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Cloaking Tech


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Cloaking tech  

64 members have voted

  1. 1. Dynamic constructs only

    • Yes no restrictions
      7
    • Limited and costly but viable
      48
    • Do not add this the game will die before it begins
      9
  2. 2. Static constructs only

    • Yes no restrictions
      7
    • Limited and costly but viable
      38
    • Do not add this the game will die before it begins
      19
  3. 3. Players only

    • Yes no restrictions
      5
    • Limited and costly but viable
      34
    • Do not add this the game will die before it begins
      25


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Unown006 yea I put that up for some good information and insight but I also got tired of people not wanting restraints on cloaking . Cloaking doesn't exists in real life its a Sci-fi tool for fun with no real science behind it yet so you might as well call it a magical system.  

 

I have no problem with them putting cloaking in DU I would just like to make sure there is some balance!  Unbalance game play has also ben a factors that has killed a lot of games.

 

Many people will come up with great ideas for system but don't forget they also need some balance. Having the 007 Golden gun is great when you have it but not so much for the other players!

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In MMO's, "cloaking" is usually managed by limiting its function via game design restrictions.

 

For example, only ship class X can fit a cloak, but that class can only mount "small" weapons and doesn't have any "armour slots", etc..

 

In DU, that management becomes very tricky, because there are no pre-defined ship hulls or "weapon slot" mechanics that can be manipulated to limit the effectiveness of cloaks.

 

DU will have to balance cloaks by using the attributes of the ship elements themselves. Cost can be a contributing factor, but it's not effective by itself. "Expensive" is relative to the wealth of players at any given moment, but that's a moving target in any MMO, as players have more and more money as the years go by. And DAC can always be used to boost ship construction funds...

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7 hours ago, Korvid Rin said:

That's when "running silent" would work best.  Mitigate all emissions as best you can,  shut off all systems but life support and passive sensors.  Then all you have to worry about is your radar and optical signatures. I suspect most fast-paced battles will take place in atmo.

Oh yea major das boot vibes. Turn off all the engines and stay quiet. Would be pretty neat.

7 hours ago, Korvid Rin said:

Fighting in space will be hard,  if not nearly impossible unless it's between galaxy class ships that aren't moving.  If the physics maintains a semblance of realism

In atmosphere it's would only be easier if the planes had aerodynamic lifting as they could correct their course easier. As of now they don't have that. All crafts take off using VTOL boosters. These boosters can actually negate the gravitational pull of planets to a reasonable degree. This gives more straight trajectories parallel or perpendicular to the planet surface but not laterally.

 

They have said they will add aerodynamic lifting parts so what you said will be true for the most part. If you've ever seen cowboy bebop (space bounty hunters) you will see the big host craft - the bebop - has 2 smaller strike craft detach. Its hardly cruiser level. It's just a small ship they live in. I think interception will work the same way. One carrier ship with high acceleration moves to intercept and then the nimble craft with less delta v are deployed. Doesn't have to be large capital ships. It can be scaled down.

 

Effectively space dogfights would be no different from atmospheric dogfights apart from the absence of lift. All aircraft nowadays have to deploy from hangars do they not? And all spacefighters must therefore deploy from a host vessel.

 

But I digress: as for magical invisible cloaks I think they can work off the engineer report on the craft as a reference for balancing. It can work in a way that makes it vulnerable to magnetometric detection. More mass = harder to cloak = stronger magnetic field = more magnetometric detection.

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29 minutes ago, Veld said:

Effectively space dogfights would be no different from atmospheric dogfights apart from the absence of lift. All aircraft nowadays have to deploy from hangars do they not? And all spacefighters must therefore deploy from a host vessel.

 

But I digress: as for magical invisible cloaks I think they can work off the engineer report on the craft as a reference for balancing. It can work in a way that makes it vulnerable to magnetometric detection. More mass = harder to cloak = stronger magnetic field = more magnetometric detection.

