Hi all,
I have another FT device for you all to mull over and pronounce judgment
upon, if you would be so kind.
I wanted a cloaking/stealth system that was plain and simple to use,
without hidden movement (most of the games I take part in are around
4-6000pts a side, hidden movement cloaking system can drag things out a
bit in games of this size unfortunately).
So I got to thinking how I could have a simple "cloaking" system. The revised
fighter rules which were posted here a few months back gave me an idea with
the "introduction" DRMs, so here goes:
(Partial?) Stealth/Cloaking system.
Mass: 5% of vessel mass (?) Cost: 4 x mass used (?) The system does not
provide a full cloak, the vessel can still be tracked by other vessels but not
with any real accuracy. The systems current state (active or deactivated, A or
D for short) is noted in its orders each turn. Any change in status takes
effect at the start of vessel movement (see also thresholds).
Effects on cloaked vessel. When activated the vessel is moved as normal but a
counter or other marker is used to denote that it is "cloaked". A cloaked
vessel may not fire any weapons (including PDS), launch ordinance or fighters.
Screens on the cloaked vessel remain active when the vessel is cloaked.
Effects upon incoming fire.
When fired on by direct fire weapons all dice suffer a -3 DRM. Any hits
inflicted cause damage as normal.
Beam re-rolls: The -3 DRM means only re rolls, no hits, are inflicted by
any 6's on the first roll. If the cloaked vessel has screens then these
DO effect any re-rolls from the initial batch of dice rolled. Any re
rolls from the re rolls penetrate the screens as normal.
Effects vs Ordinance weapons. PBL's operate as normal. The vessel may be
cloaked but if it runs into a
vast plasma explosion then the cloak won't be of much help. AMT's, may be used
as normal except they cannot make the 6mu burn to close on a cloaked vessel.
They can still make their burn if an uncloaked vessel is within range as
normal. A cloaked vessel caught in the blast radius of an AMT will suffer
damage as normal.
Salvo missiles/Heavy missiles: Not quite sure here...tempted to say they
cannot attack a cloaked vessel and leave it at that, however I am open to
suggestions on this one.
Fighters:
Fighters may attack cloaked vessels, the -3DRM applies. Torpedo bombers
cannot fire their torps on a cloaked target, however they can, like other
fighters, escort the cloaked vessel and wait for it to uncloak....
Threshold effects on cloak. If the cloaking system is thresholded then it
fails with immediate effect.
Other notes: Also unsure on interaction with needle beams. Tempted to say
cannot be fired upon a cloaked vessel. Once again open to ideas here!
Feed back is welcome, especially in regard to mass and cost of the system.
Regards,
Hmm, interesting. Basically, it's a "super" shield that you can't fire
through. Initially I'd be concerned that it would make it too easy for these
ships to maneuver under the cloak into a perfect firing position and then
drop the cloak and whack the opponent. A cloak+wave motion gun combo
would be devastating. Some possibilities:
Make the cloak *very* energy intensive. The cloaked ship can only use half
it's current thrust when cloaked.
Allow missiles/salvo missiles/amt's to attack it normally.
Apply the
-3 to the die roll to see how many missiles go in from each
salvo. Subtract one "range band" from the AMT's that attack. Cut any heavy
missile damage in half. These would all represent the explosions being nearby
to the ship, but not actually *on* it (as well as the damping effect of the
cloak).
grant
> Hi all,
> an idea with the "introduction" DRMs, so here goes:
> the blast radius of an AMT will suffer damage as normal.
> to suggestions on this one.
> fired upon a cloaked vessel. Once again open to ideas here!
> Grant wrote:
> Hmm, interesting. Basically, it's a "super" shield that you can't fire
> through. Initially I'd be concerned that it would make it too easy
I see your point there...
> Some possibilities:
> Make the cloak *very* energy intensive. The cloaked ship can
Hm, not a bad suggestion at all. Adds a little tactical inflexibility that
would make players a little more cautious in using the cloak. Actually, that
idea is growing on me, nice balancing mechinism, and simple at that.
> Allow missiles/salvo missiles/amt's to attack it normally.
Apply the
> -3 to the die roll to see how many missiles go in from each
Cool, that all seem's straight forward enough.
Cheers Grant, some good suggestions there!
