Cloak - Why Long Range Directional Detection of cloaked ships is NEEDED

[Archived Post]

Federation: " If we come out of the Fed Ball we are toast. I just know there is a huge invisible fleet just waiting to pounce on me. Since we have NO REAL CHANCE of going on the offensive we will just huddle behind our mines and overlapping fields of fire and hope the Klingons attack soon so we can get on with the match. I was in a match once where no Klingons attacked us for more than 10 minutes! They are GRIEFERS! This is boring. I can't wait for Fed vs. Fed PvP."

Klingon: "We have to wait until we are ready and only then take the fight to the Federation ships because once we engage in the fight we are at a slight disadvantage. Why won't those cowards leave the ball? Go with the prescribed target priority. Escorts, then Science vessels, then cruisers. Run buffs and snare counters, alpha strike, focus fire. Next. When things get too hot disengage and cloak. Rinse and repeat. Those Feds should learn to play and it will get better for them."

Is this what you want for faction PvP? It is what I see and hear now all too often. This is going to lead to a ridiculous nerf to the cloak or Fed vs. Fed PvP. PvP match timers would only encourage poor tactics.

There should be a way to ACTIVELY hunt for cloaked ships in your zone. Definitely not to reveal them but at least determine what direction the closest one is in for long range detection beyond 10km. Something along the lines of the anomaly scan effect pointing out the direction - but taking up a BO skill slot and having a modestly long cool-down. Many Klingons think this would unfairly nerf cloaking. It would not and in many cases would cause disadvantages for the Federation fleet.

This would NOT imbalance in favor of the Federation because you would still need to close in order to reveal. It would actually loosen up the Fed ball and give the Feds an option for a more active role in what is now for them a "waiting game" PvP. The best case cloak detection range is about 10km with a fully specialized science vessel. In my proposed active directional scan you get feedback indicating the closest Klingon is in "that" direction but haven't detected it. Now you would need to close quickly in their direction to either reveal with your sensor scan or drop a charged particle burst. Another option is to triangulate but each ship scanning could be closer to different Klingons.. and they just split up to better triangulate their scans.

Effectively closing quickly for the chance to reveal will either use an engine battery/evasive maneuvers or a quick full impulse to make a hop and scan/drop a charged particle burst. All the Feds will need to try and stick fairly close or they are going to see the scanner ship get jacked. The Klingons can still avoid with modest effort and this may even lead to an advantageous attack situation for the Klingons but at least the Federation gets an active option to beat the cloak stagnation which is going to drive many potential PvP players right out of the game.

This gives the Feds an option to come out of the Fed ball if they want to attempt to force a confrontation. If they are aggressive with it, their energy levels might be coming back up after a full impulse hop or with evasive maneuvers and engine batteries on cooldown etc. In addition, taking this as a skill will remove a heal/buff/debuff skill from at least one of their ships further evening the odds during the actual confrontation.

STO is billed as a "casual" MMO". It has short-attention-span lack of death penalty and nearly instant respawn. Now you want one entire faction in PvP - the one in which many of the players are coming fresh from fairly easy instant gratification PvE - to sit.. and wait.. for the enemy to attack!?!

Nuts.

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i belive theres somthing like this already its a sci skill ive seen feds sci ships use on occasion that will shoot a blue pulse at all kligon ships in visual range. it does not decloak them but gives the feds an idea where kligons are but only seldom is it used.

[Archived Post]

i belive theres somthing like this already its a sci skill ive seen feds sci ships use on occasion that will shoot a blue pulse at all kligon ships in visual range. it does not decloak them but gives the feds an idea where kligons are but only seldom is it used.

Probably seeing the science captain's space ability "Sensor Scan"? It lowers the damage resistance of all enemy ships in the area of the target or yourself and boosts your perception. I believe that effect you see is the debuff targeting the DR of the enemies even if cloaked. With the cool-down on it and it's short range it cannot effectively be used to triangulate or chase Klingons more than 10km away. I am looking for a better tool to promote hide and seek rather that sit and wait.

