Birth of the Federation

How can the Klingons, an honorable race, attack from behind cloaking devices? This bugs me to no end, so I thought I would ask others.

I think the most common argument is that Klingons consider themselves hunters. And hunters try -- as much as possible -- to remain as silent and invisible as possible when stalking their prey, particularly if that prey is dangerous.

They don't use cloaks because they are afraid of the enemy but because it enables them to give their pray a quick and clean death. That's what every warrior strives for!

They even talk about how no Klingon would strike as an assassin and to me that's pretty much the same as sniping or attacking from behind a cloak. That's the reason the Klingons don't like the Romulans is because of the cowardly way they attack. It always seemed to me to be THE double standard in Star Trek.

I do wish the races behaved more like their on screen counterparts, but they don't. Plus I never understood why the Ferengi where one of the majors. I know this game is titled The Next Generation but the mods with the Dominion (which were already known when BotF was developed) make a much better fifth power.

Although I would like to see the minors build out more and act more major lites, at least some of them. Ah that wish list for BotF 2.0.

BotF 2 is under works but its currently too complicated for me to install and I believe the AI still needs massive work. The group is on Facebook.

Yeah. There have been many attempts to create BotF2 like Supremacy. Still they all need work.

This version of BotF 2 looks hot but its too programmer intense for me to get it installed and working; especially sporting a perpetual migraine as of late...

I think the next time I play the Klingons I may play them without cloak. Just for something different.

It is fun to mix things up. You can also give yourself a lower tech rating than the other majors. That is fun too.

Seeing as, normally, the other races all team up against me; that's not a great or fun idea. With even tech its usually all I can do to fight off 4 major races.

The Klingons, for a short time, were allied with the Romulans. This is why in TOS Romulans made use of Klingon D-7s and the Klingons eventually used cloaks on some of their ships. Even after they fell out, the Romulans still exerted some influence in the Klingon empire from the shadows. For example, the House of Duras was a Romulan proxy.

I think you have this slightly wrong.Klingon ships do not usually attack when cloaked the exception was a one off hybrid in a movie.It would seem that even when decloaking they were still unable to fire as a short time period was needed to adjust from a cloaked position.
It is not dishonerable to get to a location unseen or to use a more modern term covertly.
Hope this helps snd sorry for the delay in posting

A bit of a necro thread but this subject has always bugged me, too.

Apparently Gene Roddenberry famously said "our heroes don't sneak around". So (except for a few badasses like Kirk and Sisko and Section 31) the Good Guys deliberately avoid using cloaking technology.

The Klingons use cloaks on many warships. Even though they're "honourable" and (as of TNG onwards) they're basically included in the Good Guys. Most sources say the Klingons got cloaking tech from the Romulans in a military alliance. Some sources say the Klingons (honourably?) stole it instead. Klingons have indeed been shown using the cloak when attacking, although most of the time they decloak so they can posture and menace.

It doesn't seem "honourable" at all to attack from stealth, no matter how it's explained.

And it also doesn't seem very morally/ethically justifiable for the Federation to strongly oppose cloaking/deception while also being quite happy to let cloaked Klingon battlecruisers escort their precious flagship through hostile space.

But then again there is no greater "honour" than victory and no greater "dishonour" than defeat. In BotF a battle is still "glorious" and "honourable" (to the Klingons) even if it's 27 cloaked Birds of Prey blasting a single unarmed Colony ship.

This really depends on if you are talking about cannon behavior vs game play,

for game play they should have added more commands in combat since combat is turn based.

cloaked ships should have had commands, De-cloak and attack and re-cloak (separate turns).

non cloaked ships should have had commands, random fire and target de-cloaking ships (separate turns).

the only way to have proper cannon behavior would to have live action combat.