Cloaking devices or stealth ships?

[Nemarus]

I strongly suspect that the initial burst damage dealt by these classes (especially their one shot burst tricks) were designed to specifically not be adequate to kill a strike, but reasonable against scouts if they could target them. It was way too early to tell, but based on the descriptions of the weapons and ships that weren't released, it seems like infiltrators would have been pretty great versus gunships, solid versus any scout they could sneak up on (which presumably wouldn't be a lot of them), largely useless versus bombers, and generally countered by strikes.

 

I'm not entirely sure... but that really did sound like the intent. I think the lack of infiltrators actually shifted the meta, because they were supposed to be something that strikes preyed upon. Something that specifically has weapons that can't ownface a strike, while also not having great missile break access, nor auto-winning a turning war...

 

 

Everyone talks about these things like they are scouts with stealth. That was very clearly not their intent. I suspect that strikes position on the bottom of the pool is in part due to the lack of release of this class.

 

 

 

 

Just like bombers, gunships, and scouts. Aka, people complain about the good ships, which is a lot of them.

 

 

I do agree that the burst damage can turn off new players, and I think that a poorly implemented infiltrator would be ruinous. But, that's only a poorly implemented one.

 

If I recall correctly, the Infiltrator's flight characteristics were similar to Strikes. The reason I think they would dominate Strikes is because Strikes, unlike Scouts, are usually moving around pretty slowly. They cannot afford to boost casually. An Infiltrator, assuming it can boost while stealthed, can thus get close to a Strike with no problem. Would it be able to one-shot a Strike with its surprise attack? Maybe, maybe not. But if it is supposed to be able to one-shot a Gunship (whose defenses are only very slightly smaller than a Strike), then I think so.

 

Remember also that all of the Infiltrators had "disabling weapons". We eont know how all of these worked, but we do know that Strikes are the most vulnerable to existing "disabling weapons".

 

Strikes are best at mid-range combat against slow moving targets. I don't see how that works against a foe that sneaks up on you and attacks at short range. Even if the Strike survives the initial alpha strike, it will already be half dead. In order to win against the Infiltrator at that point, it needs to either be able to gain distance on the Infiltrator or win a turning war. I don't recall evidence of either being possible.

 

It seems far more likely that Scouts are the intended anti-Infiltrator. They even have two components which specifically have anti-Stealth abilities. And they move far too fast, casually, for an Infiltrator to sneak up on. I suspect it would work much like the Gunship-Scout dynamic today. If the Infiltrator hits with its surprise alpha strike, it is likely to win. If it doesn't, then the Scout will own it.

 

What's really interesting to me is that if you put a Stealth drive on any of the existing Strikes, it would immediately make them relevant in the meta--especially if missiles could be locked on silently while in stealth! Imagine locking on, in silence, with a thermite torpedo. Close to short range, fire (which causes you to uncloak), watch your thermite hit, and then melt through the target with any weapon--even rapids.

 

Or alternatively, attack like a normal Strike and save the cloak for defense and escape.

 

Mid-range Strike combat actually becomes a lot more viable with stealth, especially if missiles could silently lock on. And it wouldn't break the game. It would be a moderate buff to Strikes, would give them protection against Gunships, and would give them a singular (but not overpowered role). I'd put the stealth component on Shield, personally. That way none of the three Strikes lose their defining system ability.

Edited February 22, 2015 by Nemarus

[Ramalina]

I could see a slow, snaring, low DPS stealth ship having a reasonable place in the meta.

 

You use stealth to position rather than boost, so it's possible to give up speed and boost endurance. This also limits how productive you can be. Very typical of Rogue-style RPG mechanics where stealthing significantly slows movement speed.

 

Once in postion, snare the target. Interdiction missile, a system ability that's a buffed version of lockdown, that sort of thing. Upgrades that severely penalize evasion and/or armor based defenses.