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As a Klink, here are my observations. (And I'm assuming you're talking about deathmatch here, because hiding in cloak will lose you the cap&hold maps)


The Fedball huddles at their spawn point. They expect instant action, even when the Klinks have to motorboat across the whole map, get into position, wait for their energy to recharge, wait for the other Klinks to zone in and find the fedball, group up, call targets....Playing as a Klink takes preparation and effort, otherwise they will be instantly obliterated by the feds every time.

It takes 2-3 minutes (I've never seen 10, ever) just to zone in, traverse the map, regen, get positioned, etc. Usually the Feds start complaining at around 2 minutes.

The feds don't have a slight advantage, they have a significant advantage. And it takes organization/preparation and smart play in order for Klingons to be competitive.


There are plenty of times the Feds are at fault for drawing the map out. Feds who motorboat straight up to the top of the map. Ok, a few things here about that "brilliant strategy"...first, you're going to make it difficult for the Klinks to find you. Timewasting. Second, it takes forever to get up there. Timewasting. So if you don't want a 5-minute reset after each fight, don't be cute and hang out at the top of the mountain.



Just because you get Feddybears that expect instant pewpew isn't going to make it happen. Once you do get FvF, you're going to have two Fedballs at each spawn, each slowboating across the map. Yeah, you guys enjoy that.

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How bout a sensor grid like in the TNG episode they make a network of sensors between the fleet to stop the Romulans. Make it take 100 aux power and to link up with other ships

If you get caught between 2 of the ships running the grid you are visible but not decloaked, so a science ship would have to blast you with that 'marker' ability that drops you out of cloak and prevents recloaking

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Probably seeing the science captain's space ability "Sensor Scan"? It lowers the damage resistance of all enemy ships in the area of the target or yourself and boosts your perception. I believe that effect you see is the debuff targeting the DR of the enemies even if cloaked. With the cool-down on it and it's short range it cannot effectively be used to triangulate or chase Klingons more than 10km away. I am looking for a better tool to promote hide and seek rather that sit and wait.

no its not sensor scan completely different effect and ive seen Klingon use sensor scan bc it works as a debuff
but ive not seen Klingon use this other skill

it shoots the same blue globs that the reflect energy weapon dmg skill does but it only fire once and heads towards every kligon in visual range and hits those within 10 km cloaked or not

[Archived Post]

As a Klink, here are my observations. (And I'm assuming you're talking about deathmatch here, because hiding in cloak will lose you the cap&hold maps)

The Fedball huddles at their spawn point. They expect instant action, even when the Klinks have to motorboat across the whole map, get into position, wait for their energy to recharge, wait for the other Klinks to zone in and find the fedball, group up, call targets....Playing as a Klink takes preparation and effort, otherwise they will be instantly obliterated by the feds every time.

It takes 2-3 minutes (I've never seen 10, ever) just to zone in, traverse the map, regen, get positioned, etc. Usually the Feds start complaining at around 2 minutes.

The feds don't have a slight advantage, they have a significant advantage. And it takes organization/preparation and smart play in order for Klingons to be competitive.

There are plenty of times the Feds are at fault for drawing the map out. Feds who motorboat straight up to the top of the map. Ok, a few things here about that "brilliant strategy"...first, you're going to make it difficult for the Klinks to find you. Timewasting. Second, it takes forever to get up there. Timewasting. So if you don't want a 5-minute reset after each fight, don't be cute and hang out at the top of the mountain.

Just because you get Feddybears that expect instant pewpew isn't going to make it happen. Once you do get FvF, you're going to have two Fedballs at each spawn, each slowboating across the map. Yeah, you guys enjoy that.

So as a Klingon do you think a cloak "direction finder" would enhance the match for all players or make it too tough for you? You really didn't give your opinion on my proposal. I understand all of your observations as to why things can drag on but the truth is that unless the Federation has an active option things will continue to get worse -especially for deathmatch games. The Fed Ball is their best option as things stand. It is boring. Their outcry will lead to crap like cloak getting nerfed so that all cloaks are useless within 10km. ..and do you want to see escort-only fleets zooming around with a insta-detect? Or match timers?