Unless the physics of the game goes into the realm of total scifi, movement in space is completely different.  Not only absence of lift,  but gravity,  atmo drag,  (its harder to change direction in space at high velocity) not to mention distance(space is BIG). 

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1 minute ago, Korvid Rin said:

Not only absence of lift,  but gravity,  atmo drag,  (its harder to change direction in space at high velocity) not to mention distance(space is BIG)

This is not true at all.

 

1. Gravity is always acting on you no matter where you are in the universe. Only to varying degrees. In game there is no gravity from the center of the galaxy or the sun however. Therefore gravity in interstellar space would be low. I'm not sure how they will handle stellar systems and such but I think they will make it so you cover interstellar space with some form of FTL technology as it would take a stupidly long time otherwise. If interstellar space is so large and empty then I don't see any battles occuring there at all. There is simply nothing to fight over.

Also considering the sun is a skybox then moving with conventional propellant from one system to another will be impossible. If the sun is infinitely far away then no matter where you are in the system then the system is infinitely large. They will probably fix this though considering the universe is procedurally generated.

 

2. Changing course significantly relative to the current velocity vector at high velocity consumes a lot of propellant. Of course. But it does for your target too. If they are moving so fast that you have to catch up then they will find it as hard to change course as you.

Once you have caught up with them everything is within your own frame of reference. And you would move normally. They are going to cap the max velocity in space anyway. It would be way too game breaking otherwise from a computational point of view.

 

3. Yes space is big but if everyone has big delta v then it's no issue.

 

Anyway let's try and keep this relevant to OPs discussion.

 

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Sorry,  didn't mean to go that far off topic. My point was,  cloaking tech is fine,  in the realm of current or soon to be tech.  No invisible battleships or bases,  a reduction in electronic tracking?  Sure.  Looking out the window of your ship and being fired upon by some invisible enemy? No. 

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6 hours ago, Korvid Rin said:

Sorry,  didn't mean to go that far off topic. My point was,  cloaking tech is fine,  in the realm of current or soon to be tech.  No invisible battleships or bases,  a reduction in electronic tracking?  Sure.  Looking out the window of your ship and being fired upon by some invisible enemy? No. 

No worries

 

Totally. Cloaking needs limitations. With what I suggested they would be bad at sneaking up on a base because the magnetometric sensors would detect them. But in space there would be radar which could detect them as well. I thought of having a radar scrambling device which a ship could deploy to make radars go haywire and detect false signatures. The device is still visible and could be destroyed. Therefore the most effective use for cloaked vessels would be nestling them in debris fields in ambush with scramblers tucked into alcoves.

 

This ensures that cloaking isn't totally obsolete against ships with radar but doesn't make them OP.

 

Edit: should give a full rundown of how I think it should work:

 

Static sensors- costly/ long range:

Magnetometric - more electrical systems/ discharges = detection

Gravimetric - more mass = detection

Thermal - heating effects like reentry, rocket boosters and radiation = detection.

 

Dynamic/ static sensor- cheap/ short range:

Radar- large cross section = detection

 

Static can be fitted to bases only. Dynamic/ static can be fitted to ships and bases.

 

Invisibility cloak devices make more electrical discharge and therefore are vulnerable to magnetometric sensors when active.

 

In addition a radar scrambler can be ejected like a munitions round to make enemy radar go nuts within a certain radius.

 

Another edit: it makes sense to have a radar scrambler as something you shoot out away from you as it would only scramble your own radar otherwise

 

Edited by Veld
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9 minutes ago, NanoDot said:

How would 2 cloaked fleets find each other to do battle ? :D

Radar. You will either see a load of scramblers floating a few hundred metres in front of you or loads of blips on your console. Both are a dead giveaway.

If the scramblers are hidden inside debris field then it doesn't matter. Nobody in their right mind would seek to cross a debris field if they knew the enemy was close.

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Exactly - cloaking is boring when it's an Iwin button. It's way better to enforce emergent gameplay - especially when all the neccessary tools (like detection/cloaking formulas/chances) are already in the game (or planned for pvp, that is).

