Power Down Mode

[Leo]

Had a thought, I know this was brought up a LONG time ago, but I revisited the idea. With the introduction of cloaking system in 4.86 it brings to light an interesting thought: Smaller Fighters cannot stay cloaked very long. Only for about a minute or so if my calculations are correct (probably not, I'm bad at math) Thus, the only ships that can truly use a cloak efficiently are the battleships/cruisers (some freighters and gunboats too).

Now, the idea is this. When you press "z" it kills your engines, allowing you to drift through space. What if there was another button that did the same thing, BUT, killed your weapons, shields, and everything...but, it also drops you from radar.

Of course battleships won't want to use this because of their size. If you do this in a asteroid field to hide from someone, the battleship is still going to be seen clear as day by line of sight...AND your shields are down to boot (bomber paradise). For small fighters, even smuggling freighters, this adds an interesting little idea. If you're running through an asteroid field from the law (or pirates for you lawful traders), if you get far enough ahead, you can hide behind an asteroid, power down, and hide from them for a moment until they go away. Or even if they see you, you can hit the same button to power up and try to get away while your shields regen.

Thoughts?

~Leo

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[escopton]

Snubcraft can dock carrier then cloak carrier then undock for ambush or such... profit!

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[Drake]

This also sounds like an amazing idea for freighters, especially smuggling freighters. Transports are often too big to effectively hide from visual scans, unless in a cloud of some sort, but freighters are too much larger than fighters...

I really like this idea. It would also open up the possibility of setting up ambushes in gas clouds!

[... kur nubėgo?]

I'm very intresting how all of this is balanced. Or to be more precise - will be balanced. Not only cut of power should be the side effect of cloak but it also should cost a lot of money to do so. Why it is that? for example if it allows you to run away from a fight. Now lets say mercinary is on your arse. It's not hard to run from one at the moment. Yet it will make even easier now, making hunters work (including BH) even harder. And all ppl who plays as hunters well know how many targets likes to run away once they see they can't beat you + all those Q_Q about bad rp and crap like that.

So conclusion: 10 seconds of cloaking should cost no less that 2 000 000 credits. Which is propably the standart per head collected by a hunter.

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Omega Pirates Guild

History of OPG | Antonio "Vilkas" Devivar

[Toaster]

Had a thought, I know this was brought up a LONG time ago, but I revisited the idea. With the introduction of cloaking system in 4.86 it brings to light an interesting thought: Smaller Fighters cannot stay cloaked very long. Only for about a minute or so if my calculations are correct (probably not, I'm bad at math) Thus, the only ships that can truly use a cloak efficiently are the battleships/cruisers (some freighters and gunboats too).

Now, the idea is this. When you press "z" it kills your engines, allowing you to drift through space. What if there was another button that did the same thing, BUT, killed your weapons, shields, and everything...but, it also drops you from radar.

Of course battleships won't want to use this because of their size. If you do this in a asteroid field to hide from someone, the battleship is still going to be seen clear as day by line of sight...AND your shields are down to boot (bomber paradise). For small fighters, even smuggling freighters, this adds an interesting little idea. If you're running through an asteroid field from the law (or pirates for you lawful traders), if you get far enough ahead, you can hide behind an asteroid, power down, and hide from them for a moment until they go away. Or even if they see you, you can hit the same button to power up and try to get away while your shields regen.

Thoughts?

~Leo

This is awesome. It would finally give asteroid fields and nebulae a reason to exist (except in order to piss cruising battleships off).

I approve.

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Olivia Sable

[... kur nubėgo?]

Instead of fantasing about "how cool stuff will would be" realise how f'up some things would go which are already there. Don't you think?

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Omega Pirates Guild

History of OPG | Antonio "Vilkas" Devivar

[Toaster]

Gief example.

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Olivia Sable

[Maelstrom]

I don't like this idea.

First, it's just a way to get around dev imposed limitations.

Second, it's already easy enough to get away from capships in asteroid fields.

Third, radar isn't based on your emissions, it's based on mapping your hull with radio waves, so the science part of this doesn't even work.

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[... kur nubėgo?]

Gief example.

Read above? all this cloaking thing is all together useless b.s. which does no good. The game is about interaction - not avoiding it. Simple as that.

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Omega Pirates Guild

History of OPG | Antonio "Vilkas" Devivar

[Zukeenee]

I would love to see this sort of thing implemented. I can already think of another scenario in which this might get used a lot.

Miners are skittish. If they see an unknown contact pop up on the radar, they're likely to cruise off in fear of being an easy target for piracy. But if they all had the ability to power down like this, it adds another option. If they're mining, they've already got quite a selection of asteroids to hide behind. Obviously this wouldn't work very well for Hegemons and the like, but the mining snubs would make excellent use of this feature.

The problem is, though, would that be considered too much? I'd imagine the miner-pirates would get pretty pissed off if their prey powered down every time they came in range of the miners. Could that be considered abuse? Or maybe just another reason to choose mining snubs over the Hegemon?

As much as I'd love to see this get added to the mod, I'll bet that the developers wouldn't let it in unless it came with some sort of extra price. I'd think that losing the use of your shield, guns, and movement would be enough of a "price", but the way that other features like the cloak have been implemented, the devs would probably make it require something more.

Oooh, or what if powering down also removed your HUD? That way, if you duck behind an asteroid and power down to avoid a predator, you won't know if he's gone until you power up again. And of course, the moment you power back up to check if the coast is clear, you'd better hope the guy's gone, or else you've just revealed your hiding spot.



EDIT:

Second, it's already easy enough to get away from capships in asteroid fields.

Capships aren't the only predators out there. Fighters and bombers chase people, too.

Third, radar isn't based on your emissions, it's based on mapping your hull with radio waves, so the science part of this doesn't even work.

This is Freelancer. We don't do accurate science here.

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