[Declined] Cloaking: the non feature

[Tyroka]

Originally Posted by macros69

Yeah i can see how this would be to powerful but wouldnt telling the number of pods, structure killers etc be a disadvantage to Xan if the person in question had unit scan? because most people know what a Xan will send them and if you now knew the amount of pods and structure killers then you would be able to make an even better estimate

Well if the xan sends x pods and that the x is as many fr-pods he has (provided he has an equal amount or more fi-pods), if the fleet is Fr-ETA, then what is coming? Fi or Fr ? and how many ships are in the fleet except for pods, what type of ships? Not easy to tell and enough of an advantage for the Xan.

To your question, yes it is an disadvantage to Xan compared with if news etc said 0, but no in my opinion it's not an disadvantage compared to the other races.

[Cochese]

If nothing else, for the love of everything holy, just fix Xan armor/damage plus a few other stat tweaks (initiatives and targetting).

And get rid of the god damn rogue.

[macros69]

Originally Posted by Cochese

If nothing else, for the love of everything holy, just fix Xan armor/damage plus a few other stat tweaks (initiatives and targetting).

HELL YEAH - me like xan but ..... need to be a bit better

[achilles19]

As far as I can tell no matter what you do with battlecalcing you can pretty much always guess what a xan is sending (or any other race for that matter if you don't have fleet analysis researched or enough amps to get past their distorters). If you are online and suddenly a fleet with an eta of 7 is headed your way you can gurantee that it's just vettes and fighters. But I agree with Cochese in that Xans are supposed to have POWERFUL weapons and little armor as the cloaking is the xan's main defense (discussed this earlier?)

So then maybe it isn't what's so much as wrong with Xan but rather the other races? I mean since when does Zik have powerful weapons, ability to subvert, and (gasp) better covert ops. PA isn't just about ships people there are other aspects. Maybe covert ops needs to be improved - slightly off topic but just trying to find alternative ideas here.


Flame me if you want I could care less.

[macros69]

/me flames achilles19

zik are a bit strong this round and have lots of advantages but i just dont like how it says in the manual for Xan - powerful weapons and they have the weakest in the game isnt that a bit of a contradiction? but you are wrong achilles19 or not wrong because you didnt actually say this but there is something wrong with xans this round..... maybe there is something wrong with all the races ..... oh yeh the stat balances

[achilles19]

Thanks for the correction yea there is definitely something wrong with the Xan but what I am trying to get at was that the Xan's special ability is pretty simple and straight forward. But I think balancing the stats is msot important particularly with the pulsars (the only Xan anti-dest). You need thousands of them to mount a successful attack or defense and whether your cloaked or not the other player can easily guess your strategy in taking out any of his destroyers (this is only one example).


Flame me or not I could care less.

[macros69]

/me is jk about the flaming achilles19 and agree with in most he says.

yeh i agree with the pulsar comment but the i think this all comes under stat balancing. I know it is a pretty specific point but it is a balance of the stats non the less

[khaos]

The pulsars thing is hell, thats the only ship someone would have more than 50k of (maybe vsh aswell), but if you see 50k or more ships you know that the pulsar is in there, which is kind of bs, seeing as though other races cant get there numbers fairly even.

Im agree with everyone, something needs to be done about the cloak cababilty of xan, and also there damage and armor, as it is now, the cloaking is useless.

[macros69]

well personnally if the cloaking and weapon power is changed and the armor stays the same then i have no complaints at least it would fit the description in the manual :

Xandathrii
Ships are cloaked , but have extremely poor armour and powerful weapons.

[shik]

what about allowing xans to influence what the person which scans them is seeing.
you know the random +-25%, but just make it +-50% and not random for xans.
i think that could be an alternative for cloakin.

[khaos]

Originally Posted by macros69

well personnally if the cloaking and weapon power is changed and the armor stays the same then i have no complaints at least it would fit the description in the manual :

Xandathrii
Ships are cloaked , but have extremely poor armour and powerful weapons.

Perfect, think all Xans would find this a good solution, i know i did

[Cochese]

It's not that Zik is necessarly "over powered", but rather, Xan is "under armored"...making subvertive weapons that much more efficicent. You wouldn't have to make them on par with other fighters (6 armor average for the other three races' fighters, twice that of the Pulsar/Dagger, and three times that of the Vsh) but at least add a point to each. On that note, not using amor values in multiples of 10 has always, and will always, make tuning Fighter armor precarious.

The rogue is the main problem. Without it, you could attack Ziks much like Caths: with a pure Fighter flood.

The fact it fires on the same initiative as Xan Fighters is, quite frankly, inconcievable...and a testament to the fact that whoever made the stats was quite obviously clueless (or biased against Xan).

[achilles19]

Which brings it back to changing and balancing the stats for not only xan ships but also the rogue.

[khaos]

So whats going to happen?

[Judge]

To my mind it makes sense that Xan be truely Cloaked as they used to be.

Some say it is a problem determining what has been sent, but News scans reveal previous battles, Tech Scans and planet scans reveal the planets abilties as to ships available and to ETA research so all can be "discovered" to some extent.

The one thing that Xan needs to have is the lowest initiative of all the races (perhaps not for all ship types) but it makes sense that a Cloaked ship has to fire to reveal it's position and therefore be able to be fired upon.

