Opinion question

BOTF Strategy Guide

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Korth
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Re: Opinion question

Post by Korth »

I'll go with the explanation that Klingons aren't all a simple Planet of Hats species. There's even Klingon non-warriors, doctors and engineers and scientists and politicians and lawyers. Although there's merit to the above argument that Klingons evolved as a predatory, hunter race ... so even the most "honourable" Klingons would instinctively respect a foe capable of moving/attacking with stealth.

Some Klingons are Worf-like, noble and proud paradigms of honour. They claim no honour from defeating weaklings, they avoid ever tainting themselves with non-challenging conflicts vs defenseless or unworthy adversaries.

Other Klingons are nasty scumbags. They'll use every cheap and dirty trick, every little treachery they can to bully an advantage in a fight. They'll pull poisoned daggers out of their boots, hide disruptors in their belt buckles, execute a mouthy Ferengi in hand-to-hand "combat", or just kick sand in your face. Their oaths and loyalties can only be trusted until you expose your back. Perhaps it is for these that command positions become available in cloaking warships.

I do agree that the game could benefit greatly from more tactical options. For both the cloaked ships and their opponents. Vessels in the shows don't decloak at some random distance to engage in battle, they decloak only after they've maneuvered into an advantageous position. They can remain cloaked, decloak, or recloak any time they choose. And the ships opposing them can't be caught off guard once they're aware a cloaked threat is nearby.
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KrazeeXXL
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Re: Opinion question

Post by KrazeeXXL »

Korth wrote: Thu Nov 16, 2017 12:43 pm A bit of a necro thread but this subject has always bugged me, too.
Nah, don't worry. It's good to have such interesting discussions here.

my 2 cents:

from DS9 episode "Blood Oath"

WORF : It is likely there are cloaked Klingon warships in the vicinity, lying in wait.

BASHIR : Doesn't sound very honorable to me.

WORF : In war, nothing is more honorable than victory.
There's not much more to add to this. Klingons and Romulans were also at war at some time and when your opponent uses a technology which gives him such a significant advantage -you have, too, to even the odds. (think WW2 tank warfare) When everybody uses it, it suddenly becomes honorable again. Nobody has an advantage after all.

The Federation didn't use cloaking devices to keep peace. War would have probably escalated at that point when anyone would've used this tech. So the Feds said: no. I think it didn't matter to the Romulans much but it may have had some impact on the Klingons. I mean, with the Khitomer Accords, peace was cemented and left the Klingons in a somewhat superior state. They probably couldn't have made peace with the Klingons if it wasn't for this. Klingons are proud and if they see a strong and big target, they can't help themselves but to attack.

The refusual to use cloaking tech might have lessen their will to fight against a "weaker" Federation.

Also consider that the Federation became big and strong pretty fast. This is why those conflicts emerged at the first point. Klingons and Romulans felt threatened by this big adversary. Using cloak (all the might you have) against a bigger, stronger enemy seems only viable and also honorable at this point to even the odds.

I think at this point it was clear that the Feds could've gotten this tech as well, if they just wanted. But it wouldn't have ended the conflict between Feds and Klings.

By making themselves weaker, they were able to continue expanding their territory farther. This gave the Feds more ressources and more science to come up with countering cloaking tech in the long run.
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Korth
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Re: Opinion question

Post by Korth »

Yeah, it's pretty evident the Federation could have cloaking devices, they understand the technology, they know how to build their own, and (ignoring Pegasus, Section 31, etc) they sometimes use cloaking/stealth technologies for nonmilitary applications.

It seems like every starfaring race which is sufficiently secretive, arrogant, cowardly, aggressive, or clever/advanced always ends up developing some kind of cloaking - it's a "common" tech like warp drives or shields. Interesting that every parallel, mirror, future, and alternate version of the Federation - seemingly every possible Federation except our own - routinely uses military-grade cloaking. Surprising that the Ferengi and Pakleds haven't got cloaks.

So I guess I can agree that cloak-using races would tend to view non-cloak-using races as backwards, weak, and stupid. There are even elements within the Federation and Starfleet who would agree. Maybe cloaks are an inevitable part of every warship's arsenal, only avoided by the Federation because of idealistic (not "realistic") treaty provisions, and Klingons are smart enough to keep their weapons sharp.
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Re: Opinion question

Post by slickrcbd »

Some of the limitations on the cloak seemed artificial, especially after the movie Star Trek VI:The Undiscovered Country.
Why is it that nobody in Picard's time could fire when cloaked?
That said, the use of cloaking technology to make something like Chang's ship that prevents the enemy from being able to lock onto your ship in battle makes perfect sense. If they can't hit you they can't kill you. Humans couldn't hope to hit a starship moving at the speeds and ranges of spaceships. Heck, they ran into that problem with subsonic jet fighters at the end of WWII and in the Korean War with AA guns.
On the other hand, Chang's ship couldn't use shields when cloaked, which was his Achilles's Heel.

The ECM aspect of cloaking is a major tactical advantage that it would be stupid not to employ. Hence why everybody in real life is trying to make stealth planes these days. If you can't lock onto the enemy fighter, you can't shoot him down at range with a missile and can only use a cannon at point-blank range guided by the mark I eyeball while he can hit you before you can even see him.
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Re: Opinion question

Post by Korth »

Well, it is sci-fi, the treknobabble offers lots of explanations (speculations) about why cloaking devices don't allow weapons/shields/transporters/etc to operate when cloaked. Always avoiding the painfully obvious truth that the technology is meant to serve the story (and the VFX), it will look very cool onscreen when it needs to, it will fail or succeed exactly as required.

I think it has a lot to do with the ships themselves. Simply plugging a cloaking device into an improvised socket is not going to make an Enterprise operate as well as a Warbird which integrates cloaking technology into every aspect of the ship design. A lot of the cloaky Klingon ships are refits and upgrades ... and it's not hard to imagine Klingon engineers being uninspired with their cloaking implementations.

I do agree that stealth, jamming, countermeasures, drones, and all the other things which make real modern warfare happen are sorely lacking in Trek. A complete-invisibility cloaking device is the ultimate form of stealth, nothing else is really mentioned. I guess turning on your ECM and launching flares/chaff/etc are just included in "Evasive Manuevers, Pattern Delta" while turning on your ECCM/etc is just included in "Long Range Sensor Scan"? But explicitly showing these things was beyond the imaginings (and budget) of early Trek. Ship combat onscreen is indeed artificial and arbitrary and turn-based and limited by dumb AI ... just like in the game, lol.

Whatever the limitations, and whatever the reasons for them, cloaking devices are still a definite tactical advantage.
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slickrcbd
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Re: Opinion question

Post by slickrcbd »

I know that plugging the cloaking device into the Enterprise in that TOS episode was improvising and that it would not have worked as well as on the ship it was designed for (they were lucky it was compatible at all), but it was the ships it was purpose-built for that had the stupid limitations.

I can see firing while cloaked giving away their position momentarily, but not being able to fire at all seemed dumb.
You MIGHT have a case for the shields as the shields might be too detectable, but not being able to fire torpedoes or missiles while cloaked because of the power drain seemed ridiculous.
Apparently some writers agreed with me, since in ST6 Chang only fired torpedoes until he dropped the cloak to raise shields (too late).

What bothered me was that in TNG and DS9 they still kept the limitation, even though they had the example from ST6. I would have expected the Klingons and Romulans to both be firing while cloaked in the Dominion War.
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