Topic: Info on 2.5.4.12 cloak vs seeking weapons

[TarMinyatur]

This was taken from the Direct-fire thread:

Here's an experiment I just did:
Cloaked target moved at speed 2. It chased me in a Z-MDC at about range 2.5. Predictably it would uncloak, fire the Plas-G, and recloak. I would wait until the fade-in was about 2/3rds done and fire the 7 slow Type-I missiles. The missiles appeared to undergo two survival checks before they reached the target. There was no ECM/ECCM.

Assumed probability of retaining lock-on:

If (P<= 6-EW-RF+SF-4){
retain=true;
}else{
retain=false;
}

which is in this case...

ElectronicWarfare=0
RangeFactor=0
SpeedFactor=0

so...

P<=2-0-0+0-4

P<=2

This means that every missile should hit if the "die roll" always returns a 2 for P as has been suggested in the other thread.

Contrary to that, approximately 1 in 7 missiles would manage to hit the target. I suspect that a 1d6 is indeed rolled for P, rather than a static 2. This explains the results pretty well. The Combat vs Cloak chart was applied to this damage.

I then launched a scatterpack. It appears that scatters are immune to lock-on checks. They do not seem to lose lock-on however, the missiles that they launch do require a lock-on check. Hopefully, for the target, the SP doesn't bloom at range zero.

I later tested for ECCM shifts (4ECCM vs 0 ECM) and did not notice an improvement. More study is needed.

More to follow on Plasma Torpedoes.  

[FireSoul]

I disagree.

To me, the above experiment means the retain lockon worked. Afterwards, drones have been disapeering 1 by 1, as per the old SFC cloak system. I know this is incorrect and makes the cloak stronger than SFC's vs Drones, but it's still not bad.

A failed retain lockon would result in 100% removal of all seeking weapons, all at once.

[TarMinyatur]

You are suggesting that the guiding ship has one opportunity to retain lock-on. If it fails, all of its seeking weapons will disappear. If it succeeds, the seekers are on their own, following the pre-2.5.4.12 process. This might be the case. This should not be too hard to test.

Maybe we could work together to find out exactly what is going on in more detail. The multiplayer environment might work differently than single-player, which is worth knowing too.

[Remiak]

Hi,
I have also played a little with the new OP cloak.
My Falcon mauler was moving at speed 4 and the nearby Fed AI fired a scatter pack after I cloaked that opened and cripple me. That was my first test. OK what is the equation to retain lock??? I asked.
I got it now and boom I understand better.
 
I was looking forward to this for a while now, we were discussing in some server to reduce the BPV tax of 15% for cloak ships as the cloak was not very efficient in PvP and Firesoul was telling us we should wait and see after the patch.

I waited and I agree with Firesoul, we should not reduce the tax...we should remove it competely as the new cloak is IMO weaker than before the patch in PvP. It was mostly useless before it now is even closer to being completely useless.

I am sorry to sound so negative, but I am so disapointed here, all the elements are there to fix this except maybe the will.

Here we go.
A six sided die should give result of 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 (Unless Chutt played with it).
The expected value is 3.5, a result of 1,2,3 is below average and 4,5 and 6 above average roll.

With the cloak we have a special result....1 below average and a 2,3,4,5 and 6 above. I must explain....

Let's seet.
Playing a Rom ship, without any adjustement we have:
6 - 0 -0 +0 - 4 = 2    like I said cloak is kept.

Exemple above would be Falcon going back under cloak at speed 1-4 followed at close range of 1-4...lock remained.

Some PF and X generation ship can cloak while flying at speed 31 (or at high speed).
Now any speed higer than 19 and we have a lock maitained regardless of range.
Yes at speed 19, a Rom ship cloaks and if a ship had a lock at range let's say 85....the lock is maintained.
6-0-6+6-4=2    

If the Rom ship flies at speed 18...lock is kept up to range 40.
Speed 16-17 up to range range30
Speed  13-15 range 20
Speed  9-12 range 15
Speed 5-8 range 10
Speed 1-4 range 4
speed 0....loss of lock if there are no other adjustments.....

