Cloaking too un-counterable.

[o.jasper@…]

Isnt cloaking to uncounterable?

Say someone has a jammer (sneaky pete or whatever) on cloak area? What can be done to see what is there? Only building a decloaking center and just firing randomly can hope to make the jammer/objects visible/destroy it. A decloaking center has too little range to build that close, and firing upon it may not be possible. It will happen often that bombings, artillery and nuking attempts have been attempted and failed, and those can already be big enterprises in a game. The only other alternative is to touch with another unit, but that would mean already having conquered that area anyway.(Well, cloaked units)

Not having a clue and having no way of getting a clue what is at an area(or where critical buildings are) diminishes gameplay in my opinion. There should be a way to see any unit. The jammers do not use much energy while cloaking an area either (Was it 75 or 50 for the big one?) (Oh not sure if EMP stops cloakers btw.)

This is also related to: http://trac.caspring.org/ticket/728 It might be hard to have enough energy and build the factory to have specops do that, but if the enemy does so, there is (as of 2605) nothing that can be done about it. Except hope that he runs out of energy and decloaks for a second. Airplanes did not see them.

Possibilities for fixing this: 1) Removing jammer cloaking area. 2) Any unit within cloaking radius disables the entire cloak range. 3) Some units can disable cloak from a distance. I suggest that this works directionally; that some units 'fire' decloaking stuff. (Or shine or whatever, working from a sufficient range, of course.) We could possibly use existing radar units for this. The decloaking guns should take a little while depending on range, or fast-rotating decloaking 'rays' would effectively uncloak the circle.

(Of course the third could also resolve the linked ticket.)

[Saktoth]

I agree, some better counter for cloaking is needed.

I dont like the idea of a cloaking anti-nuke, but if it was some kind of versatile ability with several uses (say, a starcraft-style spy satellite or giving spies or other units some kind of anti-cloak).

Seismic just isnt good enough.

[licho]

New big decloak ranges for area cloaks should fix it..

[CarRepairer]

Since we had a huge discussion on this the other day, this might as well be the place to log our opinions.

I would prefer:

1) Really small cloaking radii. It is very difficult in games to sneak around between base buildings and units with a spy or sniper. I would like to be able to so that cloaking can be really fun to use and get behind enemy lines and hide in the deepest nooks and crannies. I would like the "decloak radius" to literally represent "bumping into" units to reveal them. This would still allow you to spam a bunch of fleas or jeffies into an area to reveal a cloaked unit.

2) Improved results from seismic detection. I have tried to make a gadget for this and failed. I see seismic detection as a third option of revealing units. You have:

LoS - weakness = cloaked.

Radar - weakness = stealthed.

Seismic - weakness = idle units (not moving or doing anything).

I believe that these three options for gathering intelligence would make for a fun game if the third was improved from its current state. Units do not shoot at seismic pings so they are near useless as of now.

Please note that I would not desire (1) without (2), they must be together, therefore I would not want any changes to the decloak radii this moment.

Google made a point that I can understand. If seismic becomes too good a counter for cloaking, you would have a nuke/anti relationship where building a seismic makes a cloaked unit useless, but not building one would leave the player too vulnerable. If this were the case I agree, but I can envision situations where even seismic detection would not be a perfect counter to cloaked incursions with spies (to gather intel) or snipers (to harass your opponent from within), in contrast with the anti-nuke which is a 100% counter for its range, so to speak. Distraction, idling your unit (hold position, hold fire) and other ways can allow the cloaked unit to sometimes sneak past even the high tech base with all sorts of detection.

[Jasper]

I agree that having seismics too large-range would negate cloak too much. That is why i suggested directional decloaking mechanisms. Spamming units in the hope that one will bump is not always an option. (Because specops are in the air and sometimes you need to have conquerred an area already to get units there.)

We could also do it this way; let some kinds of artillery decloak units within a radius of the firing impact.(Which shouldnt be too small.) This way people can check whether there are cloaked units, if they suspect them. It would be too expensive to cover all the ground with artis.

Further maybe we could give some of the (mobile)radar units small seismic radiusses. Making new dedicated units for leaves use with the question: which factories build them and the work of actually creating them. We could also have a dedicated building that fire decloaking artillery. (But it needs a long firing range then.)

@CarRepairer: I did not like 1, 2 and large decloak range much either. I currently liking decloaking 'artillery' building, as it is less micro moving the unit around, solves the 'which factory'-problem, and requires the player to guess where cloaked units are. (Of course it does not have to look like artillery. It can just reveal cloaked units at a radius from a distance.)

[Saktoth]

We already have LoS/Radar/Sonar, three levels of sensor-style area detection, and jamming for them.