Regards,
> Paul wrote:
> I seem to have missed the original to this, but as I just got my NI
I think something odd is going on... I posted it yesterday but recieved ( or
so I thought) no replies. So I went to the archive where I found Grants reply
but not my original post. My cloaking proposal and its
replies seem to be...cloaking ;-)
Anyway, here is the original proposal again; (Ps, I'm definetly going to go
with Grants suggestions for my version!).
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Hi all,
I have another FT device for you all to mull over and pronounce judgment
upon, if you would be so kind.
I wanted a cloaking/stealth system that was plain and simple to use,
without hidden movement (most of the games I take part in are around
4-6000pts a side, hidden movement cloaking system can drag things out a
bit in games of this size unfortunately).
So I got to thinking how I could have a simple "cloaking" system. The revised
fighter rules which were posted here a few months back gave me an idea with
the "introduction" DRMs, so here goes:
(Partial?) Stealth/Cloaking system.
Mass: 5% of vessel mass (?)
Cost: 4 x mass used (?)
The system does not provide a full cloak, the vessel can still be tracked by
other vessels but not with any real accuracy. The systems current state
(active or deactivated, A or D for short) is noted in its orders each turn.
Any change in status takes effect at the start of vessel movement (see also
thresholds).
Effects on cloaked vessel.
When activated the vessel is moved as normal but a counter or other marker is
used to denote that it is "cloaked".
A cloaked vessel may not fire any weapons (including PDS), launch ordinance or
fighters.
Screens on the cloaked vessel remain active when the vessel is cloaked.
Effects upon incoming fire.
When fired on by direct fire weapons all dice suffer a -3 DRM. Any hits
inflicted cause damage as normal.
Beam re-rolls: The -3 DRM means only re rolls, no hits, are inflicted by
any 6's on the first roll. If the cloaked vessel has screens then these
DO effect any re-rolls from the initial batch of dice rolled. Any re
rolls from the re rolls penetrate the screens as normal.
Effects vs Ordinance weapons.
PBL's operate as normal. The vessel may be cloaked but if it runs into a
vast plasma explosion then the cloak won't be of much help.
AMT's, may be used as normal except they cannot make the 6mu burn to close on
a cloaked vessel. They can still make their burn if an uncloaked vessel is
within range as normal. A cloaked vessel caught in the blast radius of an AMT
will suffer damage as normal.
Salvo missiles/Heavy missiles: Not quite sure here...tempted to say they
cannot attack a cloaked vessel and leave it at that, however I am open to
suggestions on this one.
Fighters:
Fighters may attack cloaked vessels, the -3DRM applies. Torpedo bombers
cannot fire their torps on a cloaked target, however they can, like other
fighters, escort the cloaked vessel and wait for it to uncloak....
Threshold effects on cloak.
If the cloaking system is thresholded then it fails with immediate effect.
Other notes:
Also unsure on interaction with needle beams. Tempted to say cannot be fired
upon a cloaked vessel. Once again open to ideas here!
Feed back is welcome, especially in regard to mass and cost of the system.
I seem to have missed the original to this, but as I just got my NI ships I
am interested in the cloak / stealth tech
> >Hmm, interesting. Basically, it's a "super" shield that you
Would make some ships very unmanuervaerable (yes I know its spelt wrong), what
was wrong with the original movement for cloaked ships ie they have to state
how long the cloak is on for and plot all turns in cloak in advance.
> >Allow missiles/salvo missiles/amt's to attack it
Hmmm... Would this give the position of the ship away to the enemy, or are you
relying on people not acting on the info they should not know.
> Grant wrote:
I've been thinking about this some more. One possibility would be to require
the cloaked ship to plot one additional turn in advance. This would further
restrict it's maneuvering with regards to other ships without making it
completely out of touch. The PSB would be that the cloak reduces the incoming
navigation data and makes the ship slower to respond to outside activity.
> >Some possibilities:
Thanks.
> >Allow missiles/salvo missiles/amt's to attack it normally.
Apply the
> >-3 to the die roll to see how many missiles go in from each
Fair warning, I don't have all the mechanisms memorized yet, neither do I have
the rules in front of me, so I would take the specifics with a grain of salt.