There is always the ECM shift to modify that but playing a heavy cruiser that uses half its available power to activate the cloak....a competent sub hunter should always win the ECM war with all his power available to him.

With the mid era/late/X time period , the PvP battles are fought at hig speed, the drones alrady fly faster than the speed 19, the maximum cloak speed penality.
The only way to have an ennemy loose the lock is to stop.....the tactic is not one that bring continous success in D2.
The best a starcastelling unit can hope for is an opponent that disengage and the worst (and most probable)  is to die.

Lets compare the wild weasel to the cloak.
Both have a major tactical penality as we need to slow down to a speed below that of our ennemy and seeking weapons. It becomes impossible to deliver a good plasma hit at the ennemy unless he lets it happend or makes a mistake.

Cloak: major power cost/lock may be kept/fade in period/flash cube possible/tractor possible/15% BPV tax/ possible damage reduction.
WW: no power to lauch; can reinforce shields/ecm shift/all seeking weapons always loose track/ can not be tractorred/ no BPV adjustements/ must prepare them/ have limited quantity of shuttles.

Most experience players avoid using the WWs as it is often considered a bad tactic ( I usually end up giving more damage to a ship using ww than one that outruns my plasmas). So we compare the cloak to the bad tactical wild weassel....and generally find it lacking....how much watered down should the cloak be when it is worst than a bad tactical move available to all????

If the hope was to make the subs of SFC2 actually submerge to fight....forget it. The patch failed.

When I fly at speed low enough to break a lock (emergency stopped) against a competent opponent that can fly at 31..my plasmas never hit.To deliver a plasma one must be able to corner the ennemy or outmanouver them, at speed 4 or less.....fiorget it.

The cloak before the patch was not to great...but at speed 31 in a x-Ship under cloak..I could make sure no one fired those drones at me until my plasmas were charged and I faded in.....I did use the cloak in PvP in those ships.....now not even those will benefit from the cloak.

The cloak is broken because the average die roll is 3.5 on a 6 sided die and here that fact was ignored.
1,2,3 is below and 4,5,6 above average.
Not 1 below and 2,3,4,5 and 6 above...

If you want to set a defined die roll result move it up by 1.5 to the real number of 3.5 so  to keep lock 4 ,5 and 6 would be needed and 1,2,3 would loose lock.
So at speed of 19+ a Rom cloaking ship would brak lock only if the pursuing ships were out of range 30. So if the pursuing ship outruns my plasma and moves away...I can attempt to outrun his drones and cloak to have him loose lock outside range 30 while remaining at battle speed.
If he stays in range ....his drones continue to home on me and I will not cloak as it would stop my point defenses and the drones would hit me still.  

The result would be a shift down by 2 from the table above and would give the following range to keep lock:
speed 19+ range 30
speed 18 range 20
speed 16-17 range 15
speed  13-15 range 10
speed 9-12 range 4
speed 8 and lower loss of lock unless ECM shift is in favor of hunting ship. speed of 1-4 and of 0 would almost always break lock until the attackers uses the flashcube or waits for a fade in.

That would not make the cloak Over The Top but we might actually see it been an asset on ships.

Ok, am I the only one thinking that the cloak equation is wrong.... 3.5 is the average roll cutting in two equal half the bad and good rolls (bad and good depending of your relative point of view of course).
Iif rules from another game are used....let's use them correctly.

All players regardless that you normally play against or with the cloakers....let me know what you think or help me understand. I hope I am missing something here.

And to think I  had such a good feeling about this
       
Thanks
       

[EschelonOfJudgement]

The thing to understand about the retain lockon forumulas for cloak is this:

Your goal as a cloaking vessel is to cause your opponent to lose lock-on.

