Stealth Armor
 

I just updated a few of my exploration ships with stealth armor so that I may skirt through enemy territory without any harm. To the best of my knowledge the enemy does not have scanners that pick up level 1 Active and Passive EM countermeasures. I unfortunatly just got hunted down and unmercifully slaughterd. What's the deal, how did they see me? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Did you "turn on" the stealth armor?
Also note that even if they don't have sensors and the cloaking is on, you will still be harmed by minefields.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Um

I thought stealth armor was auto active and didnt require to be turned on.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

That would explain it, then. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

The reason you need to turn it on is so you can specify which stealth ships you want to start combats, and which you want to sneak by. Otherwise, your stealth armor ships would only fight when discovered by enemies.

Captain Bub: "Attack that enemy troop transport!"

Ensign Bubu: "Sorry sir, they can't see us because of our Neeto Technologies Mark XII stealth armor. So, er, well, we can't attack!"

Captain Bub: "Doh!"


PvK

Re: Stealth Armor
 

You have to give cloak orders, in order to get your ship running silent. Otherwise, crew members might leave lights on, or be sending Messages, etc.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Cloaking is never automatic. You have to press the Cloak Button (or keyboard shortcut). Note that you do not fight if you move through enemy space cloaked and undetected. You must uncloak to fight that turn. The stealth armor defense modifier applies if you are uncloaked.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Well, thats good to know. I have never used cloaking or stealth armor. I believe in just taking the fight to the person and the heck with hiding.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Even without using the cloaking device, it can be really cool to have a ship that is totally invisible to the naked eye of most species, even from point blank range. (+108% defense modifier http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )

Re: Stealth Armor
 

I agree. I rarely ever use the cloaking feature of stealth armor. However, the defensive bonuses available (30% with both Stealth Armor III and Scattering Armor III) make the extra research in Armor a great deal IMO.....

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Errr... wait a sec here. If I have a fleet of say 10 cloakable ships, and I turn on the cloak on 2 of the ships, will these two cloaked ships
i) not enter the combat screen at all?
ii) be present during combat, but not be able to fire on the enemy ships during combat?

Personally I rarely turn on the cloak cause it's so supply hungry, so I've never really seen the intricacies in play.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by jimbob:
Errr... wait a sec here. If I have a fleet of say 10 cloakable ships, and I turn on the cloak on 2 of the ships, will these two cloaked ships
i) not enter the combat screen at all?
ii) be present during combat, but not be able to fire on the enemy ships during combat?

Personally I rarely turn on the cloak cause it's so supply hungry, so I've never really seen the intricacies in play.<hr></blockquote>

I believe that a mixed group of cloaked ships and un-cloaked ships would all be in combat and would fight normally. Don't know for sure though, would need to try it and see what happened.

I use stealth armour for:

1. Deep probe ships. Put in Stealth Armour, 6 engines and 400 fuel from solar collectors (8 x 50, or 4 x 100) and some storage. Then send the ship out and it will not need refuelling and will travel until it hits somebody's minefield or tech levels rise to a level I detector and the ship gets detected.

2. Defense bonuses for ships.

[ 15 March 2002: Message edited by: Resident Alien 2 ]</p>

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Resident Alien 2 is correct. If any of your units in a sector are detected by enemies in that sector, combat will occur and include all your units in that sector, even if some of them are cloaked. They will engage normally according to their orders. Thus, you can have a cloaked defense fleet over your planet to ambush attackers, for instance.

PvK

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Oh dear.

I suppose I will go back home tonight and find the facts, but can some one give me a quicker answer. When you turn on cloaking your ship uses more supplies? How much more, is it a % of the normal maintenance?

Thanks for the warning, time to rethink “The Grand Plan”.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Saxon:
Oh dear.

I suppose I will go back home tonight and find the facts, but can some one give me a quicker answer. When you turn on cloaking your ship uses more supplies? How much more, is it a % of the normal maintenance?

Thanks for the warning, time to rethink “The Grand Plan”.<hr></blockquote>

Cloak III = 100 supplies used, per turn I guess.
Stealth Armour = 0

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Maybe Im just too high this morning *LOL* But whatcha mean by Map a Tree, Gryphin? I just wanna understand the question more, etc...

