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.