Canary Wharf Cloak Disruptor experiment - plus balance suggestions

[jammi]

Disruptors do nominally exist as a counter for cloaks, but - and this is a big but - you don't see many, do you? Why is this? In a nutshell, it's because they're not very good, are incredibly expensive and massively impact the survivability of the ship that mounts them. They're in no way, shape or form a comparatively useful mechanism when held up against the cloaks they counter.

Now, there are a few things that could make them a bit more attractive:

>Half the production material requirements for type 1 (snub) disruptors. This would enable them to be sold for around the same price as a similar sized cloak (average market price 120-130mil, compared to a disruptor's 300-400mil). Retain the current material recipe for type 3s (battleship), and place type 2 (cruiser) directly between the two. This creates a more realistic pricing gradient that better reflects the equipments' actual battlefield impact.

>Double the current range on all disruptors. Bit extreme, but currently the range on a snub disruptor is less than the range of the cloak proximity sound. A battleship with a disruptor mounted would effectively be able to keep an entire battlefield suppressed, making it a massively valuable strategic target if an enemy fleet wanted to use cloaks for flanking and tanking.

>Either swap from batteries to energy drain, or remove the cooldown. Having both seems needlessly punishing, especially when snub disruptors have such a short range. Basically, a disruptor gets 10 uses and is then dead until you re-dock. Cloaks can continually attempt to re-charge until they succeed, because the warm-up doesn't use fuel.

>Create a new auxiliary slot for disruptors/other useful additional tech, like the jump drive slot on capital ships. This means you'd have to pick between supporting tech you could mount, but you wouldn't actually be crippled in a snub by losing your CM. Cloaks occupying the CM slot are slightly less problematic because the cloak can be defensive tool in of itself.

>Turn them into an actual CM dropper, with additional disruption functionality using the disruption hotkey. Change the disruption ammo from cloak batteries to the new disruptor CM. This means if you use the disruption element, you're directly consuming your CM stocks. Allows the disruptor to do its thing, while not being an undue burden while not in use.

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In any case, this is also an announcement regarding the Canary Wharf Disruptor Experiment. One of the issues with disruptors is that they have an incredibly niche purpose and are utterly useless when cloakers aren't around. Consequently, permanently having one mounted is highly undesirable, unless it's locked to a shared rapid response ship.

Instead, Canary Wharf is now able to buy back the disruptors it sells - this means if (for example) the K'Hara are raiding New London, you simply crash dock on the Wharf, spend $350,000,000 as a deposit to pick up a device, use it as required, and sell it back when done and get your money back. The problem of the devices being niche becomes less important when you only have to use them situationally as and when you need them.

Of course, this is just a band-aid to account for the current balance situation, but I'm interested in seeing if it leads to an increase in disruptor-based tactics, even if I don't actually profit from it.

Merry Christmas!

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News article library, feedback and content requests.

[Lythrilux]

>Create a new auxiliary slot for disruptors/other useful additional tech, like the jump drive slot on capital ships. This means you'd have to pick between supporting tech you could mount, but you wouldn't actually be crippled in a snub by losing your CM. Cloaks occupying the CM slot are slightly less problematic because the cloak can be defensive tool in of itself.

Cruisers have always had a mystery equipment slot that has never been able to mount anything. I initially suggested that Cruisers get the perk of being allowed to mount them there, but unfortunately that suggestion didn't go through. To increase their usage and make them viable I think this would be a good change.

I do disagree that they're not very good. In the Omicrons our Core destroyer with a cloak disruptor has been extremely useful at shutting down our opponents cloaking strategies. Come to the Omicrons and you'll see how useful these disruptors can be

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[FallenKnight]

Cloaks can continually attempt to re-charge until they succeed, because the warm-up doesn't use fuel.

Cloaks drain batteries when charging and if being disrupted and you attempt to re-cloak/restart the process - then the batteries will continue to be drained. Am I getting something wrong or you were pointing at another issue? I understand the "warm-up" as reference to the charging time of the cloak.

Create a new auxiliary slot for disruptors/other useful additional tech, like the jump drive slot on capital ships. This means you'd have to pick between supporting tech you could mount, but you wouldn't actually be crippled in a snub by losing your CM. Cloaks occupying the CM slot are slightly less problematic because the cloak can be defensive tool in of itself.

I agree with you and support your proposal. Cloaks in comparison to CMs on BBs are fine because BBs have Flaks - which are far more useful than CM. But placing "supportive" tech on a CM/Cloak slot is really diminishing the survivability of the ship. Making the Cloak Disruptor to take "utility" slot same as Hyper-space-surveys/Docking Modules will make more sense. Considering its cargo weight its doubtful someone will be able to mount and Cloak on top of it. Still, if your proposal is accepted then a simple "nerf" to the cargo requirement for the Disruptor will make it impossible to mount cloak for balance purposes and the players will have to remain with CM - which will be fine.

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[jammi]

http://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread...pid1722844

Well this was a nice Christmas present. Cheers HookDev and Co.

[Black Widow]

i use my cloak cd its useful against em inifinite cloak nomnoms