Archive through March 12, 2003
Star Fleet Universe Discussion Board: Star Fleet Battles: SFB Proposals Board:
The "X" Files:
OLD X2 FOLDER:
X2_Cloaking Devices:
Archive through March 12, 2003
Perhaps a "conversation" for the Cloak is in order, considering it's popularity
and unique place in SFU.
My suggestion for Cloak changes*:
Murky Cloak: A partial fade out. You pay half the energy but never complete the fade-out. You won't therefore break lock-ons. OTOH This allows protection from long-range direct-fire (Feds).
Jump Cloak: 8 imps duration, to break seeking weapons lock-ons. Energy cost 50%?
Changes to the ways ships pay for cloak:
You pay a percentage (fractional calculations are probably better.) of the number of undestroyed
warp engine boxes. Ca 30% for DDs, 50% for CAs.
This keeps the speed up under cloak even for damaged ships.
An improvement over the old one-point-of-energy cost. Should make the Romulans feel more like the what can be seen on screen and TV.
Use your imagination a bit and you'll see the effect of this on Romulan playing styles should be more profound than either of the ideas
above.
What you pay for is what you get!
Expanding the Murky cloak to were you decide what protection you want, in terms of added hexes to range and penalty on the fire-adjutment table, and pay for that
Getting +4 to range and +1 to the adjustment chart would more expensive than +1 to range and +4 to the adjustment chart, for example. (note the figures are just from memory)
More ideas are welcome!
* Some of these have been presented in the proposals board in CL18 or 19.
[Edited]
I was thinking along similar lines. Maybe use the a reduced form of cloak (masking) but it takes place in one impulse.
Breaks lock-on and adds five but does not double range. Fade out/in is one impulse. Power is one half. Cannot convert to full cloak. You must fade in first then fade out to full cloak under the restrictions of normal cloak rules. (i.e. timeing restrictions. Cloaking is cloaking whether partial or not.)
Why don't the Romulans develop a weapon that can be fired while cloaked?
Why not have the Romulans have a split in shipbuilding philosophy: Half the major houses abandon cloak and focus on new ship/weapon types and the other half continue refining the cloak?
The uncloaked ships would be introduced first.
A later module could re-introduce the cloak with a shining new x2 design.
The uncloaked ships would need to be different than Gorns. I'm thinking faster with different spins on x2 plasma or other new weapon.
What about a shuttle that opperates like a scatter pack but fires only one weapon, a Plasma-L. Upon fireing the shuttle goes inert. It could be picked up and reloaded but not while cloaked as it would require a tractor beam.
Cloaked ships can launch a WW. Perhaps they could launch this. But don't do it too close to the enemy since they could fire on it before it launches (under the same release rules as a scatter pack).
Loren, I like it, but call it anything but a shuttle (keep your explanation and function).
What kind of tactical wrinkle would this give? Is one Plasma-L going to change what the non-Romulan ship was going to do?
Another cloaking idea: cloaks with arcs. Get around it and then you can see(target) the uncloaked ship. Maybe the cloak that's 'arc-ed' is denser and more difficult to penetrate than regular cloak.
Thoughts?
Isn't that just a drogue type that doesn't violate a cloak?
Quote:Why don't the Romulans develop a weapon that can be fired while cloaked?
That's what I think.
Let the Roms be able to launch whilst Mirky; Plasma Torps under Passive fire control.
Sure you (the enemy) add +5 to the effective range but you'll still get your Drones and plasma to hit and he can't fire his own phasers unless he "unmasks".
Might be better to have the jump cloak cost 1/2 and the mirky cloak cost 3/4 if we can launch plasma...as well as the correct jump up in BPV.
Sorry Tos, drogue?
Roger> An item introduced in Module J2. Basically an unmanned unit that replaces an admin shuttle, deployed on a short range tractor-tether behind the ship. The most common are weapon drogues (drones, Plas-D, or plas-F), as well as decoy (wild weasel you can go speed 12 with) and sensor (provide for additional EW).
Nice, thanks Alex.
Dunno about the murkiness-device. Esp firing torps only from under it. Logic would dictate, if such a thing existed, the Roms would quickly convert to a torp-only fleet (with ph-3s as the only other weapons for the occasional drone defense) and never emerge from 'murkiness'.
That doesn't sound like fun.