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One reason the Federation group doesn't move around much, is because there's no reason whatsoever to do so. We can't really hunt you down, and there's no map layout that allows the defenders to force the attackers to bottleneck in a certain location. There's just no incentive to move, for all we know we'll just end up getting farther away from wherever it is you've moved to.

Usually the Feds start complaining at around 2 minutes.
What? I've never seen anyone complain about the match not starting by the 2 minute mark. Not one single time, and that's including during beta.

All they need to do to fix this problem, imo, is implement a timer that will negatively affect your team score for sitting around cloaked for too long. Something like; if there's no combat for X amount of time, the Klingon team starts getting deaths added to its counter. The penalty would be for the Klingon team simply because the ball is in their court - the only way the Federation ever gets the first strike is if a Klingon gets careless and strays close enough to his/her enemies before being properly prepared.

Of course, such a timer shouldn't be too short; there should be enough time allowance for a quick strategy/target order discussion + repositioning as necessary. But sitting around for 15 minutes without a single shot being fired is just silly.

As for KvK...I guess the penalized team would either have to be random, or just end the match in a draw or something.

The OP's suggestion of long-range cloak detection is pretty good, in my opinion, but I also think it'd be quite difficult to balance. If it's not good enough, then we just end up in the same position we're in now; but if it's too good, we end up with Klingons just skipping over cloak all together.

All that said, long delays before/between combats aren't usually that big of a problem, but I still think a fairly generous time limit is a good idea.

[Archived Post]

no its not sensor scan completely different effect and ive seen Klingon use sensor scan bc it works as a debuff
but ive not seen Klingon use this other skill

it shoots the same blue globs that the reflect energy weapon dmg skill does but it only fire once and heads towards every kligon in visual range and hits those within 10 km cloaked or not

It would be better to point to the closest enemy and extend WAY MORE than 10km.

[Archived Post]

Care to clarify on what "way more" means?

[Archived Post]

Federation: " If we come out of the Fed Ball we are toast. I just know there is a huge invisible fleet just waiting to pounce on me. Since we have NO REAL CHANCE of going on the offensive we will just huddle behind our mines and overlapping fields of fire and hope the Klingons attack soon so we can get on with the match. I was in a match once where no Klingons attacked us for more than 10 minutes! They are GRIEFERS! This is boring. I can't wait for Fed vs. Fed PvP."

Klingon: "We have to wait until we are ready and only then take the fight to the Federation ships because once we engage in the fight we are at a slight disadvantage. Why won't those cowards leave the ball? Go with the prescribed target priority. Escorts, then Science vessels, then cruisers. Run buffs and snare counters, alpha strike, focus fire. Next. When things get too hot disengage and cloak. Rinse and repeat. Those Feds should learn to play and it will get better for them."

Is this what you want for faction PvP? It is what I see and hear now all too often. This is going to lead to a ridiculous nerf to the cloak or Fed vs. Fed PvP. PvP match timers would only encourage poor tactics.

There should be a way to ACTIVELY hunt for cloaked ships in your zone. Definitely not to reveal them but at least determine what direction the closest one is in for long range detection beyond 10km. Something along the lines of the anomaly scan effect pointing out the direction - but taking up a BO skill slot and having a modestly long cool-down. Many Klingons think this would unfairly nerf cloaking. It would not and in many cases would cause disadvantages for the Federation fleet.

This would NOT imbalance in favor of the Federation because you would still need to close in order to reveal. It would actually loosen up the Fed ball and give the Feds an option for a more active role in what is now for them a "waiting game" PvP. The best case cloak detection range is about 10km with a fully specialized science vessel. In my proposed active directional scan you get feedback indicating the closest Klingon is in "that" direction but haven't detected it. Now you would need to close quickly in their direction to either reveal with your sensor scan or drop a charged particle burst. Another option is to triangulate but each ship scanning could be closer to different Klingons.. and they just split up to better triangulate their scans.

Effectively closing quickly for the chance to reveal will either use an engine battery/evasive maneuvers or a quick full impulse to make a hop and scan/drop a charged particle burst. All the Feds will need to try and stick fairly close or they are going to see the scanner ship get jacked. The Klingons can still avoid with modest effort and this may even lead to an advantageous attack situation for the Klingons but at least the Federation gets an active option to beat the cloak stagnation which is going to drive many potential PvP players right out of the game.

