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[Gothars]

Maybe it's already to late now, but I have to say I am still not quite satisfied with the phase cloak mechanic. From what I gather others feel similar. Not even necessarily because it's too weak, but because it lost all the scariness the initial concept promised. Also because it is not well distinguished from the Fortress Shield. So this is another attempt to come up with an improvement.

In the naval model, phase ships were originally envisioned as submarines – able to hide in another dimension and pop out for surprise attacks.

Full invisibility is the most disruptive aspect – managing the uncertainty of where a phase ship could be, and making guesses to counter it, is where most of the problems would come from – that has to go.

Now I read a bit about WW2 submarine warfare, and submarines could by no means be considered fully invisible. They were only hard to detect until their initial attack, after which they had to employ advanced group tactics (Wolfpack) to be successful.

I think it might be possible to transfer this initial invisibility to phase ships.

Suggestion: A ship could enter the map already cloaked - but now fully undetectable. It would produce flux like normal, so this ability has a time limit. After the ship decloaks for the first time it behaves like a normal phase ship.

It would mesh very well with this mechanic if phase ships in a fleet were undetectable on the campaign layer.


This way the whole "management of uncertainty" aspect would be avoided. Before a phase ship decloaks its enemy doesn't know it exists, the AI or the player could not behave any differently to handle it. You would just have to life with the possibility of a phase ship appearing without warning. Once it is revealed there is nothing different from the current mechanic.
For the lore this could be simply explained by a great amount of time it takes to "deep-phase" or by sensor adjustments to detect the specific phase ship.


This would make phase ships more interesting, more distinguished, more fearsome and allow for new tactics. For example the deploy timing of a phase ship would now be critical, and the decision for the initial decloaking would be a grave one.

Of course there are also problems with this, but I will leave it to you guys to point them out. Overall I think it would be worth it.

[hadesian]

In my personal opinion, the current way fleets interact as a whole with a considerable amount of detail (transition into battle, fighters, the infamous astral problem etc.) but honestly I think phase ships being invisible on the campaign screen would be very cool, but it'd be incredibly obvious if you find a fleet marked up as being huge/having just spawned containing a paltry number of spacecraft.

Plus, I thought that phase cloaking had devolved into merely an exceptionally efficient and particularly devilish way of striking ships and withstanding immense firepower as ships had sensors that detected a cloak with ease.

I'd also like to add perhaps that phased ships can enter from the horizontal edges of the map - that'd be quite cool for ambushing.

[Zenos Ebeth]

Maybe it's already to late now, but I have to say I am still not quite satisfied with the phase cloak mechanic. From what I gather others feel similar. Not even necessarily because it's too weak, but because it lost all the scariness the initial concept promised. Also because it is not well distinguished from the Fortress Shield. So this is another attempt to come up with an improvement.

In the naval model, phase ships were originally envisioned as submarines – able to hide in another dimension and pop out for surprise attacks.

Full invisibility is the most disruptive aspect – managing the uncertainty of where a phase ship could be, and making guesses to counter it, is where most of the problems would come from – that has to go.

Now I read a bit about WW2 submarine warfare, and submarines could by no means be considered fully invisible. They were only hard to detect until their initial attack, after which they had to employ advanced group tactics (Wolfpack) to be successful.

I think it might be possible to transfer this initial invisibility to phase ships.

Suggestion: A ship could enter the map already cloaked - but now fully undetectable. It would produce flux like normal, so this ability has a time limit. After the ship decloaks for the first time it behaves like a normal phase ship.

It would mesh very well with this mechanic if phase ships in a fleet were undetectable on the campaign layer.


This way the whole "management of uncertainty" aspect would be avoided. Before a phase ship decloaks its enemy doesn't know it exists, the AI or the player could not behave any differently to handle it. You would just have to life with the possibility of a phase ship appearing without warning. Once it is revealed there is nothing different from the current mechanic.
For the lore this could be simply explained by a great amount of time it takes to "deep-phase" or by sensor adjustments to detect the specific phase ship.


This would make phase ships more interesting, more distinguished, more fearsome and allow for new tactics. For example the deploy timing of a phase ship would now be critical, and the decision for the initial decloaking would be a grave one.

