Will we ever get cloaking devices?

from GalCiv2 Forums
As a Star Trek fan, I can't help but ask this question, and raise a discussion of the various aspects of cloaking in a space strategy game. No doubt, it would be a cool feature, but some questions come to mind.

1. How would it work?
2. How would it affect gameplay?

How would it work? I would think that cloaking should be a technology that allows a cloaking component of your ship. Cloaking would render you invisible to ordinary sensors, but special cloaking sensors could detect cloaks from a close proximity. For instance, if a ship has a sensor range of 12 parsecs, the cloaking sensors would only see cloaked ships within 2-3 parsecs. Cloaked ships would have some sort of first strike advantage, maybe 10-15%. Necessarily, the cloaking component would be costly and space consuming. The idea would be that cloaking and firepower/defenses are a tradeoff. You can have one, but at the expense of the other. A cloak would also only work if the ship's HP are above, say, 60%. This would have the effect of damaging the cloak when a cloaked ship is involved in defending itself. The GalCiv2 model doesn't allow for draws, so a cloaked ship, when attacking or defending, will either survive or die. Presuming it survives, it might lose the cloaking ability while it's HPs are under the 60% limit.

How would it affect gameplay? Well, it adds a whole other level of complexity. Obviously, Brad will have a sizeable task to design AI algorithms to both take advantage of cloaking and fight cloaked enemies. The close range necessary to detect cloaks will make it necessary for fleets to break up and scout larger areas. While the computer might be able to handle this efficiently, it might be tedious for human players to coordinate 10 ships in an effective search pattern. Most likely this is about adjusting the detection range so as to make it hard to find a cloaked ship, but not so hard that it becomes tedious. Another issue is cloaked fleets. If regular fleets have to break up to find cloaked ships, then cloaked fleets should have limits to how large they can be, so as not to be cloaked and overpowering. A cloaked ship might have a higher logistics number than a regular ship of the same size. Also, cloaked ships should be able to travel with regular fleets. This would allow some fleets to look weak, but really be stronger. However, a battle would reveal that there are cloaked ships.

Overall, cloaking should provide a combat advantages beyond the obvious scouting advantages. However, I believe it should be costly enough not to be undertaken lightly or commonly.

What are your thoughts?
16,652 views 24 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Yes, I was one that wished for cloaking technology. My idea is very similar to star trek. Basically you have a cloaking technology tree, the more you advance, the better you can cloak yourself. For example, if you have a level 5 cloaking device, and your opponents have level 4 sensor device, then those ships that you have installed the device on will give you the option to cloak and be invisible to all your opponents. Meaning it would be a technological race. An invisible ship can attack the target ship without its shields, therefore doing direct damage to HP but only the first attack, any subsequent attacks will have the target's sheilds on. Because in order to attack you need to de-cloak but it's still a surprise attack. The idea is when your invisible, your enemies won't bother to raise their shields because there are no enemies around or thinking there are no enemies around. ?
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

An invisible ship can attack the target ship without its shields, therefore doing direct damage to HP but only the first attack, any subsequent attacks will have the target's sheilds on. Because in order to attack you need to de-cloak but it's still a surprise attack. The idea is when your invisible, your enemies won't bother to raise their shields because there are no enemies around or thinking there are no enemies around. ?


What about armor and point defense? Armor is by nature always there, and point defense systems are automated, which would allow some measure of defense.

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The way I think it should work is, you have cloaking devices and cloak detectors. Cloak detectors would be under the sensor tree. Regular sensors would help detect cloaked ships, but only detectors of the same or higher level as the cloaks would be 100% effective.

In addition, cloaking devices would get exponentially bigger and more expensive the bigger the ship, making larger cloaked ships impractical.

Cloak detectors would be the opposite, being of a set, and very large size, making smaller detector ships impractical.

Cloaked ships would, however, not have any advantage in combat. They would, like in Star Trek, decloak in combat. The advantage of cloaks would be in sneaking around defenses and wreaking general havok that way.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'd do it a little differently. Instead of having a class of "cloaking devices" that you can put on your ships, make it a line of techs for stealth technologies and electroninc warfare. Initial devices would be simple sensor jammers and such, while the more powerful instances would be outright cloaking devices (or perhaps even devices which shift a ship into an alternate dimension!)

Every component that this technology yields will becomes steadily more powerful. +1 stealth would allow a ship to not appear on the outer edge of another ship's radar, +2 further decreasing that distance, etc. You'd eventually be able to yield a ship entirely invisible by exceeding the sensor range with stealth components. Countering it would be a matter of increasing the sensors on your ships.

Perhaps an additional bonus could be given to a ship that was rendered invisible to sensors, on par with the Arcean first strike ability.
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
All that stuff is implemented in Starships Unlimited, which is visually more primitive than GC2, but a very nifty little indie game. Even if it is 5-7 years old (the original original version - Andrew has also done several free updates).

Go to www.apezone.com. I've kept it on my hard drive for 5+ years.

drrider

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

I'd do it a little differently. Instead of having a class of "cloaking devices" that you can put on your ships, make it a line of techs for stealth technologies and electroninc warfare. Initial devices would be simple sensor jammers and such, while the more powerful instances would be outright cloaking devices (or perhaps even devices which shift a ship into an alternate dimension!)