This gives the Feds an option to come out of the Fed ball if they want to attempt to force a confrontation. If they are aggressive with it, their energy levels might be coming back up after a full impulse hop or with evasive maneuvers and engine batteries on cooldown etc. In addition, taking this as a skill will remove a heal/buff/debuff skill from at least one of their ships further evening the odds during the actual confrontation.

STO is billed as a "casual" MMO". It has short-attention-span lack of death penalty and nearly instant respawn. Now you want one entire faction in PvP - the one in which many of the players are coming fresh from fairly easy instant gratification PvE - to sit.. and wait.. for the enemy to attack!?!

Nuts.


Fine - I want a collision detection torpedo AoE knockback to scatter a fedball.

See? I can do it too :D

[Archived Post]

One reason the Federation group doesn't move around much, is because there's no reason whatsoever to do so. We can't really hunt you down, and there's no map layout that allows the defenders to force the attackers to bottleneck in a certain location. There's just no incentive to move, for all we know we'll just end up getting farther away from wherever it is you've moved to.

This is what I am referring to.. The Federation - if given the opportunity - will attempt to hunt Klingons. Most every Federation player would jump at the chance to be active in hunting down hidden Klingons. Some would do it well. Many would not do it well and die. Either way they have something to do other than wait. Let them take a skill to let them know in what direction lies the closest Klingon.

[Archived Post]

So as a Klingon do you think a cloak "direction finder" would enhance the match for all players or make it too tough for you? You really didn't give your opinion on my proposal. I understand all of your observations as to why things can drag on but the truth is that unless the Federation has an active option things will continue to get worse -especially for deathmatch games. The Fed Ball is their best option as things stand. It is boring. Their outcry will lead to crap like cloak getting nerfed so that all cloaks are useless within 10km. ..and do you want to see escort-only fleets zooming around with a insta-detect? Or match timers?


I wouldn't have a problem with a direction finder, but it would be mostly useless. First of all, while cloaked i could just motorboat around at FI and you couldn't catch me even if you had a directionfinder. It would probably increase Fed anxiety while clustered in the ball, which could be fun. The scene in Aliens comes to mind... "We've got movement all over the place!"

And yes, the Fedball is the proper defensive response and the right way to play as Feds.


Klink players play hit and run with cloak. They play as designed. And some Feds whine about them.
Fed players play in a fedball with mutual support and overlapped fields of fire. They play as designed. And some Klinks whine about them.

As far as I can see, everything is working as designed.


I also am an advocate for match timers, I think they're needed because as it stands now it's far too easy to sit at a stalemate which is no fun for anyone.

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you misunderstand the blue glob heads twards all enamy ships in visual range 28km thus pointing the direct they are in but only if they are within 10km does the blue glob hit them and how you where they are when i can get in game latter i will atempt to deterime the name of this skill

as for match timers im against them
in teir 4 during beta we had some games that lasted an hour not bc one side was trying to find some cloaked guy but becuase both sides had leanred by then hwo to play there faction

we had galaxys and vorchas healing bop/sci ships defbuffing and raptors/definants dpsing and trying to not die all in all where great games but with a timer you can garentee it wont be that long and less fun and entertanment(you know for playing a game) will be had

[Archived Post]

Care to clarify on what "way more" means?

Far enough so that at about the distance you could normally detect them you get their direction.

[Archived Post]

you misunderstand the blue glob heads twards all enamy ships in visual range 28km thus pointing the direct they are in but only if they are within 10km does the blue glob hit them and how you where they are when i can get in game latter i will atempt to deterime the name of this skill

Please do update me on this. I haven't played a science ship or captain since the beta (That sounds a bit odd - like almost a WHOLE WEEK AGO is such a lifetime) but don't remember ever coming across this skill. I would feel a bit foolish for lobbying for something in the game already but I will gladly eat crow if it is something I overlooked. I will park my Klingon and get a Federation group together to try the skill if it pans out.

