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    

[TarMinyatur]

Remiak, you must consider that SFC forces seeking weapons to try to retain lock-on even if conditions improve for the seeker. The ECM yo-yo hasn't been removed, it constantly exists in the cloaker's favor. The interval for this check is undocumented. It seems to be every second or two. Otherwise, missiles chasing a cloaked ship at a constant range would never lose lock-on if they passed the initial retention check.

That being said, there is something odd about how the AI's missiles seem to have a better chance of retaining lock-on than I do when firing at a cloaked AI. It could simply be bad luck. More data is needed.

P.S. What I said earlier about flash-cubes being the way to do damage...that's not at all true. Plasma and missiles have almost no chance to hit even a high speed (19+) cloaked target. They disappear almost as soon as I press "Z". This is against the AI. Multiplayer could be different.

[Lepton1]

yeah, Tar I think that most of your view of the cloak seems based on the AI being cloaked, not you.  Try more with you being cloaked and I think you will have closer to Remiak's experience.  I think something hinky may be going on.

[Mantis]

Quote:

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.

I think this is an apples to oranges. The numbers on the die in this case can be considered arbitrary, although ordered. The die is just a random number generator. You could just as easily have each face be a letter. I believe multiplying the die number by the percentage chance of the role is not correct in this situation. A situation where multiplying a number by the percentage for an "expected number"  would be where there is a 15 percent chance of one widget, a 25 percent chance of two widgets, etc. Then you could have an expected number of widgets after given event occuring y times.

The running totals of the values, and thus the expected value, is not relevant (sp?) in this situation, the distribution is. My guess is that OP's six-sided die is the random() function or something like it, with 0.000... to 0.1666... being a 1 and the like. After one thousand "roles", you should have 33% retain (or loss?) and 66% loss (or retain?), ignoring the rounding and other factors, given that 2 is the magic number.

I apologize to all for getting this thread off topic      

[Remiak]

Hi TarMinyatur,

You are right about seeking weapons loosing lock , this has been there since the first release of SFC2, I remember a few years ago when I cloaked and saw all those drones disappear, it is even in the user manual in the tactic proposed to the Roms against the Mirak "If the Mirak becomes too prolific with their missile use, cloak and watch them all disappear..."
They did and still do loose track sometimes, and I do not know the details of how/what conditions are required for this to occur.

The concept of yo-yo existed in SFB because there were chances of loosing/retraining  lock, now it is 100% sure so you do not yo-yo. You either reached a result of one and lock was broken or you did not and lock was kept.

As the chance is 100% to remain lock at the equation's result  of 2,3,3,4,5,6+ there is no yo-yo other than going to a result of 1-, then you do not yo-yo eihter as the chance to loose lock is 100% if the equation  is resulting with a one or less.

Thanks  

[Remiak]

Quote:

Quote:

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.

I think this is an apples to oranges. The numbers on the die in this case can be considered arbitrary, although ordered. The die is just a random number generator. You could just as easily have each face be a letter. I believe multiplying the die number by the percentage chance of the role is not correct in this situation. A situation where multiplying a number by the percentage for an "expected number"  would be where there is a 15 percent chance of one widget, a 25 percent chance of two widgets, etc. Then you could have an expected number of widgets after given event occuring y times.

The running totals of the values, and thus the expected value, is not relevant (sp?) in this situation, the distribution is. My guess is that OP's six-sided die is the random() function or something like it, with 0.000... to 0.1666... being a 1 and the like. After one thousand "roles", you should have 33% retain (or loss?) and 66% loss (or retain?), ignoring the rounding and other factors, given that 2 is the magic number.

I apologize to all for getting this thread off topic      

Macman,

You are not off topic, in fact you are in the center of it. The real issue is not  the yo-yo or any other tactics that were used in SFB.
It is the statistics that were brought from SFB to SFC while changing the numbers.
if my understandind is correct, there is no random calculation in the determination of the cloak removing the lock of a ship.
It is boolean, in similar situation the result is always the same either the lock is lost or kept, not a probability between and excluding 0 and 1(0% and 100%).

So, sadly  there is no random function used there.
There is a fixed equation that ends with the magic number of 2 or more  to keep lock and 1 or less to break lock.
Nothing random there.
Now, my point was that the experience we would expect from a 6 sided die is as many 1s as 2s, 3s,4s,5s and 6s.
The expected result should be 3.5. Half the roll (1,2 and 3s) would be under and half above (the 4,5 and 6s).

To obtain the magic number of 2 in the equation, the assumption made is that the rolls have been replaced by a fixed value of 2.
I suggest it should either be real random 1 to 6 (may be to complicated) or be the middle value of 3.5 not 2. Using 2 is a decision that I do not understand yet.    

When we look at it, let's say hypotetically, the number is changed and a 3 result in a loss of lock. That means a cloaking ship at speed up to 8 could hope to break lock, instead of speed 0 only.
Once more, making no other changes, would that really make the device over the top?

I am just hoping to have the ROM avoid to do a emergency decell each time he cloaks....we are flying eagles, hawks, condors, falcons....not sitting ducks

Thanks    

[Scipio_66]

I don't get it.  You guys are playing a different game than me.  Really.  I have no trouble shedding missiles or plasma when I cloak with the new patch.  In the past, they (almost) always hit me if they were launched before I finished my fade.  For full damage.  The only time I was ever able to get a missile to lose lock in the old cloak was when I was able to outrun it for 10 to 20 seconds after fade (meaning I didn't really need to cloak).  I now routinely watch R torps vanish even though they were luanched at range 10.  BIG improvement!

To summarize:

Before patch  Missiles and plasma (virtually) always hit me for full damage if they were launched before I finished fade out.
After patch  Missiles and plasma (virutally) always lose lock if I finish fade before they impact.  The only time I've ever been hit by either with the new cloak is when a scatterpack opened on me just after I finished fade out.  (I should have been fling in F-11 mode, and phasered the shuttle before "going under".)  Even still, I ntoice that I took much less damage than expected.  I presume the damage reduction chart now works.

Before patch  Direct fire weapons double and add 5 to the range, but still hit for full damage.  Phasers killed you at range 0, and you may as well not even cloak against disruptors.
After patch Direct fire weaons double and add 5 to the range, and then strike for reduced damage.  I am much more able to withstand close range fire while under cloak.  (And then 'surface' under a weasel and punish the idiot for staying so close to a plasma armed ship.)

A shorter summary:
Before patch: Cloak bad
After patch: Cloak good.

I have seen no circumstances under which the old cloak is better than the new cloak.  Of course there are still many times and many opponents at/against which it is better not to cloak.  Just as was the case in SFB.


-S'Cipio the puzzled

[Lepton1]

OK here are some simple results with the AI cloaking vs two slow drones.

 Code:

Range  15    13    5    5    10 
Speed  10    10   10  15   10
retain  2    2    3    4    3
lock   no    no    no   no   no

 

All drones disappeared quite quickly as cloaked ship achieved full cloak and message of No Lock on the HUD.  As you can see in all instances lock should have been maintained, but was not.  Now of course FS will say lock was maintained and that is true as none of the drones disappeared instantly on the fade out. The drones did continue on and disappeared one by one.  So the question is what does lock really mean for seeking weapons?  It seems if full cloak is achieved before drones come into some critical range, then drones will fade out one by one as per pre- 2.5.4.10.  BUT if full cloak is not achieve soon enough, drones will hit as loss of lock via this formula is very hard to achieve.  It hardly seems to make sense to say that lock on was maintained in the first instance via the retain values if the range and time is sufficient that the cloaker may complete the cloak cycle and the seekers are not within the critical range to find their target.  While it may be true that lock-on was maintained it means nothing unless your seekers are right on top of the target such that they may strike their target before full cloak is achieved and before the seekers disappear one by one.

BTW it seems very hard to get an AI to drone you as a cloaker from a sufficient range to benefit from achieving the full cloak.  It just won't do it.  In my tests, I fired drones as I saw the AI cloaking as how else might I have done it.  If you are the cloaker, you are most likely to cloak after drones or plasma are fired.  These are two very different things obviously. So this may also account for some of the differences experienced between the two possible test cases.  

[3dot14]

I understand Cloak is different from SFB, that cloak is not as good as some want it to be, that cloak is not a magic switch to void all weapons (even in SFC3 style cloak, cloak is still dangerous. tho admittedly not as close as this, of until you get detected.)...

But I really cannot understand how is could be WORSE... since AFAIK, no ship has an increase of cloaking power requirement...

BTW if we need concrete data, the only way would be to test between to humans. I am on GSA right now (Weds,  6:30pm EST) if anyone has time, just come on up...

[Remiak]

Quote:
 

A shorter summary:
Before patch: Cloak bad
After patch: Cloak good.

I have seen no circumstances under which the old cloak is better than the new cloak.  Of course there are still many times and many opponents at/against which it is better not to cloak.  Just as was the case in SFB.


-S'Cipio the puzzled  

Hi S'Cipio,
Nice to hear from you.
The discussion has to be about PvP not PvAI.
Do you think I can stop and cloak in a my Rom ship against your equivalent Gorn unit and be at an advantage by doing so.
In most cases by the time I fade in, I will be in troubles.

My best chance will remain in fighting the plasma ballet without using the cloak.
The cloak may not be an added value in PvP unless fighting a begginer.

I will give an exemple of the old cloak in use: I was flying a Rom XFF that can cloak fly at 31 and charge weapons. At speed 31, all lock were lost, seaking wepaons could not be lauched at me, I was very manoeuverable and hard to catch. with the new cloak I have to stop. Another exemple is when jumping in our PFs to fly them at full speed.
The only weapons that really got to me before was those MIRV, they never lost lock and got to my XFF so i had to use mines or outrun them. Normal drones lost lock.

Anyways, I am not asking to change the specs of the cloak, just to allow lock break without emergency decelleration needed so some speed other than 0 by putting back the normal number of 3.5 instead of the arbritrary 2.

Thanks  

[TarMinyatur]

There is a clear discrepancy on how the AI can break lock-ons and how a player can.

I flew a R-SEL which can do speed 19 easily while cloaked. I flew against and AI Z-CD with slow missiles. I would wait for the Z-CD to fire its missiles then cloak. It routinely took about 15 seconds to break all the missiles' lock-ons. Sometimes one or two would follow me for 30 seconds.

Next I flew a Z-MDC against an AI cloaker. It would fly at speed 21 all the time. When it recloaked after firing its Plas-G, my missiles would almost always be eliminated in under 5 seconds. I never had a missile follow the cloaked ship for more than 10 seconds.

There's a double standard.

I assume that the second scenario applies to multiplayer.

[TarMinyatur]

Quote:

I will give an example of the old cloak in use: I was flying a Rom XFF that can cloak, fly at 31, and charge weapons. At speed 31, all lock-ons were lost, seeking weapons could not be lauched at me, I was very maneuverable, and hard to catch. With the new cloak I have to stop.

