FT cloaking

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From: "Bell, Brian K" <Brian_Bell@dscc.dla.mil>
Subject: RE: cloaking rules

I posted the rules to which you refer.
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Glen: Then I thank you for them. I got to playtest them this weekend after I
made a few more modifications. I played the cloaked ship (a "Rom warbird") vs
a "Fed destroyer". I won because I finally got him in the narrow Wave Gun
("plasma torpedo") arc, I had taken 3 hits to armor mostly because I uncloaked
for a few turns when he was in front of me and I was behind him.
The DD had 1 180 degree pulse torpedo and 1 360 degree class-2
beam with 2 fire controls. I still couldn't get a shot lined up so I went back
to cloak for a few more turns. The combat lasted 21 turns. He protested a lot
about the "super" weapon Wave Gun mixed with the cloaking device, I figure it
was "sour grapes". I went from blind mode to off mode in 1 turn and took my
shot, he complained that a cloaked ship should have to go through stages
(blind to standard to off modes) so that the enemy has a chance to respond. I
disagree, what do others think?

Modifications: Blind mode cloaked ship can change velocity and turn up to 2
thrust points. I thought 1 was too severe, 2 was sufficient in my scenario
(the warbird only had a thrust of 2 anyway). If you want to change more than
go to standard mode is my reasoning.

Detecting a standard-mode cloaked ship mod:
-1 if the cloaked ship made no velocity changes or turns,
0 if the cloaked ship made thrust changes up to 2,
+1 if the cloaked ship made thrust changes of 3 or more.

I was always making course changes so if he picked the right arc, which he did
in all but one instance, he had a chance (1 in 6) to find me. When he did
detect me one time I put the ship at its exact location, it was easier to
figure things out.

btw, we were using a hex grid (and he complained about that, yes this is the
same guy that's a GW weenie). I think it would make it
much harder to play with cloaked ships on a non-hex grid area.

He did complain a bit, but most of it was at playing "devil's advocate" to try
to break the cloaking rules. Although, it was hard at times to determine what
"mode" he was in.:)

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Brian: I did not understand from your post if the Advanced Cloaking put the
cloaked ship in standard mode or blind mode cloaking with the additional
ability to fire.
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Glen: I put the Advanced Cloaking at the last minute. The normal cloaking
rules still apply, i.e., no firing in Blind mode. I haven't given it much
thought yet, working at ironing out the "normal" rules.

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Brian: I also have a concern about the ranges you stated for scanning. Can a
FCS be used to search for a cloaked ship and then be used to fire on that
ship? If not, the cloaked ship is immune to all standard ships below Light
Cruisers (since they only have one FCS). Also,
most ships of Light Cruiser to Battlecruiser (1/2 of the Fleetbook
Battlecruisers have 2 FCS) could only attack cloaked ships at 12" or less (one
FCS to scan, one FCS to shoot). At a the bare minimum, the weapons of the
cloaked ship should be reduced to 12" and the FCS should be allowed to fire on
the cloaked ship as well as search for it (if it finds it).
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Glen: Hmm. My designed ships have more FCS than the FB's, then. So I'm
paranoid about losing all my FCS and then cannot fire. I'll think on it.

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Brian: A cloaked ship should have the same difficulty locking onto a ship
through the cloak. It should require a 6+ on a d6 modified as below
to lock onto the target (and then normal chances of hitting with the weapons).
Target ship used MD, +1
Target ship fired during the Firing Phase +1
Target ship scanned area of cloaked ship +2 (regardless of if the
cloaked ship was found or not)
Target ship is powering up for FTL +1
Target ship has taken damage this turn +1

I still prefer to not allow a cloaked ship fire, as it adds a lot of
complication and unbalances the game. At the MOST, a cloaking field should add
no more value than level 2 screens (<shudder> Think of a Komarov SDN with a
cloaking field instead of level 2 screens).
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Glen:
If using the +n to detect, where n is the number of weapons fired by
the cloaked ship, then that Komarov is probably detectable by everyone if it
fires everything. Now you are paying a high price
for beating initiative, which is a 50/50 proposition anyway.
Firing direct fire under cloak is really optional, and twice the price of
regular cloak at my first guess at a point cost.

Speaking of screens, my friend thought that a cloaked ship should have the
effect of screens if fired at when cloaked. I figure if they detect the
cloaked ship they know where it is.

But I did just think of another detection mod:
+1 if the cloaked ship has active screens.
A ship can decide to turn them off at the beginning of a turn, at the same
time as deciding cloak mode.

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Brian: When I set up the rules for standard cloaking, I may have been unclear.

The distance of 12" (6" for vector) was set so that it was 2x the range of
salvo missiles. This allowed the area to be saturated by salvo missiles to
simulate depth charges, but a single salvo missile had little (but some)
chance of catching the cloaked ship.
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Glen: I limited firing at cloaked ships to direct fire only as detection is in
the fire phase. I did this so that you didn't have to remember what FCS were
used in attempting detection in a previous step. This also added some more
tactical decisions: do I have a large ship try to detect and fire upon a
cloaked ship so my other ships have some extra mods to detect it and may not
need FCS to detect it; my enemy has cloaking so I have to design some ships to
deal with it (i.e., better sensors, more FCS). Also, this made cloaked ships
immune to missiles and fighters, but then I figured those weapon systems have
sensors too small to get a lock onto a cloaked ship. Plus, any defensive
measures taken by a cloaked ship would give it away. A submunitions pack could
simulate "depth charges".

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Brian: The clock direction and range from the cloaked ship to the marker did
NOT have to remain constant from turn to turn. It just needed to be written
down when it changed. This could make the cloaked ship's movement seem
erratic.
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Glen: Ah, I wondered about that. But it may be hard to determine these
things on a non-hex grid playing area.

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Brian: I was trying to avoid giving the cloaked ship a free shot at other
ships. If you allow a cloaked ship to fire, the player will always (or almost
always) wait until the cloaked ship is the last ship to fire. Other ships
having fired would not be able to return fire. And the next turn the ship
would have to be searched for in order to find it. (Under your Advanced Cloak,
do the bonuses last through the next turn? If not the problem persists with
Advanced Cloaking system.) I felt that this was too lopsided. I had wanted to
allow the cloaked ship to fire at a penalty, but the mechanics of Full Thrust
use
different methods to determine a hit with different weapons.  A -1
penalty for beam weapons is very different from a -1 for pulse
torpedoes (especially after shields are taken into account). Because of this,
I did not include allowing a cloaked ship to fire. I had also thought about
allowing return fire through the next fire phase, but this would not be
possible unless the location of the cloaked ship was made known in the next
turn. I felt that this was unacceptable (I wanted to keep disclosure to the
current turn only).

I also added rules that if a ship was in standard mode, and the location of
his ship was scanned (regardless to if the ship was found or not), the
standard cloaked ship could then fire on the scanning ship (but would pinpoint
his location). This would make scanning for a cloaked ship a 2 edged
proposition. If you scan and find the ship, you can fire on it. If you scan
and don't find the cloaked ship, it will probably get a free shot at you.