[Kal]

so basically we want a classic xan thats cloaked, low init, high damage but with the most pitiful armour ever conceived?

[fizzyxl]

sounds fair

[Kal]

i do think however that perhaps that makes bashing of people in the smaller alliances or peopel not in alliances rather to easy

[Judge]

Originally Posted by Kal

i do think however that perhaps that makes bashing of people in the smaller alliances or peopel not in alliances rather to easy

When Xan was as described above, it was a sucessful as any of the other races.

[Kal]

overall maybe, biut i'm thinking about effects on different parts of the playerbase

[Cannon_Fodder]

You complain about xans being fully cloaked thus not being able to tell what ships he has, but how dis-similar is it to him having a tonne of distorters?

[Cannon_Fodder]

Originally Posted by Kal

so basically we want a classic xan thats cloaked, low init, high damage but with the most pitiful armour ever conceived?

if that happened wouldn't everyone go cath?

[Kal]

Originally Posted by sniborp

if that happened wouldn't everyone go cath?

and this is where we get to a problem - the classic race designs make balence a real problem

[Appocomaster]

that's why we had EMP resistance...

[Cannon_Fodder]

but we got rid of it because it was stupid...

[demiGOD]

lets make xan's more powerful peeps.. its ok.. *sigh* xan fleets are a powerful attack race as it is, and with the zik being able to steal ships again - i dont know.. just dont know - i think xans are cloaked enough, if the proper mass do not think so, how about completely cloaking a maximum of only 50% of his total fleet and this cloaking maximum capability is determined through the target's tech tree so you're gonna have to scan first and go through the problem of the targets having too many distorters, bother your alliance scanner, and you waste all these resources just to find out that youre gonna need help attacking this xan target

-too much hassle dont you think?

[Kal]

xan ships being more cloaked would help ziks to much imo

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Kal

xan ships being more cloaked would help ziks to much imo

Not if the cloaking were tied to race and not ships.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Banned

Not if the cloaking were tied to race and not ships.

that just isn't realistic though - ships have cloaking devices, its not like the race would bring it on board each time they want to use it

[Cannon_Fodder]

maybe theres some kind of immobiliser on these ships that activates the cloaking....#


and only xan know the passcodes

[demiGOD]

Originally Posted by Kal

that just isn't realistic though - ships have cloaking devices, its not like the race would bring it on board each time they want to use it

have them build cloaking fuel silo's as structures so without them, they cant cloak their ships ehhe, how bout that?

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Kal

that just isn't realistic though - ships have cloaking devices, its not like the race would bring it on board each time they want to use it

Maybe they've got voice recognition devices and Zikonians don't speak Xandathriian.

[mist]

Originally Posted by Kal

that just isn't realistic though - ships have cloaking devices, its not like the race would bring it on board each time they want to use it

on this note, i'd like to repeat my suggestion that it take at least a year from a fleet being launched to it landing, as even at the speed of light it's going to take that long.

realism is important, after all.

[Kal]

u fail to understand that the engines in the ships generate worm holes meaning they can reach any location rather quickly

[mist]

oh, and that's soooo realistic.

"i think i'll pop down the shops, just gotta fire up this portable wormhole generator..."

[noah02]

Xan are so good now that making them cloaked would make them elite
I dont think they should be cloaked because they would become invincible but if they did a think they should be able to be jgp.
Or mil scans hehe(joke)
But otherwise making them invisble is a bad advantage.

[mist]

i assume that stats are being designed with the current cloaking in mind, so changing it at this point would be rather silly

[Cannon_Fodder]

Originally Posted by mist

oh, and that's soooo realistic.

"i think i'll pop down the shops, just gotta fire up this portable wormhole generator..."

wormholes do exist, just there kinda small and require a lot of energy, so would only be used for fleets travelling long distances

[mist]

Originally Posted by sniborp

wormholes do exist, just there kinda small and require a lot of energy, so would only be used for fleets travelling long distances

currently, i don't see many of them in use.

[Cannon_Fodder]

well we cant make them yet, try reading some einstein books...

[mist]

the point, yes there was one, is that realism is a crap argument for pretty much anything in this kind of game.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by sniborp

wormholes do exist, just there kinda small and require a lot of energy, so would only be used for fleets travelling long distances

Actually, we don't know if they exist. We think they do. As in, they're hypothetical.

Originally Posted by mist

the point, yes there was one, is that realism is a crap argument for pretty much anything in this kind of game.

It doesn't matter in any game. All that matters is suspension of disbelief. Realism is a tool to keep it up, not a goal in itself.

[Cannon_Fodder]

our best theories depend on them existing... if thats not real enough, they exist on tv shows, if thats not real enough, belive in your mind they exist

[macros69]

ok arent we gettng a bit off topic this is a bout the cloaking of Xans not whether worm hole exist and if they do whether we should use them to get down the shops. I personnally think this is a topic that can be argued till the cows come home and even then no one is going to agree - i still think that the Xans should fit there Manual description - at least then new players arent being led astray *and also me like the idea of extremely powerful weapons )

[demiGOD]

i do believe in that cloaking cape harry potter used

[Kal]

This is being declined, but it is not the end of the road, at some point there will be a dev discussion on how races should be, possibly even mention of a 5th race and the potential benefits it could bring