I would much rather a juno-type weapon, that you use on an area to reveal cloaked units. Thus, it requires the player to take an action, and doesnt nullify all cloaking activity within a fixed area, and allows you to use it on the enemy base or anywhere you are engaging cloaked units. I think this is better than a 'constant within an area' effect.

The player must be aware there are cloaked units there though, as they must target them (It doesnt replace scouting), and the investment should only be worthwhile if you are seriously taking losses from the enemies cloaking (not just a 'build this and cloaking is now useless', IE, cloaking antinuke).

In addition it should have other uses use, such as general surveillance.

[Jasper]

@Saktoth: that was basically what i meant with a building that has decloaking artillery, except the juno has a missile.

[CarRepairer]

I still love seismic detection. But if you want something to reveal an area temporarily, then consider my idea for spraying nanobugs, acid, goo, or whatever in an area to reveal units (nanobugs reveal them only to you, goo would reveal them to all teams). You see where I'm going with this. Starcraft has a few units that do this sort of thing. We should consider units on fire to also reveal their location on radar/los as well.

[Google Frog]

We don't need starcraft style detection on a few units. It's basically cloaking negation, if someone spends a bit on cloaking but the enemy spends on anti-cloaking they are back where they started. There are already 4 methods of decloaking that most units can do and can be applied to many situations:

Entering decloak circle
Running our of E
Doing something other than moving
Paralyze

There 2 main decloaking methods to balance by; decloak radius and E drain.

Seismic detection is a boring way for cloaking to work because if it acted like radar it would negate cloaking and just create one more hard-counter situation. If radius' are too small seismic is the only counter. This is absolutely boring because it creates areas of cloaking OPness and UPness. A fluid system of every unit having the potential to counter cloaking is much better than a few with an anti-cloaking role. This is not starcraft, units decloak when they do something so not being able to see them is not deadly. If you run some scouts into an area you think has cloaked units they will decloak something because they either run into it or it shoots them.

For a decloaking arty weapon make something that fires mines.

Replying to CarRepairer:

Distraction, idling your unit (hold position, hold fire) and other ways can allow the cloaked unit to sometimes sneak past even the high tech base with all sorts of detection.

With a widget distracting would be impossible. Whether someone happens to notice something is a stupid way to balance.

"Seismic - weakness = idle units (not moving or doing anything)." All a unit can do while cloaked is move.

Sneaking units into someone's base is like a nuke. If it succeeds you win because they have crippled econ but if you fail you've wasted some resources. Atm the largish decloak radii of units make it very hard to sneak units into a well made base. People can even use DT to restict movement so you can only enter via a few holes. Or they can have a few fleas patrolling. Car's method of making base intrusion very easy if they don't have counter intrusion but impossible if they don't is too much like an antinuke. It's an extra feature tacked onto the rest of the game with cloakers and anti-cloakers instead of the fuild cloak radii method that fits with the rest of the units.

[Google Frog]

Also if a unit on fire caused it to be uncloakable(because they can see the smoke) nalpam weapons could be good decloakers.

[Jasper]

I would like to note that i am not only raising the question about mobile single-unit cloaks, but also area cloaks. (For reasons stated in first post.)

"For a decloaking arty weapon make something that fires mines."

Then the price will have to include the potential damage done.(Price could be too high.) Also, people might want a counter to this damage, like the shields blocking it, bringing back the unability to see inside area cloak+ shield. (And if it is a mobile unit, it also raises the problem: which factory?)

[CarRepairer]

Google: Then it sounds like you don't really like cloaking very much except for a far-removed, "leading-up" to a battle type of cloaking. I know you like cloaking your units from afar, as they rally for battle near the enemy's territory but not on it. You don't really care for missions of sneaking into a base and harassing, spying, etc. because a large cloaking radius makes it both hard to sneak past enemy lines in the first place, as well as allowing the enemy to very easily find a cloaked unit.

I thought the fun of cloaking is sneaking into to enemy territory and laughing because he doesn't even know you're staring over his shoulder, more fun than having some stealthy and cloaked group of units waiting to surprise him from your side of the map and decloak. This isn't too different from having a group of fast units run toward the enemy from outside of his radar and raid him. Both ways he's surprised, and it's good. But I like the sneaking thing too.

[Google Frog]

Sneaking is possible but hard. It should be because successfully sneaking into their base is devastating. Of course the difficulty depends on how they made their base.

[Saktoth]

We can have both. Infiltration units with small decloaks (spy, possibly gremlin) are fine, as long as they arent capable of totally crippling the enemy and ending the game single-handedly (like the commando is).

Spy is ideal because it can EMP things, from fusions to anti-nukes. I think thats a great method of infiltration.

I'd like to add some area acid/mine/napalm weapons, though id be hard pressed finding a unit to put it on (possibly the skuttle but i am honestly not a fan of the unit and core shouldnt really have cloak). We could possibly add it as a special ability to artillery, but which artillery? Nor should it be so narrow that when someone goes 'omg cloaking is OP' (what this ticket is about) that we go 'you need x unit in x fac to counter that'.

