[Discuss] Xan Cloaking -Round 14

[noah02]

I know this idea has been banging on the door for ever and ever and been everytime,
But with Stealing back Emp getting slightly better and Terrans being tough as nails because yes terran should always have the battleships as there main roiding fleet coz thats there thing strength, I think that Xan deserve a little bit of cloaking.

What most ppl's problems are is that they will be invisble hence to much of an advantage but what I propose is jgp work the same as in you see the numbers only not fleets and fleet scans work the same to as in you fleet scan and see the numbers coming towards you not the ships So if you see 0 on your screen then getting someone to jgp you really can help.

Now this should'nt really cause anyone a problem as there of plenty of ppl who have jgp straight away and I really (with the new stats) think that Xan are a good (with there boring but random lets send fighters only fleet) yet just random race a the moment.

The 2 cures I can think off is to have some ships cloaked some ships not, possibly the bigger ships as small fleets(but if you jgp yourself or fleetscan you will see the true numbers if there is cloaked mixed with other ships) cant handle the power capable of cloaking or the simple just make pods not cloaked as they have the old special ability to just send asteroids back hence there technology is more based on asteroids than cloaking.

But i really like the idea of (like cat and zik) were some ships have the ability and some dont to cloak and I think if they are cloaked they cause less damage but if there not cloaked they cause more damage as the "inventor" made the ships for firepower rather than cloaking.

I know you will all say been there rejected etc... etc... but I really hate Xan race (as I am always Terran) but i really want them to be cloaked in one way or another because not being able to fleet scan them is a really crap way of being cloaked as it is.

P.s I think they should have - 1 on constructions and have poor cov ops so as when they build l33t distorters we can cov op them at least once as we dont want them to get advantage in distorter dept.

Be nice please.

[barney]

some kind of cloaking would be excellent, give xan back its main talent. however it does have to be implemented carefully, so as not to make them too powerful.

i like the idea of a few shippies being cloaked (as with EMP and steeling) maybe for example one type of fighter would be cloaked you you would never be sure exactly what is coming but you would have an idea, however the speed with which most scanners get JPG scans, if the information was avaliable on jumpies it would make it all but pointless. so if it is to be effective any cloaked ships would have to be invisible on JPG scans, however im not sure how to do this without making them too powerful :/

[Iceman]

tell me if im wrong but arent xan shippies invisible on fleetscan allready?
and isnt that good enuf? i mean invisible on jpg?! talk about dangerous lol

[noah02]

yes very honest.
50000 ships incoming wonder what that is?
i am sure they cant afford 50000 frigates that early.

[Goafer LX]

i agree, not all ships should be cloaked
maybe, all fighters but one can be cloaked
then a couple of other ships?
i feel however that a cloaked 'battleship' should do less damage as it has been 'designed' for cloaking rather than destruction

[Appocomaster]

The problem with xans before was that they just had to get the # of pods the same in each fleet and could hugely fake attacks / defences. That's a bit powerful now. How about:
Bring back mil scans (in addition to current scans). Change Xan cloaking basically back to classic so:
Xan units show pods
Xan mil scans show all ships, BUT now
Xan fleet scans SHOW ALL SHIPS.
That way, xans have an early advantage, and can have the good old
250 pod / 250 pod / all fleet + 250 pod trick, but when people get fleet scans they can still be scanned.
Hence "cloaking blocks all but the most powerful scan, and the direct scan made by the defending planet" or something.
Oh, and mil scan obv comes after fleet analysis

[noah02]

I did think about the military scan but ppl always have a problem with that scan for some reason.
I just never saw a proplem with it.(think it was to do with alliance scan planets which is why isay fleet scans only)

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

Xan mil scans show all ships, BUT now
Xan fleet scans SHOW ALL SHIPS.

huh?

As in Mil scans show all FLEETs (though not ETA, target co-ords etc), and Fleet scans show all SHIPS? (only in the fleet(s) directed at you)?

Perhaps a name change is in order though - normally people who want to know what's in a fleet would use a fleet scan, which isnt the right thing .