Every component that this technology yields will becomes steadily more powerful. +1 stealth would allow a ship to not appear on the outer edge of another ship's radar, +2 further decreasing that distance, etc. You'd eventually be able to yield a ship entirely invisible by exceeding the sensor range with stealth components. Countering it would be a matter of increasing the sensors on your ships.

Perhaps an additional bonus could be given to a ship that was rendered invisible to sensors, on par with the Arcean first strike ability.


I agree with this. Stealth tech should be another defensive branch, except it's not a normal defense that counters a specific type of weapon. Instead, it counters sensors.

IMO, stealth ships should not have a first strike ability since if it gets attacked, it probably has been seen, and that means it's stealth has been overcome.

Instead, stealth tech should decrease enemy attack rolls by 5% for every point of stealthiness. That way, if a ship fires at a target who has a stealth rating of 5, that ship can only roll it's weapon from 0% to 75% of it's maximum attack power.

The stealth tech tree could look like this:

Jammers -> Absorption Materials -> Stealth Hulls -> Deception -> Cloaks

With various, slight modifications for the different races(From TA, races will have unique tech trees). Jammers would be simple components that you put on ships to add stealth points. Absorption Materials would be smaller and more potent but the same.

Stealth Hulls would allow for the building of new, stealthy hull designs that sacrifice a bit of hull space for high levels of stealthiness.

Deception would be in the form of small and powerful components that, if the ship is detected, would show the ship to be something it isn't. For example, a transport with Deception components would appear to an enemy as being a scout, or something of the sort. Only ships using a Survey Module would be able to tell what a deceptive ship actually is.

Cloaks would be extremely expensive, very small components that add high stealth rating to ships as well as make them deceptive.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wow, these stealth ideas are very good, although I don't think they will ever be implemented.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't think they will ever be implemented.


I didn't think we'd ever see species-specific techs, but apparently they'll be part of the Arnor expansion.

Cloaking seems to fit the Krynn. It could also make things interesting if some species (or maybe all Good-aligned players) hated cloaks and would lower diplo status if a non-Krynn player stole or bought cloaking tech or cloak-enabled ships. Could be a nice excuse to start a war: "We *told* you that stuff was unacceptable."
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
@PeskyFly

I agree that a stealth enabled ship that gets attacked shouldn't be getting a first strike bonus. I was referring to instances where they initiate an attack, which would almost by definition be a surprise attack.

Outside that, I'd be against a stealth ship getting additional bonuses in combat. Over long ranges, you'd be basically relying on distance to keep your ships hidden. Once you reach combat ranges of around 1000km or less, you'd be far too close to be effectively masked by all but the most potent stealth techs (at which point, you'd never take return fire anyways! Stealth is an all or nothing proposition in space.)

I DO like the idea of stealth hulls and deception techniques, though! A hull with built in stealth technology, but with an associated cost or space penalty? Sign me up! The way I'd do it is to have a disproportional increase in cost associated with the stealth components. Since you can already trade space for stealth with the normal components, this would let you build stealthy AND powerful ships at a very high cost. Most strategic options are always welcome!

I can think of two possible uses for components meant to decieve opponents. One is simply to mask the type of ship, forcing a guess as to what lies beneath the fog of war. The other is, as you suggested, making something look like something else. A transport becomes a battleship, a scout becomes a frigate, a dreadnought becomes a freighter. Incredibly cool to think about. However, if stealth enabled ships are tough on the AI, imagine how huge a task this would be! Human players would be hard pressed to manage such limited information!
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I would hazard to guess that the biggest reason that cloaking/sensor-fooling techs have not been considered for the game is the complexity it would add to the AI routines. The AIs have a difficult enough time dealing with visible enemy ships - such a hard time that this was the reason given for the extreme engine tech nerfing that happened with DA.

Now imagine trying to introduce new code to the AI to allow it to deal with the possibility of cloaked enemy ships, to effectively deploy and use cloaked ships of its own, and to shift research priorities to allow the AI civilizations to keep up. That's enough work to justify and fill up a complete new expansion all by itself.

I agree that it would be extraordinarily cool, but for the sheer amount of programming and testing it would take, this is one technology that I do not expect to see in the game - not until GalCiv3, at least...


Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think that the stealth/electronic warfare branches would work well for that. I don't think cloaking as "invisbile based on enemy sensors" would work too well unless the AI actually prioritized sensors. Currently it sees them as basically useless, which is a shame. Oh, and "Eyes of the Universe"? How would that fit into the cloak detection? Max sensor range already, so I think that would pretty much necessitate enhanced detection technologies. I make eyes of the universe a priority once a species has developed planetary invasion, so if it let me detect cloaked ships as well...
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Cloaked ships' existence beyond a certain range would just appear to be in the form of a blank parsec, and they would appear to be a blank parsec until they close in to that range. Eyes of the Universe can detect normal ships at 15 parsecs away, but, lets say an example stealth ship has a stealth rating of 8. Then, Eyes would only be able to see it from 7 parsecs away.