[Google Frog]

We can have both. Infiltration units with small decloaks (spy, possibly gremlin) are fine, as long as they arent capable of totally crippling the enemy and ending the game single-handedly (like the commando is).

I was reffering to the difficulty of sneaking units under a cloaker into a base

Nor should it be so narrow that when someone goes 'omg cloaking is OP' (what this ticket is about) that we go 'you need x unit in x fac to counter that'.

The best counter to infiltration is scattering a few dragons eyes around the place because the enemy can't avoid them.

(what this ticket is about)

This ticket has turned into an extension of the remove seismic detection or (practically)remove cloak radius argument.

Napalm might work on the tremor because it would then be an area denial weapon and it's already a bit UP.

[Saktoth]

Tremor is already good vs cloakers, i think. Its also not really that UP, imo.

[Jasper]

I vote for a Juno-type weapon. Since its a building, you dont need to build a factory for it. It helps against area-cloaks, but requires the player to guess first. Sneaking is hard already; a few dragon eyes can patch many of the holes, as they have seismic. However this 'juno' should be expensive and slow-firing enough to make constantly firing on your own base inefficient against ninjas.

When we have a balance between cloak anti-cloak systems, uncloak-radii of regular units should just be at bump-into levels imo.

[Google Frog]

I noticed that with the decloak radius change low flying gunships can decloak units if they fly over them and can decloak buildings very easily. There's another counter to cloaking for you.

a few dragon eyes can patch many of the holes, as they have seismic

Dragons eyes can patch up holes because they are units. Units decloak things.

When we have a balance between cloak anti-cloak systems, uncloak-radii of regular units should just be at bump-into levels imo.

Then cloaking would feel like a tacked-on feature. Dedicated anti-cloak systems integrate poorly with the game because then cloak has very little interaction with normal units but is downright beaten by anti-cloak. The current system fits so well into the game because all units can counter but there aren't any counters that make cloaking a worthless strategic option. Decloak radius should stay and be tweaked as a method of balancing cloaking and seismic detection should be removed.

I can see the reason for needing active juno-like counter cloaking but I think we should look for other solutions so there isn't just a weapon that is used purely to beat cloaking.

[Saktoth]

I think its useful to have a weapon of desperation in case you simply cannot overcome the enemies cloak by other means. It should require you to know where the cloaked units are already- so you are just revealing what you already know is there. It would be a sort of core equiv to arms EMP missile.

It should NOT be an 'Lol, noob didnt build intrusion' type unit, such as we are currently facing with nuke rushes and air/AA relationships. I think it should also have other purposes (general recon).

[Jasper]

1) Dragon eyes have no seismic? What is the purple circle for then?

2) I fail to see how a juno type weapon(Probably with a maximum range) decloaking everything in a relatively small radius at the place it is fired at will completely beat cloak, like an antinuke. Consider that its decloak radius might only be for a while at a radius of half a nuclear blast. If you do not know that it is there, you don't know that you need to fire anticloak at it. I am _certainly_not_ talking about just large-range seismics here.(I never did.) If you still think it would be OP vs cloak, we can give the rocket(Or whatever the vessel) the speed of or slower then the old juno rocket, that way cloaked units might be somewhere else when it finally hits.(Perhaps we can even give players warnings of incoming shots.)

3) Large decloaking radii are no way of knowing what is under defended area cloaks. Actually, slapping an area cloak on a heavily defended area seems to practically mean that the enemy can not actually see what is under it without actually beating the army.

4) Why is everyone talking about cloaked units? What about _area_cloaks_? (Which i put front and center in OP.) Having this, that, thot, thet and thut doesn't mean anything if none of those can do anything against area cloaks. If i am wrong, tell me, if you are on the losing side(but still with a good chance), how do you deal with area cloaks?

5) You might have a point about normal units needing to have a little bit leverage on cloaked units by themselves.

Ok, suppose we want to leave the dynamics the same for sneaky units. Perhaps we could give this 'juno' a similar role it has in BA. Dont let it decloak everything(in a small radius.), instead: (For, say, a nuclear sized radius.)

1) Let it shut down jammers (Including area-cloaks of jammers.) For a while.

2) Let it shut down radars for a shorter while then that.

3) Make the mines visible for a while.(Blowing them up as in BA might negate mines too much.)

This would allow area cloaks to be counterable, and leave self-cloaked units alone.

[CarRepairer]

I suggest you pause this discussion until next spring version and see what I can do about allowing the firing on seismic pings.

[Saktoth]

Car, i think there is a growing consensus that Seismic isnt a good option.

Eyes do have siesmic, but they dont need it, they can uncloak things just by being units.

