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If anyone should have cloaking capabilities it would have to be an alien race. Ships that utilize organic life forms will have chemical compounds within the layers of the hull. Those sensitive chemicals can create pigments to blend into the environment automatically. Don't you think it would be more logical to choose that approach rather than genetically or mechanically engineering a cloaking device from scratch?
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I'll agree here. Possibly one or two sectors will be an alien race (when Itani/Serco/NT have ~30 home/core sectors) with gizmos and widgets, if you can win their favor. :)

/me drools at every single thing arolte has said here

lol

I like Arlote's idea too. But I'll point to my "cloaking and ten some thread" to fill out my idea. The other nations would have to get an equally powerful ship or technology.
http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=2497&page=1

arolte,

stop pointing out those figures, you know as well as we all know that they are far from accurate.

the population hight in itani = people that have multiple chars, people that have chars on blue. people that stopped playing on blue and went to red/gold but still keep their char about. And so on.

A lot of newbies that tried the game/test, didnt like it and just stopped playing or are keeping it for when it advances into a game in stead of the test.

cheers

PS: the valk will be balanced in the ned, not by attackforce, but by numbers. So please stop complaining about the valk.

Its not as if you hear me complaining about the usefullness of the prom and the maud. Which are compaired to any equivalent non special a lot better. a maud rules the atlas, a prom rules the wraith. If you dont think that a wraith is a nice ship, then change your playstyle. I do admit, that some combinations on a valk are actually a little to much "like the tripple sunflare", but for the rest they are good enough

cheers

PS: im still more in favor of lettign itanis have that closkingdevice but getting a 5 or 10 % hull cut on all their other normall ships. While serco gets a hull boost, but a speed cut.

But I do know, that that isnt for know, and maybe wont be in the real game, but I can dream cant I :D

in reply to rene's post:

no. a cloaking device for a single nation? no. just... NO.
we could have different types of devices, ok. like, faint radar sig, but invisible to the "naked eye", or no radar sig at all, but visible when seen otherwise, or no sig and only visible to certain sensors (think night vision).

in reply to kochanski:
the power down feature sounds cool. it wouldn't really allow for camping (ships take time to power up again, you could make that depending on mass or size).
also, it would stop typekills by persons who travel through space just to get the odd +1 in the statistics.

in reply to arolte:
the organic ship thingy is nice. also, more "probable" than a cloaking device as a manufactured gizmo itself.
i'd like to point towards Escape Velocity: Nova (again), there's an alien race that are actually ships. Also, the Polaris (a faction in the game) build their ships around the stuff (actually, they let them grow a skin/body around the non-organic parts).
i think you had something similar in mind. if not, i'll stand corrected.

Would a cloaking device in space really be that hard to implemenet? All you need to do is put a mirror on the outside of the ship and you would get something like an active camoflauge. I have some pics of the frigate being completely reflective like that and it would be really hard to see if not for its massive size. Of course, this would be more like an active camoflauge than a cloak. Or you could the entire ship coated in nanites. Some take a picture and display it on other nanites on the opposite side of the ship (that's why they're so valuable). Not too hard to do really.

this idea was employed in a book called MoonWar, where a scientist made the first invisibility suit by covering it with nanocameras that showed exactly what was on the other side of the suit in perfect clarity, no distortions, so it looked like nothing was there until u ran into it.

There is a guy in Ft. Lauderdale who has cameras on the back of his house and a bunch of screens on the front. If you look at it from the road (which is about a mile away from his house) it looks just like part of the coastline. It isn't perfect, since you notice it when you get closer, but it is there, and in the future with all the flexible screens and mini-cameras a feasable system for active camoflauge could be a reality within our lifetimes.

can you get me a pic of that house? that would be cool

I have not seen it, only read about it in a tourism brochoure when I visited. I don't think they would put his address on there since whoever would do something like that obviously values his privacy.

Your multi-ship thing confuses me but I agree with the general concept.

Have seperate stealth (anti-radar) and cloaking (anti-visual) devices/methods.

I say going to passive radar should act as stealth in that ppl can only lock/see on players list from 250m or closer. Shutting down your ship disables all fuctions but makes you un-targetable. Special stealth systems would reduce NME lock range without hindering your ablility to lock.

Cloaking could come in 2 flavors:
active camo (ship recolors to match surroudings)
translucent (ship becomes see-thru)

I have to warn the devs that translucent cloak would be negated by grafics cards that do not support transparency.

Actually, the gfx card wouldn't matter. If it can run vendetta, it can do alpha blending.

the idea of the multi-ship is that the clocking device wont be available to all ships, only the frigates. that way a single fighter wont have the ability to clock, only the frigates and give all the ships in a sertain range from the frigate to be clocked.
it's not logical that a single fighter/trader ship will have the ability to clock himslef because a clocking device should take alot of energy to activate. it is the perfect way to make surprise attacks.
cheers :)

You mean like the Arbiter in Starcraft? It cloaks everyone around it, but not itself.

I'll opine on the powering-down bit:

When you power down, your radar sig is much reduced. At whatever range, your sig on an enemy's radar appears just under the 3000m mark (very, very faint), and your distance is not able to be determined. Whatever lights on the outside of your ship are dimmed as well (thinking with the rglow stuff here). In a crowded sector, you could easily sneak past, while still visible, under the careless eye of a watcher.

no, it clocks it self and every one around it in a diameter of let's say 500m....

Cloaking should NOT work while not standing still or moving really slow.
I think cloaking should cut the power to the ship.

Cloaking setup:
1 cloaking pod in my S weapons bay or some sort of equipment bay
1 cloaking battery (chargerate of 20/sec, maxes at 800, 40 secs to recharge)
1 cloaking engine (REALLY slow, cannot boost, but leaves no heat signature and does not glow)

Starting the cloak requires 800 energy. Maintaining the cloak requires 20/sec.

Hitting a cloaked ship overloads the cloaking pod, causing it to blow up. This will damage the ship and the sneaky soab won't be able to cloak again until he can afford and fit another pod.
Because of the cloak field and the low-energy engine the cloaked ship only shows up on radar while moving and missiles and aimbotted weapons become rockets and standard weapons.

Here's the downside: If someone targets you while you're moving or not cloaked the targeting STAYS ON when you cloak.

About the "in a thousand years cloaking will be easy" comments:
In a thousand years sensors will be soo good that cloaking will be HARD.

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About the "in a thousand years cloaking will be easy" comments:
In a thousand years sensors will be soo good that cloaking will be HARD.
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right you are. one should never consider a closed system, if predicting for longer intervals of time (i did that too... shame on me).

YAH!!, this is DA BOMB

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hehe FM