Remiak, I don't understand. Why must you stop? Are people firing seeking-weapons at you while you are cloaked? They should not be able to, as far as I know. If they fire at you as you phase-in, then you are in no worse shape than pre-2.5.4.12. With 2.5.4.12, there is an extra layer of defense. The attacker has to pass the new lock-on test (which is admittedly guaranteed for any ship moving faster than about 8).

[Scipio_66]

Quote:
The real issue is not the yo-yo or any other tactics that were used in SFB.  It is the statistics that were brought from SFB to SFC while changing the numbers. if my understandind is correct, there is no random calculation in the determination of the cloak removing the lock of a ship. It is boolean, in similar situation the result is always the same either the lock is lost or kept, not a probability between and excluding 0 and 1(0% and 100%).

<snip>
There is a fixed equation that ends with the magic number of 2 or more to keep lock and 1 or less to break lock.

Are you sure you aren't reversing your odds here?  Using the SFB formula, a point-blank ship with no speed or ECM modifiers *keeps* lock on a 2 or less, and *loses* lock on a 3 or more.  Not the other way around.

This would also be more in keeping with the results I am seeing in game.  If your interpretration was used, I'd never break lock on anything much.  As it is, I routinely shed plasma torps even when I hit X while traveling at speeds in the low 20's.  For a long time I thought lock break was automatic under the new cloak once fade was complete, but Dave assured us in a post that  there was a chance for lock to be retained.    I have since that time had lock-retention very rarely, but enough to know it is possible.

Unless something reeeeaallllly weird happened in the PPD/Cloak fix.  I'll admit I was out of the country when that fix came in and I just got back, so I haven't downloaded it yet.  I'll do that when I get home tonight.

-S'Cipio

[Scipio_66]

Quote:
Hi S'Cipio,

Nice to hear from you.
The discussion has to be about PvP not PvAI.
Do you think I can stop and cloak in a my Rom ship against your equivalent Gorn unit and be at an advantage by doing so.
In most cases by the time I fade in, I will be in troubles.

My best chance will remain in fighting the plasma ballet without using the cloak.
The cloak may not be an added value in PvP unless fighting a begginer.

Hi!  Nice to talk to you again as well.

I wouldn't expect you to stop against a Gorn opponent.  I'd expect you to use the cloak as a tool during those rare moments in a long plasma ballet when we both nudge over for a good shot and both realize we are going to get hit.  Then you have a tool I don't.  I turn and try to minimize the damage, whereas you stay on my tail and attempt to shed all the damage.  In my games I seem able to shed the incoming plasma.  No need to stay cloaked long enough for your ship to slow down much, press X again as soon as the danger is past.

Quote:

I will give an exemple of the old cloak in use: I was flying a Rom XFF that can cloak fly at 31 and charge weapons. At speed 31, all lock were lost, seaking wepaons could not be lauched at me, I was very
manoeuverable and hard to catch. with the new cloak I have to stop.

31 while cloaked?  OK, setting aside another reason I hate X ships.  (:-P)  Why do you have to stop?  The cloak doesn't cost any more power to use.  You can still go 31 while under cloak.   Even if the new cloak works as badly as you suspect, you are still as good at outrunning the weapons on the board as a non-cloaked ship (or dropping a t-bomb out the shuttle hatch) but you have the advantage that no new seeking weapons may be fired until you choose to uncloak.

To be clear, my experiences so far with the new cloak have come from days of playing as Romulan, not against Romulan.  I wanted to play with the new toy and my SFB roots were showing.  (Shhh!!! Don't tell the Bruce.)

Iu'll play some more tonight, with the PPD/Cloak fix installed.  If I'm wrong I'm wrong, it is possible my games have given me atypical results.  But so far I simply haven't seen any ssurprising difficulty in shedding seeking weapons with the new cloak.  And I love the newly instituded damage reduction table.

-S'Cipio  

[Remiak]

Quote:

Quote:
The real issue is not the yo-yo or any other tactics that were used in SFB.  It is the statistics that were brought from SFB to SFC while changing the numbers. if my understandind is correct, there is no random calculation in the determination of the cloak removing the lock of a ship. It is boolean, in similar situation the result is always the same either the lock is lost or kept, not a probability between and excluding 0 and 1(0% and 100%).

<snip>
There is a fixed equation that ends with the magic number of 2 or more to keep lock and 1 or less to break lock.

Are you sure you aren't reversing your odds here?  Using the SFB formula, a point-blank ship with no speed or ECM modifiers *keeps* lock on a 2 or less, and *loses* lock on a 3 or more.  Not the other way around.

This would also be more in keeping with the results I am seeing in game.  If your interpretration was used, I'd never break lock on anything much.  As it is, I routinely shed plasma torps even when I hit X while traveling at speeds in the low 20's.  For a long time I thought lock break was automatic under the new cloak once fade was complete, but Dave assured us in a post that  there was a chance for lock to be retained.    I have since that time had lock-retention very rarely, but enough to know it is possible.

Unless something reeeeaallllly weird happened in the PPD/Cloak fix.  I'll admit I was out of the country when that fix came in and I just got back, so I haven't downloaded it yet.  I'll do that when I get home tonight.

-S'Cipio  

My understanding is the following:

6 (your working sensor value) - 4 (cloak shift ) = 2
there are 3 other factors that I voluntary remove here to keep things simple (the ecm,speed and range factors)

Now the player trying to maintain lock has to roll under or equal to the 2.
In the patch, all rolls are assumed to be 2. So we have a lock that is kept.

Now if the roll was assumed to be a 3.5, the lock would be lost in the same conditions.

6 - 4 = 2 would be below the roll of 3.5. So to get to maitain a lock one would need a 2 factor in favor of the hunter given from speed/range /ecm to get a 3.5 that was under the 4.

So the magic equation would become:
6 - 4 - ecm factor +- range factor  +- speed factor  = 4 for lock to be kept.

The roll is not showing in the formula but is assumed at 2 so if the equation results in a 2,3,4,5 or 6 the simulated roll of 2 is below and lock is kept.
If the simulated roll was 3.5 it would need a equation to give a 4, 5, 6 to have a simulated roll below the equation's result.

Am I confusing you even more or does that make sense to you?
Thanks      

[Remiak]

Scippy,
I do not have to stop but if I do not your lock may be kept even if I am cloaked and I will not know it.
If I fly at speed 19+ the equation gets a boost of 6.
 It becomes:
6 - 4 - (ECM factor) + range factor + 6 (speed factor) >= 2 to retain lock on
so
8 - ecm shift - range factor = 1 is needed to break lock.
AS an exemple to loose the lock I must be at maximum range (over 41) to get the shift of 6 and must have a 1 shift of ecm on you...if you put some eccm It is imossible to break a lock at high speed. if I have to slow down, you will be closer and the range factor will go down....so basically to break lock a emergency decelleration may well be needed.

Thanks

     

[3dot14]

I know cloak is probably not as strong as you would've liked. (or as it was in SFB, or even as advertised...(btw Firesoul clearly stated his formula is not tested in OP. And we have no Taldren official fomula. Keep that in mind!))

But THIS IS A HUGE IMPROVEMENT on 2538. And cloak is not meant to be used ALL THE TIME...

I stand by that regardless of what the test data show... (Yes, remiak, even after the tests. )

[Scipio_66]

Quote:

My understanding is the following:

6 (your working sensor value) - 4 (cloak shift ) = 2
there are 3 other factors that I voluntary remove here to keep things simple (the ecm,speed and range factors)

Now the player trying to maintain lock has to roll under or equal to the 2.
In the patch, all rolls are assumed to be 2. So we have a lock that is kept.

Now if the roll was assumed to be a 3.5, the lock would be lost in the same conditions.
 

I don't think your understanding is correct.  I just ran the following test.

I took a R-KE against a G-CS, and kept a speed of 29 at all times.  I lowered the cloak cost to 1 so that I'd only have to slow down to speed 28 when I cloaked.

I closed with the G-CS to a range of 6 and he fired his torps.  I hit the cloak button and kept my speed at 28.  I did not use ECM.  All his torps lost their lock as soon as I completed my fade and fizzled out of existence.  Given your understanding, all three should have hit me.  None of them do.

I'd love to show you this in a film, but I've discovered something really weird.  In the film, when I should cloak, my ship does not show as cloaking.  When the torps should wink out of existance, they continue tracking.  When they hit me, they score zero damage despite the fact that an R torp at this range should really hurt.  (Yes, a later probe indicates that they were real torps, and shows them partially recharged.)  Very weird.

How repeatable is this?  I started the game again and got the same result.  All torps winked out of existence despite my high speed (28) and close range (under 10).  The film in the film room showed the same weirdness; I don't show as cloaked and the torps I saw vanish in the game show as hitting me for no damage in the film.

Even using the SFB forumula, the R torp should have hit me, so the odds don't work the way I thought either.  This is still consistent with what I have experienced in my games however.  Seeking weapons nearly always lose their lock once I complete my fade.

-S'Cipio the confused.

[Lepton1]

Look scippy, get the correct patch then come talk to us.  The whole damn thing changed from .10 to .12.  Jeez.  That's what we have been talking about.  LOL!!

[FireSoul]

Quote:
But THIS IS A HUGE IMPROVEMENT on 2538. And cloak is not meant to be used ALL THE TIME...
 

A SFB Romulan player once told me.. (he's usually an annoying bastard, but he was right on this one..)
"About the cloak.. it's not knowing when to use it. It's knowing when not to use it."

[FireSoul]

Quote:
Look scippy, get the correct patch then come talk to us.  The whole damn thing changed from .10 to .12.  Jeez.  That's what we have been talking about.  LOL!!  

agreed. use .12.

[Lepton1]

Courtesy of 3dot10 and myself, cloak testing results for seeking weapons.  I hate long posts so I am going to try to boil this down.

We confirmed two cloak mechanism aspects.  First, the lockon check that is made by this formula we are all arguing over occurs when the cloaker is fuly cloaked and not before.  This was confirmed by drones disappearing all at once when full cloak was reached.  If full cloak is achieved but lock on is retained as per this first check, the seekers undergo a second check of a sort wherein since the loss of lock on has now occured for the targetting ship and seekers wink out one at a time and do not hit the cloaked ship if there is sufficient range for that to occur.

Second, we determined range is the range from ship to ship and not from ship to seeking weapon as lockon maintenance did not occur when the launching ship was at a non-beneficial range for lock on maintenance but the seeking weapon was in a good position when the cloaking ship reached full cloak and speculatively when the seeker would have undergone this check (but see below, range may not matter at all).  These tests were conducted with cloaker moving at speed 1 and drone launcher in range 5-10 bracket which yielded a loss of lockon at this first check.

We used volleys of two drones slow or medium launched simultaneously.  We tested cases mainly where lockon losses should have occurred via the formula in part because these are the important cases and other trials revealed that maintenance of lockon for this check were easy to produce.

In testing this first lockon check by the formula, we basically concerned ourselves with the 5-10 range bracket, over numerous trials at that range at speed 2, the retain threshold outcome should be 1.  6-0-1+0-4=1 leading to loss of lockon. Yet, lock on was maintained in all instances, whether using slow or med drones, approaching or moving away ships.

