bonuses to confuse/placate/disable abilities.
At the end of the day, someone has to die in PvP, while no one should die in PvE. Developing a game focused on one necessarily sacrifices the playability of the other. The true no win scenario.
hull strength 1000000000
sheild modifier 232.4
turn rate: 300
fore:9000
aft9000
engineer consoles:34
science 34
tactical 67
enhanced phased battle cloak (can fire all weapons while cloaked)
No custom interior? LAME.
Wheres my Hybrid seats for any all future specializations? And if that wasn't enough, I can't use my T1 Connie skin on it - LAME! :mad:
Still waiting to be able to use forum titles
My concern isnt only about pvp att all.Im pvp Ive done what is discribed here many times, i have 6 levels of sensor skills on my sci captain for example who can also employ sensor scan to improve odds and always runs with at least 80 aux power.
Please understand that my attemt is merely about giving non cloaking vessels something in return for not having a cloak and ambush damage and im not exclusivly talking about most fed ships but about the klingon carriers, the gorn ships, the nausicans the orions and most cross faction ships as well.
I wouldnt boost them into giving them cloaks but something that makes them usefull against cloakers
without needing to invest more into skillpoints that serve no other purpose, while the opposition does not have to invest anything to get their bonuses.
And to give the kdf , wich is plaqued with not having battlecloaks something that makes them harder to target once found.
The whole searchlight idea was ment to be a limiting factor so it doesnt guarranty a find so cloaks would remain usefull and manouvering around your target would benifit the cloaker.
The cone of detection is also ment to benefit those who manouver to find somethign and a team with that ability would easily cover quite a volume so it would be hard to hide.
That was the intention. And with a slight boost to damage for using it on non cloacking targets it was supposed to encourage poeple to use it in pve as well as non cloakers cant match the damage bonus from ambush attacks.
And klingons cant even mount the picard manouver wich forther adds to the firepower and stealth superiority of fed aligned romulans.
Have you ever tried to spec into stealth on a character using a ship with a cloak?
I'm honestly curious.
Actually yes on a romulan flying a tvaro to counter the effect of the singularity charges making you easier to detect. It did work I guess but a fleetmate advised me to rather get a doff with the ability to add aux power while cloaked and running a slightly higher aux would save me those skillpoints.
So i respeced for testing and i couldnt expirience much of a difference. The only two time I definitly noticed i was found while being cloaked was by a nebula of a fleetmate who I know runs the anticloak console and a second time when i stupidly ran into the multi dimensional shield of a vesta because i was typing in ingame chat.:P
On my fleetmates character specking into stealth is rather moot as he flyies the scimitar 3pack wich hides the singularity core better and keeps its shields. But well the scimitar is a special case alltogether i guess.
Yeah they are spoiled at least they have a choice because KDF rarely gets choices in any matter. They did offer up the first battle cruiser with a battle cloak for the KDF but the trade off is crappy tactical power and the rebuttal would be the battle cloak but we can't extend the cloak ambush duration so that is a futile argument... 5 seconds of extra damage vs romulan 1 minute ambush roflmao.
For KDF we can't join the 50k dps club and we can't join the science club so either way we are screwed over.
::looks at 5 sci console T-5U varanus::
What cloaked ship comes within 2-5 km that isn't already making its alpha strike? Once you cross that 5km barrier you get full damage on your cannons, so by the time you spot them it's probably already too late to react.
How is that even meant to work?
Does Fire at Will now randomly shoot into space if there is a cloaked ship in 10ks of you? Or all the time crippling it's usefulness?
Their are abilities like photonic shockwave that are more like what you want, but they do have limited range as if to somehow balance them.
If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why.
When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
I do wish they would make detecting cloacked ships in PVE functional. I would take my Neb' out every time against Donatara.
I am not convinced that she leaves the map. I have had fighters actually follow the ship. I would click on the fighters when they flew away and they had her targeted.
I have actually pulled her out of cloak a couple of times. If you have the Cloak seeking Torpedo Console you can hit her with that too.
If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why.
When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
Amen...:D Enough said.
Oh many I mostly played KDF but I don't think I've used my fed with a nebula since like season 3. They just make so many decisions that affect ships in the manner that they go obsolete. If anything to give them some use they should put out some adventure zone where you fight the renegrade klingons, gorn, and tal shiar to make use of anti-cloak and battle cloak usage/cloak detection to make those ships useful again.