The basic idea would be to reduce the effect of missiles by about half. Area
effect weapons should be slightly more effective, since they don't need to
directly hit anyways. The PSB would be that the cloak absorbs energy as part
of the cloaking mechanism. I'd reduce the impact of Nova cannon and Wave
Motion Guns similiarly. Interestingly enough, you could set it up where one
race develops the cloak specifically as a counteract to
another race with Nova Cannon/Wave Motion Guns.
> Grant wrote:
> I've been thinking about this some more. One possibility would be to
Another interesting idea. Personally I prefer your idea limiting the cloaked
vessel to half thrust, but there is no reason why the above idea couldn't be
substituted in place of the half thrust option if people liked that better.
> The basic idea would be to reduce the effect of missiles by about half.
I was also thinking about this some more this afternoon and came to a
similar conclusion myself. I like the -3 from the salvo missile lock on
roll, but as the cloaked vessel couldn't shoot any missiles down and if it's
thrust is halved as well it could be in real trouble. At least against PBL's a
cloaked vessel could be screened as well and gain some measure of protection.
So, in response, I was thinking of limiting the salvo missiles detection
radius to 3mu. That way cloaked vessels are hard to hit with salvo missiles
but if the salvo is especially well placed then the cloaked vessel is still at
risk. If cloaked vessels are subs then PBL's are depth charges and salvo
missiles are anti submarine mortars.
> I'd reduce the impact of Nova cannon and Wave Motion Guns similarly.
Hmmm...tempted to let area effect weapons work as normal, but then again, the
cloaked vessel would be easier to hit with them...mmm. How about (as I think
you were suggesting) reducing the number of dice rolled to reflect the
uncertainty of the targets exact location, half the number of dice (round up),
but leaving the blast radius as normal?
Thanks,
A further idea -
A cloaked ship can be deteced based on the amount of thrust it uses -
PSB is simliar to the new radar that tracks aircraft by the turbulence they
generate in the air they pass through or perhaps passive
IR/radiation sensors that look for "holes" in the background radiation
or sensors that can detect exhaust or reaction mass used as fuel.
So the cloaked player announces how much thrust was used to maneuver this turn
and must roll higher on 2d6 than the thrust number to remain "cloaked"
otherwise his position is given away and may be fired at as if he were one
range band further away to simulate the partial cloak. This roll is for each
turn, so a cloaked ship can fade in and out of cloak if it uses too much
thrust.
This allows the players full freedom of movement, with a possible penalty for
lots of maneuvers or acceleration. It emphasizes good early placement and
"doggo" or "ballistic" type ambushes, which seems more inline with modern type
engagements (i.e. Stealth aircraft (most are
sub-sonic), attack and missile subs (most are practically undetectable
at rest, but at full speed are very obvious from propeller noise), etc.)
--Binhan
> -----Original Message-----
I hate to be a poo-poo on this, but this cloaking system would be
completely useless in my circles. Especially with the half thrust. If I could
see those guys coming I'd hose them down with every plasma bolt in the fleet.
In a 5000 point engagement, if I'm carrying them at all I'm probably sporting
around fourty dice worth of them. If you've actually got enough thrust that
I'm in doubt as to where you'll be under cloak I'll fire them in half bursts
in continuous fire along the arc you'd have to travel to bring your weapons to
bear. So what if I've got
a -3 DRM? It's not like you're going to be shooting back while you're
still cloaked.
I'll stick with the regular cloaking rules, with a few house rules to make
dealing with area effect weapons simpler. Our house rules for that go like
this:
1. Area effect weapons.... simply ignored while cloaked. (PSB: phasing cloak.)
2. Planets and asteroids... not ignored. (Our asteroids and planets don't
move, so this is easy to deal with. PSB: large gravity wells pull you back
into phase if you fly that close to them.)
3. Your _own_ area effect weapons... can't be fired until the next turn
after you decloak. Turn rationale is that cloaking and decloaking happens
during the movement phase, and you can't write move orders with area effect
weapons included if you don't know where you are. (PSB: it takes a little
while to get your bearings to be able to put your weapons into an accurate
point of space, and the disorientation of it is too much to be able to do it
on short notice once you're decloaking. Not sure how this works out
for the turn when you go _into_ cloak, but I guess there's nothing
stopping
you.)