When speed at this range 5-10 was 1 or below, loss of lock on was assured over many trials.

Second, we varied range while keeping speed constant at 2.  At range brackets 11-15, 16-20, and 31-40,  these should have easily resulted in a loss of lock on at the first lockon check but never did.  In fact, the equation should have resulted in negative numbers which could be a problem in itseld.  The drones did eventually wink out one at a time via the second lock checks that we are all familiar with.  This was confirmed over many trials.

Finally, we added ECM to the equation in the 31-40 bracket speed 2, we applied a one ECM shift and a two ECM shift.  Again, the equation should have been a negative number at this point (6-2-5+0-4=-5) yet lock on was maintained in the first check and drones did eventually wink out one at a time by the second lockon checks.

Our speculative conclusions from these results are the following:

1.  Range is really not being taken into account in the formula.
2.  Speed 2 is actually in the next speed bracket or the speed brackets in general are really not as presented by Firesoul.
3.  ECM is also not being taken into account
4.  There may be some selective use of the formula lockon check such that it is not used at all ranges since the second lock on checks will get all or most of the seekers over long ranges/over time.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

[Scipio_66]

Quote:
Look scippy, get the correct patch then come talk to us.  The whole damn thing changed from .10 to .12.  Jeez.  That's what we have been talking about.  LOL!!  

No, the arguement I've had with Remiak up until now has been which cloak is better, 2.5.3.8 or 2.5.4.12.  I have argued, and still do, that 2.5.4.12 is better than 2.5.3.8 in all circumsances.  (Though I unfortunately used .10 as my model.)

2.5.4.12 is better than 2.5.3.8 in all circumstances.  However, after upgrading from .10 to .12, I concede the cloak still sux.  The claok in .10 was cool.  Oh well.  <sigh>  It took a lot to get me excited about OP.  Now I'm losing it again.  

-S'Cipio the sad  

[FireSoul]

I prefered the cloak in .10 too..
.. but you have to admit that it's too strong.


When the patches for .12 were made, testers had no say in how the retain lockon was being calculated. I adapted to it, and I guess others will adapt too.  

[3dot14]

I can attest to the results of the test.

However, a point was raised about our test subjects. We were both in Prime XCA's. So, does Pirate Stealth ECM (ECM=2) work?


Also more cautions about the results: (I know I repeat myself, but I am doing it for emphasis.)

1.) Taldren only (wisely) described in qualitative terms. David Ferrell NEVER said how it's really calculated... So even at worst, this is a balance change, not a bug.
2.) Firesouls chart was SFB-based. He specifically mentioned it so.
3.) DO NOT let this overshadow the rest of the advantaged 25412 cloak has only 2538. (the damage v. cloak chart works on seekers, and they do blink out. In those tests betwen lepton and I, only ONE missile actually hit me...)
4.) Will glass ever be half full? (and who is drinking from my glass?!!)

EDIT:
Lepton also raises an interestign point:
Maybe when the threshold equation returns negative, the lock on is maintained... This certainly is worthy of further investigation.

[Lepton1]

Had the stealth ratings been a factor that would have made loss of lock more likely.  Instead we found it was nearly impossible to get a loss of lock for the first check.

My thinking is now that loss of lock only occurs for a speed of 0 or 1, no matter what the range.  This seems like the next thing that should be tested.

[JMM]

Thanks Scipio for admitting the cloak in 10 rocked, for a while there I thought I was smoking crack. Regardless of how powerful a cloak is, there is always the t-bomb flash, and in the right position any ship can thrash a cloaked rom vessel...  

[David Ferrell]

Yes the cloak in .10 rocked, because drones and plasmas would *always* lose
their lock, due to a bug.

Speed 80 plasma torpedoes would also rock (for the Roms/Gorn and ISC), but
would it be fair?

Thanks,

Dave  

[Lepton1]

Hey, Dave.  I am wondering if you have read through this thread and have any comments on how this first lockon check is being resolved.  It seems speed may be the only factor for an initial loss of lock.  Other factors such as range and EW have been suggested but I am not sure testing is bearing that out.  Be glad to hear what you might have to say on this.

[David Ferrell]

Just did some testing based upon your comments...

I'm really beginning to hate this game!  

Range and Speed internally are both multiplied by 10, I forgot this.  

Thanks,

Dave  

[FireSoul]

*slaps forehead*
.. no wonder only speed 0 seemed to work.

[Dogmatix!]

Quote:
Just did some testing based upon your comments...

I'm really beginning to hate this game!  

Range and Speed internally are both multiplied by 10, I forgot this.  

Thanks,

Dave  

So you will fix?  Purty please?  With fresh gagh on top?

[Holocat]

I only have one piece of advice, Mr. Ferrell.

Run.

 RUN!

Don't turn your head, don't look back now, JUST RUN!

Dog's already on your tail, and when lepton and remiack get wind, they'll start prowling with the pack as well...

Because you can see it, see it coming, creeping up like a nasty, incurable virus...

Patch 2.5.4.1893289359853234123490312!

Already nipping at the legs, slowing you, weaking your resolve for one last patch...

By this time, there will be five of us left.

Two of us won't be satisfied.

RUN!!!

Holocat.

[Holocat]

Quick Mr. Ferrell, you're running out of time!

 I can hear them already:

 

 Paaaaaaaatch.   Ppppaaaaaaattch.

The gamers are already gathering,

Holocat.


P.S.  Okay! ok, i'll go get some sleep now;  These posts clearly tell me that i'm becoming facetious.  

[Lepton1]

Quote:
*slaps forehead*
.. no wonder only speed 0 seemed to work.  

Yes, but speed 1 is working also for loss of lock, while speed 2 (which is in the same speed bracket) is not for any range category.

[SPQR Renegade001]

Quote:
Yes, but speed 1 is working also for loss of lock, while speed 2 (which is in the same speed bracket) is not for any range category.

That's because speed 1*10 is speed 10, rather lower on the chart. 2*10 = 20, or "do you realy have power to go that fast under cloak?".

[Lepton1]

Yes but if this is the case:

Quote:
First, the Formula:


      Retain Threshhold = Sensor(6) - (EW Defense Shift) - (Range Factor) + (Speed Factor) - 4



Next, some explanations of the components of that formula:


      Retain Threshhold: The number a the person trying to do a retain lock has to match or roll lower with a D6 (6-sided die). DavidF told the testers (I am one) that the dieroll would always be 2. (to make it a notch challenging to the cloaker, I guess)

      EW Defense Shift: Cloaker's defense shift, after the ECM, ECCM and squareroot calculations. (the Defense shift at the bottom left of the screen)

      Range Factor: A value decided on the range between the unit tracking and the cloaked ship.

      Speed Factor: Speed of the cloaked ship.





Now for the tables to figure out the Factors:
Range Factor:


      True Range <=> Range Factor
      0 <=> -1
      1-4 <=> 0
      5-10 <=> 1
      11-15 <=> 2
      16-20 <=> 3
      21-30 <=> 4
      31-40 <=> 5
      41+ <=> 6



Speed Adjustment Factor:


      Maneuver Rate <=> Speed Factor
      0 <=> -2
      1-4 <=> 0
      5-8 <=> 1
      9-12 <=> 2
      13-15 <=> 3
      16-17 <=> 4
      18 <=> 5
      19+ <=> 6

Then speed 1 if multiplied by 10 would make the formula at range 5-10 equal to 3 (6-0-1+2-4=3) and lock on would be maintained but it is not.  I am not convinced this x10 thing is really it since range 5 would become 50 and loss of lock would be almost assured all the time if the above formula is being used.  But hey, what do I know.

[David Ferrell]

Daves not here man...  

[Corbomite]

Quote:
Daves not here man...  

hehehehe.....  

[Dogmatix!]

Quote:
Quick Mr. Ferrell, you're running out of time!

 I can hear them already:

 

 Paaaaaaaatch.   Ppppaaaaaaattch.

The gamers are already gathering,

Holocat.


P.S.  Okay! ok, i'll go get some sleep now;  These posts clearly tell me that i'm becoming facetious.  

In RE: The above post and the one before...


Freaking hilarious, Holocat...heheheh...made me giggle here at work, drawing raised eyebrows from my nearby co-workers.



Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch...PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaatch!


OR..perhaps give someone (Khoromag?) the rights to do a few maintenance patches if the esteemed Mr. Ferrell doesn't want to be lavished (?) with more praise for fixing a couple more things...heheh.


 

[Dogmatix!]

Quote:
Daves not here man...  

Not true!  Not True!  I see you!  heheheh...


 

[SPQR Drall]

OK,

This is a pretty long thread with a lot of detailed argument and testing, thanks all!  

I have been playing Rom for 2 years now and never used the cloak versus a live opponent and be happy at the result for me.  Now, what I would like like to understand is the following:

-  Can I use the cloak competitively in PvP now or is it still a quick way to loose my ship as in the past?

The rest are really details...

- Is is worth going back to re-aquaint myself to the cloaking tactics or am I loosing my time?



SPQR Drall

P.S. BTW, whatever the case is Dave, I really appreciate the efforts you guys put in on those additional versions.  Do not mistake a search to understand how things are with a lack of appreciation from the players.  Still kudos to you for the releases!  

[JMM]

Dave, I apologize if it sounded like I offended you, that was not the case at all, I would never, ever want speed 80 plasma torpedoes. All I'm saying is that with cloaked ships there should be NO LOCK ON, a balance to this would be for our shields to disappear while cloaked vs direct fire weapons, ouch... Like in the real Star Trek. Cloak should work great, but remember, it is a defensive tool, not an offensive one. If we really had a cloak that worked, then we could enter a battle and the enemy would not know from what vantage point we were until we uncloaked and were ready to fire, ouch for the enemy vessel!  

[JMM]

BTW, you love this game and you know it, it has sparked a new interest in the SFC series and is bringing members of SFC3 and EAW together to some extent...  

[Lepton1]

Quote:
Dave, I apologize if it sounded like I offended you, that was not the case at all, I would never, ever want speed 80 plasma torpedoes. All I'm saying is that with cloaked ships there should be NO LOCK ON, a balance to this would be for our shields to disappear while cloaked vs direct fire weapons, ouch... Like in the real Star Trek. Cloak should work great, but remember, it is a defensive tool, not an offensive one. If we really had a cloak that worked, then we could enter a battle and the enemy would not know from what vantage point we were until we uncloaked and were ready to fire, ouch for the enemy vessel!  

There is a loss of lock in SFC as per SFB rules and their effects.  If the attacker retains lock for the first check, the seeking weapons continue to track but after a while they will wink out one by one because lock is lost at the second check.  Also there is an invisible cloak.  It's in SFC3.

[EschelonOfJudgement]

Quote:
Posted by Dave Ferrell
-
Just did some testing based upon your comments...

I'm really beginning to hate this game!  

Range and Speed internally are both multiplied by 10, I forgot this.  

Thanks,

Dave  

Hey Dave!