[Archived Post]

As a Klingon player, I wouldn't mind seeing this request implemented this way:

The scan function now detects cloaked ships.
The scan function has a 1 minute cooldown.
The scan function displays "Cloaked enemy nearby!" without a directional indicator if within 10km.
The scan function gives a directional indicator of the closest cloaked ship if further than 10km.

Which after reading the last post sounds like something already works this way, only with the exception that the scan would be a skill?

[Archived Post]

I wouldn't have a problem with a direction finder, but it would be mostly useless. First of all, while cloaked i could just motorboat around at FI and you couldn't catch me even if you had a directionfinder. It would probably increase Fed anxiety while clustered in the ball, which could be fun. The scene in Aliens comes to mind... "We've got movement all over the place!"

You are correct in that a direction finder alone would not necessarily help. In beta I was looking at about 10km detection on cloaks when sensor scanning and specialized for that job. Not sure if there have been changes to it since. That 10km alone but especially paired with Charged Particle Burst would at least have some chance of chasing down a cloaked vessel.

It could spoil the "perfect attack" if done when the Klingons are not quite ready. It could also cause the Feds to divert resources from spider tanking and whittle down their advantage from the cruiser clump to get back to a more diversified skill battle. I don't mean "L2P player skill" but skill vs. counterskill. Also correct that the Fed Ball is sound tactics given the current environment.. but it is not much fun.

[Archived Post]

As a Klink, here are my observations. (And I'm assuming you're talking about deathmatch here, because hiding in cloak will lose you the cap&hold maps)


The Fedball huddles at their spawn point. They expect instant action, even when the Klinks have to motorboat across the whole map, get into position, wait for their energy to recharge, wait for the other Klinks to zone in and find the fedball, group up, call targets....Playing as a Klink takes preparation and effort, otherwise they will be instantly obliterated by the feds every time.

It takes 2-3 minutes (I've never seen 10, ever) just to zone in, traverse the map, regen, get positioned, etc. Usually the Feds start complaining at around 2 minutes.

The feds don't have a slight advantage, they have a significant advantage. And it takes organization/preparation and smart play in order for Klingons to be competitive.


There are plenty of times the Feds are at fault for drawing the map out. Feds who motorboat straight up to the top of the map. Ok, a few things here about that "brilliant strategy"...first, you're going to make it difficult for the Klinks to find you. Timewasting. Second, it takes forever to get up there. Timewasting. So if you don't want a 5-minute reset after each fight, don't be cute and hang out at the top of the mountain.



Just because you get Feddybears that expect instant pewpew isn't going to make it happen. Once you do get FvF, you're going to have two Fedballs at each spawn, each slowboating across the map. Yeah, you guys enjoy that.

I badly quote this.

I find that people keeps whining about things (in almost every game.. i'd say, in almost everything in real life too.) while they don't understand how things work and they lose

If one strategy doesnt work try another

I hardly think develpers were so blind to not balance the cloaking factor.

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I would like to see cloak buffed so that when you cloak it breaks torpedo locks, as it stands it takes entirely to long to cloak and the window to get absolutely hammered by fire is to long. BoPs are already paper thin the Fedrats don't need 3 or 4 seconds of free for all time.

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I don't want to derail your thread, and I'm not saying that your idea doesn't have merit, but what about if the klingon side gets fleshed out a bit, so that the Gorn, Orion and Nausicans have their own ships instead of everyone in Klingon ships as it is currently. Then at least there wouldn't be one side that's fully cloaked. (Assuming the other races ships are balanced enough to compensate for the lack of a cloaking device).

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Auto-Fire has to go. Then the feds won't ball, and pvp will happen.

[Archived Post]

Fine - I want a collision detection torpedo AoE knockback to scatter a fedball.

See? I can do it too :D

Scramble Sensors works well for a few moments of confusion. Try flying into the middle of the Fed Ball and use the Photonic Shockwave Lt Cmdr skill.. ;) Ride the bomb like Major Kong :D

Seriously though folks - please give feedback on my suggestion for a "Nearest Enemy Direction Finder" skill to help enhance the stagnant deathmatch PvP. There are many other suggestions and complaints.. give them their own thread and talk about them there please.