4. Wave guns... cannot be charged while cloaked. This balances out the idea of
charging tons of cloaked wave guns and firing them and then recloaking to
protect yourself from retaliation. (PSB: Too much energy buildup and it's
impossible to conceal.)
5. If you have cloak-capable ships, you _are_ allowed to have them
start the game cloaked, as long as you put down a mooring point in space at
your start location on the board to state where you're tracking from.
6. Fighters... _are_ allowed to be launched in the act of decloaking,
but must be recovered with secondary moves if they're landing, if at all.
This'll also make cloaking systems easier to work with, balances them out with
area effects in both directions, while still giving enough of the feel of
submarine warfare that it's a bit of an interesting game trying to play with
them. They can work against you as much as they work for you, since setting up
grandiose ambushes from long range is vulnerable to your enemy pulling
unexpected maneuvers that put them in the wrong place when you come out of
cloak. However, short cloaks are still rather effective in tactical maneuvers
if you use them intelligently (and against fast ships, it's still a little bit
of a crapshoot, although against slow ones they're just deadly). Some of this
is usually useful enough that they mostly make up for the expense of packing
cloaking devices in the first place.
Cloaked carriers have been used before in our games, but over time that
concept kind of fell by the wayside because even cloaked soap bubbles are
still expensive enough that the fighter numbers go down enough that if they're
prepared for massed fighters much at all it ceases to be particularly
effective.
E (aka StiltMan)
[quoted original message omitted]
> Grant wrote:
This would
> >further restrict it's maneuvering with regards to other ships
One or the other, or both, may be required. That'll take some playtesting to
know for sure.
> >The basic idea would be to reduce the effect of missiles by about
I would think limiting them to 3 mu would be fine, and would also reflect the
difficulty detecting the cloaked ship. I would be inclined to limit fighter's
attack ranges to 3mu as well though. I would allow torpedo fighters
to attack at -3. Roll a 6 and you do 3 points of damage.
> >I'd reduce the impact of Nova cannon and Wave Motion Guns similarly.
Yeah, that sounds right to me.
Okay, replied to my own post.
I guess I wouldn't have much objection to perhaps having a staged cloak of
sorts, where there's a "full cloak" that goes by the traditional rules and
fully phased out of reality, while there's a "partial cloak" that allows
limited visibility under the means given here. Although I still like the
regular rules better.
E (aka StiltMan)
[quoted original message omitted]
G'day,
> So, in response, I was thinking of
In vector would you drop it to 1mu or something?
Cheers
Staged Cloak is a perfect segue into what has been flipping abou tin my mind
on this topic.
In Traveller we had Black Globes, and a simple(ish)
way to reconcile cloak/blackglobes/energy expediture
is this (IIRC):
Primer: Black globes 'flicker'. They _could_ be left
at 'full-on', but no information(energy) passes in
either direction so the ship is in danger of overheating AND of running into
stuff blindly. In the Trav universe one could set the flicker rate to limit
the amount of incoming fire, but it would also have the effect of limiting
thrust and firing (energy OUT of the system). Black globes held incming energy
in capacitors of finite capacity, so flickering allowed for energy to be spit
back out (though I only recall using the incoming (bad) energy to fire weapons
being available at a very high tech level. I could be wrong.
So say you have a T6 ship. If you want to charge your
cloak/globe, you have to allot x amount of available
energy ( in this case lets say it is your allowed thrust) which will NOT be
available for thrust in the FOLLOWING turn (or in the same turn if you want to
be
difficult ;->).
Weapons allocation would have to be metered in a similar way, though it smacks
of another chart (and
that is anethema to the FT-Way).
So in summation, deciding just how well protected you wanted to be VS how
effective you want to be, decided each turn, would be the key IMO. reduce your
overall # of dice by the rough percentage of protection you want, perhaps?
Thrust by the same factor, rounded down?
> --- Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> Matt Tope wrote:
> (Partial?) Stealth/Cloaking system.
Quick summary: essentially a souped-up variant of the FB2 Vapour Shroud
giving much better protection against direct-fire weapons and missiles
(including those which ignore normal Vapour Shrouds, eg. P-torps and
Salvo Missiles), but possibly making the ship *more* vulnerable against Plasma
Bolts and similar area-effect weapons (by reducing the thrust rating and
thus make the ship easier to hit).