 

Your rundown is exactly what I was talking about with twerk - it just makes more sense for DU to go a better way than a simple "magical cloak"

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10 hours ago, GunDeva said:

Unown006 yea I put that up for some good information and insight but I also got tired of people not wanting restraints on cloaking . Cloaking doesn't exists in real life its a Sci-fi tool for fun with no real science behind it yet so you might as well call it a magical system.  

 

I have no problem with them putting cloaking in DU I would just like to make sure there is some balance!  Unbalance game play has also ben a factors that has killed a lot of games.

 

Many people will come up with great ideas for system but don't forget they also need some balance. Having the 007 Golden gun is great when you have it but not so much for the other players!

Thats why I posted it as well 

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All of this discussion is just fluff for how stealth/detection works.  None of it is needed for actual game play.  If you have different sensors, and different types of stealth it will simply require adding all of them to every ship to be able to perform that function.  It will add nothing to the gameplay except cost unless there is some "magical" limit of not having certain types of mechanics on the ship together.

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6 minutes ago, Felonu said:

All of this discussion is just fluff for how stealth/detection works.  None of it is needed for actual game play.  If you have different sensors, and different types of stealth it will simply require adding all of them to every ship to be able to perform that function.  It will add nothing to the gameplay except cost unless there is some "magical" limit of not having certain types of mechanics on the ship together.

None of it is needed you say I see would you like to fly a ship blind or only have visible view? 

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2 minutes ago, unown006 said:

None of it is needed you say I see would you like to fly a ship blind or only have visible view? 

You misunderstood my point.  I wasn't saying the detection and stealth are unnecessary.  I was pointing out that having multiple types of detection and ways around them doesn't benefit the game play.  If people need that to feel immersed in the game I don't have any problem with it, but to me it is added complexity for no real benefit.  I wasn't saying the detection and stealth are unnecessary.

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1 hour ago, Felonu said:

All of this discussion is just fluff for how stealth/detection works.  None of it is needed for actual game play.  If you have different sensors, and different types of stealth it will simply require adding all of them to every ship to be able to perform that function.  It will add nothing to the gameplay except cost unless there is some "magical" limit of not having certain types of mechanics on the ship together.

You have misinterpreted the discussion.

 

The limits are not magical. They are necessary.

 

Adding invisibility cloaks, as lethys put it, is an 'I win' button. He's got cloaks; you don't see him coming. Unless you add radar. In that case it's 'I win' and 'You activated my trap card'. That's it. So in this one dimensional system everybody will simply use cloaks and radar. Absolutely everyone. Everyone will effectively be fighting invisible blips. Unless of course we use the 'magical' limitations like in other games. Like cloaks don't work well while moving or you need less armour or they run out of charge etc. But the ships in DU can't be controlled and can't be prescribed as distinct and carefully balanced classes. Players can make whatever they want and there are tons of possibilities. It's emergent gameplay.

 

What lethys (OP) suggested was we add different detection types to counter the 'I win/trap card' problem whilst maintaining emergent gameplay. The sensors are balanced and not the ships. What was discussed was the issue you have brought up of just adding every sensor; making diverse detection obsolete.

 

What I suggested was we impose limitations that are non intrusive towards the player's creativity but encourage stratagem. Again: limitations on the sensing devices and not on the ships. These limitations are as follows:

  • Radar is balanced for dynamic constructs and short range.
  • Radar is general use. It can detect anything with form and therefore it's sensible for everyone to have one.
  • As radar can detect anything anywhere they are consequently debuffed for shorter range.
  • Gravimetric, magnetometric and thermal are balanced for static constructs and are long range
  • However they are specialised devices and should be used for specialised situations.
  • They are rooted to the spot and only operate in their area of detection therefore they are buffed for long range.
  • Invisibility cloaks can be used by any ship. But they pop up on a magnetometric sensor.
  • Radar can detect anything. But it can be scrambled.
  • Scramblers can scramble radar. But they can be destroyed.