Re: Stealth Armor
 

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Errr... wait a sec here. If I have a fleet of say 10 cloakable ships, and I turn on the cloak on 2 of the ships, ....

...If any of your units in a sector are detected by enemies in that sector, combat will occur and include all your units in that sector, even if some of them are cloaked. ... Thus, you can have a cloaked defense fleet over your planet to ambush attackers, for instance.<hr></blockquote>Story time:
I had a small, superhigh-tech empire. Two colonized systems, but every one terraformed to perfection. Eight active military ships, half of them undergoing repairs at any one time.

A phong attack breached my minefield to the north, at the same time as a Jreanar force came through in the south. Since there was only one phong dreadnaught, I sent my $100,000 (mineral) dreadnaught out to crush it, while the rest of my active military fought back the Jreanar.
When I entered the sector, and began combat with the one Phong, nine more cloaked Dreadnaughts were waiting http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif .

An epic battle later, the Phong fleet was decimated, and my Dreadnought was disabled. The 30 turns ended, a pair of battlecruisers came to clean up the remains, and my dreadnaught limped home.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Cynapse ,
A "Tech Tree" is the series of techs that must be learned in consecutive order to get from one to another.
I don't have the exact vocabulary handy but:
On a simple level:
Missle I leads to Missle II etc
In many cases Reasearch in one tech area leads to Discovery of a new Tech area.
Reasearching Physics opens up 3 or 4 other areas.

Folks feel free to help me out here. My notes are at home. (Ok, the dog ate my homework)

EDIT: Grammar

[ 15 March 2002: Message edited by: Gryphin ]</p>

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Hard to show in a non-graphical form:
(Note: This is for P&N v2.5 PBW)

Military Science 1
=&gt; (Area) Combat Support
=&gt; (Area) Torpedo Weapons
=&gt; (Area) Point Defense Weapons

Military Science 2
Requires:
&lt;= Military Science 1
Provides:
=&gt; (Area) Advanced Military Science
=&gt; (Area) Weapon Overloading Weapons
=&gt; (Area) Ship Capture

Combat Support 1:
Requires:
&lt;= Military Science 1
Provides:
=&gt; (Component) Basic ECM I

Combat Support 2:
Requires:
&lt;= Combat Support 1
Provides:
=&gt; (component) Basic ECM II
=&gt; (1 of 2) (Area) ECM Support

ECM Support 1:
Requires:
&lt;= Combat Support 2
&lt;= Sensors 2
Provides:
=&gt; (component) Advanced ECM I

[ 15 March 2002: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]</p>

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Gotcha... now you said you wanted to map it, does that mean ya wanna trace it down and see what opens what, or ya wanna throw in your own stuff? (Dude, forgive me, I know you're not some newbie *LOL* I am the noob here, but I just wanna make sure we're on the same page... I think I know whatya need, but I dont wanna answer and be talking about something else *lmao*)

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Cynapse,
Yes I want to trace the series of techs required to get to "Stealth Armor". What would also be helpful is how to do it on my own. That is: What files to I need to check and cross reffrance in order to put together this "path" or "Tech Tree"
I just can't put it together in my head.

BTW: I am a newbie when it comes to trying to learn the Tech Trees. Up to now I have just played and tryed to remember them. that was because I was playing against the AI. Now I have to get serious to play competatively against humans in Play By Web.

SJ,
Thanks, I apriciate the help. Now lets see if I can use it effectively.

EDIT 2: I guess what I mean is there a general concept for deriving a tech tree? What file/s do I read and how do I read them.

[ 15 March 2002: Message edited by: Gryphin ]</p>

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Oh okay *LOL* Aside from using the built in tech tree in research, I check the TechAreas text file as well as Components.... Im pretty sure that for stealth armor all ya need is Armor 4 or above... (or is it 3?) Coz I noticed that emissive, stealth, and scattering armor all seem to come around the same time... Level 5 gets you II in all 3 armors, and Level 6 I think gets you model III... Tracing it was easy from the built in tree, but crawling thru the TechAreas, while tedious, is a good way to figure out what opens what...coz each one has certain "Requirements".. and those requirements can be defined easilly in the file... Offhand I dont think there is a field for "open this tech up..." but rather, on the tech you want it to open up, you need to have a the "Requirement" field say that the other tech be a certain level... Am I making sense? My buzz is gone so I should be a little more clarified *LOL*

PS - If I still am nowhere near the mark, then I am not buzzed ENOUGH. So therein would lie the problem http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Careful though, I added a custom tech to be found on planets, and I positioned in the file below Massive Shielding and Above Solar Sails, and since it was an existing game, my solar sails disappeared *LOL* Now I only append new stuff to the end of the data files... Id rather not gut them and play with the order of components... I cant be without my sails now....

