stellar manipulation question
 

in a game now.....

If i use my ship to create a storm will the storm wipe out the opponent or will it just give me astorm to hide in?

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, storms don't destroy your enemy. It's possible if they can't take much damage. When you create a storm you get either a storm that can hide you, or a storm that causes damage. It's all random. So it will either give ya a good one to hide in or one that will damage you if you pass through it. So it can't destroy your opponent.

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

What.. the storm just sits there and doesn't move? That's stupid.

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

Yup pretty much.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yes, that is stupid. That's one of the features that we'd all like to see in SEV. Storms that move and can damage ships by turn, not ones that just sit there. But who knows if MM will add it to SEV.

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

One other use is creating storms on warp points. If they're damaging, they work like unsweepable minefields--minefields which damage every ship coming through. If the storm is cloaking, it serves to hide any WP defenses you have set up (only useful wiht far-side WP defense).

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

But if it hides your defenses then the enemy can pass right through them!

And yes, damaging storms are pretty stupid as they are easily avoided - it doesn't even take any extra movement points to go diagonally around them! Now a whole WALL of storms, or storms on a warp-point...

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

"But if it hides your defenses then the enemy can pass right through them!"

Cloaked ships will still attack any ships they can detect. That means they need a sensor level equal to or higher than the cloak level of the storm they're in. Without sensors, though, they can't detect enemy ships moving into (or past) the storm.

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No, and yes. Yes for a storm, but no for a regular cloaked ship with stealth armor or a cloaking device.

If two ships are in a storm and one has sensors cabale of defeating the storm, it can attack the ship that does not. In fact it cannot avoid attacking the ship if they are in the same sector. I had an unarmed sensor ship get killed in a nebula this way once. He couldn't see me but he got lucky and moved into the same sector as my ship. My ship "attacked", but since it had no weapons and his did, and once in combat he could see me, well... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

But if your ship has a cloaking device or stealth armor you can be in the same sector with an enemy and will not, in fact CANNOT attack unless you decloak first.

Geoschmo

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

... unless you have some other uncloaked unit/ship/colony in the same location as your cloaked units/ships/colonies... in that case, the combat will involve all of your forces, cloaked and uncloaked.

PvK

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

[quote]Originally posted by geoschmo:

Quote:

But if your ship has a cloaking device or stealth armor you can be in the same sector with an enemy and will not, in fact CANNOT attack unless you decloak first. Geoschmo

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmm. I was attacked by a fully cloaked fleet! The only time I saw it was in the combat screen and all ships did have stealth armor. I didn't see the fleet before the combat (or even a single ship) and the only one I saw after was damaged and must have lost its stealth armor. That ship was dropped from the fleet for I was able to attack it and it alone. The fully cloaked fleet then ran up against one of my mine fields and was totally destroyed even though it had sufficient minesweepers to neutralize the field... but they were all cloaked and got creamed instead.
AFAIK in PBW the only time you can cloak or uncloak is while playing your turn. You cannot give orders to cloak/uncloak while the turn is being run, so I should have seen it. It is barely possible my opponent did uncloak that one ship that was damaged, but it didn't show up in the movement log either... and that would be a hell of a coincidence in any case with a fleet of 31 ships.
I don't know if this is a glitch or something unique to SEIV 1.49 (a still ongoing PBW game) but thats the way it happened.

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

wait a sec, you said they had sufficient capacity to clear the minefield? why didn't they?

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

In 1.49, cloaked minesweepers do not uncloak if they hit a minefield. I think that in Gold, they will uncloak the entire fleet to sweep the field, but I am not certain.

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

Only the AI will decloak if it knows that a minefield is present. It will hit a minefield if cloaked without sweeping if it is an unknown minefield.

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

will it recloak after it hits the known minefield? therefore it would only be visible for one day in a simultanious game, as it passes through the field?

that way, you could mark warp points and planets as having minefields, so that your fleet will uncloak to try to sweep them, just in case.

Re: stellar manipulation question
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Grandpkim, I don't have an explaination from what you have told us here. I know that in every case I have ever tried to attack with cloaked ships I have to uncloak or nothing happens. Unless they happen to have mines there of course. And this was on 1.49 too.

Do you still have the turn file I could look at? Or if it's a PBW game just tell me which and about what turn it was and I can take it from there.

Geoschmo