First of all, thank you for taking the time to follow this thread.  Your continued interest in this game is very much appreciated by myself and others in the community.

And thank you for letting us know about this little hiccup.  Others might have simply swept this under a rug or something, but the fact you realized this and let us know about it means quite a lot to all of us here!!!

In short, I still say Dave Ferrell rocks!!! Even when little math errors creep into the programming...


And thanks to everyone else who has been testing this out.  This just shows how awesome this community really is, especially when we put our heads together...

We may still be able to check out the cloak modifiers btw.  Try setting your ships to go fractional speeds; i.e.  set your ship to go speed 1.4 to see what used to happen at 14, speed 0.8 to see what used to happen at speed 8, etc.  This way if it is indeed a simple math error, we may still be able to verify that a quick fix should be able to rectify this...

As for range modifiers, well if the ranges are also being multiplied by 10... well keep that in mind during your testing...

[TarMinyatur]

Quote:
Drall wrote:
 BTW, whatever the case is Dave, I really appreciate the efforts you guys put in on those additional versions.  Do not mistake a search to understand how things are with a lack of appreciation from the players.  Still kudos to you for the releases!  

This statement needs to be repeated more often!

Some think that it is somehow disrespectful to question the workings of the game.  This could not be more untrue. Taldren has created some amazingly sophisticated software. It is a tribute to the game's programmers that we investigate it so thoroughly.  

[Remiak]

Quote:

Quote:
Drall wrote:
 BTW, whatever the case is Dave, I really appreciate the efforts you guys put in on those additional versions.  Do not mistake a search to understand how things are with a lack of appreciation from the players.  Still kudos to you for the releases!  

This statement needs to be repeated more often!

Some think that it is somehow disrespectful to question the workings of the game.  This could not be more untrue. Taldren has created some amazingly sophisticated software. It is a tribute to the game's programmers that we investigate it so thoroughly.  

I also support Drall's comment.
By working together on issues, we have better chance to alligned our respective perceptions to the reality of the game.
We will always see things from slightly different point of views but should be all bound to the same goal: making this game great and fun.
To that goal we will continue to put our efforts.

Aside from this cloak related issues, I have so far found a lot of great features delivered in the patch, the map interraction (pirate/empire race) is by itself such a huge improvement.

Thanks guys, your work is appreciated.      

[The_Infiltrator]

It would be very appreciated if a short new patch could be released to clear up the remaining 2 known issues; the first with the cloak and the second with fighters.

[Dogmatix!]

Yeah...I can't help but feel we're this close to taking care of two big issues with the SFC2 series...the cloak and fighters.  


What was it about the fighter-based disruptors?  They don't come out partially charged at all?  Then there's the thing with the fusion fighters...heheh...


I'd echo the sentiments of the others, though...I appreciate the game as is and I appreciate Dave's continued interest in following the issues and any past work he's done (and hopefully) future work he chooses to do.  It's very much appreciated.

 

[JMM]

Try going to a dead stop to cloak, equals instant death, no thanks, I'll play like before, no cloak, kudos to SFC3 guys for having a kickass cloak...  

[Cleaven]

Quote:
Try going to a dead stop to cloak, equals instant death, no thanks, I'll play like before, no cloak, kudos to SFC3 guys for having a kickass cloak...  

This is not true. I have been using the slow cloak game with some significant success.

ps  as for the SFC:TNG cloak you can take it with you because it is not as you describe either.  

[Remiak]

Hi,
Drall and I did some further test both on Gamespy and on a D2 OP server.
The experience we have obtain on these new tests is not the same as those mentionned by other testers nor is  it the ame as obtained in earlier test with player against AI..

The retain lock was not calculated well, and the issue was not a speed multiplication by a factor of 10...it was a automatic lost of lock even if the Rom ship cloaked at speed 31 range zero (rigth on top of the fed droner) the lock was still lost.

We wanted to see what were the effect of being cloaked while your opponent still has a lock on you....we were unable to produce a retain lock to a cloaked ship.
Granted the drones in flight had to go throuh a seperate validation to retain lock and would one by one disappear but the unit that fired them always lost lock (both ship the fed droner and the rom cloaker were played by humans in direct contact through Roger Wilco))

We could simply not create a situation were lock was maintained.
The cloak does not work has intended the equation should be
6- 4 - ecm shift +- range factor +- speed factor is equal or less than 3 means lost of lock (in the intended cloak it was less or equal to 1 to break lock).
In our tests we produced an equation with
6 -4 - 0 + 6 - 0 = 8 and lock was still lost?????

The cloak does not behave as presented in the specs, and not in a consistant manner, I had earlier missions where AI could fire scatter packs at me and they opened after the cloak was on and still hit me. Now impossible to reproduce with a live player.

Was lag producing a shifting effect and the lock was lost automatically in PvP?

Scarry as the cloak would now be too strong in PvP.

Thanks  

[3dot14]

Just to be clear, what consititutes Loss of Lock On in your test?

And what's your GSA handle? maybe we can hook up to verify it again.

[TarMinyatur]

Remiak, I've been telling you repeatedly that the cloak is 100% successful in breaking lock-ons to ships.  I've also stated that scatterpacks are immune to the retention check before they bloom.

[Scipio_66]

Quote:

We wanted to see what were the effect of being cloaked while your opponent still has a lock on you....we were unable to produce a retain lock to a cloaked ship.

You were testing the wrong thing.  The lock-on checks are only for seeking weapons already in the air.  The cloak has always (under all patches) broken the ship's lock on to you in 100% of all cases.  Launching new seeking weapons against a target that has already faded has never been possible outside of a flashcube effect.

-S'Cipio

[Lepton1]

Yes, can we please all get on the same page here???  Two lock-on checks.  One by the formula at time of full cloak.  If seekers pass this check, they continue to suffer second checks that work in an undocumented way as being cloaked MEANS loss of lock.  No further testing is needed.  It's confusing because it's contradictory i.e.  how could the seekers retain lock at one instance and then lose it a litle bit later, but that is how it works.  It is the multiplication factor.  Just remains to be seen if we can bribe David to fix it or not.   Think of the first lock on check as a mechanism for preventing people from cloaking too near and at too fast a speed to an enemy such that the enemy can maintain lock-on to hit the cloaker when his seekers are very near the target, not as a mechanism for checking whether the cloak has been successful.

[SPQR Drall]

We tested a few more things, mainly with SP.  In one instance it was weird to see a SP lauched pre-cloak engagement and blooming post cloak engagement with the cloaker being stopped.  The SP bloomed but the drones winked out immediatelly as they loss their lock;  we saw the blue tail, but not the drones themselves!

- The first check really doesn't change anything.  It rarely works and the condition in which it worked, cloak, E-decel, WW are that same as in the past, cloak- e-decel, ww.  The added check has no real inpact in PvP.

- The damage reduction is a good improvement.  A Rom XFF survived 6 heavy drones in one instance for example.  It will give an additional edge.

The new cloak is an improvement overall.  Against AI it will not do much difference, missions are too long with cloaker (KE, WE, Snipe) and Roms will continue playing KRCs, Novahawks and Tenders for campaigning against AI.

For PvP, are the improvement significant?  I am not sure.  It certainly the KE and the KVL a little better, but equal to their Kestrel and Hawks equivalents, I don't know.  It sure is a liyyle boon to the X-ships, if one plays them.

All in all, I think I get the impacts of the changes now.  As I said I am happy with them; I got improvement that I did not ask or expect, so it's all good from there!  In the end, are the changes enough to make cloak tactics survivable in PvP?  Probably not, but as a secondary system, the cloak got better and will help in some cases.  That has to be a good thing!

SPQR Drall

[Remiak]

Hi,
Yes you guys are absolutly right.
I guess the confusion may have been caused by the fact that some of the old players from the SFB time (I am one of them) even when told otherwise, always considered that unless self guidance is involved, if the drones keep comming towards the cloaked ship, that implied the controling ship had to know where to guide those drones. It is not the case as you guys have been saying.

Basically, I had stated that the cloak was forcing the fast moving units to slow to break lock and I was all wrong in that statement as I had not seperated lock for the hunting ship with lock for the seaking weapons.
I now alligned myself with all of you and would like to state that the new cloak is by far superior to the old one (even with the 10 multiplyer in it for speed).
You see, I do not mind if seaking weapons currently on map continue to target the cloaked ship, I can deal with them especially with a damage reduction in effect (I usually fly at high speed anyways and would get the maximum speed penality of 6 regardless that my speed is considered 31 or 310).

I would like to apologize to all for having pushed too hard in this. The issues with the cloak are only linked with seaking weapons already in flight, this is not an issue with a tactical impact important enough to make it such a big deal. Once more sorry.  

The remaining test should be done to evaluate how the range and ecm factors are affecting the lock retention for seaking weapons in flight. It was mentionned at one point that ecm did not help as intended, is that confirmed?

Remiak walking away towards a shady place  mutterring....getting all the facts before taking a position....not making assumptions based on another game...seaking weapons may keep lock while controlling ship has no lock..... getting head examined.....    

Thanks guys for your testing and patience.      

[Lepton1]

The reason why range and speed and ECM are not working as they should in the formula is that range and speed are mulitplied internally by 10 in the program, so if you are going speed 2 or higher essentially the first lockon check formula sees that as speed 20 and that comes out as a +6 for the speed factor.  Same goes for range.  Range 5 is 50.  That is also 6 for range factor. In this case they would cancel each other out and the result of the formula is 2 which retains lockon.  Essentially Dave forget to divide by 10 for those numbers.  Otherwise things would probably be working just right.  If you were to try to test the effects of ECM you would have to do weird tests at speed 1.2 or something or range .5, etc to make the formula work out right such that ECM would matter.

[Lepton1]

Quote:
First, the Formula:


      Retain Threshhold = Sensor(6) - (EW Defense Shift) - (Range Factor) + (Speed Factor) - 4



Next, some explanations of the components of that formula:


      Retain Threshhold: The number a the person trying to do a retain lock has to match or roll lower with a D6 (6-sided die). DavidF told the testers (I am one) that the dieroll would always be 2. (to make it a notch challenging to the cloaker, I guess)

      EW Defense Shift: Cloaker's defense shift, after the ECM, ECCM and squareroot calculations. (the Defense shift at the bottom left of the screen)

      Range Factor: A value decided on the range between the unit tracking and the cloaked ship.

      Speed Factor: Speed of the cloaked ship.





Now for the tables to figure out the Factors:
Range Factor:


      True Range <=> Range Factor
      0 <=> -1
      1-4 <=> 0
      5-10 <=> 1
      11-15 <=> 2
      16-20 <=> 3
      21-30 <=> 4
      31-40 <=> 5
      41+ <=> 6



Speed Adjustment Factor:


      Maneuver Rate <=> Speed Factor
      0 <=> -2
      1-4 <=> 0
      5-8 <=> 1
      9-12 <=> 2
      13-15 <=> 3
      16-17 <=> 4
      18 <=> 5
      19+ <=> 6

bump

[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    

[TarMinyatur]

Remiak, you must consider that SFC forces seeking weapons to try to retain lock-on even if conditions improve for the seeker. The ECM yo-yo hasn't been removed, it constantly exists in the cloaker's favor. The interval for this check is undocumented. It seems to be every second or two. Otherwise, missiles chasing a cloaked ship at a constant range would never lose lock-on if they passed the initial retention check.