[Archived Post]

As a Klink, here are my observations. (And I'm assuming you're talking about deathmatch here, because hiding in cloak will lose you the cap&hold maps)



This is probably one of the most important points mentioned here. the "apparent" advantages of Cloaking devices are good in certain situation not in ALL situations.

Yes it can offer an advantage in a straight up Duel (what Arenas really are)... but not in other scenarios such as Cap&hold and I imagine some other PvP related areas of the game.

Think about it, anything that involves Klingons wining by fighting requires them to decloak and fight like everyone else.

Some combat scenarios involve the Klingon being defensive some the feds being defensive, we cannot put everything in the same basket here.

I played many Cap&hold matches yesterday and we had some great fights, and Feds tend to win them most of the time, while Klingons tend to win Arenas, that says something..it says that in reality the mechanics of the game are indeed balanced, but both sides have strengths and weaknesses, and some situations give the advantage to the feds while others to the klingons and coupled with relative novelty and lack of experience if you happen to be on the side that does not have the advantage to begin with, it may seem that the other side is simply over powered...but that is just an illusion depending on the circumstances.

I had the opportunity to do many one on one's yesterday during these cap&hold, and while there are some Klingons that have full offensive configurations and take one of your shield sides down in 2 volleys only, overall the ships and the game is pretty balanced...It was challenging not overpowering. the moment you get 2 on you that is when its over however I think this is the same with any game.

What this game needs desperately, is something else, it needs a mechanism that Auto Parties people when they come in the PvP matches.

Specially the Arena if you are not in a team, you can;t see anyone not even your own side, so you motor to look for other feds and you fall upon the cloaked Klingons which of course, 5 vs 1, you are not going to last long, as this is not really like PVE where the AI is tuned down, this is full Damage potential.

Remember Starbase 24 however, if you ever got locked by all three Megh Var Battleships and their escorts..you did not last long either no matter what you did...it happened to most..and most taste their first explosion in that mission too..but it teaches one to be more aware and careful after that.

Same deal here in PVP.

Therefore I do not think we need a way to Detect Cloaked Ships with anything more than exists already in the game. besides, it is how it is supposed to be, it is Trek...

"I can see you Kirk, can you see me?" ~ General Chang, ST VI: The undiscovered Country

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So does the whining about Romulan Battle cloaking for all their ships start now or after they are released ? I'm just curious at this point . The up roar about Klingons will be nothing to what's to come . If you can't handle Klingon battle cloak of one specific ship , imagine a race that all the ships are capable of it ?

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[QUOTE=Wheem;1896591All they need to do to fix this problem, imo, is implement a timer that will negatively affect your team score for sitting around cloaked for too long. Something like; if there's no combat for X amount of time, the Klingon team starts getting deaths added to its counter. The penalty would be for the Klingon team simply because the ball is in their court - the only way the Federation ever gets the first strike is if a Klingon gets careless and strays close enough to his/her enemies before being properly prepared.
[/QUOTE]

I think this is a bad idea. I will tell you why: it is too easily exploitable and it only negatively impacts one side. What would happen if a group of federation people all stock up on MES then then full impulse to the lower most corner of the map, deliberately away from everything. This would not allow the klingons, who would then have to hang around and actively look for the federation players in the hope that they find one or else their kill counter goes up. And this is something that came into my mind while reading your post. There are people who would game something like this into oblivion and beyond.

Now what you probably mean is that if all klingons stay cloaked for too long a time, there is a penalty, but then they would just decloak and cloak again and avoid a counter that way. No matter which way you do this, there is a blatant way to game the system that somebody will use.

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So does the whining about Romulan Battle cloaking for all their ships start now or after they are released ? I'm just curious at this point . The up roar about Klingons will be nothing to what's to come . If you can't handle Klingon battle cloak of one specific ship , imagine a race that all the ships are capable of it ?

That too, not all Klingon Ships are capable of Cloaking, so it it will not be the same in all Tiers, again, an illusion or a question of perception.

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I don't know on this. I think its necessary to some degree, but it has to be done carefully to not destroy the Klingon advantage.