Of course there are also problems with this, but I will leave it to you guys to point them out. Overall I think it would be worth it.

I wonder if you got this idea from reading my thread as the idea is a bit similar  .

Problem i'm seeing here , if the phase ship enter the field phased and undetectable , BUT still produces flux , it's just not going to last long enough , especially if you are planning on setting up ambushes.

Easy fix: Phase cloaks don't create flux , as long as you are not visible to any hostile ships (or in range of a hostile nav buoy). This effect ends when you are spotted for the first time ( you can't go out of range again , it will still create flux.)

This would actually mean you can set up your ambush , but once you strike , you have a limited use of your cloak and have to end it quickly or die. Also , this would work better if phase ships could "see" further than non-phase ships.

i also really like the idea of being hidden on the campaign screen , would make it easier to ambush unsuspecting fleets , but it should also work on you (i.e: You *** off the independant faction/tri-tachyon , expect to have phase fleets sneaking up on you.)

[RSS_Ornel]

I like this idea. I think at some point i thought i was the only one who thought phase cloaks were horrifyingly useless.
On topic: Maybe a second detection radius would do this. like fog of war.

[Gothars]

I wonder if you got this idea from reading my thread as the idea is a bit similar  .

Not at all, but I saw in that thread that some others are not yet happy with the phase mechanic, too.

Problem i'm seeing here , if the phase ship enter the field phased and undetectable , BUT still produces flux , it's just not going to last long enough , especially if you are planning on setting up ambushes.

A phased frigate without optimization can traverse about two quadrants (the squares with the thick lines on the map), that's about the middle of a combat area. The cruiser can get half es far. That is a nice advantage without being overpowered. As said, you'd have to plan the time of deployment carefully (when the enemy is near your border).

Making them generate 0 flux would cause all kinds of problems. They could for example just stay cloaked forever and force you to retreat out of boredom and loose the battle.

[Zenos Ebeth]

I wonder if you got this idea from reading my thread as the idea is a bit similar  .

Not at all, but I saw in that thread that some others are not yet happy with the phase mechanic, too.

Problem i'm seeing here , if the phase ship enter the field phased and undetectable , BUT still produces flux , it's just not going to last long enough , especially if you are planning on setting up ambushes.

A phased frigate without optimization can traverse about two quadrants (the squares with the thick lines on the map), that's about the middle of a combat area. The cruiser can get half es far. That is a nice advantage without being overpowered. As said, you'd have to plan the time of deployment carefully (when the enemy is near your border).

Making them generate 0 flux would cause all kinds of problems. They could for example just stay cloaked forever and force you to retreat out of boredom and loose the battle.

I see your point , even though i don't see the AI doing something like this , maybe change it so it produces no flux for the first minute after it's deployment.

I kwow i'm pushing for that idea but if we go with your suggestion, the phase ship is going to go meet the enemy in the middle , and  as you said that's when it needs to un phase , so it's going to have to vent before even doing anything(= guaranteed death or heavy damage , and all element of surprise is lost.) , unless you goad the enemy into moving their ships right up your border , it would take a long time and make it very easy for the ai to retreat if things go bad.

[PCCL]

maybe the first, "long term" cloak only costs like half flux or something, maybe even less...

[MidnightSun]

Interesting idea, Gothars. I fully agree with the campaign layer implementation; I think that would work very well.

I'm not sure that the battle layer implementation would work well, though.

First, there's the confusion of not being able to use phase ships as first strike crafts: any enemies that your phase ships can deal with effectively (ie, cruisers, cap ships, and the occasional slower destroyer) would not be at the middle of the map yet. You'd have to leave your phase ships for later, and in the event that you're losing (or enemies are escaping if the enemy is in "escape" mode), finally deploy them to ambush whatever's left.

Second, the "actual" range of this effect would be much less than two quadrants, if you want to reserve enough flux to actually do anything with the usually-flux-intensive strike weaponry on phase ships.

-------------

One idea I came up with (inspired by Zenos Ebeth's suggestion) is to have slow hard flux buildup over time when phased, but have that value increase depending on how close you are to enemy ships (and projectiles? Not sure about that...). The lore could be that it's more difficult to keep a ship phased when there are high-mass disruptions in space, ie another ship.

