The recent discussion about ship building got me to thinking about the
Illuminati's greatest weapon and darkest secret -- so secret, in fact,
that I'd never actually gotten around to designing it. No, not the
Mind-Control
Lasers (although those are coming too). Instead, I speak of the Illuminati
Cloaking Device -- hereafter referred to as the iCloak, to distinguish
it from the standard FT cloaking device.
(And yes, this is based on the Mimbari ECm from the EFSB)
Unlike standard cloaking, the iCloak does not render the ship using it totally
invisible (with one special exception; see below). Instead, it blurs and
confuses the enemies' targeting sensors, making it impossible to "lock on" to
the iCloaked ship. The iCloaked ship is placed on the board and moved
normally; the enemy knows its approximate position, but not with enough
precision to use directed fire against it.
In game terms, this is how it works
Any ship that wishes to fire at an iCloaked ship must first roll a "6" on one
die. This applies to direct fire only; Salvo Missiles, Nova Cannons, and Wave
Guns are unaffected by the iCloak.
(Should SLMs be effected? Perhaps just by giving the iCloaked ship a
slight defensive bonus?)
The attackers roll is modified if the iCloaked ship does any of the following:
Each point of thrust spent to accelerate, decelerate, or maneuver:
+1
per thrust point used.
For each level of Beam fire: +1 per level (so firing a Class 1 beam
is
+1, firing a Class 2 is +2, firing a Class 4 is +4, firing one Class 1
and
one Class 2 is +3, etc.).
For each Needle beam fired: +1.
For each Torpedo fired: +2.
For each Salvo or Missile Pack launched: +1.
For each level of Screens currently active: +1 (I'm not sure about
this one, but it seems to fit).
Any combination of the above that totals +5 or more, as well as firing a
Nova Cannon, a Wave Gun, or using an active Reflex Field, will completely
negate the effects of the iCloak.
An iCloaked ship that is completely stationary and inactive is rendered
completely invisible. ANY activity, of ANY sort, will reveal this ship; the
player should announce his intention to become active at the beginning of the
turn, and the ship will be placed on the board at the end of the order writing
phase.
Cost and mass need to be figured out later; preferable at a time when (unlike
now) I have the FB1 in front of me. I'll be basing both upon the standard
Cloak, for the sake of simplicity.
Any thoughts about the above? A ship with an iCloak will be more effective
than a regular Cloaked Is it workable, balanced, and playable?
How will superior Sensors effect iCloak?
[quoted original message omitted]
> The recent discussion about ship building got me to thinking about the
> Illuminati's greatest weapon and darkest secret -- so secret, in fact,
[much slashage]
Interesting thought...
As a simple note, I would say that salvo missiles should be largely useless
against an iCloaked ship. Missiles work on guidance, and have no way of easily
focusing themselves based on visual data, whereas a beam weapon or a nova
cannon or the like can just be pointed in a given direction and won't care
whether or not the target is visible or not. If you can't direct fire against
it easily, missiles should have no usefulness at all.
> On Wed, Jun 14, 2000 at 05:18:26PM +0000, John C wrote:
> totally invisible (with one special exception; see below). Instead,
It does this by turning the ship's hull into transparent,
fruit-colored plastic, right?
I would say that missles and fighters need to be within 3MU to attack the
iCloaked ship. Andy A
[quoted original message omitted]
> From: "Andrew Apter" <andya@speechsolutions.com>
The attacker gets an additional +1 on his die roll to lock on. Standard
military sesnors are the default; civilian sensors would have a -1 on
their die roll.
> I would say that missles and fighters need to be within 3MU to attack
Given that the thing has to keep flying in a straight line without either
accelerating or decelerating to keep its maximum stealth, I'm not sure that
wouldn't just make it pretty darn useless.
> From a PSB standpoint, I could see fighters being allowed to shoot
> > Instead, I speak of the Illuminati
This makes sense. With the way the salvos are launched,
game-mechanically,
it seemed as though they should have some chance of hitting if the attacker
made a good guess. The best answer is probably to have them launched and
placed as normal, but the attacker has to make his locking on roll before
rolling to determine how many missiles hit.