That being said, there is something odd about how the AI's missiles seem to have a better chance of retaining lock-on than I do when firing at a cloaked AI. It could simply be bad luck. More data is needed.

P.S. What I said earlier about flash-cubes being the way to do damage...that's not at all true. Plasma and missiles have almost no chance to hit even a high speed (19+) cloaked target. They disappear almost as soon as I press "Z". This is against the AI. Multiplayer could be different.

[Lepton1]

yeah, Tar I think that most of your view of the cloak seems based on the AI being cloaked, not you.  Try more with you being cloaked and I think you will have closer to Remiak's experience.  I think something hinky may be going on.

[Mantis]

Quote:

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.

I think this is an apples to oranges. The numbers on the die in this case can be considered arbitrary, although ordered. The die is just a random number generator. You could just as easily have each face be a letter. I believe multiplying the die number by the percentage chance of the role is not correct in this situation. A situation where multiplying a number by the percentage for an "expected number"  would be where there is a 15 percent chance of one widget, a 25 percent chance of two widgets, etc. Then you could have an expected number of widgets after given event occuring y times.

The running totals of the values, and thus the expected value, is not relevant (sp?) in this situation, the distribution is. My guess is that OP's six-sided die is the random() function or something like it, with 0.000... to 0.1666... being a 1 and the like. After one thousand "roles", you should have 33% retain (or loss?) and 66% loss (or retain?), ignoring the rounding and other factors, given that 2 is the magic number.

I apologize to all for getting this thread off topic      

[Remiak]

Hi TarMinyatur,

You are right about seeking weapons loosing lock , this has been there since the first release of SFC2, I remember a few years ago when I cloaked and saw all those drones disappear, it is even in the user manual in the tactic proposed to the Roms against the Mirak "If the Mirak becomes too prolific with their missile use, cloak and watch them all disappear..."
They did and still do loose track sometimes, and I do not know the details of how/what conditions are required for this to occur.

The concept of yo-yo existed in SFB because there were chances of loosing/retraining  lock, now it is 100% sure so you do not yo-yo. You either reached a result of one and lock was broken or you did not and lock was kept.

As the chance is 100% to remain lock at the equation's result  of 2,3,3,4,5,6+ there is no yo-yo other than going to a result of 1-, then you do not yo-yo eihter as the chance to loose lock is 100% if the equation  is resulting with a one or less.

Thanks  

[Remiak]

Quote:

Quote:

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.

I think this is an apples to oranges. The numbers on the die in this case can be considered arbitrary, although ordered. The die is just a random number generator. You could just as easily have each face be a letter. I believe multiplying the die number by the percentage chance of the role is not correct in this situation. A situation where multiplying a number by the percentage for an "expected number"  would be where there is a 15 percent chance of one widget, a 25 percent chance of two widgets, etc. Then you could have an expected number of widgets after given event occuring y times.

The running totals of the values, and thus the expected value, is not relevant (sp?) in this situation, the distribution is. My guess is that OP's six-sided die is the random() function or something like it, with 0.000... to 0.1666... being a 1 and the like. After one thousand "roles", you should have 33% retain (or loss?) and 66% loss (or retain?), ignoring the rounding and other factors, given that 2 is the magic number.

I apologize to all for getting this thread off topic      

Macman,

You are not off topic, in fact you are in the center of it. The real issue is not  the yo-yo or any other tactics that were used in SFB.
It is the statistics that were brought from SFB to SFC while changing the numbers.
if my understandind is correct, there is no random calculation in the determination of the cloak removing the lock of a ship.
It is boolean, in similar situation the result is always the same either the lock is lost or kept, not a probability between and excluding 0 and 1(0% and 100%).

So, sadly  there is no random function used there.
There is a fixed equation that ends with the magic number of 2 or more  to keep lock and 1 or less to break lock.
Nothing random there.
Now, my point was that the experience we would expect from a 6 sided die is as many 1s as 2s, 3s,4s,5s and 6s.
The expected result should be 3.5. Half the roll (1,2 and 3s) would be under and half above (the 4,5 and 6s).

To obtain the magic number of 2 in the equation, the assumption made is that the rolls have been replaced by a fixed value of 2.
I suggest it should either be real random 1 to 6 (may be to complicated) or be the middle value of 3.5 not 2. Using 2 is a decision that I do not understand yet.    

When we look at it, let's say hypotetically, the number is changed and a 3 result in a loss of lock. That means a cloaking ship at speed up to 8 could hope to break lock, instead of speed 0 only.
Once more, making no other changes, would that really make the device over the top?

I am just hoping to have the ROM avoid to do a emergency decell each time he cloaks....we are flying eagles, hawks, condors, falcons....not sitting ducks

Thanks    

[Scipio_66]

I don't get it.  You guys are playing a different game than me.  Really.  I have no trouble shedding missiles or plasma when I cloak with the new patch.  In the past, they (almost) always hit me if they were launched before I finished my fade.  For full damage.  The only time I was ever able to get a missile to lose lock in the old cloak was when I was able to outrun it for 10 to 20 seconds after fade (meaning I didn't really need to cloak).  I now routinely watch R torps vanish even though they were luanched at range 10.  BIG improvement!

To summarize:

Before patch  Missiles and plasma (virtually) always hit me for full damage if they were launched before I finished fade out.
After patch  Missiles and plasma (virutally) always lose lock if I finish fade before they impact.  The only time I've ever been hit by either with the new cloak is when a scatterpack opened on me just after I finished fade out.  (I should have been fling in F-11 mode, and phasered the shuttle before "going under".)  Even still, I ntoice that I took much less damage than expected.  I presume the damage reduction chart now works.

Before patch  Direct fire weapons double and add 5 to the range, but still hit for full damage.  Phasers killed you at range 0, and you may as well not even cloak against disruptors.
After patch Direct fire weaons double and add 5 to the range, and then strike for reduced damage.  I am much more able to withstand close range fire while under cloak.  (And then 'surface' under a weasel and punish the idiot for staying so close to a plasma armed ship.)

A shorter summary:
Before patch: Cloak bad
After patch: Cloak good.

I have seen no circumstances under which the old cloak is better than the new cloak.  Of course there are still many times and many opponents at/against which it is better not to cloak.  Just as was the case in SFB.


-S'Cipio the puzzled

[Lepton1]

OK here are some simple results with the AI cloaking vs two slow drones.

 Code:

Range  15    13    5    5    10 
Speed  10    10   10  15   10
retain  2    2    3    4    3
lock   no    no    no   no   no

 

All drones disappeared quite quickly as cloaked ship achieved full cloak and message of No Lock on the HUD.  As you can see in all instances lock should have been maintained, but was not.  Now of course FS will say lock was maintained and that is true as none of the drones disappeared instantly on the fade out. The drones did continue on and disappeared one by one.  So the question is what does lock really mean for seeking weapons?  It seems if full cloak is achieved before drones come into some critical range, then drones will fade out one by one as per pre- 2.5.4.10.  BUT if full cloak is not achieve soon enough, drones will hit as loss of lock via this formula is very hard to achieve.  It hardly seems to make sense to say that lock on was maintained in the first instance via the retain values if the range and time is sufficient that the cloaker may complete the cloak cycle and the seekers are not within the critical range to find their target.  While it may be true that lock-on was maintained it means nothing unless your seekers are right on top of the target such that they may strike their target before full cloak is achieved and before the seekers disappear one by one.

BTW it seems very hard to get an AI to drone you as a cloaker from a sufficient range to benefit from achieving the full cloak.  It just won't do it.  In my tests, I fired drones as I saw the AI cloaking as how else might I have done it.  If you are the cloaker, you are most likely to cloak after drones or plasma are fired.  These are two very different things obviously. So this may also account for some of the differences experienced between the two possible test cases.  

[3dot14]

I understand Cloak is different from SFB, that cloak is not as good as some want it to be, that cloak is not a magic switch to void all weapons (even in SFC3 style cloak, cloak is still dangerous. tho admittedly not as close as this, of until you get detected.)...

But I really cannot understand how is could be WORSE... since AFAIK, no ship has an increase of cloaking power requirement...

BTW if we need concrete data, the only way would be to test between to humans. I am on GSA right now (Weds,  6:30pm EST) if anyone has time, just come on up...

[Remiak]

Quote:
 

A shorter summary:
Before patch: Cloak bad
After patch: Cloak good.

I have seen no circumstances under which the old cloak is better than the new cloak.  Of course there are still many times and many opponents at/against which it is better not to cloak.  Just as was the case in SFB.


-S'Cipio the puzzled  

Hi S'Cipio,
Nice to hear from you.
The discussion has to be about PvP not PvAI.
Do you think I can stop and cloak in a my Rom ship against your equivalent Gorn unit and be at an advantage by doing so.
In most cases by the time I fade in, I will be in troubles.

My best chance will remain in fighting the plasma ballet without using the cloak.
The cloak may not be an added value in PvP unless fighting a begginer.

I will give an exemple of the old cloak in use: I was flying a Rom XFF that can cloak fly at 31 and charge weapons. At speed 31, all lock were lost, seaking wepaons could not be lauched at me, I was very manoeuverable and hard to catch. with the new cloak I have to stop. Another exemple is when jumping in our PFs to fly them at full speed.
The only weapons that really got to me before was those MIRV, they never lost lock and got to my XFF so i had to use mines or outrun them. Normal drones lost lock.

Anyways, I am not asking to change the specs of the cloak, just to allow lock break without emergency decelleration needed so some speed other than 0 by putting back the normal number of 3.5 instead of the arbritrary 2.

Thanks  

[TarMinyatur]

There is a clear discrepancy on how the AI can break lock-ons and how a player can.

I flew a R-SEL which can do speed 19 easily while cloaked. I flew against and AI Z-CD with slow missiles. I would wait for the Z-CD to fire its missiles then cloak. It routinely took about 15 seconds to break all the missiles' lock-ons. Sometimes one or two would follow me for 30 seconds.

Next I flew a Z-MDC against an AI cloaker. It would fly at speed 21 all the time. When it recloaked after firing its Plas-G, my missiles would almost always be eliminated in under 5 seconds. I never had a missile follow the cloaked ship for more than 10 seconds.

There's a double standard.

I assume that the second scenario applies to multiplayer.

[TarMinyatur]

Quote:

I will give an example of the old cloak in use: I was flying a Rom XFF that can cloak, fly at 31, and charge weapons. At speed 31, all lock-ons were lost, seeking weapons could not be lauched at me, I was very maneuverable, and hard to catch. With the new cloak I have to stop.