Once lock-on is lost, THEN you can start evading under cloak.  We need confirmation of something:

Once lock-on is lost, is the penalty to regain lock-on to a cloaked ship still in effect with the new cloak rules?  As I remember (SFB rulebook not handy at the moment), an additional -6 or so is applied to the lock-on attempt roll if the searching vessel currently doesn't currently have a lock-on the cloaked ship.

If so, once lock-on is broken, THEN the cloaked vessel can start safely increasing speed to higher speed modifier brackets.
Can anyone verify this is the case?

Don't be afraid to drop velocity to zero if necessary in order to break any and all lock-ons.  Also, as Firesoul has pointed out, chucking out a weasel just before cloaking will dramatically increase your chance of breaking lock.  Remember that the weasel gives you 6 ecm points, which should help break locks during fadeout (again, needs to be verified).  Bottom line - the closer your opponent is to you, the slower you should be going.  

Once lock-on is broken, THEN you are free to crank up the engines and build up speed.  It will take 2-3 turns to rearm your empty torps anyways, so you have some time to get a decent clip going... but pay attention to those speed brackets (so lock-on is not reattained) and be ready to throw in a HET if necessary to underrun a pursuer.  A well timed mine out the shuttle hatch can also help matters...

Of course, in later eras high speed battle passes may be preferable to hiding behind the cloak.  This was also the case in SFB (due to the higher cloaking costs of the later era vessels, and due to opponents having a much easier time staying on top of the cloaked ship due to all that extra power).

I really hope the additional penalty for (re)acquiring a lock-on is in effect with the new cloak... otherwise Remiak has a very valid point.  But now that the damage reduction chart is in effect, I think things look significantly better than the previous state of things...
   

[Strafer]

To the best of my knowledge, there is no regain lockon for cloak in SFC:OP, with the exception of the workings of the PPD.

[Cleaven]

I have a lot of success maintaining my distance at about 10 or so, and hitting Emergency Decel when I cloak. Most seeking weapons don't make it to me, especially if I can get the ECM up during the fade.

Or perhaps my opponents so far just don't have a clue about hitting a ship with the new cloak.

And when I am cloaked I am much more survivable, even though point blank phasers are still the most damaging weapons.

Currently my preferred ship is an R-KE.    

[FireSoul]

People who think the cloak is worse now than before need to get their heads examined.

[Lepton1]

I haven't played around too much with the cloak in current patch, but I think that the observation of less lock-on loss rings true with my experience.  I don't follow everything Remiak is saying nor am I really trying to (I'll go back later and figure it out) but are we all forgetting the direct fire effects.  That alone is substantial.

[David Ferrell]

Simple facts about the cloak:

 Code:

  
2.5.3.8                                                            2.5.4.12
Missiles/Plasma always retained lock                               Missiles/Plasma lock can *easily* be broken by use of low speeds.
Weapons damage not reduced per G13.37                              Damage reduced by G13.37 (33% Normal, 33% half, 33% quarter).
Ships can not engage cloak while tractored                         Ship may engage cloak while tractored.

Am I missing something here, or are some people just never happy?!?!

Thanks,

Dave      

[Mantis]

Quote:

Am I missing something here, or are some people just never happy?!?!
 

Bingo, it is all those perfectionists  

[Dogmatix!]

Quote:
People who think the cloak is worse now than before need to get their heads examined.  

It sure seems better to me.  *shrug*



 

[Lepton1]

Quote:
Simple facts about the cloak:

 Code:

  
2.5.3.8                                                            2.5.4.12
Missiles/Plasma always retained lock                               Missiles/Plasma lock can *easily* be broken by use of low speeds.
Weapons damage not reduced per G13.37                              Damage reduced by G13.37 (33% Normal, 33% half, 33% quarter).
Ships can not engage cloak while tractored                         Ship may engage cloak while tractored.

Am I missing something here, or are some people just never happy?!?!

