Cloak understanding

duxvolantis · Post by **duxvolantis** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 1:43 am

JonPerry wrote:Roms don't pay enough of a surcharge for the cloak to allow it to be even more effective against drones than it already is.

I disagree on several grounds:

1) A Romulan is usually about 80-85% the size of an equal-point non-Romulan ship. Any serious number of drones (which are for all of the Romulan historical foes a secondary zero-energy-cost nuisance weapon ) makes cloaking of limited value.

2) It is easier to avoid 100% of the damage from a drone by plotting 24+1 than it is to guarantee 50% damage from the drone due to having to slow to 16.

3) Romulan ships lack the point defense of other races. Cloaking is supposed to be a big part of their drone defense.

4) In SFB drones on the map were a non-factor against Romulans. They became much more effective in FC because of the inability to break lock-on (indeed, because of the complete lack of the concept of lock-on). With ECM, range and mid-turn speed changes, not to mention wild weasels, it was relatively trivial for a Romulan ship to cause a drone wave to come off the board. Drones were a problem during fade-in (as they are in FC) but if there was some distance to give the Romulan time to pull a couple tricks, the drones were usually shrugged off by cloaking.

5) Cloaking doesn't just have a BPV cost. It also has a huge energy cost (from 40% to 60% of max power) and tactical cost (max speed of 16, can't fire weapons). Last I checked you can't win a battle just by cloaking--sooner or later you have to fire weapons at them. There are many situations where cloaking, even though available, isn't really desirable--which means that the Romulan is stuck fighting a bigger ship.

Blammo · Post by **Blammo** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 2:00 am

mike_espo wrote:I would say that a Drone should have a 33% chance of losing lock on. Plasma torpedoes maybe a 1 in 6 chance, or not.

Otherwise, cloaking seems to work OK in the scenarios Ive played so far....

I like that...agreeance

@Dux - Well stated!

duxvolantis · Post by **duxvolantis** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 2:37 am

Blammo wrote:
mike_espo wrote:I would say that a Drone should have a 33% chance of losing lock on. Plasma torpedoes maybe a 1 in 6 chance, or not.

Otherwise, cloaking seems to work OK in the scenarios Ive played so far....
I like that...agreeance

@Dux - Well stated!

I should note that against a Kzinti of equal size in SFB cloak=death. All a Kzinti had to do was stay close range to the Romulan and wait, circling at a decent speed. Since drones are 360 degree you don't have to worry about facing, just range. You had a choice of fading in at speed <= 6 to allow for a wild weasel (which means surrendering the initiative for two turns at least as the Kzinti just moves off to a safe range, maybe with some OVL disruptors as a parting gift (FA+L/FA+R disruptor arcs and good all-around phasers)) or try to come out as fast as possible and watching the kitty-cat zip away to run out any plasma.

In FC that is still a major problem for the Romulan as Fade-In is announced before Launch Seeking which means that the Kzinti (or anyone else with lots of drones) if close enough can launch drones that will hit for full damage with no defensive fire (Fade In completes *after* Defensive and Offensive fire phase). 4 to 6 12-point drones combined with whatever phasers and disruptors you can bring to bear is a bad way to come out of cloak let me tell you

mike_espo · Post by **mike_espo** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 3:13 am

Agreed. Romulans have a tough time vs Drones. But, "historically" the Romulans are not bordering any drone races-except the Feds, which don't have mass drone launching platforms in FC.....as far as I know

Why is it that the Federation deploys most, if not all plasma ships on the Romulan Border? This would suggest that drones should not be effective against Romulan ships. However if I were a Federation Admiral, I would ONLY have drone equipped ships on the Romulan Border according the the current FC rules.

storeylf · Post by **storeylf** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:53 am

In FC that is still a major problem for the Romulan as Fade-In is announced before Launch Seeking which means that the Kzinti (or anyone else with lots of drones) if close enough can launch drones that will hit for full damage with no defensive fire (Fade In completes *after* Defensive and Offensive fire phase).