Okay, so the deception idea is a bit complicated. A dreadnought appearing to be a freighter would be a huge, huge threat. Especially if the Dread Lords try this stuff. And the AI probably won't respond to it well. However, normal stealth tech seems perfectly fine. I don't think the AI will have any problem dealing with and implementing stealth components and stealth hulls.

Stealth hulls will require a bit more advanced animation, with them becoming semi-transparent when idle, and having weapons bays which open to allow the gun/laser/missile launcher to pop out and fire.

I do hope we get stealth/cloaks ASAP, since I've been wanting to make a galactic-level F-22 Raptor(which has stealth in reality). Missiles, point defense, a pair of powerful engines, long-range sensors, Atlas, a medium stealth hull and other stealth components are what will be needed to make such a ship.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Stealth hulls will require a bit more advanced animation, with them becoming semi-transparent when idle, and having weapons bays which open to allow the gun/laser/missile launcher to pop out and fire.

I wouldn't hold my breath while waiting for this one, but it sounds very cool though.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In reality, stealth aircraft do that. In GC2, it would be more accurate if, upon initiation of space combat, those weapons bays pop open, the weapons pop out, and it's battle on. Then, if the stealth ship successfully wins the skirmish, the weapons would retract back in, the bays would close, and the ship would become semi-transparent again.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I like the idea of cloaking device as it was in Master of Orion II. It was a single technology there. Cloaking device was useless in combat, but cloaked ships were invisible on the map, unless you were on the same position as cloaked ships (orbiting the same planet).

How could it be implemented in GC2? One cloaking device would decrease the detection range of enemy ships by 1 pc. It would be for a tiny ship (hullsize = 1). For each bigger hullsize for the same effect the number of cloaking devices must be higher.

Decrease of detection range = (number of cloaking devices) / (hull size)

example: medium ship (hullsize = 3), 6 cloaking devices

decrease of detection range = 6 / 3 = 2

if enemy ship is 3 pc far away from our ship and the enemy ship has a sensor range 5 pc. or less, our ship would not be seen (3 pc. away + 2 pc. decrease of detection range). If the enemy ship had a sensor range 6 or more, our ship would be detected.

It would be possible to have several versions of cloaking devices - the better they are, the smaller they are.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
In reality, stealth aircraft do that. In GC2, it would be more accurate if, upon initiation of space combat, those weapons bays pop open, the weapons pop out, and it's battle on. Then, if the stealth ship successfully wins the skirmish, the weapons would retract back in, the bays would close, and the ship would become semi-transparent again.


Why make that part of a stealth hull? Animated components like that would be just plain AWESOME. I'd love to have hidden weapon bays as jewelry. Hell, while we're at it, why not add turret components that can track enemy ships?

@mrakomo: Why bother requiring bigger ships to have more? Just crank up the sizemod. Same effect, more elegant.

Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree with MarshallONeil, AI is the main roadblock to implementing cloaking devices. The more options available in a game, the more complex the AI has to be to deal with the possible combinations. I believe that's why the AI doesn't prioritize on sensors, as someone noted. It probably uses sensors as much as it's programmed to think it needs them. Sensors are more valuable on larger maps than on smaller maps, and I would almost bet the AI knows that. The technologies each AI civ researches probably comes from a combination of civ-specific tendencies and general game needs. I think the stardock people have done a wondrous job programming the AI as well as they have. However, AIs work best when they have all the information to make their decisions. Cloaking devices leave room for holes in the AI's information, and an AI has to be complex to know how to deal with information holes.

Brad, if you're reading this, please tell me you've at least THOUGHT about cloaking technology in an upcoming expansion pack/sequel.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think cloaking is an unnecessary complication. It's something neato for players but pretty much useless for the AIs since it'd be hard for them to both use and deal with.

Fast ships pretty much duplicate "cloaking" effectiveness anyways, by allowing you to attack from great distances (likely outside of AI threat consideration), hit and run, and/or escape. In addition fast ships have the advantages of being able to attack more times per turn, generally get around the galaxy quicker, and defend more effectively due to being able to be responsible for a larger coverage radius.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am afraid I must agree. The idea is nice, but to make a clever AI without exploits is very difficult.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
While I have no doubt that it's a substantial challenge for the AI to deal with sensors properly (and, presumably, anything that counters those sensors). Without knowing how the architecture of the AI is set up we really have no position to judge how difficult or easy it might be to deal with sensor coverage.

Besides, the AI needs to learn to use sensors better anyways, since that's a significant flaw in its war waging. After that, stealth techs are a logical progression... in its simplest form, you have the AI assume that its sensors are less effective than they rate at (based off of average enemy stealth levels).
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I do not think it would be too difficult to implement a cloaking device in game.... various bugs have already shown the way on that one!!

Although i would not like to see unit invisibility as insane as it is in Alpha Centauri! i have been playing that again recently and the fog of war is just obscenely rediculous, hec even one of my own units went invisible after entering a square with a hidden ally unit, and then reapearing next turn! Normally if my unit enters a square with an invisible ally, it (the ally) shows up in the stacked unit list then dissapears from view again when my unit moves further - i mean how stupid is that?