 

Then low DPS short range weapons, combined with (at least temporary) high turn rate. Or possibly decent DPS but niche weapons like Ion Missile or Ion Cannons as secondary weapons.

 

The playstyle being, sneak up, snare, kill slowly but with minor advantages against evasion and armor.

 

Gunships would loathe this, scouts would loathe it but only rarely get caught, bombers probably wouldn't mind that much, and strikes would detest it mostly because it would pretty much guarantee that a scout or GS would kill them every time they were snared.

 

With decent shields and a CP defensive option this might be a decent antidote to bomber-balls. After significant tweaks probably, but this should outline the general idea.

 

The problems are that it's weak in general play, and it's basically a stun-lock Rogue playstyle which is almost universally detested by those on the receiving end.

 

Stealth is tricky, because it is potentially an offensive, defensive, and positional ability all at the same time. By itself though, it doesn't create a monster. For that you have to combine it with other traits.

 

Still the example above is meant to illustrate that if you cripple a stealth ship badly enough in other areas it doesn't have to be OP, and while the range of easily balanced playstyles might not be great, they might be useful and perhaps even interesting.

 

 

Not sure how much I like the stealth strike idea, but as a T5 upgrade for torpedoes:

 

Passive Seeker: Locking the torpedo does not generate a warning tone in the targeted ship until the torpedo launches.

 

would be a very interesting option.

Edited February 22, 2015 by Ramalina

[RickDagles]

I'm very disappointed that stealth ships never made it into the game. I think they should be set up in such a way that they hard counter the powerful railgun drone + gunship combo. Currently you can counter that with a scout ONLY if you have a gunship teamate on voice comm and he's shooting drones for you. Otherwise hull attrition gets to you before you can really create much of a dent in the gunships. Damage overcharge helps obviously. But it takes a lot more skill to counter the GS bomber ball than it does to set it up. It would also be nice if the devs gave us a reason to use missile drone or interdiction sentry drone (outside of the T3 bomber). Perhaps those drones could have automatic stealth detection but the railgun wouldn't be able to detect stealth.

 

I agree that it seems like Scouts were meant to be the counter to stealth ships. Targetting telemetry is a choice on all three scout types. They're also the ships with the most sensor stuff.

 

 

Scout counters Stealth and GS

GS counters Bombers and Strikes

Bombers counter Scout and Stealth

 

I think Strikes were supposed to be the ship that was OK against any ship. But the devs failed to realize how debilitation ion railgun would be.

Edited February 23, 2015 by RickDagles

[havokhead]

Ya and the T1 scout's sensor beacon could also have a detection/de-cloaking function against the infiltrator class ships

[Caernos]

There are a couple of different components they could tweak to affect stealth ships. There's TT already, and yes, they could definitely add a anti-cloaking field on the sensor beacon. They could also tweak EMP and EMP missile so that if a stealth ship is caught in the blast it's cloak fails.

 

Of course it would be great if they did that and fixed EMPs current problems at the same time too.

[Kuciwalker]

haha, I can't wait for all the Gunship defenders telling others to l2p coming back in a few months complaining about stealthers sneaking behind them and killing them.

 

Enjoy your 1shots whilst you can, Gunship pilots

 

We already have ships that can easily sneak up on us and burst us down in less than two seconds: they're called battlescouts.

 

Why would we have anything extra to fear from a stealth ship?

[Bolo_Yeung]

We already have ships that can easily sneak up on us and burst us down in less than two seconds: they're called battlescouts.

 

Why would we have anything extra to fear from a stealth ship?

 

For tunnel visioned or plainly blind GS pilots, thats for sure - but paying attention to red triangles on your screen will prevent that 'sneak' kills. At least most of the time.

 

However, I would like to see stealth ships role as a very low damage-capable , but with serious crippling ability - like EMP field, ion cannon, (stealth componentshould be a shield IMHO) maybe interdiction/ion mines - a ship that isn't capable of doing much (hull) damage by itself but can do really good distraction ,,, and wear off shields - then cloak and hide