Remiak, I don't understand. Why must you stop? Are people firing seeking-weapons at you while you are cloaked? They should not be able to, as far as I know. If they fire at you as you phase-in, then you are in no worse shape than pre-2.5.4.12. With 2.5.4.12, there is an extra layer of defense. The attacker has to pass the new lock-on test (which is admittedly guaranteed for any ship moving faster than about 8).

[Scipio_66]

Quote:
The real issue is not the yo-yo or any other tactics that were used in SFB.  It is the statistics that were brought from SFB to SFC while changing the numbers. if my understandind is correct, there is no random calculation in the determination of the cloak removing the lock of a ship. It is boolean, in similar situation the result is always the same either the lock is lost or kept, not a probability between and excluding 0 and 1(0% and 100%).

<snip>
There is a fixed equation that ends with the magic number of 2 or more to keep lock and 1 or less to break lock.

Are you sure you aren't reversing your odds here?  Using the SFB formula, a point-blank ship with no speed or ECM modifiers *keeps* lock on a 2 or less, and *loses* lock on a 3 or more.  Not the other way around.

This would also be more in keeping with the results I am seeing in game.  If your interpretration was used, I'd never break lock on anything much.  As it is, I routinely shed plasma torps even when I hit X while traveling at speeds in the low 20's.  For a long time I thought lock break was automatic under the new cloak once fade was complete, but Dave assured us in a post that  there was a chance for lock to be retained.    I have since that time had lock-retention very rarely, but enough to know it is possible.

Unless something reeeeaallllly weird happened in the PPD/Cloak fix.  I'll admit I was out of the country when that fix came in and I just got back, so I haven't downloaded it yet.  I'll do that when I get home tonight.

-S'Cipio

[Scipio_66]

Quote:
Hi S'Cipio,

Nice to hear from you.
The discussion has to be about PvP not PvAI.
Do you think I can stop and cloak in a my Rom ship against your equivalent Gorn unit and be at an advantage by doing so.
In most cases by the time I fade in, I will be in troubles.

My best chance will remain in fighting the plasma ballet without using the cloak.
The cloak may not be an added value in PvP unless fighting a begginer.

Hi!  Nice to talk to you again as well.

I wouldn't expect you to stop against a Gorn opponent.  I'd expect you to use the cloak as a tool during those rare moments in a long plasma ballet when we both nudge over for a good shot and both realize we are going to get hit.  Then you have a tool I don't.  I turn and try to minimize the damage, whereas you stay on my tail and attempt to shed all the damage.  In my games I seem able to shed the incoming plasma.  No need to stay cloaked long enough for your ship to slow down much, press X again as soon as the danger is past.

Quote:

I will give an exemple of the old cloak in use: I was flying a Rom XFF that can cloak fly at 31 and charge weapons. At speed 31, all lock were lost, seaking wepaons could not be lauched at me, I was very
manoeuverable and hard to catch. with the new cloak I have to stop.

31 while cloaked?  OK, setting aside another reason I hate X ships.  (:-P)  Why do you have to stop?  The cloak doesn't cost any more power to use.  You can still go 31 while under cloak.   Even if the new cloak works as badly as you suspect, you are still as good at outrunning the weapons on the board as a non-cloaked ship (or dropping a t-bomb out the shuttle hatch) but you have the advantage that no new seeking weapons may be fired until you choose to uncloak.

To be clear, my experiences so far with the new cloak have come from days of playing as Romulan, not against Romulan.  I wanted to play with the new toy and my SFB roots were showing.  (Shhh!!! Don't tell the Bruce.)

Iu'll play some more tonight, with the PPD/Cloak fix installed.  If I'm wrong I'm wrong, it is possible my games have given me atypical results.  But so far I simply haven't seen any ssurprising difficulty in shedding seeking weapons with the new cloak.  And I love the newly instituded damage reduction table.

-S'Cipio  

[Remiak]

Quote:

Quote:
The real issue is not the yo-yo or any other tactics that were used in SFB.  It is the statistics that were brought from SFB to SFC while changing the numbers. if my understandind is correct, there is no random calculation in the determination of the cloak removing the lock of a ship. It is boolean, in similar situation the result is always the same either the lock is lost or kept, not a probability between and excluding 0 and 1(0% and 100%).

<snip>
There is a fixed equation that ends with the magic number of 2 or more to keep lock and 1 or less to break lock.

Are you sure you aren't reversing your odds here?  Using the SFB formula, a point-blank ship with no speed or ECM modifiers *keeps* lock on a 2 or less, and *loses* lock on a 3 or more.  Not the other way around.

This would also be more in keeping with the results I am seeing in game.  If your interpretration was used, I'd never break lock on anything much.  As it is, I routinely shed plasma torps even when I hit X while traveling at speeds in the low 20's.  For a long time I thought lock break was automatic under the new cloak once fade was complete, but Dave assured us in a post that  there was a chance for lock to be retained.    I have since that time had lock-retention very rarely, but enough to know it is possible.

Unless something reeeeaallllly weird happened in the PPD/Cloak fix.  I'll admit I was out of the country when that fix came in and I just got back, so I haven't downloaded it yet.  I'll do that when I get home tonight.

-S'Cipio  

My understanding is the following:

6 (your working sensor value) - 4 (cloak shift ) = 2
there are 3 other factors that I voluntary remove here to keep things simple (the ecm,speed and range factors)

Now the player trying to maintain lock has to roll under or equal to the 2.
In the patch, all rolls are assumed to be 2. So we have a lock that is kept.

Now if the roll was assumed to be a 3.5, the lock would be lost in the same conditions.

6 - 4 = 2 would be below the roll of 3.5. So to get to maitain a lock one would need a 2 factor in favor of the hunter given from speed/range /ecm to get a 3.5 that was under the 4.

So the magic equation would become:
6 - 4 - ecm factor +- range factor  +- speed factor  = 4 for lock to be kept.

The roll is not showing in the formula but is assumed at 2 so if the equation results in a 2,3,4,5 or 6 the simulated roll of 2 is below and lock is kept.
If the simulated roll was 3.5 it would need a equation to give a 4, 5, 6 to have a simulated roll below the equation's result.

Am I confusing you even more or does that make sense to you?
Thanks      

[Remiak]

Scippy,
I do not have to stop but if I do not your lock may be kept even if I am cloaked and I will not know it.
If I fly at speed 19+ the equation gets a boost of 6.
 It becomes:
6 - 4 - (ECM factor) + range factor + 6 (speed factor) >= 2 to retain lock on
so
8 - ecm shift - range factor = 1 is needed to break lock.
AS an exemple to loose the lock I must be at maximum range (over 41) to get the shift of 6 and must have a 1 shift of ecm on you...if you put some eccm It is imossible to break a lock at high speed. if I have to slow down, you will be closer and the range factor will go down....so basically to break lock a emergency decelleration may well be needed.

Thanks

     

[3dot14]

I know cloak is probably not as strong as you would've liked. (or as it was in SFB, or even as advertised...(btw Firesoul clearly stated his formula is not tested in OP. And we have no Taldren official fomula. Keep that in mind!))

But THIS IS A HUGE IMPROVEMENT on 2538. And cloak is not meant to be used ALL THE TIME...

I stand by that regardless of what the test data show... (Yes, remiak, even after the tests. )

[Scipio_66]

Quote:

My understanding is the following:

6 (your working sensor value) - 4 (cloak shift ) = 2
there are 3 other factors that I voluntary remove here to keep things simple (the ecm,speed and range factors)

Now the player trying to maintain lock has to roll under or equal to the 2.
In the patch, all rolls are assumed to be 2. So we have a lock that is kept.

Now if the roll was assumed to be a 3.5, the lock would be lost in the same conditions.
 

I don't think your understanding is correct.  I just ran the following test.

I took a R-KE against a G-CS, and kept a speed of 29 at all times.  I lowered the cloak cost to 1 so that I'd only have to slow down to speed 28 when I cloaked.

I closed with the G-CS to a range of 6 and he fired his torps.  I hit the cloak button and kept my speed at 28.  I did not use ECM.  All his torps lost their lock as soon as I completed my fade and fizzled out of existence.  Given your understanding, all three should have hit me.  None of them do.

I'd love to show you this in a film, but I've discovered something really weird.  In the film, when I should cloak, my ship does not show as cloaking.  When the torps should wink out of existance, they continue tracking.  When they hit me, they score zero damage despite the fact that an R torp at this range should really hurt.  (Yes, a later probe indicates that they were real torps, and shows them partially recharged.)  Very weird.

How repeatable is this?  I started the game again and got the same result.  All torps winked out of existence despite my high speed (28) and close range (under 10).  The film in the film room showed the same weirdness; I don't show as cloaked and the torps I saw vanish in the game show as hitting me for no damage in the film.

Even using the SFB forumula, the R torp should have hit me, so the odds don't work the way I thought either.  This is still consistent with what I have experienced in my games however.  Seeking weapons nearly always lose their lock once I complete my fade.

-S'Cipio the confused.

[Lepton1]

Look scippy, get the correct patch then come talk to us.  The whole damn thing changed from .10 to .12.  Jeez.  That's what we have been talking about.  LOL!!

[FireSoul]

Quote:
But THIS IS A HUGE IMPROVEMENT on 2538. And cloak is not meant to be used ALL THE TIME...
 

A SFB Romulan player once told me.. (he's usually an annoying bastard, but he was right on this one..)
"About the cloak.. it's not knowing when to use it. It's knowing when not to use it."

[FireSoul]

Quote:
Look scippy, get the correct patch then come talk to us.  The whole damn thing changed from .10 to .12.  Jeez.  That's what we have been talking about.  LOL!!  

agreed. use .12.

[Lepton1]

Courtesy of 3dot10 and myself, cloak testing results for seeking weapons.  I hate long posts so I am going to try to boil this down.

We confirmed two cloak mechanism aspects.  First, the lockon check that is made by this formula we are all arguing over occurs when the cloaker is fuly cloaked and not before.  This was confirmed by drones disappearing all at once when full cloak was reached.  If full cloak is achieved but lock on is retained as per this first check, the seekers undergo a second check of a sort wherein since the loss of lock on has now occured for the targetting ship and seekers wink out one at a time and do not hit the cloaked ship if there is sufficient range for that to occur.

Second, we determined range is the range from ship to ship and not from ship to seeking weapon as lockon maintenance did not occur when the launching ship was at a non-beneficial range for lock on maintenance but the seeking weapon was in a good position when the cloaking ship reached full cloak and speculatively when the seeker would have undergone this check (but see below, range may not matter at all).  These tests were conducted with cloaker moving at speed 1 and drone launcher in range 5-10 bracket which yielded a loss of lockon at this first check.

We used volleys of two drones slow or medium launched simultaneously.  We tested cases mainly where lockon losses should have occurred via the formula in part because these are the important cases and other trials revealed that maintenance of lockon for this check were easy to produce.

In testing this first lockon check by the formula, we basically concerned ourselves with the 5-10 range bracket, over numerous trials at that range at speed 2, the retain threshold outcome should be 1.  6-0-1+0-4=1 leading to loss of lockon. Yet, lock on was maintained in all instances, whether using slow or med drones, approaching or moving away ships.