> > Unlike standard cloaking, the iCloak does not render the ship using
"But it looks so *cute*! How could I possibly shoot at something that looks so
*cute*, captain?"
In typical fashion, I came up with the perfect name mere moments after hitting
the SEND button: The Fnord device. Therefore, a ship making use of this device
shall be referred to as being "Fnorded".
Be afraid, and all that.
Interesting, Another option would be one that changes with range:
Range Needed to lock on (1d6)
3 1 (i.e. automatic)
6 2
12 3 18 4 24 5 30 6
> 30 +1 per 6tu
Modifiers to roll
Cloaked ship uses engines +2
Cloaked ship fires weapon +4
Cloaked ship uses screens +1
Cloaked ship uses active sensors +4
Opponent uses multiple FCS +1
(May not be used for other targets)
Opponent has enhanced sensors +2
Opponent has superior sensors +3
Opponent is iCloaked -2
Opponent is using ECM -1
Both your original iCloak and the above are similar to ECM. There was a good
discussion of ECM several months ago (see archive
http://people.canoe.ca/jhan/ft/Archive/home.html).
And I had some rules to simulate submarine warfare using modified cloaking
at http://members.xoom.com/rlyehable/ft/techlibrary/index.html
> on 6/14/00 12:18, John C at john1x@hotmail.com wrote:
--->8--- (snipped intro)
> In game terms, this is how it works
on
> one die. This applies to direct fire only; Salvo Missiles, Nova
Here's some questions:
Can multiple FireCon systems be used to have several attempts at locking on?
If so would weapons be declared as linked with one particular FireCon's
lock-on attempt before rolling the lock on? Ex. I want to fire 3x Class
2
Beams at a ship under iCloak - I want to use 2 FireCons - 1 with 2 of
the beams and the other with one.
Would the lock-on mods for use of weapons by the cloaking ship modify
all
lock-on attempts, even ones that come before the cloaked ship fires.
This could require the cloaking player to commit to a certain amount (or lack)
of
weapons fire before she/he knows whether those weapons are going to
still be around. I'm assuming the use the standard initiative rules.
If the lock-on modifiers only happen after the cloak ship's turn to fire
has come and gone then there is some real potential for abuse.
--->8--- (snipped lock-on modifiers and more)
> Any thoughts about the above? A ship with an iCloak will be more
This system has some potential. I suspect this item would be best for games
involving advance players though (could be the way your playing group is
already). ;-)
The system has some potential issues towards balancing the cost depending
upon the decision with when the lock-on modifiers come into play.
Regardless of the final decision though this mechanism will be a bit more
complicated than the usual FT type of rules (not necessarily a bad thing
though depending on your preferred style of play).
I hope this doesn't sound too negative. I have a hard time not slipping
into play-tester mode. ;-)
> > Hmmm, how about roll normal die for missiles, subtract 5 for a
I had forgotten about PDS. My gut feeling is that each active PDS would
give another +1 to the opponent's locking-on roll
my gut has nothing to
base this on, though. Well, other than the fact that it's really looking
forward to dinner.
> Question: should a ship with a conventional cloaking device be allowed
I was thinking of the Fnord device as an alternative to regular cloaks
-- a
lot of people just plain don't like them. (I do, although I've never been that
good at using them...I keep materializing in the middle of an asteroid, which
puts something of a strain on my crews). Using it as an interim step
between fully cloaked and uncloaked is an interesting idea, though -- in
this case I would feel obliged to give the Fnorded ship some kind of firing
penalty, to reflect the way that cloaking renders the ship both invisible
and blind. Maybe a -1 on all Beam rolls, or something like that.
> > Hmmm, how about roll normal die for missiles, subtract 5 for a
I had forgotten about PDS. My gut feeling is that each active PDS would
give another +1 to the opponent's locking-on roll
my gut has nothing to
base this on, though. Well, other than the fact that it's really looking
forward to dinner.
