Enable/disable stealth

[Agent327]

This thread is meant for Stealth discussion specifically, for Deon has proposed a button, allowing Stealth to be turned on/off. I've ported over some relevant posts from the Gameplay feedback thread.

Okay, I think that you just have to disable steath ships' movement on systems which are not yours. It's pretty easy to do.

Yes, I gathered as much, thanks. (Although that would kind of cripple the Darlok race bonus, I fear.) But right now I'm just playing v. 5.0 a bit, as it's finished.

How would it cripple? Just tell AI to disable cloak when they engage during war time, and players will do it by themselves. Pretty self-explanatory.

How would it cripple? Just tell AI to disable cloak when they engage during war time, and players will do it by themselves. Pretty self-explanatory.

Hm. What I meant was if I play the Darloks I sure won't decloak unless I choose to. But if it's coded like you suggest it might cripple Darlok as AI. Hm, actually I'm not at all sure, just a bit worried. (At any rate it should be tested before being implemented IMO). But seeing as this is the Gameplay feedback thread it probably deserves its own thread - to keep things supervisable.* (Didn't you mention this on one of the other threads as well?)

* Sorry, I get confused real easy...

Again, how would it cripple them if you tell them to decloak only when they want to attack a system?

 

[Agent327]

If the AI stealth is only disabled for attacking I see no real problems gamewise (but enetering a non-owned system isn't uncommon in peace time).

 

[Deon]

Actually I will test a different system for Darlok for my modmod.

You see, I am not really happy with the current tech tree, so I decided to rework it and some aspects as a modmod.

Techtree is under development right now.
Here's its spreadsheet (I will use a real MOO2 tech tree with some tweaks for Civ4 mechanics):

Spoiler :

Columns are "research fields" and they go from top to bottom.

Well, it was a bit offtopic. But while I developed it, I've launched MOO2 and started as Darlok. And do you remember how it worked? They were invisible while they were flying somewhere, but when they reached your systems you could see them approaching/attacking.

Thus, I recommend (and will implement) the following system:
Darlok ships are invisible when in an unowned space or on their owned territory. It means that long range scanners cannot notice them. But they should be visible on "bordered" territory which is obviously full of scanners, detectors and satellites.

I find it to be a pretty balanced decision. Also it would make no need to add AI and player limitations in such case.

 

[Agent327]

I see. Well, feel free. (If you want you start your own "Deon's MOO2Civ Minimod" thread, ofcourse.) With v. 5.0 (and before) you can only see Stealth ships with Scouts, I believe. But I see no real problem with an alternate Stealth system and/or tech tree. At any rate, I'm quite interested how this'll turn out.

 

[Deon]

I want to rework most mechanics back to their original MOO2 meaning.

I.e., when no ships on planet, spawn ground troops and make AI ships to bombard them; make Artemis System Net to damage enemy ships around the planet and lots of other things.

The reason why I want Darloks to work this way: 1) to keep their "starting" trait from being overpowered; 2) to let them benefit from Cloaking Device too (high Force Shields line tech btw).

I just want too many changes to make it a small module, thus I think I'd better start a modmod. I won't start a thread about it until it's complete, so don't worry .

 

[Deon]

By the way, here's a tech tree (lines come from top to bottom).

It took a while to make it...

http://i40.tinypic.com/264tk5i.png

It follows MOO2 tech tree 100% of the time (including tech costs and tiers).

 

[Deon]

Hey, I've found a cool thing. Look here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=351012&page=9

Resources on planets, which also provide benefits to planets! Now Artifact homeworld with tradeable artifacts is an easy to make (and other cool thing like Mrrshan mercenaries resource or Klakon workers resource). Yay!

You may want to merge it with 5.0, Jeelen.

Also, I've started to fill the biology line:

Spoiler :

 

[Agent327]

Thanks again. (I'd subscribed to that thread but then more or less forgot about it...)

Also: keep it up!

EDIT: If you find more resources, you can just post them on the Holo Market Channel thread started by tuxu (so they'll all be in the same spot).

 

[CyberChrist]

Maybe I am missing something obvious, but why would you ever choose to disengage your cloaking?

In my project cloaking devices are automatically disabled when a ship with cloaking is located on an owned star system (city) or starbase, but other than that I can't see any other reason for wanting to not be cloaked if you are able to be so.

Of course, if cloaked ships was to have a movement penalty or something like that then perhaps it would make sense.

 

[Deon]

To protect a tile.

 

[CyberChrist]

And the AI would be able to figure this out as well?

 

[CyberChrist]

You make a good point though, I think I will expand my own code to automatically disable cloaking whenever the Fortify command is given (and reactivate it on all other actions).

 

[Minor Annoyance]

The reason I made Darlok stealth the way it is, is because I didn't know how else to do it. I didn't know how to make a button to turn on/of stealth or how to make the AI use it and use it correctly. Also if it seems overpowered it's probably because the AI isn't using detection correctly. Adding UNITAI_CITY_SPECIAL as a possible AI script to scouts and probes and it should keep one in each city.
If the AI did keep enough detection units at cities then stealth ships would be detected on arrival but not on approach, like in the original game.
So I didn't really decide that this was the best way to do it, it was just the best way I knew how to make it. Any better ideas would also have to be doable by whoever else can do it.

 

[CyberChrist]

My project makes use of both XML and SDK modification for this. It doesn't really make use of the inferior standard Invisibility XML tag of individual units, but is rather controlled by promotions giving increasing cumulative stealth strength - and detection is in return controlled by the strength of similar Scanner promotions.

I have been toying with the idea to distribute the strength of stealthed ships to cover all units in a stack - reducing overall stealth strength for each ship in stack without (or lower) stealth strength.

This of course only makes sense when used in combination with the Ship Construction Design part of my project which will make ship construction (and design) function a lot more like original MoO2.


I guess I really ought to put together a thread revealing the full span of my project in detail sometime soon - heh.

 

[Agent327]

That'd be nice, yeah.