Topic: Info on 2.5.4.12 cloak vs seeking weapons (Read 19948 times)

SPQR Drall · « **Reply #140 on:** August 14, 2003, 04:53:21 pm »

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 · « **Reply #141 on:** August 14, 2003, 06:11:12 pm »

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 · « **Reply #142 on:** August 14, 2003, 06:12:59 pm »

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 · « **Reply #143 on:** August 14, 2003, 07:57:47 pm »

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.

The_Infiltrator · « **Reply #147 on:** August 15, 2003, 07:35:09 am »

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! · « **Reply #148 on:** August 15, 2003, 10:07:45 am »

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 · « **Reply #149 on:** August 15, 2003, 05:28:46 pm »

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...

Remiak · « **Reply #151 on:** August 15, 2003, 09:51:17 pm »

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 · « **Reply #152 on:** August 15, 2003, 10:16:36 pm »

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 · « **Reply #153 on:** August 15, 2003, 10:37:20 pm »

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.

Lepton1 · « **Reply #155 on:** August 15, 2003, 10:53:02 pm »

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 · « **Reply #156 on:** August 16, 2003, 08:59:11 am »

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 · « **Reply #157 on:** August 16, 2003, 09:05:37 am »

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 · « **Reply #158 on:** August 16, 2003, 05:46:06 pm »

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.

News:

Topic: Info on 2.5.4.12 cloak vs seeking weapons (Read 19948 times) var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

SPQR Drall

JMM

JMM

Lepton1

EschelonOfJudgement

TarMinyatur

Remiak

The_Infiltrator

Dogmatix!

JMM

Cleaven

Remiak

3dot14

TarMinyatur

Scipio_66

Lepton1

SPQR Drall

Remiak

Lepton1

Lepton1

Topic: Info on 2.5.4.12 cloak vs seeking weapons (Read 19948 times)