Btw, i stronly disagree with making xan pods decloaked. I just think there is something inherrently nasty about having a fleet of 0 inbound with the potential to be a full fleet, or 1 Dagger .

[noah02]

Either way I think xan deserve some cloaking of some sort as the cloaking they got now is not cloaking its shit and the only way around it is to create a scan that ppl have a slight chance knowing the fleet and that xan get there cloaking.
I still say unit scans can still work just as good aswell as i know if i unit scan i can partially work out what they have sent coz i already have defence against one set of ships so i need defence against another set of ships that they have possibly sent as they have spotted my weakness on a unit scan.

[MAdnRisKy]

Here's a suggestion


All xan ships can be cloaked, at the choice of the planet owning them

ie you can choose of cloak some all or none of them. now in cloaking they can't be seen on anything (except obviously the unit scan) but lose a proportion of either say init or firepower.

Init might be most useful say they get +2 to init a delay in fireing due to having to uncloak first say.

so vsh in current stats would fire at init 4 if they were sent uncloaked and cloaked ones would fire at init 6. Now the specifics of inits would be dependant on stats but the scope it would give for tactics would be enormous and a lot of fun!

(send a fleet bigger than first thought, or send an obvious but more powerful fleet is just one...)

[Squishy]

This idea sounds really difficult to implement.

What i would have is xans completly cloaked untill the last scan. Add an extra millitery scan this way they have a decent advantage over the other races their cloaking is in place but they can still be scanned by scannors and later stages of game.

[Cochese]

I agree on the basic point, and it's one I've argued in favor of for some time.

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by MAdnRisKy

ie you can choose of cloak some all or none of them. now in cloaking they can't be seen on anything (except obviously the unit scan) but lose a proportion of either say init or firepower.

In general, altering the initiatives of ships is definately not the way to go. It may not sound like it, but firing order is extremely important in the makeup of a ship type - in essense, initiative has the potential to make or break a ship.

Take, for example, Pulsars firing after Pegasus - Pulsars tend to get owned and would thus become a (next to) useless ship. Reverse the initiatives, and Pulsars so fully own Pegasus that you largely eliminate the Terran DE threat (granted there are other factors at play, but you get my meaning). The signficance of initiatives cannot really by understated, and as a shipstat builder, its one of the greatest headaches - as assigning the incorrect intiative to a single ship type has the power to throw the balance between races out.

So, as a general rule, dont alter initatives.

Edit: though, i have to give you credit for trying to think outside the box. tbh, i think the best solution regarding Xan Cloaking prolly hasnt been thought of yet - and should perhaps give a bonus in another area - perhaps even completely unrelated like resources or something. (though i would be second to admit that altering hte prices of ships can also shake the balance of power between ships and races, so its generally a no-no [just like inits, though typically to a lesser extent ]).

[NitinA]

I'd really enjoy seeing an overhaul of the Xan capabilities. Judging from responses in this thread, Xan's "cloaking" ability is not living up to expectations and it's name. EMP has always worked. Subversion didn't, so was replaced with Stealing. Current "cloaking" isn't true cloaking and would be, in my opinion, the next thing to update, as far as the races go. At the current time, Xan's are the only race in which their "special ability" isn't too pronounced (Terrans=Large normal ships, Cath=EMP ships, Zik=Steal ships). Xan cloaking could use an upgrade, while trying to maintain a balance between the races.

Just as Cath have 6 EMP ships and Zik have 6 Stealing ships, Xan should have 6 Cloaked ships. The following was an idea I had but never developed until now. It's basic premise is that cloaking can be regulated via waves. Here's my idea of how it might work :

SK and Pod ships should *NOT* be Cloaked (In addition to the 2 additional "Norm" ships a Xan planet would have). When you have incoming from a Xan planet, it would show up as [SK+Pods+2 normal ships count]-[Cloaked ships]=_ incoming hostile.

The trick of cloaking : A formula based waves dependent system for cloaking.

If the following is true, then the target planet can see the cloaked ships (in *all* scans, hostile messages, ect.). If it's not true, then the target planet can only see the count of SK+pods+norm ships.