Ideas that SHOULD fine a way to be implemented:
1) The ability to fire weapons while under cloak (and passive fire control, obviously). The cloak that allows this should cost a MONSTROUS amount of BPV, and should be very power-intensive.
2) The cloak-by-arc idea is a neat one. Split the cloak cost six ways, and pay for it for each arc? THAT would be VERY interesting tactically.....
Perhaps combine it with the #1 item? Say, firing weapons still DOES void a cloak, but only on the arc that the weapon fired out of?
I'm going to have to pull this apart bit by bit.
Dunno about the murkiness-device. Esp firing torps only from under it.
Firing Torps under a murky cloak would allow for a Fires Whilst Cloak aspect to some X2 ships ( Re ST:VI tUC ) but would still mean that the enemy has a lock-on and thus Fed Drones, Kzinti Drones and Gorn Plasma can be used as return fire.
Photons are about the only weapon that'll have trouble with a +3 to the range and they can be brought down to R0 ( traditional anti-cloak tactics ) if one really wants to fire them and the X2 Photons should have overloaded pxoies making it easier to strike targets that are mirky with photons.
Logic would dictate, if such a thing existed, the Roms would quickly convert to a torp-only fleet (with ph-3s as the only other weapons for the occasional drone defense)
On the Contray.
There simply isn't enough power to arm lots of Plasma and remain cloaked.
On the other hand phasers are cheap to arm and can hold for 25 turns and have a very nice throughput and can fire every turn.
And having a bunch of phasers will protect a ship from shock, whilst taking a K7R and replacing all her Phaser pairs with Plasma Gs and her boom phasers with a Plasma-S and combining her Wing Phasers for another Plasma G would only serve to shock such a ship into its own demise.
An all Plasma Fleet for the Roms would be a goal of every Romulan Government (think of all the Starbases you could lay waste to just by getting your ships to ten million metres...the Empire would dominate every opponent) if it were feasible, but so far the Romulans have found it impossible so they have stayed with a mix of Phasers and Plasma.
and never emerge from 'murkiness'.
It would really depend on the opponent.
Against a Fed, sure, it'ld probably be best just to sit under the Mirky cloak and unleash repeated plasma torpedoes whilst running fast enough to avoid the over run.
Against Kzintis or Gorns, it'ld be better to uncloak fully and use your phasers defensively to bring down the drones or reduce the warhead of the plasma.
That doesn't sound like fun.
Having something other than a faster cloak sounds like a lot of fun to me and the mirky cloak and specifically the mirky cloak that can launch seekers under passive fire control sounds like a stylish gift to give the Roms.
Having the ability to fire while cloaked, a cloak of ANY kind, should remain with the FRAX. This is just silliness.
Can you justify that?
That Frax seem to compete quite well with the ability to fire under a cloak ( admittedly it's only their missiles ) without being a game breaker.
A Cloak that can be locked onto when it becomes availible to fire seems like a good middle ground between something that is not broken and something else that is also not broken.
Quote:It would really depend on the opponent.
Against a Fed, sure, it'ld probably be best just to sit under the Mirky cloak and unleash repeated plasma torpedoes whilst running fast enough to avoid the over run.
Against Kzintis or Gorns, it'ld be better to uncloak fully and use your phasers defensively to bring down the drones or reduce the warhead of the plasma.
On the other hand, having a Jump Cloak that allows you to cloak for 8 Impulse ( although 1 is all you need to knock down that enemy lock-on ) then the Jump Cloak advatages the Roms against the Kzinti's and the Gorns but not so much against the Feds, who can just wait for you to rematerialise.
Consequently granting both has a lot of good aspects.
I'm convinced and my Rom ships are equipped with them.
If Mike ever gets around to posting them.
Seriously I managed somehow to trash my finished SSD's and had to slap together my working SSD's with no tables etc. I tried fixing stuff quickly but they still had some troubles. Mike offered to rework the SSD's. To make them more presentable. He just hasn't gotten around to it yet. Soon as he emails me that they are up. I'll post the integrated proposal. (Along with some of my reasoning.)
I haven't had much to say on this, but I'll toss in my 2 cents. I personally think firing while cloaked is a non-starter.
Yes, the Frax can do it, but on a very, very limited basis...only the subs can do this, and only with missiles. These missiles are easily shot down or avoided, unlike a plasma torpedo. Further, the Frax are a simulator race, and cannot be used as a basis for building 2X. Simulator technology isn't as balanced as the "official" stuff is; that's why you don't see mega photons on GW ships, or mega phasers.
