Intercepting Cloaked Ships

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Hebrewhammer
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Intercepting Cloaked Ships

Post by Hebrewhammer »

I have recently been playing as the Klingons and am currently at war with the Romulans. I have noticed that occasionally the Romulans send a task force of four cloaked cruiser V's to destroy ship yards on the front line and bombard my planets. The issue I have is that is seems the final tier ships with cloak are impossible to detect and track on the 2D map, they don't even show as unidentified fleets.

All my front line planets have Isolinear Scanners active on them and I am running multiple destroyer fleets all set to intercept (with enough in each fleet to give me 100% chance to intercept). Yet their cruisers move with impunity and even when they arrive at one of my planets there is no icon indication and I do not know they are there until after I get a notification that my ship yard was destroyed.

This forces me to leave a few ships at every planet in range of the enemy fleet to deter them, as the intercept ability is now completely useless against anything high level cloaked ship. This also brings up a point that it seems impossible to draw these cloaked fleets into any decisive battle as they are able to retreat with no issue of taking damage. I understand that they are cloaked however when it comes to game mechanics it give the player/computer an invincible harassment fleet that cant be destroyed as long as they don"t engage in direct combat.

I know this is against star trek lore, but would it be possible to have some kind of interdictor ship that could keep smaller fleets from running (i.e. star wars rebellion). Though I doubt that would be a thing, maybe have the retreating cloaked fleet have a chance to take some damage do that after repeated retreats over time they might actually lose a ship or two. Again I'm not sure if this matters or not and maybe the cloaked ships are working as intended but just thought I would point out my observations.
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Re: Intercepting Cloaked Ships

Post by Iceman »

Hebrewhammer wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 12:38 pm I have recently been playing as the Klingons and am currently at war with the Romulans. I have noticed that occasionally the Romulans send a task force of four cloaked cruiser V's to destroy ship yards on the front line and bombard my planets. The issue I have is that is seems the final tier ships with cloak are impossible to detect and track on the 2D map, they don't even show as unidentified fleets.

All my front line planets have Isolinear Scanners active on them and I am running multiple destroyer fleets all set to intercept (with enough in each fleet to give me 100% chance to intercept). Yet their cruisers move with impunity and even when they arrive at one of my planets there is no icon indication and I do not know they are there until after I get a notification that my ship yard was destroyed.
At the time, I chose those values with that intent in mind (impossible to detect). But you do have a point, and Iso's should probably be able to detect the best cloaked vessels.
I'm not sure if I can lower the cloak strength values of higher tier ships (without throwing balance out of whack), but maybe increasing scan strength of Iso ?

This forces me to leave a few ships at every planet in range of the enemy fleet to deter them, as the intercept ability is now completely useless against anything high level cloaked ship. This also brings up a point that it seems impossible to draw these cloaked fleets into any decisive battle as they are able to retreat with no issue of taking damage. I understand that they are cloaked however when it comes to game mechanics it give the player/computer an invincible harassment fleet that cant be destroyed as long as they don"t engage in direct combat.

I know this is against star trek lore, but would it be possible to have some kind of interdictor ship that could keep smaller fleets from running (i.e. star wars rebellion). Though I doubt that would be a thing, maybe have the retreating cloaked fleet have a chance to take some damage do that after repeated retreats over time they might actually lose a ship or two. Again I'm not sure if this matters or not and maybe the cloaked ships are working as intended but just thought I would point out my observations.
We still need to make the Subspace Jammer (+JammingRange, IIRC it's the only bonus that is not yet implemented) do something in the game - I think it was meant to somewhat hamper cloak, but I'm not sure.

In battles, we could have Command ships and/or Scouts (not all civs have Tactical Cruisers) be able to shoot at retreating cloaked ships? Make the chance to hit be modified by the firing ship's scan strength vs the target's cloak strength?


Which version are you playing BTW? The Map Editor version, or still the non-ME?
Just wondering if we still need to support the latter, i case someone still has older games running.
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Re: Intercepting Cloaked Ships

Post by Spocks-cuddly-tribble »

Iceman wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 2:49 pmSubspace Jammer (+JammingRange, IIRC it's the only bonus that is not yet implemented) do something in the game - I think it was meant to somewhat hamper cloak, but I'm not sure.
Sounds more like a:

1.) scan jammer cf black hole (if range means effect radius in sectors) but problem is it would also jam own scan values (i.e. you need a trek nerd pseudo legitimation why that's not the case)

2.) ship range and/or speed jammer i.e. reduce ship range class or map speed in effect area (above issue with own ships)


For the first cloak issue you might want to think about a 'tachyon detection grid' feature (system structure bonus and/or ship based).

