Cloak
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[edit] Overview
[edit] Effects
- If cloak is turned on, it reduces the ship's sensor image by 50 points. This makes the ship harder to be scanned.
- If cloak is turned on, it burns fuel according the hull specific fuel burn value (ranging from 2 to 120 kt per turn). The value can be seen as "Cloak Fuel Burn" in the Ship Command - Data screen under "Hull Specs" or as "Fuel used to cloak" in Raceview2 (or Raceview).
- A cloaked ship is protected from the Fuel Robber, Money Tap, and Hull Plan Napper unless it has 20% or more System Damage.
- A cloaked ship cannot be targetted by a Gun Zero or Stellar Matter Launcher unless its sensor profile somehow goes above 400 or a Laser Minefield is detonated at the location of the ship.
- A cloaked ship can not blockade a ground base.
- A cloaked ship can not break an enemy blockade of a ground base.
- A ship starting a turn with 0 Crew cannot cloak.
[edit] When?
[edit] Pre-Movement
1.08.08 Cloak On / Off
1.09 Blockades are determined.
See Host Order for complete listing.
[edit] Full Cloak
Using the device on ships with a stealth rating of 50 lowers their sensor image to 0 and makes them fully cloaked. Be aware that some actions can increase the sensor image above 0 and remove the full cloak (see the section below).
- A fully cloaked ship cannot be seen at all by enemy sensors.
- A fully cloaked ship cannot be intercepted if it has been scanned before, using the old data as intercept target.
- A fully cloaked ship can decide, if it wants to fight. By setting the correct attack settings.
[edit] In Space Combat
Cloaking ships with a hull stealth rating of 60 or less do gain an advantage in Space Combat, they get a chance to fire first - they don't have to be fully cloaked (0 sensor image).
- This is done by giving them a surge of power from the ships' Power Bank on tick 25.
- It only works if there is a ship in range when the surge of power happens.
- Super Weapons don't get this benefit.
[edit] Recommended settings to remain (fully) cloaked
- Make sure your ship has a sensor profile of 0.
- Ships need enough fuel to cloak (cloak consume extra fuel).
- Be careful if you share ship data with others players, as a sharing-chain can expose all your ships to many players.
[edit] Ship Transfer
- When you do a Ship Transfer to an object you do not own, like bases, pods , ships or a planet surface it will give you +25 Sensor Profile and you will not be cloaked.
[edit] Ship Overview Combat Settings
[edit] Client 65 & client 66
- By setting the Combat switch in Ship Command - Overview to Defense, fully cloaked ships will not initiate a combat and will not join a combat initiated by other objects.
- By setting the Combat switch in Ship Command - Overview to Attack!, fully cloaked ships will initiate a combat and will join a combat initiated by other objects.
- The other settings in Ship Command - Attack , except Aggressive have no influence if the ship will initiate combat or not.
[edit] Scanners
- In the Ship Command - Mission screen turn OFF all your scanners.
- Make sure you scanner are on passive scanner.
[edit] Ship Command - Mines
- In the Ship Command - Mines screen turn off Sweep Enemy Mines (unless you are the Birdmen, as they can sweep without increasing the ship's sensor profile)
[edit] Ship Command - Devices
Be careful some ship devices will increase your sensor profile. Most will show their effect in the Ship Command - Overview screen, when you look at the Sensor Profile, if it is above 0, you are not cloaked. Some ship devices will not show their increase! (in the ship overview screen).
- The Mind Crusher on the Bird Darkwing or Darkwing G produces 25 units of sensor image noise when used.
- The Nanovirus Bomb on the Bird Darkwing G makes 15 units of sensor image noise.
- Mine Sweeper Array when ON will increase Sensor Profile of all races except the Birdmen.
[edit] How to counter cloaked ships
- Using the Tachyon Emitter ship device.
- 25% control system damage will prevent a cloaking device from lowering the sensor profile by 50.
- You can board fully cloaked ships, if you have a full (current or old) contact with the ship (just having the ID # will not work - This is largely a limitation of the client in that you can't set an object you don't have a full scan of as a valid transfer target).
[edit] Minefields
- All type of minefields will make it hard for cloakers to move in your space.
- When they hit any type of minefields, their Sensor Profile increases, (Laser Minefields is the best to increase their Sensor Profile).
- Travelling in enemy Web Minefields will increase the Sensor Profile.
- Exploding Laser Minefields will decloak every ship inside including the Resolute and Darkwing of the Birdmen (exploding minefields of other types do not increase Sensor Profile of ships and therefore don't decloak ships)
[edit] Notes
- Alien Hulls make extra noise, +100 Sensor Profile increasing your chance to be scanned by enemy. So you can't fully Cloak with alien hulls, the game client may show 0 Sensor Profile, but you have at least 100. Only when 'Alien Hulls Have Problems With Combat, Scanning and Repair' in Hconfig is set to 'Yes'. If set to 'No' you can fully cloak! Sheltem 18:14, 3 May 2009 (CEST)
- IIRC the Birdmen don't get the +100 extra sensor noise. So alien cloaker maybe fully cloaked if owned by Birdmen. JoSch 23:35, 24 April 2008 (CEST)
- You currently don’t need a scan to perform a boarding attempt / transfer to a fully cloaked ship, an old scan is enough. ((Host 213.30))
- There is no special abilities like in vga planets 3 called "Cloaked Intercept Attack"
[edit] Ships
- Warning not all the ships below can fully cloak (the Meteor Class Blockade Runner for example can not fully cloak).
[edit] Changes
[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.213t
- New: Newly launched ships will start with 2 fuel + hull cloak cost.
[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.213o
- Fixed: Fuel Robber, Money Tap, Hull Plan Napper, and Cargo Grappler will work on an enemy ship that you have a scan of. Simply having the cloaking device enabled and voided won't protect you any more. More informative log messages provided.
[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.213n
- Fixed: Cloaked units get their power boost on VCR combat tick 0 now (was 25) since this bonus was negated in the new combat code.
- Changed: If a ship is without crew then it will only gain a sensor profile reduction from a planet's atmosphere or Robot Q Tanker. (Cloak will not work with 0 crew.)
- Changed: Cloakers will acquire their targets earlier in the start of VCR combat.
[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.213j
- Changed: Base blockades cannot be broken by cloaked ships.
[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.213g
- Changed: When a ship is fully cloaked with defensive mode enabled and is unseen by the initiator then the Guard Base setting is ignored and will not pull the ship or base into space combat.
[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.213
- Fixed: A combat initiator could find a pod docked to a ship and use that as an object to start a fight with, even though the ship it was docked to had attack off or was fully cloaked. Undocked pods can be targets now with Target Harmless Pods enabled (client 64) or Target Soft (client -63) for ships and wings as the initiator.
- Changed: If a ship is fully cloaked, but the combat initiator has detected them somehow, they can enter combat with them.
[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.212f
- Fixed: Changes made to attempt to make it so that EE cannot see docked pods/wings on ships that they don't have a scan of (e.g. cloaked carrier with its wings). More testing required.
[edit] What is new in Host.exe Version 4.000.211
- Changed: Tachyon Emitter changing sensor profile moved to take effect after Q Tanker cloaking.
