Cloaking Device, Re-looked at.

[Drake]

Then on a personal level, what would you agree with? This conversation is as much about the philosophy and enjoyment of the community as it as much about the person.

I'm glad we're finally getting to talk about this, the number of times I've seen threads like this shut down with an absolute no is ghastly and repressive

Well, I don't think a real 'cloaking device' is a good idea at all. But, I think a sensor jammer would serve much the same purpose. Most people rely almost entirely on their sensors to detect enemies, except possibly for very large ships which can be seen half a system away. If you didn't detect someone on your sensors until they were right next to you, it would be almost as good as a real cloaking device.

However, there is the balance issue. As someone pointed out, a complete sensor null would be overpowered to give to just anyone, even if it replaced your armor upgrade. One option would be to make it admin-given... But I really don't like that idea. Or you could make them limited, so they only halve the range at which sensors detect them, not defeat them completely. If this could be done (not sure if it could be or not), I think it would be balanced... People still have a few thousand k to see them coming and prepare, and it would replace the armor slot, so I don't think it would be abused by combat ships. Another option which has been suggested (again, not sure if it's even possible) would for it to drain power while active... Even if this worked, it'd have the problem of draining fighters/bombers/freighters too quickly, while transports and capships could keep it up indefinitely... Either that, or it'd just be too power-expensive for fighters/bombers/freighters to use at all.