Thanks,

Dave      

I guess it is the simple fact that slow speed is really not an option, because when you decloak, whoever it may be is right on top of you.  And really slow speed is more like no speed for cloak to work for lock-loss.  I have only gotten lock-loss once with 2.5.4.12 and that was with speed 0 via emergency decel.  This later tactic also doesn't work all the time.  If this is closer to SFB, that is fine.  People just need to be aware that lock-loss is not likely, perhaps not even probable and is more of an emergency manuever, last resort,  etc.  Can someone give us a flavor of how cloak is effectively used in SFB?  That may be somewhat of a ruler for our experiences here.   If the cloak was not very useful in SFB, that seems on par with OP here.

BTW, thanks for the patch, Dave.  It has sparked the first serious OP dyna campaign that I am aware of in a long time.

Ok, having looked at what is probably not still correct materials in the Cadets' Handbook for SFB, it seems cloaked ships are always supposed to have loss-lock.  So why was this not done?  Seems the simplest solution to me.  Perhaps there was some concern over people doing constant fade-ins and fade-outs.  Simple solution to that is that cloaking status could only change once per turn kind of just like weapons charging restrictions and code.

[Remiak]

Quote:
Simple facts about the cloak:

 Code:

  
2.5.3.8                                                            2.5.4.12
Missiles/Plasma always retained lock                               Missiles/Plasma lock can *easily* be broken by use of low speeds.
Weapons damage not reduced per G13.37                              Damage reduced by G13.37 (33% Normal, 33% half, 33% quarter).
Ships can not engage cloak while tractored                         Ship may engage cloak while tractored.

Am I missing something here, or are some people just never happy?!?!

Thanks,

Dave      

Dave,
You are certainly correct in your statement about the specs (as always).
It is true that all the elements are there to make the cloak work, that is good.
Now why was a die roll set at 2 instead of 3.5?
Would it really create a over the top device if the table of range/speed was moved down by the resulting shift of 2 as 4 would be needed to keep a lock instead of 2?

I  just want to point out that I have played quite a number of hours in those Rom ships and unless one is facing a begginer, victory is not normally acheived by maintaining low speed.
With the old cloak a lock was lost regardless of speed, with the new cloak it is not.
That change is not to be overlooked as it introduce a big difference.
The ship fighting the cloak units has the initiative.

Maybe it is my flying style, maybe I am wrong, maybe as stated I should get my head examined, maybe I am a perfectionnist who will never be happy....given the choices above I hope it has to do with my fighting style.

I can state that when opponents ww on me or starcastle they rearelly survive and the cloak has now become a device to be used in conjonction with those tactical choices.
My PvP in D2 are at about 80% against droners (Fed/Klingon and Mirak) depending on the side the admin places us.
Maybe one out of five PvP is against the sum of Hydrans/Gorns/ISC/Lyrans.
I am not overjoyed to be at speed 0 while facing a droner with possible fighter wings and more drones.

I understand that I will have to dramatically slow down (possibly completely stop) to have my opponent loose the lock.
I will not know if the lock was lost for sure...It will be a guess (until somenone fires a seeking weapon at me...oups).

Now I have to reaccelerate and will have difficulties to shake my opponent, I am still subject to flashcube and considering the power drain on the ship from the cloak and my need to recharge weapons i am not sure I will be in a position to win the tractor battle.

The point is that when people realize what we have to go through to ensure a lost lock and what options are available to them when facing a slow moving cloaked target we will possibly find that the SFC2 subs are never going to submerge in battle if they want to remain competitive.
That would be the equivalent to having failed to introduce a worthwhile cloak.

Flying in a PF or a X ship hat could cloak at speed 31 with the old cloak was making the device a worthwhile tool for these units alone.

Now I am uncertain what ships will benifit from the cloaking as oposed to outrunning the seaking weapons.
The early Roms maybe but given a choice outrunning slow drones may once again be preferable to cloaking.

I am not suggesting you change any of the specs you wrote above, just review the roll set at 2.  
 If a average die roll were 3.5 like on a 6 sided die, a result of 4 or over would be needed to maintian lock, a rom captain could slow down and reaccelerate before the opponent finnished to outrun the torps and be harder to flashcube.  