When speed at this range 5-10 was 1 or below, loss of lock on was assured over many trials.

Second, we varied range while keeping speed constant at 2.  At range brackets 11-15, 16-20, and 31-40,  these should have easily resulted in a loss of lock on at the first lockon check but never did.  In fact, the equation should have resulted in negative numbers which could be a problem in itseld.  The drones did eventually wink out one at a time via the second lock checks that we are all familiar with.  This was confirmed over many trials.

Finally, we added ECM to the equation in the 31-40 bracket speed 2, we applied a one ECM shift and a two ECM shift.  Again, the equation should have been a negative number at this point (6-2-5+0-4=-5) yet lock on was maintained in the first check and drones did eventually wink out one at a time by the second lockon checks.

Our speculative conclusions from these results are the following:

1.  Range is really not being taken into account in the formula.
2.  Speed 2 is actually in the next speed bracket or the speed brackets in general are really not as presented by Firesoul.
3.  ECM is also not being taken into account
4.  There may be some selective use of the formula lockon check such that it is not used at all ranges since the second lock on checks will get all or most of the seekers over long ranges/over time.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it.

[Scipio_66]

Quote:
Look scippy, get the correct patch then come talk to us.  The whole damn thing changed from .10 to .12.  Jeez.  That's what we have been talking about.  LOL!!  

No, the arguement I've had with Remiak up until now has been which cloak is better, 2.5.3.8 or 2.5.4.12.  I have argued, and still do, that 2.5.4.12 is better than 2.5.3.8 in all circumsances.  (Though I unfortunately used .10 as my model.)

2.5.4.12 is better than 2.5.3.8 in all circumstances.  However, after upgrading from .10 to .12, I concede the cloak still sux.  The claok in .10 was cool.  Oh well.  <sigh>  It took a lot to get me excited about OP.  Now I'm losing it again.  

-S'Cipio the sad  

[FireSoul]

I prefered the cloak in .10 too..
.. but you have to admit that it's too strong.


When the patches for .12 were made, testers had no say in how the retain lockon was being calculated. I adapted to it, and I guess others will adapt too.  

[3dot14]

I can attest to the results of the test.

However, a point was raised about our test subjects. We were both in Prime XCA's. So, does Pirate Stealth ECM (ECM=2) work?


Also more cautions about the results: (I know I repeat myself, but I am doing it for emphasis.)

1.) Taldren only (wisely) described in qualitative terms. David Ferrell NEVER said how it's really calculated... So even at worst, this is a balance change, not a bug.
2.) Firesouls chart was SFB-based. He specifically mentioned it so.
3.) DO NOT let this overshadow the rest of the advantaged 25412 cloak has only 2538. (the damage v. cloak chart works on seekers, and they do blink out. In those tests betwen lepton and I, only ONE missile actually hit me...)
4.) Will glass ever be half full? (and who is drinking from my glass?!!)

EDIT:
Lepton also raises an interestign point:
Maybe when the threshold equation returns negative, the lock on is maintained... This certainly is worthy of further investigation.

[Lepton1]

Had the stealth ratings been a factor that would have made loss of lock more likely.  Instead we found it was nearly impossible to get a loss of lock for the first check.

My thinking is now that loss of lock only occurs for a speed of 0 or 1, no matter what the range.  This seems like the next thing that should be tested.

[JMM]

Thanks Scipio for admitting the cloak in 10 rocked, for a while there I thought I was smoking crack. Regardless of how powerful a cloak is, there is always the t-bomb flash, and in the right position any ship can thrash a cloaked rom vessel...  

[David Ferrell]

Yes the cloak in .10 rocked, because drones and plasmas would *always* lose
their lock, due to a bug.

Speed 80 plasma torpedoes would also rock (for the Roms/Gorn and ISC), but
would it be fair?

Thanks,

Dave  

[Lepton1]

Hey, Dave.  I am wondering if you have read through this thread and have any comments on how this first lockon check is being resolved.  It seems speed may be the only factor for an initial loss of lock.  Other factors such as range and EW have been suggested but I am not sure testing is bearing that out.  Be glad to hear what you might have to say on this.

[David Ferrell]

Just did some testing based upon your comments...

I'm really beginning to hate this game!  

Range and Speed internally are both multiplied by 10, I forgot this.  

Thanks,

Dave  

[FireSoul]

*slaps forehead*
.. no wonder only speed 0 seemed to work.

[Dogmatix!]

Quote:
Just did some testing based upon your comments...

I'm really beginning to hate this game!  

Range and Speed internally are both multiplied by 10, I forgot this.  

Thanks,

Dave  

So you will fix?  Purty please?  With fresh gagh on top?

[Holocat]

I only have one piece of advice, Mr. Ferrell.

Run.

 RUN!

Don't turn your head, don't look back now, JUST RUN!

Dog's already on your tail, and when lepton and remiack get wind, they'll start prowling with the pack as well...

Because you can see it, see it coming, creeping up like a nasty, incurable virus...

Patch 2.5.4.1893289359853234123490312!

Already nipping at the legs, slowing you, weaking your resolve for one last patch...

By this time, there will be five of us left.

Two of us won't be satisfied.

RUN!!!

Holocat.

[Holocat]

Quick Mr. Ferrell, you're running out of time!

 I can hear them already:

 

 Paaaaaaaatch.   Ppppaaaaaaattch.

The gamers are already gathering,

Holocat.


P.S.  Okay! ok, i'll go get some sleep now;  These posts clearly tell me that i'm becoming facetious.  

[Lepton1]

Quote:
*slaps forehead*
.. no wonder only speed 0 seemed to work.  

Yes, but speed 1 is working also for loss of lock, while speed 2 (which is in the same speed bracket) is not for any range category.

[SPQR Renegade001]

Quote:
Yes, but speed 1 is working also for loss of lock, while speed 2 (which is in the same speed bracket) is not for any range category.

That's because speed 1*10 is speed 10, rather lower on the chart. 2*10 = 20, or "do you realy have power to go that fast under cloak?".

[Lepton1]

Yes but if this is the case:

Quote:
First, the Formula:


      Retain Threshhold = Sensor(6) - (EW Defense Shift) - (Range Factor) + (Speed Factor) - 4



Next, some explanations of the components of that formula:


      Retain Threshhold: The number a the person trying to do a retain lock has to match or roll lower with a D6 (6-sided die). DavidF told the testers (I am one) that the dieroll would always be 2. (to make it a notch challenging to the cloaker, I guess)

      EW Defense Shift: Cloaker's defense shift, after the ECM, ECCM and squareroot calculations. (the Defense shift at the bottom left of the screen)

      Range Factor: A value decided on the range between the unit tracking and the cloaked ship.

      Speed Factor: Speed of the cloaked ship.





Now for the tables to figure out the Factors:
Range Factor:


      True Range <=> Range Factor
      0 <=> -1
      1-4 <=> 0
      5-10 <=> 1
      11-15 <=> 2
      16-20 <=> 3
      21-30 <=> 4
      31-40 <=> 5
      41+ <=> 6



Speed Adjustment Factor:


      Maneuver Rate <=> Speed Factor
      0 <=> -2
      1-4 <=> 0
      5-8 <=> 1
      9-12 <=> 2
      13-15 <=> 3
      16-17 <=> 4
      18 <=> 5
      19+ <=> 6

Then speed 1 if multiplied by 10 would make the formula at range 5-10 equal to 3 (6-0-1+2-4=3) and lock on would be maintained but it is not.  I am not convinced this x10 thing is really it since range 5 would become 50 and loss of lock would be almost assured all the time if the above formula is being used.  But hey, what do I know.

[David Ferrell]

Daves not here man...  

[Corbomite]

Quote:
Daves not here man...  

hehehehe.....  

[Dogmatix!]

Quote:
Quick Mr. Ferrell, you're running out of time!

 I can hear them already:

 

 Paaaaaaaatch.   Ppppaaaaaaattch.

The gamers are already gathering,

Holocat.


P.S.  Okay! ok, i'll go get some sleep now;  These posts clearly tell me that i'm becoming facetious.  

In RE: The above post and the one before...


Freaking hilarious, Holocat...heheheh...made me giggle here at work, drawing raised eyebrows from my nearby co-workers.



Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatch...PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaatch!


OR..perhaps give someone (Khoromag?) the rights to do a few maintenance patches if the esteemed Mr. Ferrell doesn't want to be lavished (?) with more praise for fixing a couple more things...heheh.


 

[Dogmatix!]

Quote:
Daves not here man...  

Not true!  Not True!  I see you!  heheheh...


 

[SPQR Drall]

OK,

This is a pretty long thread with a lot of detailed argument and testing, thanks all!  

I have been playing Rom for 2 years now and never used the cloak versus a live opponent and be happy at the result for me.  Now, what I would like like to understand is the following:

-  Can I use the cloak competitively in PvP now or is it still a quick way to loose my ship as in the past?

The rest are really details...

- Is is worth going back to re-aquaint myself to the cloaking tactics or am I loosing my time?



SPQR Drall

P.S. BTW, whatever the case is Dave, I really appreciate the efforts you guys put in on those additional versions.  Do not mistake a search to understand how things are with a lack of appreciation from the players.  Still kudos to you for the releases!  

[JMM]

Dave, I apologize if it sounded like I offended you, that was not the case at all, I would never, ever want speed 80 plasma torpedoes. All I'm saying is that with cloaked ships there should be NO LOCK ON, a balance to this would be for our shields to disappear while cloaked vs direct fire weapons, ouch... Like in the real Star Trek. Cloak should work great, but remember, it is a defensive tool, not an offensive one. If we really had a cloak that worked, then we could enter a battle and the enemy would not know from what vantage point we were until we uncloaked and were ready to fire, ouch for the enemy vessel!  

[JMM]

BTW, you love this game and you know it, it has sparked a new interest in the SFC series and is bringing members of SFC3 and EAW together to some extent...  

[Lepton1]

Quote:
Dave, I apologize if it sounded like I offended you, that was not the case at all, I would never, ever want speed 80 plasma torpedoes. All I'm saying is that with cloaked ships there should be NO LOCK ON, a balance to this would be for our shields to disappear while cloaked vs direct fire weapons, ouch... Like in the real Star Trek. Cloak should work great, but remember, it is a defensive tool, not an offensive one. If we really had a cloak that worked, then we could enter a battle and the enemy would not know from what vantage point we were until we uncloaked and were ready to fire, ouch for the enemy vessel!  

There is a loss of lock in SFC as per SFB rules and their effects.  If the attacker retains lock for the first check, the seeking weapons continue to track but after a while they will wink out one by one because lock is lost at the second check.  Also there is an invisible cloak.  It's in SFC3.

[EschelonOfJudgement]

Quote:
Posted by Dave Ferrell
-
Just did some testing based upon your comments...

I'm really beginning to hate this game!  

Range and Speed internally are both multiplied by 10, I forgot this.  

Thanks,

Dave  

Hey Dave!