 

Every device has a lower limit of detection. Anything value that can be sensed below a certain magnitude is absolutely unable to be detected. This gives designers breathing room for creativity ensuring they don't lose out to 'meta thruster bricks' with nothing else but a cloak block and a cockpit.

 

Every specialised device is good on certain base types:

  • Magnetometric - good for bases in debris fields where cloakers hide
  • Gravimetric - good for bases out in the open where big fleets can move through
  • Thermal - good for planetside bases where people send dropships through that heat up on entry.

 

The way this plays out encourages multidimensional thinking whilst not limiting creativity. It also makes sense from an immersion point of view as it encourages people not to use guns blazing destroyer ships for stealth operations.

 

As a sidenote I actually said earlier we should make static sensors cost more than dynamic. I'll take the opportunity here to correct myself on that. We don't need to limit them like that; limiting them to one per base. It just doesn't make logical sense to have all of them on your base from a design point of view as they inherently appeal to different base types.

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40 minutes ago, Veld said:

You have misinterpreted the discussion.

 

The limits are not magical. They are necessary.

 

Adding invisibility cloaks, as lethys put it, is an 'I win' button. He's got cloaks; you don't see him coming. Unless you add radar. In that case it's 'I win' and 'You activated my trap card'. That's it. So in this one dimensional system everybody will simply use cloaks and radar. Absolutely everyone. Everyone will effectively be fighting invisible blips. Unless of course we use the 'magical' limitations like in other games. Like cloaks don't work well while moving or you need less armour or they run out of charge etc. But the ships in DU can't be controlled and can't be prescribed as distinct and carefully balanced classes. Players can make whatever they want and there are tons of possibilities. It's emergent gameplay.

 

-snip for brevity-

  • Radar is balanced for dynamic constructs and short range.
  • Radar is general use. It can detect anything with form and therefore it's sensible for everyone to have one.
  • As radar can detect anything they are consequently debuffed for shorter range.
  • Gravimetric, magnetometric and thermal are balanced for static constructs and are long range
  • However they are specialised devices and should be used for specialised situations.
  • They are rooted to the spot and therefore they are buffed for long range.
  • Invisibility cloaks can be used by any ship. But they pop up on a magnetometric sensor.
  • Radar can detect anything. But it can be scrambled.
  • Scramblers can scramble radar. But they can be destroyed.

-snip-

The point is that everyone will just have all the sensors.  It doesn't matter how many different types are created.  And all ships will either not be able to stealth, or will have all the types of stealth possible.  If you make it so that you can't hide from 1 sensor if you are hiding from a different type, then stealth just ends up not being possible.  If you make some kind of limit to what kinds of sensors that can be combined on a ship, people will just find ways to work around it.

 

It ends up working so all ships that want to stealth have all types of stealth technology available and all ships that need to be able to detect them have all types of sensors.  It ends up being the same functionality as the "Magic Cloaks" just with different fluff.  The only way to keep people from putting all the different sensors on probably every ship would be to create artificial limits on the sensors so that they just can't be put on the ships, and even then people will just make small cores with the different sensors and permanantly "dock" them on the ship.

 

My point is that all these rules, and complexities don't end up changing anything.  They are mechanics that are easily gotten around and end up just costing more money to accomplish the same function as the "magic cloak" or a single sensor type.

Edited by Felonu
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2 hours ago, Felonu said:

The point is that everyone will just have all the sensors.  It doesn't matter how many different types are created. 

No they wont. You can only have radar on moving ships. You can have all sensors on bases. But they are not needed. Why would tiny cloakers try and make a bee line for a base out in the open? Why would you need to detect reentry in space? Why would you need to detect massive fleets in areas where there is a lot of debris? Even if you had all of them on your base: it doesn't matter at all. Any craft constructed outside of the lower limits of the sensors can't be seen. Which brings me on to your next point:

2 hours ago, Felonu said:

And all ships will either not be able to stealth, or will have all the types of stealth possible.