Lets keep in mind that whe flying a Rom DN, the cloak tax in D2 is of equivalent BPV to having a fighter wing...and it is tool that would be used to my detriment not to my advatange it is like a ship that carries and pays for fighter deciding not to use them as it would be more benefitial to keep them in....a little like if to use the shuttle bay a ship would have to fly below speed 4...hummm that would change a few things making recalling fighters a dangerous task.

BTW, Dave thanks for taking the time to respond. it is appreciated.  


Firesoul,
While I also appreciate all your hardwork and your obvious concern about my sanity, I would prefer you to comment on the issue (like why 2 was chosen instead of 3.5 for a set die roll to simulate a 6 sided die) and refrain from  commenting on the people bringing up issues that are not alligned with your position.
My comments may be flawed, my ideas may be flawed, my logic may be flawed....but that does not make me a flawed person, let's strive to seperate the two: issues and people.

I want to give it a chance and will gladly change my position if it is the right thing to do so.  
My initial battles seem to indicate such a high tactical cost to using the cloak that it remains better not to use it....once more I hope I am wrong.

Cleaven,
You have my e-mail, if you are interested contact me, I would gladly simulate a few sparring with your KE and better evaluate the validity of the cloaking tactic (althoug our time zones do not really match).  

Thanks      

[Mantis]

Quote:
why 2 was chosen instead of 3.5 for a set die roll to simulate a 6 sided die

Not knowing much, I would guess because on a six sided die, a roll of 2 or less represents a 33% chance and a 3 or less would represent a 50% chance if you could roll it. 3.5, if you used a descrete real distribution from 0 to 6 would be a 58% chance and a 50% chance on a 1 to 7 distribution or a 1 to 6 distribution..  

[Remiak]

Quote:

Quote:
why 2 was chosen instead of 3.5 for a set die roll to simulate a 6 sided die

Not knowing much, I would guess because on a six sided die, a roll of 2 or less represents a 33% chance and a 3 or less would represent a 50% chance if you could roll it. 3.5, if you used a descrete real distribution from 0 to 6 would be a 58% chance and a 50% chance on a 1 to 7 distribution or a 1 to 6 distribution..  

Good guess but I meant for a six sided die, the possible results are 1,2,3,4,5 and 6.
So the distribution is 1 to 6. not 1 to 7.
By the law of great numbers (large amount of multiple attempts) the 3.5 is the expected value for such die, if the distribution is normal (nobody falsified the die).
I did my math in French, the concept I am trying to illustrate is not the average or median but something that we called the "esperance" loosely translated it would be the "hope" so I used expected value, I do not know how you call it in english.

The bottom line, if you roll the die thousands of time and keep a running total of the values, you should have a result converging towards 3.5 time the number of roll made.
Hence the expected result (hope???) of a six sided die should be 3.5.

Or if you prefer it is : (1/6)1 +  (1/6)2 + (1/6)3 + (1/6)4 + (1/6)5 + (1/6)6  gives 3.5
where the 1/6 is the probability of each specific result and the values of 1 through 6 the possibles results.

Conclusion.... 3.5 comes out and 2 was chosen possibly to make the cloak less powerfull.
would it have been too powerfull at a equation where lock is maintained with a result of 4 instead of 2 with none of the specs mentionned by David Ferrell changed?  

Thanks  

[TarMinyatur]

Remiak, you are mistaken. Ships cannot lock onto your ship unless you voluntarily decloak or get flashed with a t-bomb, no matter what your speed is.

The 2.5.4.12 cloak is very effective. Flash-cubing is practically the only way to hit a cloaked ship with seeking weapons for any significant damage. With ED (or normal deceleration to zero) a cloaked ship can unfailingly break every plasma and missile lock-on as long as there is time to activate the device (5 seconds). If there isn't time, there's always WW's.

It's true that good players will hump your cloaked ship. Eventually you will have to decloak and you will get nailed. That's what armor and post-destruction plasma launches are for. This is true in SFB but much easier to do in SFC. The fact that cloaked ships can't build a strong tractor beam to grab an opponent when they uncloak is a problem, although the enemy should easily be able to overcome it with a repel.