> Question: should a ship with a conventional cloaking device be allowed
I was thinking of the Fnord device as an alternative to regular cloaks
-- a
lot of people just plain don't like them. (I do, although I've never been that
good at using them...I keep materializing in the middle of an asteroid, which
puts something of a strain on my crews). Using it as an interim step
between fully cloaked and uncloaked is an interesting idea, though -- in
this case I would feel obliged to give the Fnorded ship some kind of firing
penalty, to reflect the way that cloaking renders the ship both invisible
and blind. Maybe a -1 on all Beam rolls, or something like that.
> From: stiltman@teleport.com
> that
Forgot the fighters, too.... I would think that they would have the same
problems as a regular ship; 3" at FT scales is probably beyond mere visual
range.
> on 6/14/00 12:18, John C at john1x@hotmail.com wrote:
For the sake of simplicity, each FireCon used would give another +1.
This seems like the quickest and easiest way to resolve things. You'd have to
dedicate those FireCons to the attempt, though -- you couldn't use three
FireCons to lock on and then use two of them direct fire at different targets.
> If so would weapons be declared as linked with one particular FireCon's
This
> could require the cloaking player to commit to a certain amount (or
Here's the thing: my group uses simultaneous fire, so I tend to automatically
think in those terms. With us, the Fnorded ship would have to declare all fire
before anyone started rolling dice, so it would be easy to determine the exact
modifier.
For non-simultaneous fire, you're very right: tremendous potential for
abuse. Jut wait 'til everyone else has fired, and *then* let go with
everything you have because you now have nothing to lose. One option that
occurs to me is to make the modifier dependant on the weapon's fire from
*last* turn -- targeting computers can use it to extrapolate your
movements, I suppose. So the total modifier would be last turn's firing, and
this
turn's movement -- this would likely lead to:
Cut loose with everything you have (turn one), You're already screwed because
of last turn, so use this one to maneuver (turn two), Don't maneuver, to get
your bonus back (turn three), Repeat.
Whether this is a bad thing or not is up to others to determine. Strikes me as
being a trifle annoying, but not too unbalancing. Others probably have better
ideas, though.
> The system has some potential issues towards balancing the cost
I was trying to keep the modifiers as simple as possible -- usually the
amount of points that you spend (on maneuvering, or firing) is equal to the
modifier. I think that it would be pretty smooth in play, but I'll obviously
have to playtest it to determine this.
> I hope this doesn't sound too negative. I have a hard time not
Negative is good. I want people to point out the things that I screwed up, or
forgot about. Exactly as you did above.
> on 6/14/00 15:52, John C at john1x@hotmail.com wrote:
> For the sake of simplicity, each FireCon used would give another +1.
This
> seems like the quickest and easiest way to resolve things. You'd have
Nice, simple and straight forward way to handle it. From what I'm gathering
your saying here if you don't lock on your free to use any FCs not used for
the attempted lock on for firing elsewhere. I like this - less
potential for a single dice roll to eliminate multiple weapons fire assuming
there's
another valid target to shoot at. ;-)
> Here's the thing: my group uses simultaneous fire, so I tend to
True, simultaneous Fire is much easier to deal with on this issue.
> For non-simultaneous fire, you're very right: tremendous potential for
I'd lean towards having the iCloak ship's controlling player announce
his/her attempted fire at the beginning of the fire phase (not the
targets though). Otherwise you end up with the potential situation of the
iCloak providing a one turn shielding effect, allowing the iCloaked ship to
get in some punishing for free (for the moment). With rapid moment, damage
effects, etc. it's very possible that the enemy ship may not be able to fire
back. Of course this effect could be very interesting to game with but again
it's very difficult to balance.
> I was trying to keep the modifiers as simple as possible -- usually
I'll bow to your expectations. It's probably not to difficult to deal with
- try calculating expected damage levels on enemy ships when a referee
is
running with semi-secret damage (you know you've hit with a weapon, but
not
for how much - BTW it makes for a very interesting game, one where
repeated scanning of enemy vessels is very useful). Now back to the discussion
at
hand...
> Negative is good. I want people to point out the things that I
Glad to be of help... Hope you can say the same thing in a week. ;-)
Well, back to early morning work on converting Win32 Networking code over to
the MacOS...oh joy.