Cloaking the Ships/Fleets

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The very first galciv game had this (os/2 days) and it was bad, apparently. I can imagine. The AI were good at it, and people don't like being surprised.

Sorry, but over my dead lizard ass.

Cloaking ships, sure. But planets? No way.

Frogboy has said no cloaking period. Even if he was to allow cloaking it would be too much work for 1.2 it would have to be included in the future expansion. I recently did a post for an optional Cloak/Anti-Cloak tech tree for the expansion. Here is the Link

i would love some stealth tech for ships, and even starbases. it would be impossible to render a planet fully untracable, because the planets gravity would affect the wobble of the star in the system.

and i loved fight against Darloks, why not some cloaked Drengin?

No, cloaked planets would not work. But imagine if we could get orbital defenses in the game and you could cloak them too. Certain people are concerned about allowing it don't want cloaking because they want to see who is attacking them but with a proper Anti-Cloak tech tree you would just need to equip your ships to detect cloaking. Just like you use shields to counter lasers and point defense to counter missiles. Several other games in this genre have successfully implemented cloaking.

If not cloaking why not Camouflage? I dont know how hard it would be to put that in, but AI wouldnt be as much of a problem and it could be more a radar (or whatever the tech is in GC2) scrambler kind of thing.

RedWarrior888, Cloaking is a camoflage. Anything that makes you blend in with your enviroment and helps hide you is a camoflage. The question is how would you hide in space? Paint your ship black? This would deny a visual, yes. But sensors on other ships would detect your hull, you would still emit EM, and your engines would still be noisy and leave some sort of exhaust. You really should read my link if you want cloaking and maybe together we can convince Frogboy to maybe make it an option for the expansion.
Link

How about the cloaking of a ship or fleet can only last for X turns, while simultaneously limiting the speed to 1pc/week? Or at least, decloaking would use up all your remaining movement points. So you can sneak up to a planet or other target, but cannot attack it right away, without showing yourself to your enemy. I suppose this would be more useful against human players, who tend to concentrate defenses around border worlds, as opposed to the AI which puts armed ships everywhere. So against the AI it might be more useful for retreating damaged but otherwise valuable ships.

chriskrusz, the real issue is convincing Frogboy that:
1. There are alot of people that would like to see cloaking in the game.
2. It could be set as an option so that people who do not want cloaking are not forced to deal with it.
3. That it could be implemented in a balanced manner.

If you read my link above you will see I have already proposed this as an option and included sample cloak/anti-cloak tech trees. What is really needed is for people to bring my proposal to the attention of Frogboy and the devs, and let them know we really want it. I can't do it alone. The more you mention something and the better prepared your arguement the more likely you are at making a change.

Well, you could use these to go along with rock-paper-scissors combat styles
You could have Matter-Energy-Thermal

Thermal Scanners detect ships with no Thermal Coolers
Radioactive Scanners detect all ships giving off energy, unless it has EFR (Energy-Field-Recycling)
Matterial Scanner would simply detect anything without Dynamic designs (B-2 like designs, Dynamic could be a seperate hull type)
Telepathy scanner (Matter) would scan for any ship with crews on it (good tech) unless the ship has Brain Crusher (evil tech) or was a Dynamic ship.

it could also branch off from the sensor techs.

cloaking for planets - no, would be just a bit too over powered.

cloaking for ships? sure - but make the cloaks themselves take up a huge chunk of space, gives automatic first strike (even after they, if they, fix combat) and then a cool down of a few turns or a minimum innitial distance from enemy ships before they work again on the main map.

the key being.. the space and cost the cloaking device takes up on a ship must be = or > a serious amount of weapons/engines/defenses to make up for the stealth factor. even then, with max miniturization at later stages in the game, it would be hard to balance.

consider just being able to toss one on a 5k+ troop transport w/o some form of restrictions and you can see where it would become unbalanced quick.

Cloaking doesn't have to take up huge amounts of space you just have be able to counter cloaking. Limitations couldn't hurt, but for every type of cloaking tech you would have to have a tech to counter it. Alot of other games of this type have cloaking. Cloaking is also extremely popular in SciFi. In Star Trek the Romulans and the Klingons have cloaking and the other races do not. Do they control the galaxy? No, because the other races have discovered ways to decect thier cloaks. That is one example of many, if you watch alot of SciFi or play alot of space strategy games you will find some sort of cloaking.