Exactly. Do you want big fat effortlessly stealthed battlefleet gank squads that spam all their nukes on you as soon as you're in range? Do you want your ultra nimble bare bones ninja craft to be effortlessly detected and shot down by some random guy with an omniscient radar? Do either of your opponents want to engage in gameplay as boring and one dimensional as that?

With the idea in discussion there is an incentive to make ninja ships but they are not totally invulnerable. And thus we move on to the next point:

2 hours ago, Felonu said:

If you make it so that you can't hide from 1 sensor if you are hiding from a different type, then stealth just ends up not being possible...It ends up working so all ships that want to stealth have all types of stealth technology available and all ships that need to be able to detect them have all types of sensors.

Not true. I said radar can detect you all the time. You need a scrambler to mess it up. But the scramblers can be destroyed provided they find it. The element of stratagem is in:

  1. Where you place your scrambler
  2. When you place it
  3. Where you hide
  4. When you react
  5. If you bail out or retaliate.
2 hours ago, Felonu said:

If you make some kind of limit to what kinds of sensors that can be combined on a ship, people will just find ways to work around it.

Yes it's called strategy. You strategise that making a ninja ship invulnerable to everything but radar is the best option. You can scramble radar but it requires thought as I said before.

2 hours ago, Felonu said:

The only way to keep people from putting all the different sensors on probably every ship would be to create artificial limits on the sensors so that they just can't be put on the ships

It's not the only form of limitation. You can limit the nature of your equipment as well as the placement. Radar is unlimited in detecting capability while the others are limited. The point of the idea in discussion is to eliminate the I win/trap card problem. With one detection/stealth system there is no way to stealth or no way to detect. If you don't see him because he's cloaked then you don't see him. But if you see him on radar then you see him. It's obsolete.

The way the idea works is like so: you can perform well in one situation but not the other. And you can perform exceptionally in the former situation if you employ the right techniques. For example:

I pilot my light vessel with little equipment, heat shielding, radar scramblers and a cloaking device as a backup (it's switched off most of the time). It is the meta as it is on the boundaries of mass, ablation and magnetic field strength limits for detection. But I can still get caught by radar if I'm not careful with how I use my scramblers and where I position myself.

2 hours ago, Felonu said:

My point is that all these rules, and complexities don't end up changing anything.  They are mechanics that are easily gotten around and end up just costing more money to accomplish the same function as the "magic cloak" or a single sensor type.

It's not futile and it's certainly not easy. It's necessary to stop the obsolescence of detection when faced with stealth vice versa. It's necessary to encourage people to employ more than one technique and git gud. It's necessary to create balance in a game where balance is hard to enforce.

 

I am aware the idea is heavily dependent on the fact radar is unlimited in terms of detection. But you have to significantly limit the range on it because that causes omniscience. And with short range radar you are totally vulnerable to things waiting just outside that range. You will be effectively blind to the cloaked up behemoth of a ship coming to chew your base to pieces. Thus there arises the need for long range sensors that are limited in detection capabilities.

 

Edit: you mentioned attaching cores together. This is wishy washy as to how NQ will handle it. I don't think you can attach a static to dynamic without limitations. I actually mentioned it in a post I made on physics where you can see the source from the FB page. They only said there would be an exception for space stations. Overall it was very ambiguous. Unless you have more info that is.

Edited by Veld
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4 hours ago, Veld said:

No they wont. You can only have radar on moving ships. You can have all sensors on bases. But they are not needed. Why would tiny cloakers try and make a bee line for a base out in the open? Why would you need to detect reentry in space? Why would you need to detect massive fleets in areas where there is a lot of debris? Even if you had all of them on your base: it doesn't matter at all. Any craft constructed outside of the lower limits of the sensors can't be seen. Which brings me on to your next point:

Why can you only have radar on moving ships?  That is the king of artificial limit I'm talking about.  A movable object and a not movable object (if there are any differences after release) are actually the same thing, if you aren't moving.  Why couldn't a ship have all the sensors work if it isn't moving? 