EDIT: Also don't forget about special features for stations (in BotF they stop/intercept ANY cloaked ship regardless of scan values - bug?).
E.g. I equipped star bases with an injector device for inverse trilithium particles preventing red suns from getting unstable.

The cloak retreat/harassment issue is an annoying BotF default, as a workaround it's there coupled with potent morale effects (win/lose battle).

But you guys might think up some smart implementation for a 'tachyon detection grid' feature addressing this issue as well (like Iceman says maybe based on ship/station type and scan values).
I don't know how many bugs is too many but that point is reached somewhere before however many in BotF is.
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Re: Intercepting Cloaked Ships

Post by Iceman »

Ok, so I've tweaked (and fixed) a few values in the database.
Lowered some cloak strengths of higher tier ships. They now range from 1 to 7. Isos still cannot detect cloak 7 [ROM tier 4 / TL10 ships], but I'm going to look into using the Subspace Jammer to temporarily increase scan strength vs cloaked ships. At least it will have some use.
Increased scan strength of outposts and starbases by one (and while at it reduced scan range of science stations by one [to 1]). The best starbase can now detect cloak 7 (but not identify).

I'm still on the fence about the following:
Should Scouts have a higher cloak strength (by +1) than other warships :?:
Should Science ships have higher scan *strength* (they have lower scan range) so they can detect cloaked vessels :?:
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Re: Intercepting Cloaked Ships

Post by Iceman »

Spocks-cuddly-tribble wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 3:45 pm Sounds more like a:

1.) scan jammer cf black hole (if range means effect radius in sectors) but problem is it would also jam own scan values (i.e. you need a trek nerd pseudo legitimation why that's not the case)

2.) ship range and/or speed jammer i.e. reduce ship range class or map speed in effect area (above issue with own ships)
By its description, yes. But 1.) can also be achieved by a negative ScanStrength value, no need for a specific bonus. As for 2.), that might get weird, especially for ships with speed 1.


For the first cloak issue you might want to think about a 'tachyon detection grid' feature (system structure bonus and/or ship based).
There used to be a +PercentCloakDefense or whatever bonus, but I axed it. All scanners had it IIRC (and one of them was the TDG).
I'm just going to rename the Subspace Jammer to TDG and give it bonus vs cloaked vessels :cool:

The cloak retreat/harassment issue is an annoying BotF default, as a workaround it's there coupled with potent morale effects (win/lose battle).
That's a good point. I don't think that retreats are counted as defeats in Supremacy... will have to check that.
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Re: Intercepting Cloaked Ships

Post by Iceman »

Hebrewhammer wrote: Sat May 07, 2022 12:38 pm This also brings up a point that it seems impossible to draw these cloaked fleets into any decisive battle as they are able to retreat with no issue of taking damage. I understand that they are cloaked however when it comes to game mechanics it give the player/computer an invincible harassment fleet that cant be destroyed as long as they don"t engage in direct combat.

I know this is against star trek lore, but would it be possible to have some kind of interdictor ship that could keep smaller fleets from running (i.e. star wars rebellion). Though I doubt that would be a thing, maybe have the retreating cloaked fleet have a chance to take some damage do that after repeated retreats over time they might actually lose a ship or two. Again I'm not sure if this matters or not and maybe the cloaked ships are working as intended but just thought I would point out my observations.
I'm glad you did, there were a couple of issues in combat.

Scan strength was not being factored in, any cloaked ship regardless of its cloak strength (vs enemy scan strength) got the cloaked bonus to its retreat roll. That bonus should now scale according to the ship's status - undetected/detected/identified.
Question: should cloaked ships with a cloak strength lower than the enemy's scan strength get no bonus or a smallish bonus :?:

Cloaked ships were not being targeted at all (but only while cloaked, during the 1st round, ofc). Now scan strength vs cloak strength should also impact target selection.

Also added a penalty to ships firing their defensive weapons at cloaked ships (instead of not firing at all).



I need to know which version you're playing, to upload a test version that you can use in your game to check if this has any impact.
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Re: Intercepting Cloaked Ships

Post by Hebrewhammer »

I haven't updated in awhile just so I could finish the campaign I have currently running, from the title screen it is build version 0.6.8131.35736. This is the version with out the map editor. I plan to switch over to the newest build once I beat the current campaign.
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Re: Intercepting Cloaked Ships

Post by Iceman »

Ok, after I check that save you mentioned in the other thread I'll release a new patch.
I've made the Subspace Jammer increase scan strength (but not range), so it should help with detection of high tier ships.
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