NO please No and Onikazi this is a game not a TV show

First off it just add more complexity to the tech tree (its hard enough to decide what to reserch next already thank you) and basicly if your oponent gose for cloaking devices you would be FORCED to go down the Anti-cloaking tree and i dont like that.

Secondly Image the magnificent AI it has, now think of how much more you would get our ass kicked if it could use cloaking tech

Edit: Also just because other games may have cloaking dose not mean GC2 has too

I wanted cloaking devices too at first but I'd say that cloaking is not really nescessary if it could be made visible which areas of the map a race can see and which not.
Why? Because I had a case in which an area near one of my planets was fogged. So I didn't see what was going on there. Suddenly at the end of the computer's turn a drengin fleet dropped out of hyperspace directly beside that planet.
SOOO, if we knew which areas are visible to the enemy we could move our ships through that area near enough for the AI not to notice them till it's too late.

Solourus, you are right this is not a TV show it is a STRATEGY game and if you had read my post you would have seen the word OPTIONAL for cloaking. There is alot more to strategy then building ships, a large economy to support your war effort, and invading planets. If you were ever in the military, which I was for almost 8 years, you would know one of the most important factors in any good strategy is a good defensible position. It doesn't matter how much you conquer if you can't hold on to it. The 3 keys to a good defensive position are:

1. Maintain the High Ground. Space is the Ultimate High Ground (this is the current doctrine of the US Air Force hence defensive satelites called the Star Wars program).

2. Cover. This would be anything you can hide behind that protects you from enemy fire (in game terms this is armor, shields, and point defense).

3. Concealment. This is anything that hides you or disguises you from the enemy. There is nothing in the game that covers concealment. Concealment is very real without it our military would not be as mighty as it is. You see it everywhere, the camoflage uniforms soldiers wear, stealth planes, and submarines are just a few examples.

As far as the reality of cloaks, everything I've mentioned in my proposed OPTIONAL tech trees with the exception of shields, light bending (this is also called refraction it causes objects underwater to appear displaced when viewed from the surface), and phasing; are current modern military technologies.

Concerning the 3 things that are not current technologies they are all very real scientific theories. Albert Einstein's unified field theory states that given enough energy a force field could be created to bend light around and object and effectively make it invisible. Scientists have also recently discovered a way to use something called SUPERLENS to force light to travel backwords to give an object a limited type of cloak.

It has also been scientifically proven that certain types of particles phase or change thier density to pass through solid objects.

First off it just add more complexity to the tech tree (its hard enough to decide what to reserch next already thank you) .

Personally I think it's a good idea to give you headaches in deciding what to do, the more strategic options the better.

and basicly if your oponent gose for cloaking devices you would be FORCED to go down the Anti-cloaking tree and i dont like that

Maybe, but that depends on how you implent the cloaking devise. It's no worse, then being 'forced' to go down a certain weapon tech if the opponent has high defenses in shields.

I vote no.

I remember using "cloak" when I was playing Earth & Beyond (don't get me started on E&B..). In this game, however, you can build a ship that is so fast, that it might as well be cloaked. I am frequently attacked, seemingly out of nowhere, by other civs (whose ships just pop up on the screen from the ether). Make sense?

Cloaking is a nice adea, I think what worries people is it will just get silly, as the AI will always use cloaking devices. Enlight of this, they could make it take up more space, so the cloaked ship would not be as tough as the one without a cloak. But would win if it weren't seen. It could destroy the cloak detector ships before they warships were sent to open fire or something. But yea, thats my idea.

I think perhaps something better than a cloaking technology would be some sort of disguise technology. Such technologies would let you disguise ships as either being weaker or stronger than they actually are through new modules (one set of modules to weaken your appearance, one set to amplify them, and possibly one at the end of both branches to completely block the weapon and defence values). The sensor techs could be extended into scanner technologies which could cut through the disguises to some degree.

Thus, if you neglected the scanner technologies, you might know where an attack was coming from, but wouldn't know exactly how powerful the ships in the attacking fleet are.