Can't check, but I'm sure seekers impacting a faded ship do 75% damage, not full damage.

I do like the non-hidden cloaking of FC, much cleaner and faster. But when I first got the game I couldn't figure why drones remained locked on, it would have been far closer to SFB cloaks, as I remember them, to kill drones targeted at that ship and IMO simpler than the current X% vs cloak and Y% vs fade. I assumed that I was misremembering SFB cloaks to be honest.

JonPerry · Post by **JonPerry** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 2:20 pm

Why is it that the Federation deploys most, if not all plasma ships on the Romulan Border?

Cuz putting plasma ships on the Klink border is a bad idea when you need the anti-drones to counter Klingon drone superiority.

This would suggest that drones should not be effective against Romulan ships

They aren't

Savedfromwhat · Post by **Savedfromwhat** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 2:51 pm

Drones are very effective against Romulans who cloak during decloak especially. If it is a pure drone fleet though the Romulans should never need to cloak because there is no serious threat as big as plasma. There are no photon/drone heavy ships. Now in a fleet engagement a Fed CAD with two photon boats could be quite effective against some Romulans. There is no reduction in warhead strength during fade in and out.

mike_espo · Post by **mike_espo** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 3:15 pm

This would suggest that drones should not be effective against Romulan ships

They aren't

??

mjwest · Post by **mjwest** » Wed Apr 13, 2011 7:57 pm

OK, had to look it up to double-check:
During fade, seeking weapons are reduced to 75%. Direct-fire weapons are not reduced, but have four added to the range.
During cloak, seeking weapons are reduced to 50%. Direct-fire weapons are reduced to 50%, and have four added to the range.

duxvolantis · Post by **duxvolantis** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 3:00 am

mjwest wrote:OK, had to look it up to double-check:
During fade, seeking weapons are reduced to 75%. Direct-fire weapons are not reduced, but have four added to the range.
During cloak, seeking weapons are reduced to 50%. Direct-fire weapons are reduced to 50%, and have four added to the range.

My bad on the 75%.

That's still enough to do significant damage. 4 drones will do internals.

mike_espo · Post by **mike_espo** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 12:42 pm

I think, respectfully, that there needs to be a chance of losing lock-on vs drones for cloaking/uncloaking ships. 33% chance.

storeylf · Post by **storeylf** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 12:57 pm

Whilst not advocating anything at the moment, I would be interested in the reason that cloaks didn't just cause all drones/seekers to lose tracking. Given that is what apparently happened in SFB and on the face of it seems an even cleaner rule than % damages and defensive fire restriction etc for cloaked ships.

Nerroth · Post by **Nerroth** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 4:49 pm

Speaking of cloak versus seekers, it would be interesting to see how the Throne's cloak might (or might not) help it when dealing with tachyon missiles, implosion torpedoes or HEATs...

jdsmorgan3 · Post by **jdsmorgan3** » Sun Mar 10, 2013 11:37 pm

mjwest wrote: Like I said, the cloak comment in 1E1 provides zero benefit. It probably shouldn't be there, but given that it is, it causes no harm and provides no benefit.

@MikeWest

Background: I just got my Reference Rulebook, 6th Edition and am a new player to Federation Commander, though I played SFB in the 80's, 90's.

Problem: Actually, I just spent the last two hours searching the forums for an answer/clarification because of this item (1E1). Further, I was reading this to mean I had to prepay the 4 impulses to continue between turns and was trying to figure why I would want to do this in energy allocation vs. OFP of Imp. 1 when (tactical) conditions might be different.

I would argue that a rules item of zero benefit should be removed as it always contains a chance of confusing new players. (I want my 2 hours back!

)

Solution: I would strongly recommend that the cloak reference be removed from 1E1, and also change 1E2e. 4. to read, "After all of these functions, ships with cloaking devices can cloak, pay to maintain cloak, or uncloak (5P).

I would also suggest including a cloak example that crosses a turn break.

Thanks for all the clarifications and hope you see this.