EDIT - TechAreas has the requirements of all tech areas and tech levels bunched together, I think... Its a hefty file.

[ 15 March 2002: Message edited by: Cynapse ]</p>

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Cynapse:
When your solar sails dissapeared, that was probably because you inserted a double blank line when pasting in your new components.

SE4 quits reading as soon as it hits two blank lines in a row.


If you know what you want to research:
1) open components.txt
- search for the component in question
- look at the tech requirements
2) open techareas.txt
- search for the tech areas mentioned in #1
3) Follow the requirements for step #2 recursively.

Amongst all the other projects I'm doing, I'll see about creating a quick graphical tech tree this weekend.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Cynapse,
Almost there, (and can I have some of what you are smoking?) My doc won't let me have beer.
If I were to search through the TechAreas.txt,
What proccess would I use to backtrack from a given tech to get to the desired tech?
I love / hate the written American Language. Want to meet in Tuscon next February? We can discuss it then.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Suicide Junkie
Our post crossed.
Thanks, that is exactly what I was looking for.
Maybe if my sweetheart lets me, I'll do the tree.

EDIT: SJ, admit it, you have a team of 3 or 4 working with you on these things, right? Please say yes, (for my egos sake).
And thanks for all the help.

[ 15 March 2002: Message edited by: Gryphin ]</p>

Re: Stealth Armor
 

SJ - Yeah I saw some extra lines and just deleted them... coz at first it would spit out errors "Cannot find Stellar Harnessing tech" etc... I fixed that and the sails were still missing, so afterwards I just moved it to the end of the file to be safe *LOL* I cant help but love the way everything is a text file... brilliant. I'd hate to be forced to use some graphical editor - dont get me wrong, they're great, but sometimes troubleshooting has to be taken down to the raw data level ...

Thanks for jumping in and saving the day SJ, I almost had to share some of my stash with Gryphin!! *LOL*

PS - You actually come around Tuscon much Gryphin?

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Cynapse ,
I try to get to Tucson every other February. I love hiking in Tanke Verde mountains and others.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Right on... I like the Squaw Peak Mountains here in Phoenix myself... I havent been to Tucson is so many years, I grew up there but left it far behind *LOL* I may need to check that hike spot out...

Re: Stealth Armor
 

This is a tree of the standard techs I had made a long time ago
tree.txt

[ 15 March 2002: Message edited by: Andrés Lescano ]</p>

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Cynapse,
I don't to clog up this thread. Please feel free to stop by the
"Ye Olde Galactic Bar & Grill & Phong's Head Cantina"
In the short run you can see a few of my photos of the area here:
http://www.windingstream.com/arizona.html
Enjoy

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Andrés:
I'm pretty sure that "energy stream weapons" and "Energy pulse weapons" do not require physics 1. I doubt that "Sensors" requires physics 1, but I'm not completely sure.

Other than that, very nice. It would convert very naturally into a Lines & Circles graph, plus have the advantage of showing the multiple prerequisites neatly.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Andrés,
Thank you,
One, you answered my imediate question
Two, you gave me a clear vision of how to finish it up.
Thanks again.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Note that my file is for v1.49.
I don´t have gold yet, but will soon.
There must be a few new techs there, specially those related with drones.

SJ: You're wrong, just checked in TechArea.txt, the 3 of them do require Physics 1.
Most people research that very early, it must be so intuitive for you that you forgot about it.

Re: Stealth Armor
 

So they do...
I guess I've been starting at medium tech too often!
Medium start is so close to Low start, I forgot!

Re: Stealth Armor
 

Ok, I give up.
I just spent 2 hours searching through text files. I just can't figure out hout to map a tech tree such as Armor and specificaly Stealth Armor.
Would someone please tell me how to "Map a Tree" and I will be glad to trace Armor, (and a few others).
&lt; bowing my head deep with chagrin &gt;&gt;