Multi-Cloaking and supply

[StarBaseSweeper]

I was wondering, if I have the following 2 cloaking components:
Cloak 1:
EM P 4
EM A 4
Temp 0
Grav 0
Psy 0
Supply used: 40/turn

Cloak 2:
EM P 2
EM A 2
Temp 5
Grav 2
Psy 5
Supply used: 60/turn

I activate cloaking. What will be my cloaklevel and how much supply will i spend?

Would there be a difference for supply consumption if the components would be:
Cloak 1:
EM P 4
EM A 4
Temp 0
Grav 0
Psy 0
Supply used: 40/turn

Cloak 2:
EM P 6
EM A 6
Temp 0
Grav 0
Psy 0
Supply used: 60/turn

Thanks in advance for help to a newbie modder...

[Dingocat85]

Originally posted by StarBaseSweeper:
Would there be a difference for supply consumption if the components would be:
Cloak 1:
EM P 4
EM A 4
Temp 0
Grav 0
Psy 0
Supply used: 40/turn

Cloak 2:
EM P 6
EM A 6
Temp 0
Grav 0
Psy 0
Supply used: 60/turn

Thanks in advance for help to a newbie modder...

An easy way to test this would be to have Stealth Armor use 5 supplies, give a ship some Stealth Armor and a Level 2 or greater Cloaking device, then...Cloak.

In best-case scenario, when you activate cloaking, you'll get the same sort of situation as when you try to Warp in a sector that has two warp points - a box will pop up and ask you which one you'd like to use.

Worst-case scenario? Both are activated, both use supplies.

[Fyron]

You get the highest level of each cloaking ability for components you have on your ship (and for any built-in abilities). I think that all cloaking components will use up supplies each turn, so yours would use 60 + 40 = 100 supplies per turn.

[StarBaseSweeper]

Thanks for the answers.
That's what I thought, but good to have confirmation from specialists.

By the way, do you know whether it's possible to have a negative value for "Supply Amount Used:" for a component so that it would generate supplies independent of the number of stars?

Imperator Fyron, I use your website about modding, very informative. Sometimes there is a lack of information on some very specific topics, but maybe because it is not addressed by MM as well...
EDIT: yes I realized it is becuase these abilities are not implemented, sorry.

EDIT: In the same subject, about cloaking, when cloaking is inserted as Hull ability, is it always on, or does it need to be activated as well? Am I right to think that in that case it uses no supply?
I looked at P&N mod, and it seems all Hull have gratitic cloak, so it seems that if one doesn't have a gravitic detector, anyship can be invisible?

Very useful anyway! Thanks for doing it.

[ May 09, 2003, 11:18: Message edited by: StarBaseSweeper ]

[Fyron]

"By the way, do you know whether it's possible to have a negative value for "Supply Amount Used:" for a component so that it would generate supplies independent of the number of stars?"

Umm... supply usages is only invoked when the component is used. The only things that use supplies each turn automatically are active cloaking devices.

"Imperator Fyron, I use your website about modding, very informative. Sometimes there is a lack of information on some very specific topics, but maybe because it is not addressed by MM as well..."

Specific examples?

"EDIT: yes I realized it is becuase these abilities are not implemented, sorry."



"EDIT: In the same subject, about cloaking, when cloaking is inserted as Hull ability, is it always on, or does it need to be activated as well? Am I right to think that in that case it uses no supply?
I looked at P&N mod, and it seems all Hull have gratitic cloak, so it seems that if one doesn't have a gravitic detector, anyship can be invisible?"

Cloaking on ship hulls requires the use of the Cloak order to be activated. Cloaking on unit hulls (eg: mines) is automatically used, and can't be disabled.

If you can detect any type of cloaking on a ship, you can detect the ship. So, if the ship only has gravitic cloaking, all ships can see it, because all ships have EM Passive Scanning level 1 built in (I think it's Passive, could be Active). If you have level 100 cloaking in all areas except EM Passive (no cloaking ability at all for it), any ship can see you without any special comps. Also, level 1 EM Passive Cloaking is completely pointless.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

cloaking component with negative supply and 0 cloak. call it a reacter.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
cloaking component with negative supply and 0 cloak. call it a reacter.

But, it only works when the cloaking is on, which makes no sense. Your sweepers won't be able to sweep mines. Any other cloaking abilities you have will be activated. You will not be able to generate supplies while decloaked. None of these are good side effects of doing that.

[geoschmo]

Actually, whether or not you agree with Fyron's points I don't think it works. I tried giving a cloaking device a negative supply usage and it didn't add or subtract supplies fomr the ship.

Geoschmo

[geoschmo]

I tried negative supply use on cloaks and they do nothgin. I tried them on engines and I get an overflow error. Also, in both cases they show up screwy in the component readout. Instead of -x, they show like 49543723 as the supply usage. Obviously negative supply use isn't going to do it.

But it was a good idea I think.

Geoschmo

[Fyron]

The negative supplies for the engines seem to get subtracted from the maximum value of the integer variable used, just like what happens with standard move points.

MM apparantly took the lazy way out and made a lot of variables unsigned integers instead of signed integers, so negative values can not possibly work. I hope he doesn't make this same mistake with SE5.

[ May 09, 2003, 20:09: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]