First of all, thank you for taking the time to follow this thread.  Your continued interest in this game is very much appreciated by myself and others in the community.

And thank you for letting us know about this little hiccup.  Others might have simply swept this under a rug or something, but the fact you realized this and let us know about it means quite a lot to all of us here!!!

In short, I still say Dave Ferrell rocks!!! Even when little math errors creep into the programming...


And thanks to everyone else who has been testing this out.  This just shows how awesome this community really is, especially when we put our heads together...

We may still be able to check out the cloak modifiers btw.  Try setting your ships to go fractional speeds; i.e.  set your ship to go speed 1.4 to see what used to happen at 14, speed 0.8 to see what used to happen at speed 8, etc.  This way if it is indeed a simple math error, we may still be able to verify that a quick fix should be able to rectify this...

As for range modifiers, well if the ranges are also being multiplied by 10... well keep that in mind during your testing...

[TarMinyatur]

Quote:
Drall wrote:
 BTW, whatever the case is Dave, I really appreciate the efforts you guys put in on those additional versions.  Do not mistake a search to understand how things are with a lack of appreciation from the players.  Still kudos to you for the releases!  

This statement needs to be repeated more often!

Some think that it is somehow disrespectful to question the workings of the game.  This could not be more untrue. Taldren has created some amazingly sophisticated software. It is a tribute to the game's programmers that we investigate it so thoroughly.  

[Remiak]

Quote:

Quote:
Drall wrote:
 BTW, whatever the case is Dave, I really appreciate the efforts you guys put in on those additional versions.  Do not mistake a search to understand how things are with a lack of appreciation from the players.  Still kudos to you for the releases!  

This statement needs to be repeated more often!

Some think that it is somehow disrespectful to question the workings of the game.  This could not be more untrue. Taldren has created some amazingly sophisticated software. It is a tribute to the game's programmers that we investigate it so thoroughly.  

I also support Drall's comment.
By working together on issues, we have better chance to alligned our respective perceptions to the reality of the game.
We will always see things from slightly different point of views but should be all bound to the same goal: making this game great and fun.
To that goal we will continue to put our efforts.

Aside from this cloak related issues, I have so far found a lot of great features delivered in the patch, the map interraction (pirate/empire race) is by itself such a huge improvement.

Thanks guys, your work is appreciated.      

[The_Infiltrator]

It would be very appreciated if a short new patch could be released to clear up the remaining 2 known issues; the first with the cloak and the second with fighters.

[Dogmatix!]

Yeah...I can't help but feel we're this close to taking care of two big issues with the SFC2 series...the cloak and fighters.  


What was it about the fighter-based disruptors?  They don't come out partially charged at all?  Then there's the thing with the fusion fighters...heheh...


I'd echo the sentiments of the others, though...I appreciate the game as is and I appreciate Dave's continued interest in following the issues and any past work he's done (and hopefully) future work he chooses to do.  It's very much appreciated.

 

[JMM]

Try going to a dead stop to cloak, equals instant death, no thanks, I'll play like before, no cloak, kudos to SFC3 guys for having a kickass cloak...  

[Cleaven]

Quote:
Try going to a dead stop to cloak, equals instant death, no thanks, I'll play like before, no cloak, kudos to SFC3 guys for having a kickass cloak...  

This is not true. I have been using the slow cloak game with some significant success.

ps  as for the SFC:TNG cloak you can take it with you because it is not as you describe either.  

[Remiak]

Hi,
Drall and I did some further test both on Gamespy and on a D2 OP server.
The experience we have obtain on these new tests is not the same as those mentionned by other testers nor is  it the ame as obtained in earlier test with player against AI..

The retain lock was not calculated well, and the issue was not a speed multiplication by a factor of 10...it was a automatic lost of lock even if the Rom ship cloaked at speed 31 range zero (rigth on top of the fed droner) the lock was still lost.

We wanted to see what were the effect of being cloaked while your opponent still has a lock on you....we were unable to produce a retain lock to a cloaked ship.
Granted the drones in flight had to go throuh a seperate validation to retain lock and would one by one disappear but the unit that fired them always lost lock (both ship the fed droner and the rom cloaker were played by humans in direct contact through Roger Wilco))

We could simply not create a situation were lock was maintained.
The cloak does not work has intended the equation should be
6- 4 - ecm shift +- range factor +- speed factor is equal or less than 3 means lost of lock (in the intended cloak it was less or equal to 1 to break lock).
In our tests we produced an equation with
6 -4 - 0 + 6 - 0 = 8 and lock was still lost?????

The cloak does not behave as presented in the specs, and not in a consistant manner, I had earlier missions where AI could fire scatter packs at me and they opened after the cloak was on and still hit me. Now impossible to reproduce with a live player.

Was lag producing a shifting effect and the lock was lost automatically in PvP?

Scarry as the cloak would now be too strong in PvP.

Thanks  

[3dot14]

Just to be clear, what consititutes Loss of Lock On in your test?

And what's your GSA handle? maybe we can hook up to verify it again.

[TarMinyatur]

Remiak, I've been telling you repeatedly that the cloak is 100% successful in breaking lock-ons to ships.  I've also stated that scatterpacks are immune to the retention check before they bloom.

[Scipio_66]

Quote:

We wanted to see what were the effect of being cloaked while your opponent still has a lock on you....we were unable to produce a retain lock to a cloaked ship.

You were testing the wrong thing.  The lock-on checks are only for seeking weapons already in the air.  The cloak has always (under all patches) broken the ship's lock on to you in 100% of all cases.  Launching new seeking weapons against a target that has already faded has never been possible outside of a flashcube effect.

-S'Cipio

[Lepton1]

Yes, can we please all get on the same page here???  Two lock-on checks.  One by the formula at time of full cloak.  If seekers pass this check, they continue to suffer second checks that work in an undocumented way as being cloaked MEANS loss of lock.  No further testing is needed.  It's confusing because it's contradictory i.e.  how could the seekers retain lock at one instance and then lose it a litle bit later, but that is how it works.  It is the multiplication factor.  Just remains to be seen if we can bribe David to fix it or not.   Think of the first lock on check as a mechanism for preventing people from cloaking too near and at too fast a speed to an enemy such that the enemy can maintain lock-on to hit the cloaker when his seekers are very near the target, not as a mechanism for checking whether the cloak has been successful.

[SPQR Drall]

We tested a few more things, mainly with SP.  In one instance it was weird to see a SP lauched pre-cloak engagement and blooming post cloak engagement with the cloaker being stopped.  The SP bloomed but the drones winked out immediatelly as they loss their lock;  we saw the blue tail, but not the drones themselves!

- The first check really doesn't change anything.  It rarely works and the condition in which it worked, cloak, E-decel, WW are that same as in the past, cloak- e-decel, ww.  The added check has no real inpact in PvP.

- The damage reduction is a good improvement.  A Rom XFF survived 6 heavy drones in one instance for example.  It will give an additional edge.

The new cloak is an improvement overall.  Against AI it will not do much difference, missions are too long with cloaker (KE, WE, Snipe) and Roms will continue playing KRCs, Novahawks and Tenders for campaigning against AI.

For PvP, are the improvement significant?  I am not sure.  It certainly the KE and the KVL a little better, but equal to their Kestrel and Hawks equivalents, I don't know.  It sure is a liyyle boon to the X-ships, if one plays them.

All in all, I think I get the impacts of the changes now.  As I said I am happy with them; I got improvement that I did not ask or expect, so it's all good from there!  In the end, are the changes enough to make cloak tactics survivable in PvP?  Probably not, but as a secondary system, the cloak got better and will help in some cases.  That has to be a good thing!

SPQR Drall

[Remiak]

Hi,
Yes you guys are absolutly right.
I guess the confusion may have been caused by the fact that some of the old players from the SFB time (I am one of them) even when told otherwise, always considered that unless self guidance is involved, if the drones keep comming towards the cloaked ship, that implied the controling ship had to know where to guide those drones. It is not the case as you guys have been saying.

Basically, I had stated that the cloak was forcing the fast moving units to slow to break lock and I was all wrong in that statement as I had not seperated lock for the hunting ship with lock for the seaking weapons.
I now alligned myself with all of you and would like to state that the new cloak is by far superior to the old one (even with the 10 multiplyer in it for speed).
You see, I do not mind if seaking weapons currently on map continue to target the cloaked ship, I can deal with them especially with a damage reduction in effect (I usually fly at high speed anyways and would get the maximum speed penality of 6 regardless that my speed is considered 31 or 310).

I would like to apologize to all for having pushed too hard in this. The issues with the cloak are only linked with seaking weapons already in flight, this is not an issue with a tactical impact important enough to make it such a big deal. Once more sorry.  

The remaining test should be done to evaluate how the range and ecm factors are affecting the lock retention for seaking weapons in flight. It was mentionned at one point that ecm did not help as intended, is that confirmed?

Remiak walking away towards a shady place  mutterring....getting all the facts before taking a position....not making assumptions based on another game...seaking weapons may keep lock while controlling ship has no lock..... getting head examined.....    

Thanks guys for your testing and patience.      

[Lepton1]

The reason why range and speed and ECM are not working as they should in the formula is that range and speed are mulitplied internally by 10 in the program, so if you are going speed 2 or higher essentially the first lockon check formula sees that as speed 20 and that comes out as a +6 for the speed factor.  Same goes for range.  Range 5 is 50.  That is also 6 for range factor. In this case they would cancel each other out and the result of the formula is 2 which retains lockon.  Essentially Dave forget to divide by 10 for those numbers.  Otherwise things would probably be working just right.  If you were to try to test the effects of ECM you would have to do weird tests at speed 1.2 or something or range .5, etc to make the formula work out right such that ECM would matter.

[Lepton1]

Quote:
First, the Formula:


      Retain Threshhold = Sensor(6) - (EW Defense Shift) - (Range Factor) + (Speed Factor) - 4



Next, some explanations of the components of that formula:


      Retain Threshhold: The number a the person trying to do a retain lock has to match or roll lower with a D6 (6-sided die). DavidF told the testers (I am one) that the dieroll would always be 2. (to make it a notch challenging to the cloaker, I guess)

      EW Defense Shift: Cloaker's defense shift, after the ECM, ECCM and squareroot calculations. (the Defense shift at the bottom left of the screen)

      Range Factor: A value decided on the range between the unit tracking and the cloaked ship.

      Speed Factor: Speed of the cloaked ship.





Now for the tables to figure out the Factors:
Range Factor:


      True Range <=> Range Factor
      0 <=> -1
      1-4 <=> 0
      5-10 <=> 1
      11-15 <=> 2
      16-20 <=> 3
      21-30 <=> 4
      31-40 <=> 5
      41+ <=> 6



Speed Adjustment Factor:


      Maneuver Rate <=> Speed Factor
      0 <=> -2
      1-4 <=> 0
      5-8 <=> 1
      9-12 <=> 2
      13-15 <=> 3
      16-17 <=> 4
      18 <=> 5
      19+ <=> 6

bump