Re: [FT] Simple cloaking system proposal

I hate to be a poo-poo on this, but this cloaking system would be
completely
useless in my circles.	Especially with the half thrust.  If I could see
those guys
coming I'd hose them down with every plasma bolt in the fleet.	In a
5000
point engagement, if I'm carrying them at all I'm probably sporting
around
fourty
dice worth of them.  If you've actually got enough thrust that I'm in
doubt
as to
where you'll be under cloak I'll fire them in half bursts in continuous
fire
along
the arc you'd have to travel to bring your weapons to bear.  So what if
I've
got
a -3 DRM?  It's not like you're going to be shooting back while you're
still
cloaked.

I'll stick with the regular cloaking rules, with a few house rules to
make
dealing
with area effect weapons simpler.  Our house rules for that go like
this:

1.  Area effect weapons.... simply ignored while cloaked.  (PSB: 
phasing
cloak.)

2.  Planets and asteroids... not ignored.  (Our asteroids and planets
don't
move,
so this is easy to deal with.  PSB:  large gravity wells pull you back
into
phase if you
fly that close to them.)

3.  Your _own_ area effect weapons... can't be fired until the next turn
after you
decloak.  Turn rationale is that cloaking and decloaking happens during
the
movement
phase, and you can't write move orders with area effect weapons included
if
you don't
know where you are.  (PSB:  it takes a little while to get your bearings
to
be able to put
your weapons into an accurate point of space, and the disorientation of
it
is too much to
be able to do it on short notice once you're decloaking.  Not sure how
this
works out
for the turn when you go _into_ cloak, but I guess there's nothing
stopping
you.)

4.  Wave guns... cannot be charged while cloaked.  This balances out the
idea of
charging tons of cloaked wave guns and firing them and then recloaking
to
protect
yourself from retaliation.  (PSB:  Too much energy buildup and it's
impossible to conceal.)

5.  If you have cloak-capable ships, you _are_ allowed to have them
start
the game
cloaked, as long as you put down a mooring point in space at your start
location on the
board to state where you're tracking from.

6.  Fighters... _are_ allowed to be launched in the act of decloaking,
but
must be
recovered with secondary moves if they're landing, if at all.

This'll also make cloaking systems easier to work with, balances them
out
with area
effects in both directions, while still giving enough of the feel of
submarine warfare that
it's a bit of an interesting game trying to play with them.  They can
work
against you as
much as they work for you, since setting up grandiose ambushes from long
range is
vulnerable to your enemy pulling unexpected maneuvers that put them in
the
wrong place
when you come out of cloak.  However, short cloaks are still rather
effective in tactical
maneuvers if you use them intelligently (and against fast ships, it's
still
a little bit of a
crapshoot, although against slow ones they're just deadly).  Some of
this is
usually
useful enough that they mostly make up for the expense of packing
cloaking
devices
in the first place.

Cloaked carriers have been used before in our games, but over time that
concept kind
of fell by the wayside because even cloaked soap bubbles are still
expensive
enough that
the fighter numbers go down enough that if they're prepared for massed
fighters much at all it
ceases to be particularly effective.

E
(aka StiltMan)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "matt tope" <mptope@omnihybrid.com>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 8:40 AM
Subject: Re: [FT] Simple cloaking system proposal

> Grant wrote:
>
> >I've been thinking about this some more.  One possibility would be to
>  >require the cloaked ship to plot one additional turn in advance. 
This
would
>  >further restrict it's maneuvering with regards to other ships
without
making
>  >it completely out of touch.  The PSB would be that the cloak reduces
the
>  >incoming navigation data and makes the ship slower to respond to
outside
>  >activity.
>
> Another interesting idea. Personally I prefer your idea limiting the
cloaked vessel to half thrust,
> but there is no reason why the above idea couldn't be substituted in
place
of the half thrust option
> if people liked that better.
>
>
> >The basic idea would be to reduce the effect of missiles by about
half.
>
> I was also thinking about this some more this afternoon and came to a
similar conclusion myself. I like the -3 from the salvo missile lock on
roll, but as the cloaked vessel couldn't shoot any missiles down and if
it's
thrust is halved as well it could be in real trouble. At least against
PBL's
a cloaked vessel could be screened as well and gain some measure of
protection. So, in response, I was thinking of limiting the salvo
missiles
detection radius to 3mu. That way cloaked vessels are hard to hit with
salvo
missiles but if the salvo is especially well placed then the cloaked
vessel
is still at risk. If cloaked vessels are subs then PBL's are depth
charges
and salvo missiles are anti submarine mortars.
>
> >I'd reduce the impact of Nova cannon and Wave Motion Guns similarly.
>
> Hmmm...tempted to let area effect weapons work as normal, but then
again,
the cloaked vessel would be easier to hit with them...mmm. How about (as
I
think you were suggesting) reducing the number of dice rolled to reflect
the
uncertainty of the targets exact location, half the number of dice
(round
up), but leaving the blast radius as normal?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Matt Tope
>
>
>
>
>