 

If you are going to use that mechanic, why not a mechanic that just says you have an X% chance to see an enemy at Y range, and adjust those by the stealthers stealth skill, and the detectors scanning skill.  

 

4 hours ago, Veld said:

Do you want big fat effortlessly stealthed battlefleet gank squads that spam all their nukes on you as soon as you're in range? Do you want your ultra nimble bare bones ninja craft to be effortlessly detected and shot down by some random guy with an omniscient radar? Do either of your opponents want to engage in gameplay as boring and one dimensional as that?

That goes back to adjusting the possibility of being seen based on different factors.  The test could just as effectively be done based on the quality of the detection system vs the quality of the stealth system and further adjusted by things like the profile of the stealth ship, etc.  This doesn't require complex systems of 5 different sensors that detect different types of effects from the stealth ship.

 

4 hours ago, Veld said:

With the idea in discussion there is an incentive to make ninja ships but they are not totally invulnerable. And thus we move on to the next point:

Not true. I said radar can detect you all the time. You need a scrambler to mess it up. But the scramblers can be destroyed provided they find it. The element of stratagem is in:

  1. Where you place your scrambler
  2. When you place it
  3. Where you hide
  4. When you react
  5. If you bail out or retaliate.

Yes it's called strategy. You strategise that making a ninja ship invulnerable to everything but radar is the best option. You can scramble radar but it requires thought as I said before.

Why couldn't you just have a jammer on your ship?  Radar is very sensitive to jamming, and because of the way jamming would likely work it would basically blind the sensor.  Again the idea that you have to place something beforehand, and then go pick it up doesn't make sense.  Again this would require mechanics that don't make sense to me to limit the behavior of these devices in this way.  All of this also is based on the limitation that other types of sensors can not be on your ship.....  because.

 

4 hours ago, Veld said:

It's not the only form of limitation. You can limit the nature of your equipment as well as the placement. Radar is unlimited in detecting capability while the others are limited. The point of the idea in discussion is to eliminate the I win/trap card problem. With one detection/stealth system there is no way to stealth or no way to detect. If you don't see him because he's cloaked then you don't see him. But if you see him on radar then you see him. It's obsolete.

The way the idea works is like so: you can perform well in one situation but not the other. And you can perform exceptionally in the former situation if you employ the right techniques. For example:

I pilot my light vessel with little equipment, heat shielding, radar scramblers and a cloaking device as a backup (it's switched off most of the time). It is the meta as it is on the boundaries of mass, ablation and magnetic field strength limits for detection. But I can still get caught by radar if I'm not careful with how I use my scramblers and where I position myself.

It's not futile and it's certainly not easy. It's necessary to stop the obsolescence of detection when faced with stealth vice versa. It's necessary to encourage people to employ more than one technique and git gud. It's necessary to create balance in a game where balance is hard to enforce.

It might be one way to enforce balance, but is unnecessarily complex.  It relies on limitations that don't make sense, at least to me, and could all be wrapped up in a nice format as a scanner unit, and a some stealth technologies.   If you make them both have reliability factors, and allow skill to play a part in whether they are implemented properly the mechanic ends up being fairly balanced. 

Edited by Felonu
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2 hours ago, Felonu said:

If you make them both have reliability factors, and allow skill to play a part in whether they are implemented properly the mechanic ends up being fairly balanced.

That's the point really, this idea boils down to exactly that. Get some factor for stealth. Get some factor for detection while skills so ofc play a role. But here you don't have one system, but different ones so you have to decide for which to go

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10 hours ago, Felonu said:

Why can you only have radar on moving ships?

Shit my bad. If you scroll up to my rundown you can see there is radar for static as well

10 hours ago, Felonu said:

Why couldn't you just have a jammer on your ship?

It would jam your own radar. You can do that if you want to. Just shoot the thing  in front of your face. The point is it's like an EMP sticky grenade but for radar. Gives it an edge in combat.

