Question about cloaking

[Q]

Has anybody tried to make different cloaking devices. If so, do different cloaking components on a ship work combined or is only one component active?
E.g if I make a new tachyon cloak device with level 5 tachyon cloaking that cannot be defeated be any unmodified tachyon sensor but will be defeated by hyperoptics sensors and combine it with an other hyperoptic cloaking device level 5 that cannot be defeated by hyperoptic sensors but only by tachyon sensors on the same ship: can this ship be detected if I have both tachyon and hyperotic sensors in the system?

[Q]

SJ I am aware of this. My question is if the abilities of two different cloaking components are addiditive?

[Skulky]

So you could not make a series of lvl 5 cloaks that only defend against one type of sensor? If you had just one sensor strong enough to see one of the say 3 cloak components the ship would be visible, the other cloaks wouldn't back up the revealed one? It seems a shame to have all these different sensors when they aren't really too different.
How about a mine detector? Or a super cloak whose detector is only available for sats and WP and bases, the cloak would be enourmous and $$ too but hey it could get you into the homeworlds. Also, if you have a cloak, say stealth armor and you warp through a mined warp point where the enemy has no detection will you take a hit? or can you slip through minefields like that?

[Phoenix-D]

If you have a, say, two cloaking devices, one that gives:

Level 2 Active
Level 3 Passive
Level 5 Gravitic
Level 3 racial

and one that gives
Level 4 Active
Level 2 Passive
Level 0 Gravitic
Level 0 racial

("racial" is actually two different techs)

If you have BOTH these devices on your ship, you'll have a combined cloaking ability of:
Level 4 Active
Level 3 Passive
Level 5 Gravitic
Level 3 Racial

And be detected by level 4 active sensors, level 3 passive, level 5 gravitic, and level 3 "racial" (cloak level = or < sensors, detected)

So yes, cloaks can be set to provide differing levels of protection against different kinds of sensors, and they CAN be combined.

EDIT: and in other words, the ship in Q's example question would NOT be visible unless you had a sensor other than tachyon or hyper-optics.

Phoenix-D

[ 11 January 2002: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Mines can "see" through any cloak. The general idea is that your ship runs into the mines on its own. (really only makes sense in warppoint/planet sectors, where they can be concentrated around the object).

Mines are a poor man's cloak detector

[Suicide Junkie]

If any sensor in the system exceeds the corresponding cloak value, the ship is visible.

If the ship has level 5 in all of the applicable cloaks, it cannot be detected without modding sensor strength.

[Q]

Thank you Phoenix-D for your precise answer.

The reason for my question is that I was thinking about modifying the cloaking devices so that you would have different possibilities and that not one type of sensor would be sufficient to detect all cloaked ships. But you must be careful not to create cloaked ships that can't be seen by any type of sensors!

One more question: Is it possible in the design vehicle file to call for a specific type of cloak or sensor ability (e.g. active EM or gravitic)??

[Rollo]

To make the design minister choose a specific cloaking device or sensor you would need to add a second ability to the component. For example "star - unstable" to hyper optics and "ruins" to gravitic sensors. Those ability will do nothing, but you will be able to use them in the designs to call for the components that you want.

Rollo

[Q]

Thank you Rollo for your answer. That was what I suspected too.

What I have in mind is the following:
1.) Leave the sensors as they are.
2.) Make five different series of cloak components. One for each sensor ability.
3.) The tech level required for these cloak components would be combined the tech level of the cloaking and the corresponding sensor level: e.g. a gravitic cloak component level III would require cloak tech level 3 and gravitational tech level 3.
4.) The ability of each of these cloaking devices would be the same as the original cloaking device except an increase of the level in their field by one level: e.g. the level of the gravitic cloak component would be 5 for gravitic and 4 in all other fields.
5.) This would make that the highest cloak component in each field could not be beaten by the sensors of the same field but only by a different sensor.
6.) Under this modification you could build a almost completely invisible ship only by combining gravitic, active and passive EM cloaking devices and even then you could be detected by psychic or temporal sensors.

This might make cloaking and sensors a little bit more interesting or what do you think?
Additionally you could decrease the gravitic cloaking for small mines by two levels and medium mines for one level, which would give an reason to build larger mines.

[ 12 January 2002: Message edited by: Q ]

[Skulky]

You should also make the lvl 5 levels so expensive adn big that having all of them ona ship woudl leave no space for anything else. remember mines can stillhit these and if the cloak component is damaged the shipwill appear again. nice idea, i could still imagine sneaking a DN or a BC into the homesystem and laying waste wiht tectonic bombs (move onto planet square, uncloack, stellar manip, cloak, move away) also you could have a max number of cloak devices per ship like the engine max number (i think, not sure if this works).