[Lepton1]

Could someone comment on the fact that as far as I know in SFB cloaking always means loss of lock regardless of speed?  If this isn't true, then I must be looking at outdated or wrong resources.   Could someone also comment of why this is not the case for SFC as it seems the easiest solution??

[Remiak]

Quote:
Remiak, you are mistaken. Ships cannot lock onto your ship unless you voluntarily decloak or get flashed with a t-bomb, no matter what your speed is.

The 2.5.4.12 cloak is very effective. Flash-cubing is practically the only way to hit a cloaked ship with seeking weapons for any significant damage. With ED (or normal deceleration to zero) a cloaked ship can unfailingly break every plasma and missile lock-on as long as there is time to activate the device (5 seconds). If there isn't time, there's always WW's.

It's true that good players will hump your cloaked ship. Eventually you will have to decloak and you will get nailed. That's what armor and post-destruction plasma launches are for. This is true in SFB but much easier to do in SFC. The fact that cloaked ships can't build a strong tractor beam to grab an opponent when they uncloak is a problem, although the enemy should easily be able to overcome it with a repel.  

Hi,
I am sorry if I was unclear, I do not mean that a unit will acquire a lock with those numbers but how it will maintian a lock.
So if a battle is taking place and the rom wants to use the cloak, the table comes in.
I did not mean anything about reaquisition of the lock while under cloak.

As stated before the cloak game will be one of emergency stop/cloak given temporary imunity to seeaking weapons and good general protection in exchange for a ship right on top of you that can not be shaken with difficult fade in and/or possible flash cubes.  
On many mission packs now we have multiple ennemies, I would not like to be stopped with over 3 Gorns/Hydrans/droners AI on top of me. If I slow down so does the AI, and those Gorns have enough shuttles to make it a very long fight.
Not using the cloak will remain preferable to using it against multiple AI.

Once more, if the real number were used (3.5) a rom could slow down instead of a complete stop and shake the lock to reaccelerate sooner.

Thanks
 

[Remiak]

Quote:
Could someone comment on the fact that as far as I know in SFB cloaking always means loss of lock regardless of speed?  If this isn't true, then I must be looking at outdated or wrong resources.   Could someone also comment of why this is not the case for SFC as it seems the easiest solution??  

Hi,
In SFB the loss of lock was not automatic.
It was sensibly as introduced here in the patch yet the game had many substantial differences.

The YO-YO effect was used extensivly.
Basically if the lock retained equation gave 4.
That means that a player had to roll a die and get 1,2,3 or 4 to keep lock and a 5 or 6 would break lock. (33%) chances.
If the rom player changed the condition like accelerate making the equation at 5 (no roll required) and re-slow down to the original speed, it forced a new roll as the conditions were changed from 5 to the original 4. You see when ever a change that was beneficial to the cloaker took place, a new roll was required.

Throughout the exchange the rom player always knew if the lock was lost and could play the yo-yo .

Here they are no roll and we have:
The chance to loose lock if the result of the equation is 1 is 100% instead of 83%
The chance to loose lock if the result of the equation is 2 is 0% instead of 66%
The chance to loose lock if the result of the equation is 3 is 0% instead of 50%
The chance to loose lock if the result of the equation is 4 is 0% instead of 50%
The chance to loose lock if the result of the equation is 5 is 0% instead of 33%
The chance to loose lock if the result of the equation is 6 is 0% instead of 17%

Big differences!!!

The random generator function was not used, I can live with that as more competenmt people than me may have come to the conclusion that coding these would be more complicated and re-evaluating lock on with the yo-yo could be difficult.
I do not propose to change what we already have in our toolboxe, just to adjust the setting.

The issue is that it was decided arbritary that 1 was the number needed to break a lock instead of the 3 if we use SFB logic with the normal probabilities of a six sided die (or 4 to keep a lock instead of 2).

Hopes this helps.
Thanks