Survey - Cloaking devices

[darkwind]

If i wished to use cloak for a smuggling transport, would it be similarly not usable?
Or it would work better than for combat applications?

As far as i am aware smuggling requires quick flight to maximum distance.
Nerfes made cloaks less usable to fly at distances, so questioning myself if cloaks are still usable for the smuggling dashing purpose

In theory speaking. Transports have 350 speed
Cloaks => Fix transport speed problem
So cloaked transports should be still applicable concept to avoid the capture?
Better working than CM

Yes and no.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but my understanding was the faster you go the faster your fuel depletes on your ship. So in a Freighter, you might be moving at 550 speed with the higher grade engines, thus it would deplete faster than if you had 500 speed engines.

As for the larger ships, I think the MkIII cloaks use 400 cargo space so you would basically be sacrificing cargo space (and thus profit) for the safety of being able to operate under a cloak. Not to mention the extra cost incurred from buying batteries. I think it would be a net negative depending on how much it's used transporting cargo. Just my own two cents.

As for the original question, cloaks are useful as a tool and not as something to center your gameplay around. I.E., useful as a tool in your toolbelt in an "Oh shit" situation but not something to create say, dedicated stealth ships. I think they're still used, just not nearly as much as they used to--for combat, anyway.

Yeah, i tested. 1.6 sized middle ranged trade lane depletes batts completely.
With adding here auto decloak, i guess not usable for smuggling purposes (at least if using against police)
But could be usable as last resort to avoid capture if noticed early enough

I'll add my vote to no, I don't enjoy current state of cloaks.

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[Greylock]

Let me buttcloak again

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[John'DTR'Grey]

Good day.

In my humble opinion, I do believe that the actual cloaking system has improved a lot, but the way you can get "de-cloaked" is why it is really disappointing ,and is what kills its usage.

I think that returning to a cheap "de-cloaking device" with a 10 or even 15km range would work wonders, also, I do believe that CD's should not de-cloak or stop the cloaking mechanic for happening, why a missile that is meant to disrupt the cruise engines, does also disrupt the cloaking device? a de-cloaking device could be sold in many stations, cheaply, so people could choose what to have, adding a new mechanic of a "technical support, that can de-cloak but can't for example, have CM's".

I believe that cloak could does already hits enough the performance of a ship, making him:

- Unable to use CM
- Having to recharge shields
- Unable to shoot
- Being a pretty expensive module

To already add to it:

- Can be decloaked because someone flies nearby you.
- Anyone with a CD can make that module completely useless.



I think that the consumption rate of the batteries between flying normal, cruising, staying still, or using lanes is a good balancing thing ,that needs 0 changes.

I would like to open a Melon also about jump-drives, since the actual system, for me, is really good, and want to congratulate the DEV team for it also. But I believe, it needs some changes.

I think that a JD5 could be added, to jump 16 ships, even making the module absurdly expensive. And the range should be incremented from 3 systems to 5 without matrix, and to 7 with matrix. I do also believe, that jump-drive shouldn't stop when CD'd. But the "anti cloak device" could also work with it, adding more benefits to "electronic warfare" or "tech warfare" call it like you want, those mechanics add flavor to the game. You have games like (don't kill me please) eve online, where you can use "electronic warfare" in many funny ways. i don't say we should clone it, but we can cherry pick some ideas.

I do also believe, that there should be a "/jump Earhart" or "/jump unknown" to jump to Earhart, and allow the "/jump blind" to jump anywhere in the jump-drives range, that mechanic did add many good experiences in the pre 5.0 for explores who just wanted to wander.

Batteries cost should be lowered a little bit, but that is really subjective, and I think the price is not that bad.

Wish DEV team reads it, since I do frankly believe those changes could work well with the actual balance and it does not "break" any module, but makes them a bit more fair to use, and also brings them a meaning. A cloaked ship that can't shoot (recharge PC), can't have active shield(recharge Shields), is not a thread, and usually just means it wants to run. A jump-driving ship in combat is someone who generally wants to run, or they are doing a crazy Ivan and engaging in a weird strategy to jump into the same system?

If you made it so far reading, thank you.

Salut.

[Big Bison Bessie]

I think the auto-decloak is a bit too extreme, it makes it awkward to use the device to the point of it being a turn off at times. I'd definitely like for cloaks to be more powerful than they are now. Cloaks are one of the neatest gadgets in scifi but with their current implementation here they're not the dream.
No I am not saying this as someone who has a cloak disruptor mounted on their hammerhead, it's fine, don't worry about it.

But seriously, with the speed increase to cruise engines, that further messes with cloaks. The amount of distance and time someone has to react changes rapidly now, like extremely rapidly now. If a guy shows up at 10k when you're cloaked and he's heading right for you at cruise, how long do you have before he's entered your decloak range? Less than 20 seconds. And if you're not at cruise you need to wait those 3-4 seconds to have your engines charge and accelerate and get away from that bubble of antimagic that surrounds his ship that breaks your cloak. Which is an even bigger ask for a cap, which has a longer cruise charge time and a much bigger cloak break bubble.

