A couple of Component questions...

[jfp3]

Greets Gents! Relative Newbie here with some questions:

1) What are the differences between Hyper Optics/Scanners/Gravitic Scanners?? What ~exactly~ do they do anyway? Are they related to Cloaking? Are Scanners giving me component info, presence info or allowing me to see Cloaked ships or all the above? (for instance).

2) What is the "Cloak" button actually doing to my ships which have only Cloak Armour III? (The one with the defensive bonus, no other Cloak related components on ship <<to my knowledge>>). Does it need to be clicked in order to work? Is there any reason to ever turn it off? (does is use supplies when turned on?)

3) Is there some document/excel sheet out there that actually tells what everything does? Some of the in game descriptions really don't tell me much -- like Hyper Optics vs. Scanners vs. Gravitic Scanners for instance.

4) Warp Weapons -- Do they damage a ship or Warp it to another Star System? Both? If to another Star System is is adjecent or random?

5) Do Phased Weapons damage Phased Shields at all or should one stop deploying them when first seeing Phased Shields?

6) Related: "Tachyon Projection Cannon....penetrates 'shields' and destroys weapons"...does that include Phased Shields?

Thanks in advance for your answers! I'm a relative new comer to SEIV, and just pushing past my first game over 100 turns. Having come across some of these new technologies I don't want to start adding them to ships only to have to refit them as soon as they float out of the shipyards hehe...

[Alneyan]

Greetings, and welcome aboard!

1) In the stock game, there is no difference between all the sensors: any can pierce all cloaking devices, so long as the scanner is of high enough level. Their sole purpose is to detect cloaked ships: the best sensors are powerful enough to detect the best cloak. Note that storms and nebulaes also provide automatic cloaking, and nothing can be detected inside red nebulaes. Again in the stock game, Hyper Optics are by far the cheapest to research, so you should only by using these (and perhaps the Physic or Temporal Sensors if you have the appropriate trait).

Long Range Scanners allow you to detect what is inside a ship, ie its components, the damage it has taken, its cargo, and so on. You will thus gain all information you have about your own ships. However, the Scattering Armour negates this effect, and it is unfortunately a very popular component due to the +15% defence boost it gives.

2) The Cloak button activates all the cloaking devices on board your ship, as they are not activated by default (for ships at any rate, as satellites are cloaked by default, though it does not show on the game screen). You may want to turn the Stealth Armour off under specific circumstances: for example, Minesweepers must not be cloaked in order to work. You could also lay a couple of ships in the midst of an enemy system, with a cloaked armada in the same sector: if the enemy engages, all your ships will join in the battle, regardless of their cloaking.

4) Warp Weapons (under Physics 4) give you Wormhole Beams, used to "teleport" enemy vessels during a battle. A ship hit by a Wormhole beam will be moved somewhere else in the battle, and the effect is pretty much random.

5) Phased Weapons perform as ordinary weaponry (Normal Damage) when they hit a target protected by Phased Shields. Since they are quite expensive, you might want to switch to another weapon once Phased Shields become standard, but they have no other drawback when they hit a Phased Shield.

6) All special damage types (Only XXX) bypass all sorts of shields, including Phased Shields. If you are playing SE4 Gold with one of the Last patches, Ionic Projectors are an exception to this rule, as these are stopped by shielding (normal or phased shields).

5 and 6) Phased Shields perform as Normal Shields in all matters, except that Phased Shields stop Phased Weapons.

[Swarm]

1) In the unmodified game, no difference in function between Hyper Optics, Gravitic Sensors, and Tachyon Sensors. They all pierce the level of Cloaking specified in the component description. They are unrelated to Combat Sensors and Scanners. A single unit with one of these in the system will enable you to see all cloaked objects - their range is the entire system.

Scanners let you see the components and cargo on ships which you can see. They have a range of 1, 3 or 5 sectors. They are blocked by Scanner Jammers or Scattering Armour. They do NOT let you see cloaked ships or planetary facilities or cargo.

2) The cloak button switches it on or off. Cloaking devices use supplies, so you may not always want it switched on. All levels of Stealth Armour function the same as the first level of cloaking, and still needs to be switched on before your ship is cloaked, even though it does not use supplies. (As the captain of Nasty Surprise 0001 found to his cost.)

3) I wish there was :-/

4) They may do a trivial amount of damage - I'm not sure - but the main effect is to warp the target ship to a random spot of the combat map. I think the distance is generally greater with larger weapon mounts. The ship will still be in the same sector of the same system.

5) Phased weapons do normal damage to Phased Shields.

6) I believe so.

[Swarm]

Beaten to the reply :-( Must learn to type faster!

[jfp3]

Gents thanks much for the rapid reply. hehe must have taken a ~lot~ of playing to get to know those little gems -- glad I didn't have to find out the hard way....now to take Long Ranges Scanners the *&^%$#@! off my Research Queue....;-)

[Suicide Junkie]

Note: Warp weapons can be quite handy on a support ship.
Since they teleport the ship to a random location on the combat map, they are usually more effective than repulsor beams would be. Most of the time, the enemy will end up 3-4 turns away from combat, and you'll improve your odds locally.

If you manage to hit the fleet leader, or just provide a good volume of fire, you'll be able to massively disrupt the enemy formation. Fighting a handful of ships at a time is much better than fighting the whole fleet

There is always the risk that it will be moved behind your lines or beside your retreating support ships, so consider your fleet composition when deciding to use them.

---
3) Don't look to the descriptions, they're more atmosphere than details.
Look at the stats listed on that page, particularily the abilities at the bottom.

Ship hulls also show their abilities in the small window below the hull selection box in the design screen, and you can click the abilities tab of any ships you've constructed to see a handy list.

[jfp3]

Ah....very nice tactic there with the Warp Weapon on Support Ship SJ....I wonder...on a related note, does that WWeap count as an actual weapon for purposes of "Capture Planet", in "Fleet Formation" and not having your DropShips running for the corners if they break formation with no weapon?

[Suicide Junkie]

Gravity weapons can't be installed on platforms in stock.

Although, for the purposes of comparing mass for tractor/repulsor beams, planets always win against ships.

[Ed Kolis]

Suicide Junkie said:
Note: Warp weapons can be quite handy on a support ship.
Since they teleport the ship to a random location on the combat map, they are usually more effective than repulsor beams would be. Most of the time, the enemy will end up 3-4 turns away from combat, and you'll improve your odds locally.

Funny, I thought wormhole beams placed the target X number of squares away in a random direction, where X was the damage of the weapon, so a regular WB would place you 5 squares away, a Large Mount 10 squares, a Heavy Mount 15 squares, and a Massive Mount 20 squares

One other thing to remember, too, is that wormhole beams work vs. ANY size ship - you can even beam starbases around with your escorts... or drones! (Hmm, that could be an interesting strategy in Devnull... )

[Suicide Junkie]

Oh, yeah. With starbases packing a lot of power, and all collected in a small section of the combat map, spreading them out to fight one at a time can have a huge effect.