[ ( Defending_Planets_Amps / 3 ) + ( Defending_Planets_Distorters / 1.5 )  ] >= [ Attacking_Xans_Amps / 2 ]

A few examples (based on rounding down):

1.) A Xan's target with 30 amps, and 15 distorters would "score" 20 (10+10). A Xan attacker with 30 amps would "score" a 15. Since 20 > 15, the target would be able to see cloaked ships.

2.) A Xan's target with 40 amps, and 0 distorters would "score" 13 (13+0). A Xan attacker with 30 amps would "score" a 15. Since 13 < 15, the target would NOT be able to see cloaked ships.

3.) A Xan's target with 5 amps, and 20 distorters would "score" 14 (1+13). A Xan attacker with 28 amps would "score" a 14. Since 14 = 14, the target would be able to see cloaked ships.

4.) A Xan's target with 25 amps, and 25 distorters would "score" 24 (8+16). A Xan attacker with 50 amps would "score" a 25. Since 24 < 25, the target would NOT be able to see cloaked ships.

5.) A Xan's target with 0 amps, and 39 distorters would "score" 26 (0+26). A Xan attacker with 50 amps would "score" a 25. Since 26 > 25, the target would be able to see cloaked ships.

This idea incorperates Waves (primarily adding more functionality for wave distorters when compared to the status quo) into the game a bit more, and devalues scan planets over personal amps/distorters. One should also take into consideration stealing, in which case the amps become vital to having the ships remain cloaked when the Cloak ships have been stolen. In addition to thinking of the concequences of stealing, it is important to remember that covert ops specifically can destroy destorters & amps (making covert ops a more useable function of the game), and that structure killers can destroy amps and distorters, making the use of SK ships more of a strategic tool.

I am not aware how possible/impossible this would be to code into the PA game engine. Mind you, this is a first draft of a spontanous idea. Anyway, that's my brainstorm for the night.

Scans : As unit scans currently do, they should continue to show all the ships a Xan planet has, with a margin or error. Jumpgate probes should show the fleet counts with the number of cloaked ships added in. Fleet scans should show non-cloaked ships, pods, and structure killers. News scans on the planet being attacked (with the current 4 tick delay) should show the full number of ships in the fleet, including cloaked ships.

Goodnight,
NitinA

[MAdnRisKy]

sovvie I know inits and how important they are

but in that quoted instance it would make no sense to cloak the pulsars for the xan, so any xan with half a brain doesn't do it.

but what about vsh versus say cutlass.... and what if, you only cloak half.... so that the zik thinks he has a chance... stays doesn't get much def to encourage you to land so he can steal bar say a few beetles, you land and thoroughly whoop his ass?

to me that sounds like a fun new dimension....

[Proxi]

Increasing the amount of random deviation on units scans which target xan planets, in addition to be invisible on fleet scans would be good.

So basically unit scans on xan planets are less accurate than on everyone else, by a certain factor.
Id suggest a fairly high one to make it a useful ability.

[Cochese]

Originally Posted by veX

Increasing the amount of random deviation on units scans which target xan planets, in addition to be invisible on fleet scans would be good.

So basically unit scans on xan planets are less accurate than on everyone else, by a certain factor.
Id suggest a fairly high one to make it a useful ability.

I would agree on this...

Perhaps have a fairly low accuracy on normal ships, but a fairly high one on their pods...or the reverse.

[themast]

the only scan that should be able to is xan ships is mil scans (or in our case FA scans) like the old days

[Makhil]

how about a slightly different ability for the Xans like inacurate info when scanned:
- ship class missing if less than a certain amount of ships in the fleet (would be an incentive for xans to build the bigger ships)
- wrong number of ships - nothing huge, just enough to bring some incertainty in a bcalc

or wrong coords displayed on the gal status (only for the target, the other gal members would see the true coords of the attacker).

[King]

I sort of agree with Makhil. Why instead of cloaking xan ships just not make the scans accurate.
For example:
You send 15457 fighters
the scan says you send 1500 fighters or 15700.
Something like that so that the Bcalc isn't perfect but the number isn't so far off that they might as well be invisble.