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[Xenon]

use spoiler for images so we'll be able to read the text as well

Sure, no problem, it's edited, done

Let me buttcloak again

If you notice, the butt-cloaking and the complaints that came from players getting butt-cloaked-killed were the main reason why the developer's team had to take this decision to fix the problem. I think that the problem is that the butt-cloaking issue has been corrected by a wrong decision, which resulted in the current decreased efficiency of the cloaking devices.

I think that butt-cloaking can be fixed in different ways.
Easily just deprive a decloaked ship of its energy to shoot for 5 seconds, and then it starts charging

I also think that asking to give you back the chance to butt-cloak players, knowing that this is a reason why a certain tool in-game has been nerfed badly, is very irresponsible and immature. I mean no offense, but trolling is never a good way for mature adults.

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[Culbrelai]

Distance disruption addition is one of the worst changes in 5.0, which, given how many bad 5.0 changes there were is quite the achievement. I have never seen a cloak disruptor be used as a result of proximity cloaking being free and easier to use. I only own cloaks to cheese NPC encounters, that's it. They are useless otherwise, you are better off with a CM to get away by a large margin.

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#NotMySNAC

[darkwind]

Distance disruption addition is one of the worst changes in 5.0, which, given how many bad 5.0 changes there were is quite the achievement. I have never seen a cloak disruptor be used as a result of proximity cloaking being free and easier to use. I only own cloaks to cheese NPC encounters, that's it. They are useless otherwise, you are better off with a CM to get away by a large margin.

And then we can take into account that transport ships have speed 350, instead of 500-550+ combat ships have.
Rendering CM usage void, since we can just fly fast within a minute to ship and spam it in close range CD. CM will have no chance to work.
So... even CM is being overly useless for all transport ships with cargo higher than 3600 now.
poor transports -_-

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[EisenSeele]

I've been abusing my position to bug haste into adding degrees of 'cloaking' - like giving all ships the ability to "power down" shields, engine, and energy in order to not show up on the scanner/playerlist in return for being purely a floating thing in space. Targetable when clicked and visible in space, but otherwise essentially a solar that doesn't show up on anything but visuals.

ECM type modules for "powering down" all but one component, and providing hardened emissions shielding for something like engines, power core, or shields (pick one or mix and match any two for the super fancy ones) - all the while, you can be visually found and selected manually.

It could also be interesting to see actual full fat cloaks give off a subtle visual indicator that is easy to miss by someone not paying attention (that isn't sound based because it's infuriating) - that can also be targetable when manually selected from visuals (obviously invisible on scanners)

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FEEDBACK

[The_Godslayer]

I've been abusing my position to bug haste into adding degrees of 'cloaking' - like giving all ships the ability to "power down" shields, engine, and energy in order to not show up on the scanner/playerlist in return for being purely a floating thing in space. Targetable when clicked and visible in space, but otherwise essentially a solar that doesn't show up on anything but visuals.

I have poked Aingar about this multiple times as well. The answer, as I understood, was that the game has a few set values for what makes things show up on scanner/targetable, and working with and around them is a disaster zone.

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I'll do something about my superiority complex when I cease to be superior.

"Whatever happened to catchin' a good old-fashioned passionate ass-whoopin and gettin' your shoes, coat, and your hat tooken?"

[Eternal.Journey]

Cloaks. Yes. I use em. Yes, they’re good in some situations. People have had me slip through their fingers through cloaks, and some have had unfortunate cloak bugs (generally easy to work out, disable and reactivate). Yes i like em.

No, I do not agree that CLD’s should be buffed. They’re already good enough. Theyre a 7.5k minimum decloaker, and a Countermeasure to boot. Anyone using braincells works out thats a far more useful tool than they give it credit for… if people use cloaks.

Ive been decloaked exactly three times by CLD, once at something insane like 11k range from the CLD. I thought it was a bug. Nope. It really was working as intended . They are that good. Plus you get proxy decloaks. If you’re gonna be going round buffing CLDs, make proxy decloak almost impossible, and add a rule to stop people dropping lines when cloaked so they cant just buttcloak and engage. Idk. Just a thought maybe.

Cloak drain is okay, having been an improvement over previous distances. Although, making systems Darius-sized to traverse while being cloaked to accompany the thing itself is a bit ??. Kinda makes it equally as viable in the long run as it used to be, now it just takes you slightly longer because your flight distance got increased marginally more than the scale of warship cruise speeds (Another ?? If you ask me but eh, it is what it is.).

Alotta people can say that in some instances, during a particularly intense situation, that spooky cloaker (that makes their presence known InRP) is a sweet bonus to said situations. A lot of the time, people will complain that cloaks are “anti activity” because someone can cloak, hide away and avoid people for fear of /1 /2. This is also true. These situations have and do happen.

As for “marketing”. Eh. Cloaks are either a craft on a case by case basis, outsource the work to a trusted crafter or an emergency buy because both option 1 and 2 cant be done. I rarely leave my “friend circle” (friends? Me? Lol) for crafting needs, preferring most times to do it myself than ship it off to a friend.

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