> Mass: 5% of vessel mass (?)
Hm. If it cuts the thrust rating, I don't think I'd want to pay even this
much for it - the main reason to use such a system is to get into
position
to use your own tricky-to-aim weapons (usually short-ranged and/or
narrow-arced) without getting too badly shot before you get to fire
them, and if your thrust rating is reduced your chances of getting into
position to fire will drop radically.
If it doesn't cut the thrust rating, it is worth a than the FB2 Vapour Shroud.
Mass*4 could be a bit low considering how much more this
stealth/cloak system protects against (P-torps, K-guns, missiles etc);
but
it depends a lot on how the exact effects against missiles/PBs.
> Also unsure on interaction with needle beams. Tempted to say cannot be
A -3 target's DRM will automatically make Needle Beams ineffective
against
the vessel, since they only inflict damage on rolls of 5+ and don't get
re-rolls.
Later,
Hi all,
> Binhan wrote:
> A cloaked ship can be detected based on the amount of thrust it
Another good idea...thats three nice limiting mechanics now.
1) Half thrust. 2) Plot movement 1 turn ahead. 3) Void cloak based on thrust
used.
I like 1 and 3 equally. I think the approach I would chose would be based on
the background of the game I was playing. Which is a cowards way of saying I
can't choose between them...
************************************************************************
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> Eric wrote:
> I hate to be a poo-poo on this, but this cloaking system would be
Hah! Only 40 dice worth! Hah!....I'll be hiding behind this here moon until
you're gone then...
Well, in this situation I think a combination of high velocity and idea no. 3
(or even 1 or 2 if one is feeling brave enough) might be a solution. But even
if its not then it may just be better to fight without the cloaks activated,
or only use them sparingly when they will do some good.
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*********************
> Beth wrote:
> In vector would you drop it to 1mu or something?
I've only used vector 3 times :-( (My fellow gamers go very pale in
the face and mutter dark curses if I mention vector to them), but off of the
top of my head I would reduce the radius by half to 1.5mu. This could still be
bad for a cloaked vessel, get one accurate volley of salvos in and its looking
at up to 6 missiles it can't do nowt about.
I suppose I should have qualified from the beginning that I am basing the
cloak concept in a cinematic not vector environment. Silly boy me.
************************************************************************
****************
> Grant wrote:
> I would think limiting them to 3 mu would be fine, and would also
Attack range of 3 mu? Why not, after all with secondary burns it shouldn't be
too difficult for a fighter group to get within range. And it keeps it nice
and consistent with
As for the fighter torpedo attack why not go the whole hog and say that
4, 5 and 6 hit as normal but damage caused has the -3 modifier applied
(eg: score of 4 = 1 dp, and so on).(representing a mini depth charge run or
something along those lines).
************************************************************************
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> Oerjan wrote:
> Hm. If it cuts the thrust rating, I don't think I'd want to pay even
Well, as you've no doubt seen, we are upto 3 different ideas now on how
the partial cloak ties in with movement :-) ,
Could ideas 2 and 3 (from the above list in my reply to Binhan) be both based
upon a system of equal mass and cost? Would idea 1 be possible but on a
smaller or less expensive version? I don't mind personally going with a cheap
version 1 type or more expensive version 3 type, but I do see your point...
> If it doesn't cut the thrust rating, it is worth a than the FB2 Vapour
but
> it depends a lot on how the exact effects against missiles/PBs.
I think I will be going along with Grants suggestions here re salvo
missiles/heavy missiles, just half the attack radius from 6mu to 3mu.
For AMT's reduce the effect by 1 range band. For PBL's, nova and wave
guns half (round up) the damage dice but leave the blast/effect radii
unaltered.
So what would suggest mass/cost wise for a Type 1 with the above
effects, vs a Type 2/3 with the above effects? At these levels of game
mechanic interactions I'd best back out of the costing/mass
game...pythagorus is my stop point in maths ;-) .
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Thanks again everyone for the input. I know this may not be to every one's
tastes but I for one would like to use it, provided it is reasonably balanced
in effect. Actually as long as it's not so imbalanced as to be a gross
advantage, if it's unbalanced as in more dangereous to the user's then I'd
still be happy to go with it...cue evil maniacal laughter...
Regards,