10 hours ago, Felonu said:

It might be one way to enforce balance, but is unnecessarily complex.  It relies on limitations that don't make sense, at least to me, and could all be wrapped up in a nice format as a scanner unit, and a some stealth technologies.   If you make them both have reliability factors, and allow skill to play a part in whether they are implemented properly the mechanic ends up being fairly balanced

And this is your main point I presume. To reiterate so we can check were on the same page, this is a summary of what you think:

 

A system with multiple sensors is unnecessarily complex. It aims to get rid of one dimensional stealth and detection but will ultimately stagnate into a one dimensional system. This is because, with the limitations outlined, anyone can just put the three primary sensors in their base.

On the subject of limitations. They are the epitome of the artificiality the idea tries to dispel. Why should I be limited to having the three primary sensors on my base?

An simpler system to the same effect is saying that certain aspects of a ship give a certain %chance to be seen, factoring in the 'quality' of detection equipment.

 

I'd like to break down the multi sensor system into what it aims to achieve:

Strategic gameplay

Vulnerability in certain situations

Immersion

 

I see now it is in fact defeated by the point that you can employ all sensors in one base. Which defeats multi dimensional and emergent gameplay. It would mean any ship could just be seen. At a base. It's not a question of what strategies make sense like I argued. It's a question of how vulnerable the base actually is and to what. The aim was to make vulnerability.

 

What I don't agree with is your idea of artificiality. The alternative system you proposed is ultimately even more artificial. The detection is not limited in what aspects of a vessel it can perceive. But it's probability to win. That is RNG- a common trope most MMOs could do without.

 

I am not against limitations. I am only against limitations that make things uninteresting, unrewarding and one dimensional for players. Like RNG or saying you can be seen in every situation if your ship does not conform to the appropriate values of a certain aspects.

 

Therefore we can stand to make some merging of the ideas here. Here's the revised version of my rundown:

 

Listening post:

A block you can place only one of in any static construct. It has 3 aspects you can spec resources into. Gravimetric, magnetometric and thermal. Which are respectively: the detection of mass, the detection of electrical equipment and electrical discharge, the detection of thermal effects. It is a long range device that operates with a lower limit of detection. Meaning a gravimetric scan can't see anything below a certain mass for example.

 

Radar:

A block you can place anywhere. Detects anything with form but at a short range. Can detect incoming projectiles.

 

Radar scrambler deployer:

A gun block that can shoot a radar scrambler out to a limited range. The scrambler creates multiple random signatures on any radar in the vicinty. Does not show up on a mag scan when operating but the scrambler itself does.

 

Invisibility cloak:

A block that can be placed anywhere which reduces the visibility of an construct to a transparent shimmer. Shows up on a mag scan.

 

With this system now you can only have radar and specialised detectors on bases. This gives incentive to build specialised stealth craft to take out specialised bases. It's not a question of being seen or not. It's a question of how you're going to be seen. This achieves all 3 of the goals outlined

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17 hours ago, Felonu said:

The point is that everyone will just have all the sensors.  It doesn't matter how many different types are created.  And all ships will either not be able to stealth, or will have all the types of stealth possible.  If you make it so that you can't hide from 1 sensor if you are hiding from a different type, then stealth just ends up not being possible.  If you make some kind of limit to what kinds of sensors that can be combined on a ship, people will just find ways to work around it.

 

It ends up working so all ships that want to stealth have all types of stealth technology available and all ships that need to be able to detect them have all types of sensors.  It ends up being the same functionality as the "Magic Cloaks" just with different fluff.  The only way to keep people from putting all the different sensors on probably every ship would be to create artificial limits on the sensors so that they just can't be put on the ships, and even then people will just make small cores with the different sensors and permanantly "dock" them on the ship.

 

My point is that all these rules, and complexities don't end up changing anything.  They are mechanics that are easily gotten around and end up just costing more money to accomplish the same function as the "magic cloak" or a single sensor type.

Well NQ could easily decide to make each aspect of cloaking take a long time and are in different places or branches in the skill tree

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On 18-4-2018 at 8:37 AM, Stig92 said:

But again, this all depends on the means of detection in the game. If there is radar then stealth tech should follow. If you can only track things visually then no.