With that mechanic, it could also be possible to implement invisibility the way Gothars described, except the flux would take much longer to fill up, so long as the phased ship isn't close to enemy ships?

Not sure about this whole scheme; basically just typing out my thought process...

[Vind]

Flux generation based on enemy proximity makes no sense lore-wise as ship is in different dimension and phase coils draw energy at constant rate. I think adding some bonus to speed while ship is phased is reasonable because ship cant attack while phased. If shield equipped ship gains max velocity and engages shield it retains max velocity until it moves - something like this also will be useful for phase ships.

[zakastra]

Flux generation based on enemy proximity makes no sense lore-wise as ship is in different dimension and phase coils draw energy at constant rate. I think adding some bonus to speed while ship is phased is reasonable because ship cant attack while phased. If shield equipped ship gains max velocity and engages shield it retains max velocity until it moves - something like this also will be useful for phase ships.

Increased speed whilst phased would really add to the skirmishing/guerilla nature of phase ships, which feel somewhat underpowered right now, and would give them lots of additional scope for hit and run attacks. It probabaly warrants its own suggestion thread.

[arcibalde]

How about something like this:
When in phase ship is undetectable until he approach certain distance to enemy ship. When he enter "critical" radius of enemy ship he is still in phase but he is visible as now. And to add little flavor maybe high tech ships would have better sensor so they would detect them form longer range...

I think AI could handle this...

[MidnightSun]

Flux generation based on enemy proximity makes no sense lore-wise as ship is in different dimension and phase coils draw energy at constant rate. I think adding some bonus to speed while ship is phased is reasonable because ship cant attack while phased. If shield equipped ship gains max velocity and engages shield it retains max velocity until it moves - something like this also will be useful for phase ships.

Hence the lore explanation I came up with. But I think your idea is a good one, and much less complicated.

When in phase ship is undetectable until he approach certain distance to enemy ship. When he enter "critical" radius of enemy ship he is still in phase but he is visible as now. And to add little flavor maybe high tech ships would have better sensor so they would detect them form longer range...

Agree that this could be a good idea as well, as long as the critical radius is not too small, allowing a near-risk-free massive antimatter strike. I don't think the distinction between high and low tech ships is needed though; that would just add confusion.

I think both of those could work together nicely, actually. But since both make phasing so much more powerful, a slight boost to the amount of hard flux generated/sec might be needed for balance.

[arcibalde]

Agree that this could be a good idea as well, as long as the critical radius is not too small, allowing a near-risk-free massive antimatter strike. I don't think the distinction between high and low tech ships is needed though; that would just add confusion.

Well it should be fine tuned, I would start from 1000 from ship center. Point of this suggestion isn't to make antimatter peek-a-boo ship, it's about making flanking maneuver with group of ships without let enemy know, but still give enemy chance to defend himself.

[MidnightSun]

Well it should be fine tuned, I would start from 1000 from ship center. Point of this suggestion isn't to make antimatter peek-a-boo ship, it's about making flanking maneuver with group of ships without let enemy know, but still give enemy chance to defend himself.

Exactly, I agree 100%. So I like the idea; the exact numbers would need to be refined through playtesting.

[Radradrobot]

Maybe you could have the Phase coils actually vent the flux from the coils instead of around the ship.  These are what links the ship to our dimension right?  It makes your ship visible, like a para scope on a sub.  There could be a few seconds the whole ship is still slightly visible then it fades completely back to the phase realm.  There could be the flux build up still so you have to choose when to do this. As often as needed to stay phased.  Vent your phase ship in a group of enemy ships or not?  There could be a special ship type that hunts these phase "sub" ships.  With phase depth charges?  These could be a built in weapon(similar to some of the Gedune's ships)/hull mod/ship system? 

There could also be a higher tier of phase tech that lets you launch missiles.  I'm thinking no energy or ballistics do to balance issues, and keeping to a true sub feeling "Firer torpedoes 2-4!!"  Plus, the energy weapons mess with the phase energy to stay phased, and the ballistic might cause more tension than can be handled while being phased(?).  Not sure about the lore part on that last one, but all can be changed