Well I figured cloaking would be cool to have. Yea I know cloaking a planet would be too much but cloaking a ship should be fine. I would limit it to only 1 or 2 ship sizes due to power involved. either a medium ship or a large ship but not for a huge ship. At least something along those lines. Better still would be a cloaking ship that has only 1 job to cloak another ship. The cloak is only effective for x amount of space tiles no more than 2 closer than that and scanner tech would catch the ship. I also like the option approach.
For the gamers that get their arses handed to them they can simply turn off cloaking ship ability for the game. Yea I know it's a whiners wimp out but they do exsist and have to be accounted for so give them a little toggle button so they can't be surprised at all. But it is evident that there are gamers here that would like to see the Cloaking implemented at least for a ship only or for a fleet only kind of thing.
Sure using the argument that just because others games have something similar doesnt mean GC2 has to as well but at the same time it doesn't mean it can't have it and can't improve on the idea. It does add a new level to the strategy that is not there now You could also have new Starbase modules for detection, which in turn gives you a new twist to perimeter defenses. The UP could have a vote on it even. There are alot of folks that are talking about the tech tree goes too fast. Perhaps there should be more techs to develope then.

With the right combination of cloaking tech and anti-cloaking tech it adds to the games strategy in an area that is lacking now. But to just whine and say no way is no better than saying No Terror Stars allowed or My personal favorite Shredder Tech You get that one tech alone and you've unbalanced the game in your favor almost everytime.

Sorta makes one ask the question if you buy a strategy game why would you not want something that adds to the strategy unless you only like games that offer no real effort on your part to outthink, it just doesn't make any real sense. Just add in a toggle for Cloaking or Non Cloaking ability. Myself I like the games to be as challenging as possible who can enjoy a cakewalk everytime.

The idea of cloaking could work.. but most of the theories ive seen are terribly flawed. I believe that it should be more of an extra defence rating and instead of a entire new tech tree add it in for like getting (example)-*Barriers and Miniturization*(not these actual techs.. i cant look at all the techs right now to see what looks best... but you get the idea) Since cloaking in reality is a possiblity and from what i understand by bending light on the hull of a ship would render it "invisible". Moving on i figure these ships produce enough energy for the amount of systems it implements you know.. cloaking would probly come around during or after large hulls and Warp Drive I or II by that time ships are implementing enough power to bend space X1.5-X2 considering Hyperdrive is simply being able to bend space and travel the speed of light. So what im saying here is i think around this time weak versions of cloaking devices would be able to be implemented on ships and nothing else. Im thinking of it being like a piece you add when building a new ship or upgrading them... So now people think like So ships will cloaked all the time? the AI wont be able to see me ever? LAWL sweet! ... no no... no. What these would do is add another roll to the battle since battles are predetermined and then you get to watch it if you want.. or skip it if you like, it would make it more difficult for opponets to hit you or.. perhaps give slight bonus to the armor modules on the ship already. So your saying wont the enemy sensors pick up on a ship with cloaking module? Well im not sure but I think that in order to bend light you would have to have an object that has some pretty powerful electro magnetic waves and i think the more advances the cloaking module the more electric interferance with enemies sensor ability but obviously when the enemy fired you would be able to tell where they are and there would be nothing stopping you from looking out into space and looking for where the stars are bent because of the light being bent around the hull of the opposing ship.... I suppose ill end here before i reach a point where i have no clue at all what im talking about im sure this will come under harsh criticism from people but it doesnt matter i thiought id say this because so many of you were talking like "ships should get a strategic cloak so i can swoop in a insane fleet on the enemy capital and capture it while they have cloaked ships all over which would cause nothing but random chaotic battles."

Sorry it double posted, perhaps a moderator could delete this here.?

Y'know, instead of all-or-nothing 'cloaking', why not just define a 'stealth tech tree' of five-six levels... Stealth Plating I-II-III, Scanner Interference I-II, Cloaking Device. Stealth Plating would have a rating of 1, Scanner Interference would have 2, Cloaking Device would have 3.

So what would they do? Well, every point of rating would... act as an additional square of distance when determining if you showed up on scanners or not.

So, you're planning an invasion of the enemy homeworld. They typically have ships with a scanner range of 7. You slap two Cloaking Devices (or three Scanner Interference Networks or whatever), and suddenly, they can only see you if you're right next to them.

It would also let you build up fleets without triggering the "Hey, you're building up a fleet! We don't like you!" message.

Size-wise, the modules would need to take up, say, the same space as a weapon (or maybe a weapon and a defense) and would need to be expensive... and the AI would need to be tweaked so that it would occasionally build dedicated Scanner Ships when it believes cloaking tech may be in play... also, this way, cloaked ships aren't really good for defense, since anythign in orbit around your planet is visibl anyway. It's definately a dedication of the ship to offense... but it won't be as good at it as a non-cloaked ship. Once the novelty of it wears off, cloaks may not be useful, so you need to plan out where and when to use them.

Nice idea Infinitywp. But given the difficulty of Ai with sensors, this is just another way for the human to bash the AI...