| Author |
Redesign suggestion for ECM, ECCM and Cloak |
Phoebuzz
Grand Admiral
Joined: November 17, 2003
Posts: 110
|  Posted: 2004-03-15 06:21
The problem with balancing the cloak isn't in the cloak itself, but in the ECM/ECCM system.
The simple fact that in this system we can get aberrations such has negative signatures show that it is seriously flawed. (And don't you tell me that negative sigs are realistic and/or good for the gameplay)
What about K'luths with deep negative sigs that can fire and stay invisible.
Or the cloak that is rendered useless by a single ECCM.
My idea to fix the ECM/ECCM is to change the way the effect are calculated.
Instead of being absolutes, they would be proportional to what they are working against. Each ECM reduces the signature by a percentage, and each ECCM reduces the effect of ECM by a percentage.
The formula is: Final Sig = Sig * ECCM/(ECM+ECCM)
The result is that sigs can't be lowered under 0 (preventing the K'luths that stay cloaked while firing), and ECCM doesn't negate cloak anymore.
ECM should affect everyone in a range of 500gu, while ECCM should only affect enemies in a range of 2500 to 10000gu.
The cloak. I'm not saying that it's balanced... but not far.
The main problem with the current cloak is that it's an absolute power. 0sig, whenever you are an idle scout or a flaming dread moving at 20gu/s over the enemy, you are invisible.
My suggestion is to change the cloak so it lowers the sig by 95% instead of 100%, and to add to the cloak a small generator-like signature of +0.2 or so.
That way, K'luths will never be TOTALLY invisible, but they will still be very hard to detect... even in battle if the K'luth pilot is wise.
New signature generation steps:
1. Add the sig of all cloakable components (hull, engine, etc.)
2. If the ship has cloak activated, multiply the sig by 5% (reduction of 95%)
3. Add the sig of all non-cloakable components (weapons, reactors, beacons, etc.)
4. Multiply the sig by ECCM/(ECM+ECCM)
What do YOU think about that?
[ This Message was edited by: Phoebus on 2004-03-15 07:43 ]
[ This Message was edited by: Phoebus on 2004-03-15 07:45 ]
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Pope
Fleet Admiral
Joined: June 11, 2002
Posts: 2449
From: World of tomorrow
| Posted: 2004-03-15 06:35
Makes a lot of sense.
Currently there isnt much use for scanners, either.
I suppose there would have to be some tweaking to detection ranges.
Other then that, The Numbers seem really fine.
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-Viper-
Fleet Admiral
Joined: July 26, 2001
Posts: 55
From: UK
| Posted: 2004-03-15 07:11
The problem with cloak is eccm, it makes it useless and everyone in the carries one, so kluth need stacks of ecm to stay hidden because their ships are MUCH weaker than ICC and UTGO. An advanced cloak that is not effected by eccm, but uses more power and shooting/dropping inf turns it off would be good 
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K'luth!
[ This Message was edited by: -Viper- on 2004-03-15 07:14 ]
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Coeus {NCX-Charger}
Admiral, I can't read,
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: February 16, 2004
Posts: 3635
From: South Philly
| Posted: 2004-03-15 12:54
I don't see any problem with the current system - it makes you think about the oponent you're fighting. If you're ICC fighting kluth on your territory - no problem, but if you're fighting kluth in THEIR territory, you really need to think, because ECCM and Shields will rend your ship ... erm... dead
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Darkspace: Twilight
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The Monty
Cadet
Joined: October 07, 2002
Posts: 967
| Posted: 2004-03-15 13:20
Well, cloak no longer being effected by ECCM or ECM would be nice, along with the cloak timer Ive heard so much about. What I would like to see is scanners bring up a little personal radar, so basically your able to ping off the Kluth ships, you'll know someone is there, but not know what they are in until they uncloak & engage.
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Obesa cantavit. Diabolus fecit, ut id facerem.
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Enterprise
Chief Marshal
Raven Warriors
Joined: May 19, 2002
Posts: 2576
From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2004-03-15 13:52
Or....you culd just bring the old old cloak back, you know, the one where when you activate ECCM it drains the cloak users energy until they edcloak, that was wonderful.
Bring it back, solves everything...and the K'luth complaints will be rant hell...
-Ent
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Rocki
Grand Admiral
Joined: August 13, 2002
Posts: 1029
| Posted: 2004-03-15 13:58
1.482
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Shigernafy
Admiral
Joined: May 29, 2001
Posts: 5726
From: The Land of Taxation without Representation
| Posted: 2004-03-15 14:59
>> Sir! I have a plan, sir.
>> What happens now?
>> Well, now, uh, Launcelot, Galahad, and I, uh, wait until 1.482, and then leap out of the rabbit, taking the French, uh, by surprise. Not only by surprise, but with a completely new cloak system!
... yeah, I'm a dork. A very bored one, at the moment.
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* [S.W]AdmBito @55321 Sent \"I dunno; the French had a few missteps. But they're on the right track, one headbutt at a time.\"
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Sandals
Fleet Admiral
Agents
Joined: January 21, 2002
Posts: 2001
From: Redmond,WA,USA
| Posted: 2004-03-15 15:49
*rolls his eyes*
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MrSparkle
Marshal
Joined: August 13, 2001
Posts: 1912
From: mrsparkle
| Posted: 2004-03-15 16:26
Cloak is getting changed in 1.482 guys. It will no longer be affected by ecm/eccm even if there's bazillions of it, which is exactly how it should be. The downside is you can't fire or unload infantry while cloaked either (which is also exactly how it should be), and there will be a recharge time of around 80 seconds before being able to recloak (recharge time may scale with ship size).
This is at least the initial plan.
I'd also like to see a similar plan for ICC ships' shields. After watching a Star Trek episode the other day and watching a cloaked ship uncloak in front of them and open fire, and seeing how the Enterprise had to activate it's shields, just made my imagination run away for a bit. How cool would that be in Darkspace? If shields were normally down, but could be put up at perhaps a great energy cost and with much greater defensive capability. Or maybe that could be an advanced shield higher than even actives.
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