[Google Frog]

1) Dragon eyes have no seismic? What is the purple circle for then?

The circle is useless compared to their bumpability.

2) I fail to see how a juno type weapon(Probably with a maximum range) decloaking everything in a relatively small radius at the place it is fired at will completely beat cloak, like an antinuke.

Actually I was saying useful seismic would be OP vs cloak. A juno type weapon to stop all hit units from cloaking or cloakering for about 20 seconds is probably a good idea.

One of the major problems with seismic is that it is most effective vs sneaky intrusion where the enemy doesn't know that you're there. A juno type weapon isn't good at this but it does provide a way to see cloakered armies.

3) Large decloaking radii are no way of knowing what is under defended area cloaks. Actually, slapping an area cloak on a heavily defended area seems to practically mean that the enemy can not actually see what is under it without actually beating the army.

Run 1 flea at the enemy. It will decloak something either by hitting it or being shot at.

4) Why is everyone talking about cloaked units? What about _area_cloaks_?

I've been talking about all forms of cloaking. To see a bit of whats there run fleas at it or even light gunships. Basically run a few cheap units at it.

I suggest you pause this discussion until next spring version and see what I can do about allowing the firing on seismic pings.

Noone uses seismic detection devices atm and cloaking work well. I've made arguments against seismic detection here and you haven't responded to them. There have even been ways to improve the current system with a juno type weapon which is probably needed.

[CarRepairer]

I need seismic :(

[Google Frog]

Replying to CarRepairer:

I need seismic :(

Why?

[Jasper]

@Google frog: In retrospect, i didnt read your last post well enough. The problem with sending light units into an cloaked area is that they only show armed units/structures. If you want something jummy to attack, you dont only want know where the turrets are, those are either too bitter or too spicy. You want to know where the sweet and delicious economy units are, especially delicacies like (advanced/prude)geothermals, fusion reactors, nukes, antinukes and emps. You do not want to run into 'return fire' turrets either, those are sour from trigger-deprivation.

Of course some people might want the assurance and decrease of needed micro of the seismic. So i am not entirely sure on that topic. If it is too expensive, or too small range it might give these people too much of a disadvantage. Perhaps we can give it a weakness, like an slow recovery rate against EMP, or a 'pro-cloak juno' :p.

Btw, i think all those ideas i gave earlier are probably way too involved. Should be leaving this thread alone a little: Current status of my opinion and points gathered:

* Juno: very pro

* Seismic: unsure, more consideration needed. (Idle units invisable for seismic.. don't care)

* Some regular artillery decloak at impacts: against (silly)

* Specialized units(other then juno-like) for decloaking: against (which factory? who is going to model them?)

* Directional decloakers, nanobugs, acid, goo, or whatever: against (also suggests specialized units.)

* Removing jammer cloaking area: con

* Any unit within cloaking radius disables the entire cloak area: against

* Decloaking radiusses of regular units: Just enough to allow them to deal with cloakers by themselves.

* Decloaking radiusses of buildings: Either really at bump level or none, also, unsure.

* Add another: mobile antinukes also fitted with juno-style weapon: Unsure, might make sense in large maps(sparse in metal) where juno-type weapon does not have enough range.

[Google Frog]

Replying to Jasper:

@Google frog: In retrospect, i didnt read your last post well enough. The problem with sending light units into an cloaked area is that they only show armed units/structures. If you want something jummy to attack, you dont only want know where the turrets are, those are either too bitter or too spicy. You want to know where the sweet and delicious economy units are, especially delicacies like (advanced/prude)geothermals, fusion reactors, nukes, antinukes and emps. You do not want to run into 'return fire' turrets either, those are sour from trigger-deprivation.

Well what if you can't know exactly where and what everything is under the cloaker? It is a cloaker and that's what it was built for. You can find out where the stuff that fires is then kill it and attack the econ. As for geos they can only be built on geo vents. Fire at that.

• Juno: Might be needed. For use against a base just before scouting.

• Seismic: Unneeded.

• Weapons that decloak: These could be done if a unit on fire was unable to cloak. It makes sense because the fire gfx is shown atm but the unit can still cloak. Force fire must be used now but it would be better if a unit just couldn't cloak. Then core could get a napalm throwing tremor instead of juno.

Tremor is already good vs cloakers, i think. Its also not really that UP, imo.

Tremor doesn't decloak the units.

• Removing jammer cloaking area: bad

• Any unit within cloaking radius disables the entire cloak area: maybe if a cloaker decloak radius was entered the cloakering stops? Decloak radius is smaller than cloaker radius.

• Decloaking radiusses of regular units: Main cloaking balance system

• Decloaking radiusses of buildings: See units. I think 150 might be a bit big though.

[Saktoth]

Ill start a new ticket since there are still things to discuss, but this has gotten bloated.