Alex mentioned a few times he's making changes to how phase cloaks work in v0.7.2. the main goal, i believe, is to make fighting enemies with cloaks more interesting. i don't think he's given any specific information on what these changes will be (and it's likely he's trying many different things that may or may not make it into the release version) but we've seen glimpses of what changes
might be on
twitter and in a
screenshot from
David's recent blog post.
from these, it seems
- ships receive a boost to mobility while cloaked
- phase coils glow for a short duration after exiting cloak, likely indicating a short cooldown
- weapons can be fired while cloaked
to balance these changes and with the above goal in mind, my guess is
- cloak duration is more limited
- weapons generate hard flux while cloaked
limiting the duration a ship can spend in p-space could be done by just increasing flux cost, or by introducing a maximum time after which the ship is forcibly thrown back into n-space, possibly accompanied by an overload. the length of the cooldown before the cloak can be re-engaged could also be connected to the time spent cloaked.
additionally, both the Enforcer in the video and the Mule in the screenshot can be seen firing weapons at their cloaked enemy. this could simply be due the phase ships switching into p-space right before the video and screenshot were taken, while the Needler and LMG were already firing, or the ai now occasionally fires at cloaked ships, to immediately deal some damage to a decloaking ship. but it could also mean that shooting at cloaked enemies has some effect now, like by adding some flux when projectiles pass over a ship in p-space (although that might make phase cloaks to similar to shields in function).
maybe the things seen in the short video had already changed again by the time the screenshot was taken, and maybe none of the things seen in either will make it into the final version. but assuming they do: what are your guesses on how the new phase cloaks will work? ^^