Re: [FT] What would you make this cost

>>I'm thinking about a vapour shroud variant to simulate a cloaking
>>device.
>> 
>>The cloaking device might be:
>> 
>>MASS: 5% of ship's MASS
>>Cost: Ship's MASS ?
>>When active, owner cannot fire any weapons or launch or recover
>>fighters, or have other screens active. 

In answer to Oerjan's questions:

When the cloak is active, "no weapons" should include PDS.  I should
expand
this to include no active scans, as well.  Really, I mean for it to
preclude
anything but thrust and FTL; even charging wave guns should not gain
charge
(or possibly lose charge) as should EFSB HBW batteries / capacitors.

>>For fighters or missiles to attack the owner, they must be within 2
>units at the end of ship movement. For a ship to target the owner,
>the ship must successfully scan the ship (roll 5 or 6 on D6 or get 2
>"hits" from a 3D6 "attack" on a doubly screened target (close to
>equivalent)), then treats the target as singly-screened.

I would like this cloak to be slightly more visible to enhanced or
superior
sensors.  I had toyed with a sensor system based upon "successes" which
would be roughly equal to the damage done by a beam system in a similar
situation, so the 3D6 vs. two screens mentioned might be roughly
comparable
to basic sensors vs. superior ECM.  For example, a roll 0f 1,3, and 6,
with
a 5 on a reroll would count as two successes.  A 6 on the reroll would
have
given 3 successes and another reroll.

Detecting a cloaked ship takes a scan attempt (implicitly limiting the
number of attempts per turn to the number of fire cons), but I would
further
limit it to a single attempt against any one cloaked ship each turn.
Imagine the USS Big Business, with 3 fire cons, attempting to detect the
cloaked ships Kartak, Karnak, and Slavak maneouvering to flank her.  If
only
one cloaked ship is in play, she cannot focus all her efforts on that
one to
increase the odds of detection beyond 1 in 3 (approximately).  Also, I
think
of scan attempts as occurring early in the turn, so that the range of
possible targets is known in advance of the shooting phase.

To make this more interesting, I'd love a mechanism where the cloaked
ship
doesn't know whether or not it has been successfully detected.	To get
that
effect (cleanly), I might have to move resolution of the detection into
the
fire phase.

Tom