.com.unity Forums - Question about hyperoptics?

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dragonlord:
Ah, a good thread for this question:
Can hyperoptic sensors III detect ANY cloak? (ships, not nebulaes).
Or are their special cloaks (maybe a racial ability?) that require other sensors? E.g why bother with gravitic sensors if it's cheaper to go for Hyperoptics III ? There's no such thing as gravitic cloaking, is there?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

In the default configuration of the game there is no difference between the effectiveness of various sensors. So the Hyper Optics are easily the cheapest way to make yourself secure against cloaked intruders.

All ships/bases/units (except mines) and colonies have a default 'sensor level' of 1 in both Active and Passive EM scanning (the first two types of scanning covered by the cloaking device and the stealth armor). So, the level 2 cloaking in Active and Passive EM scanning offered by stealth armor is the cheapest invisibility you can get. It is also the weakest. The other types of scanning (Gravitic, Psychic, Temporal) will detect a ship with only stealth armor at their first level of development. There is no cloaking of these sensor types by stealth armor. The default configuration of the cloaking device gives some protection from these types of scanning but it only goes to level 4 in each. Since all of the scanners go to level 4 also, and scanners win if the scanner/cloak level is equal this means that it is impossible to have an 'undetectable' cloak in the default arangement of the game.

Just because this is the 'default' arrangement does not mean that this is the best one, though. The game is essentially still in development and experiments are underway.

I have made some slight changes to the relationship of the various cloaking/sensor types in my custom setup. I figured that any 'cloaking device' worthy of the name would defeat simple 'passive' scanning (light gathering, i.e. telescopes! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif ) and gave the cloaking device level 5 cloaking in Passive EM scanning. This means that the 'cheap' Hyper-Optics is now only useful to catch ships wearing stealth armor. It will not work against true cloaking. So, there are now two 'tiers' of cloaking in my games. The early stealth armor and the later 'active' cloaking device. You can use the Hyper-optics for a while to protect against stealth ships, but it eventually becomes obsolete and you have to go for something else.

Weirdly, mines are given level 5 cloaking in everything by default so they are in fact totally invisible. This was the first thing I changed in my configuration. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif You can see mines with advanced sensors in my games. In the past I tried removing their default cloaking and giving them stealth armor like a ship. It did NOT work. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif But I've seen some comments on the BB here that make me think it might have been changed to allow the mines to have stealth armor. I'll have to try it again soon.

Since mines always hit cloaked ships, it seems they also default to SENSOR level 5 as well! I cannot figure out how to change this, though I'd like to. But then there are a lot of things I'd like to change about mines...

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 22 July 2001).]