Discussion: Ammo-based Cloaks

[aerelm]

Since people have been asking me about this on Skype...

*Puts on his flamesuit*

We're considering introducing a new cloak type for transport, which will remain cargo-based, with the current Mk II Advanced cloak being restricted to ships with up to 2000 cargo space (so, basically battleships).

Flame away.

[Gulryz]

That will be nice can you tell more please

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You can ignore reality but you can not ignore consequences of ignoring reality

[Ponge]

Since people have been asking me about this on Skype...

*Puts on his flamesuit*

We're considering introducing a new cloak type for transport, which will remain cargo-based, with the current Mk II Advanced cloak being restricted to ships with up to 2000 cargo space (so, basically battleships).

Flame away.

This change makes sense, BUT:
Will people be able to request to change the current mk2adv cloaks on their transports to this (via "Admin magic")? A lot of mk2adv cloaks will be rendered "useless" and worthless with this change.

Also, the fuel for this cloak will be the same as the current fuels?

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[Zayne Carrick]

*Puts on his flamesuit*

We're considering introducing a new cloak type for transport, which will remain cargo-based, with the current Mk II Advanced cloak being restricted to ships with up to 2000 cargo space (so, basically battleships).

Hardly obtainable MOX will still be most efficient type of fuel?

[aerelm]

Will people be able to request to change the current mk2adv cloaks on their transports to this (via "Admin magic")? A lot of mk2adv cloaks will be rendered "useless" and worthless with this change.

There are currently 342 large cloaks on the GC server, with 139 being on transports and the remaining 203 on capital ships. Since it'd be a considerable workload to convert the transport cloaks after the release, it'd be up to the admins to decide whether they'd be willing to do it or not. I'm only talking with my developer hat on here.

Also, the fuel for this cloak will be the same as the current fuels?

Hardly obtainable MOX will still be most efficient type of fuel?

Most likely, unless someone can suggest a better alternative.

[Nerva]

Also, the fuel for this cloak will be the same as the current fuels?

Hardly obtainable MOX will still be most efficient type of fuel?

Most likely, unless someone can suggest a better alternative.

If only transport cloaks are going to use fuel, then maybe reduce the differences in fuel consumption? MOX being 3 times better than everything else is just too much. Especially in case of transports where that yields a hour of cloak time.

[Deeceem]

...unless someone can suggest a better alternative.

I am not sure if I'd say that it is a better alternative, but it would be an alternative.

When I brought this up I wasn't (and still am not) opposed to the idea of ammo-based cloaks, it just felt like it not being enough of a trade-off for what it offers on big cargo transports.

Anyways, an alternative could be to keep the ammo-based idea, but to increase the cargo requirements for the "transport cloak" significantly from 450 cargo.

For instance: for ships with a cargo between 2000 and 5000 - requires 1200 cargo space.

In that case one would have really to consider, if he wants to trade off that much of his cargo hold for the ability to cloak.

Since it would be a cloak specific for transports you could also readjust the ammo consumption for those, so it doesn't last that long, let's say 5 minutes.
That way people would either have to stop every 5 minutes to restock and recloak (60 seconds), which would make trading an annoyance and inefficient that way, but it would still be a helpful tool to avoid short passages.

The numbers I named here are just an example, you could obviously adjust them here and there.

Edit: Also - assuming we have a specific transport cloak - you could make ammo types for each cloak and make the transport cloak ammo expensive, so that it would make no sense, to spam cloak while trading, because it would cause losses.

[aerelm]

Even though making cloak ammo expensive is a reasonable suggestion, a particular technical limitation stops us from doing that. One option I'm trying right now is adding a new ammo type specifically for the transport cloak, and making it occupy cargo while still falling under the ammo limit restrictions. The test numbers I'm currently running with (which, needless to say are subject to change as this whole thing is nothing but a concept right now) are:

Cloaking Device Mk III

• Equipment takes up 600 cargo space
  
• Same warmup time as the Mk II (40 seconds)
  
• 1000 Ammo limit, at 1.0 efficiency (1 ammo = 1 sec cloak)
  
• 2.0 Ammo volume (1 ammo takes up 2 cargo space)
  
• Ammo would be cheap and available everywhere
   
  
• Building it on POBs would have the same requirements as the Mk II Advanced

This means a transport with Mk III would effectively have roughly the same cloaking capabilities as a capital with Mk II Adv, but at the same time would have to sacrifice some cargo to effectively cloak, and traders would have to pick between higher profit margin or more effective cloaking.

Discuss

[St.Denis]

There are currently 342 large cloaks on the GC server, with 139 being on transports and the remaining 203 on capital ships. Since it'd be a considerable workload to convert the transport cloaks after the release, it'd be up to the admins to decide whether they'd be willing to do it or not. I'm only talking with my developer hat on here.

This then suggests that none of the Cloaks are on Base, which I know, for a fact, is incorrect.

This means a transport with Mk III would effectively have roughly the same cloaking capabilities as a capital with Mk II Adv, but at the same time would have to sacrifice some cargo to effectively cloak, and traders would have to pick between higher profit margin or more effective cloaking.

With the current set up Transports that are trading, with cloaks, have to sacrifice Cargo space for the fuel anyway.

As for those Traders that use the Cloak to 'sneak past' areas, this isn't going to affect them as they balance the Cargo profit vs the loss of space due to carrying Fuel anyway. They only ever use short Cloaking times.

Another group of people that use the Cloaks in Transport Ships are the Pirates that use it to escape or jump upon unsuspecting prey. These are generally also short time Cloaking uses.

The last Group are those that use them as Spy Ships. Those Naval Forces that use them to scout out ahead of attacking Fleets, Police using this ability to track unsuspecting Smugglers to garner information. This Group will be heavily restricted with this implementation.

.

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'I would like to be half as clever as some people like to believe they are'
Life is full of disappointments, it is how we handle them that helps to define us, as a person

[Trogdor]

As for the 'Crap, my cloak doesn't work on my transport anymore' issue... you could maybe make a new PoB construction project that converts a BS cloak into a transport cloak? Then people could take care of it themselves with less effort. Though, you'll still have incidents of people doing this by accident. Maybe you could then disable the recipe a week after the update? Figuring that most people who need this new cloak will do so within the first week.


I have more ideas for the cap cloak.

You suggested changing it such that it has a max cargo size of 2k. However, it would be better if you simply made it suck weapon power instead of shields. That way, you could make its power draw high enough that no transport will be able to activate it. Other benefits:
You'll stop people from uncloaking right behind an enemy and laying into them with a full powercore.
You'll remove some of the anxiety associated with cloaking, too, by not dropping shield. NPCs and Asteroids won't be hull-damaging dangers, anymore.
Plus, it just makes more sense this way, I think.

Finally, you could make the cap cloak last a little longer by allowing it to consume both this new ammo AND cargo commodities. (Unless you're planning on making the cap-cloak ammo have volume, too).
Battleships have between 1400 and 1800 cargo space, and of that, ~1000 gets used up by ship equipment, leaving ~400-800 free space left.
Assuming the cloak ammo doesn't take any cargo space, that leaves you with 6-13 minutes more cloak time if you're using MOX, and 1/3 of that using other fuel. Now, I know you're going to say 'BUH! Trogdor, that's too much cloak time.' But you could adjust the rate of consumption from
1 MOX or 3 other / sec
to maybe
2 MOX or 4 other / sec
Now your cloak times are extended from the 15 min baseline by +3-6 minutes on MOX and +1.5-3 minutes on other fuel.

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