Further, we still don't know what the 2X torpedo will look like. Improving it and allowing it to fire while cloaked is a big double-whammy improvement. Not only will the Roms likely to get some kind of uber-torpedo, but they can fire it while cloaked? Does no one but me think that's a gross advantage? Even the franchise has faithfully stayed away from firing while cloaked (unless you count that misbegotten attempt at a movie called ST: VI) and I see no reason why SFB shouldn't do the same.
I fully support making the cloak better as a 2X Rom thing to do. Make it fade in and out faster, make it even harder to hit a cloaked ship if you must, or give it some other gee-whiz tech...but stay away from firing while cloaked under any conditions.
I dunno....I like that 'cloak by arc' thing an AWFUL lot....
And that would combine with firing under cloak so very nicely....
The problem is that it can be badly abused, allowing a ship to unload and make itself relatively immune to counterattack.
And giving the ship a break on cloaking cost at the same time would compound the already excessive advantage.
Sounds like a neat ability. You'd love to fly a hip with a cloak like this.
Would you like to fight one?
John, it's just a matter of balance. Raise cloaking costs, don't improve other aspects of Romulan ships...whatever.
Yes, a big advantage long range but it gets quite a bit more 'dicey' fighting in the short range.
Maybe limit the quickness of going from full (traditional) cloak to Arced Cloak.
It does open some new great tactical situations. A challenge to you pros out there.
It also has an analog to ancient land warfare with phalanxes and large shields and 'out-flanking' and such.
Hmmm....
While the debate about firing torps while cloaked goes on no one can disagree that seeing a plasma torp come out of nowhere from a cloaked ship is SSCCAARRYY!!!!!!!!
Whether it's accepted or not, let's not be afraid of discussing and discovering twists to the game that inspire awe in battle.
I really want x2 to be 'a wow product'.
A "Wow Product" where everybody is as hard as Andros to balance is going to take a coon's age to playetst.
Also SVC has set a condition where X2 has to work well on a equal-BPV manner with General War-era tech. This gets harder as the BPV difference widens and tech becomes stranger. You can see that with the andros also.
Bottom line: there's only so "wow" you can get.
Im opposed to a directional cloak, one would simple surf the shield boundries and fire at the right point and pull away.
With a Turn and Het You could effectively uncloak in one movement step, fire in that impulse's launch seeking weapons and Fire Direct fire weapons step and then simply het on the next impulse in order to be fully cloaked.
Firing Whilst Mirky.
How close do you need to get to hit a GW ship wuith a Sabotted plasma.
To Hit a GW ship you really needed to go to R3 or closer with regular plasma...and so I would say maybe R5!?!
If Photons are Fired at R5 and there is a +3 range bonus due to mirky-ness, then there is actually not change in the Photon to hit chance.
On the Other hand, the Rom can not fire it's phasers ( and Ph-5s work quite nicely at an effective range of R8 and Ph-1s are okay) and can only launch it's plasma which must be launched under their own control meaning there is no "loaned" ECCM and furthermore the Rom is "cloaked" and therefore can not generate his own ECM ( or ECCM ).
Against a Gorn the Plasma does not need to add the range bonus of the "Mirk" to the warhead strength reduction making the mirky cloak practically useless.
All in all the Mirky Cloak doesn't improve the Romulan's chances all that much and if we pay for it through no or little increase in shield box numbers and warp engine Boxes, then we should be able to generate a WOW romulan ship without breaking play balance.
Frankly these are all good points. I may abandon the idea of firing Under cloak. It wasn't mine originally. And I'm not firmly weded to it.
And I have no intention of redoing the Rom ships completely again.
Firing arc cloaks -
Sounds like they would be much more useful in duels than in squadron or fleet battles. An interesting concept, though.
Fire while cloaked -
This could easily be over the top.
Gorn plasmas would be forced to bolt, and we all know how photons do in a heavy EW environment.
A X0 Firehawk is 179 BPV.
What if the only improvement for X2 is the ability to fire while cloaked? What's that Firehawk's BPV now?
How about this:
On a ship that can fire while cloaked, if that ship fires anything that would blind a special sensor, it flashcubes itself.
Let me know if I'm missing something from this list of cloak abilities (I haven't flown a Romulan ship in ages)
Double Range
+5 to range
Break lockons
Damage reduction roll.