The equivalent of submarine warfare in space. Which would either come down to a sort of active / passive sigint construct mechanism, or something along the lines of the backroom concept (mechanism tied to player activity / role).

 

Incidentaly fun reading tip on both first and second option can be found in a neat book series by Honsinger (I know, looks a bit indie, but not to underestimate. Picture Horatio Hornblower in Space with strategy and tactics. I'm sure he'll gladly provide devs with copies). Combat there leans towards strategy actions, but reading what the devs are considering / proposing for pvp mechanisms there's a low key / cost approach for implementation to be found. 

 

DU's system mechanics aren't going to make cloaking the perception problem (!) which is can be elsewhere, like EVE Online and others. That doesn't mean that as a mechanism it should not have a solid base in both game concepts as well as player behaviour. 

 

That said no game can really reliably feature the kind of technology arms race which any complete implementation would both provide and require. At least not unless the devs decide to open this kind of tech mechanism as a can of worms for Lua scripting. Either way, any arms race path is a boo-boo, because of the pitfall of iterative development. Here's to devs learning from the mistakes of others :-)

 

As such, any sort of cloaking implementation will by default be part of a baseline feature set for capabilities. Tied with variables for cost (resource), dependancies (prereqs but also activity), abilities (specialisation, coordination). Which brings us back to submarine warfare in space. Which is basically signals intelligence. I'd favour any cloaking implementation which is an advanced tier, so far above other levels of sigint abilities.

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Stealth technology and detection technology, even in a futuristic sy-fi game, would have to take its queues from our current understanding of these technologies, and known possibilities, if said game intends to be balanced and fair.  Although imagination is the cornerstone of DU, combat technologies are not.  I see a civilization trying to rebuild not self-destruct.  Conflict is bound to happen when groups decide not to work together, but the intent is not to force such a scenario; it is not only unrealistic in an economically and politically driven world, but detrimental to the core mission of the more evolved survivor of Armageddon: they did not spend 400 years researching how to destroy each other, but how to rebuild.

That said, all war technology should be limited and used sparingly and at great cost not only financially but also politically.  Defense should hold a higher priority in any case and be given much stronger mechanics.

Finally, if I may say, I think it would be great if, when building such systems, much thought and research was put into them, so that they have some scientific basis (though fictional), balanced, and consistent with the technologies related to a society attempting to rebuild light-years from home.

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6 hours ago, dw_ace_918 said:

Stealth technology and detection technology, even in a futuristic sy-fi game, would have to take its queues from our current understanding of these technologies, and known possibilities, if said game intends to be balanced and fair.  Although imagination is the cornerstone of DU, combat technologies are not.  I see a civilization trying to rebuild not self-destruct.  Conflict is bound to happen when groups decide not to work together, but the intent is not to force such a scenario; it is not only unrealistic in an economically and politically driven world, but detrimental to the core mission of the more evolved survivor of Armageddon: they did not spend 400 years researching how to destroy each other, but how to rebuild.

That said, all war technology should be limited and used sparingly and at great cost not only financially but also politically.  Defense should hold a higher priority in any case and be given much stronger mechanics.

Finally, if I may say, I think it would be great if, when building such systems, much thought and research was put into them, so that they have some scientific basis (though fictional), balanced, and consistent with the technologies related to a society attempting to rebuild light-years from home.

First of all please us the default text colour because I can't see shit.

 

So as far as I understand the technology you research is stuff that comes with the arkship? Ifso then yes I do agree that war technology should have a separate place in how you research it. For instance it could be derivative of arkship technology, a secret cache from a malignant individual or entity independent of the ship.

 

But even so, the gameplay is not defined by the lore it is defined by the players. I don't see the limiting of gameplay to that degree for the sole cause of immersion is acceptable. If a player has wrathful intent then so be it.

 

Even if it was to be debated from a philosophical and lore friendly standpoint, you have to accept that humans are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. It's our nature to do so.

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