They do have a very big advantage with cloak. Cloak detection as it is now isn't really preemptive, its more reactionary, to stop them from running, although that only actually applies to BOPs. We really can't do anything to detect them early. Running at 115 aux and maxed sensors, my T2 science ship could only spot something at around 2-3km if I was lucky enough that they wandered that close. With sensor sweep, that went up to a bit over 5k if it was a debuffed ship. But more often than not, they were never detected until they decloaked to start the attack.

That's just not enough to do anything other than sit in the Fedball. Its not good for early detection, although I have definitely nailed several Klingons who thought they got away and the odd one that got too close. But, if you do find them while they are cloaked, they are in for some serious hurt.

Now that I'm T3, I can play with charged particle burst, but I'm not fond of that power, as its very binary, hit or miss. During beta when I played Klingon, I did my best to stay >5km away, which is beyond the limit of that power. Most Klingons I played with did exactly the same until it was attack time.

At the same time though, there is long range detection in torpedoes. I've chased torpedoes as they tracked cloaked ships just to drop a sensor sweep and finish off the escaping Klingon. A directional cloak finder could potentially offer me the same ability, especially coordinating with another science ship to triangulate. If we sat 5km apart and both used the directional finder, if those paths cross, we have a juicy target we likely could quickly full impulse towards and drop a charged particle burst or sensor sweep or something, and that would give Feds a serious advantage. There isn't much a Klingon can do if that happens, unless the group is ready to attack.

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At the same time though, there is long range detection in torpedoes. I've chased torpedoes as they tracked cloaked ships just to drop a sensor sweep and finish off the escaping Klingon. A directional cloak finder could potentially offer me the same ability, especially coordinating with another science ship to triangulate. If we sat 5km apart and both used the directional finder, if those paths cross, we have a juicy target we likely could quickly full impulse towards and drop a charged particle burst or sensor sweep or something, and that would give Feds a serious advantage. There isn't much a Klingon can do if that happens, unless the group is ready to attack.
A "Direction Finder" skill could situationally help and hinder both sides:
1. Give the Federation something to do other than sit and wait.
2. Pull them out of the Fed Ball (Your example of 2 science ships triangulating effectively would split the fleet and there would be at least some delay in re-forming a tight ball).
3. Take skill slots away from other abilities if they CHOOSE to use this tactic - this offsets Fed combat advantages more than you might think.
4. Apply equally well to later Romulan battles.

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Far enough so that at about the distance you could normally detect them you get their direction.

Er, what? You want to be able to detect them at normal max visibility distance? Why bother giving the Klingons a cloak at all, then? If you made something like that an ability, said ability would be mandatory on every StarFleet crew. If you made it a console, say the Science station, it would be mandatory on every Federation ship. That right there would completely break the game for PvP. If you made it a rare drop, the cost of it would be off the charts, and aside from opening up a credit-farming nightmare, sooner or later they would put it up for sale in the starbases because of people whining that it was necessary to play. If you'd have asked for the ability for sensors on a Science ship to pick them up at combat range, of 10km, then it would have been a request that might have been worth debating, but triple that distance? Remove cloaks from the Empire and offset it with increased hull points, because cloaking would be useless.

There's a reason people get ****ed off when devs change things to either completely bolster one class or faction, while negating another. I'd prefer it if Cryptic didn't follow in the footsteps of SOE or Blizzard in that respect.

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We've suggested things like this many times.

My suggestion was a 'scan mode' for sci ships that caused 'anomolies' to appear near where cloaked players are, but don't move. The scan mode would raise aux super high, and drain other systems (like full impulse) and lower shields, makikng them vulnerable.

these 'anomolies' would be targettable for firing sensor probes at.

This would keep kdf players on their toes.

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Er, what? You want to be able to detect them at normal max visibility distance? Why bother giving the Klingons a cloak at all, then? If you made something like that an ability, said ability would be mandatory on every StarFleet crew. If you made it a console, say the Science station, it would be mandatory on every Federation ship. That right there would completely break the game for PvP. If you made it a rare drop, the cost of it would be off the charts, and aside from opening up a credit-farming nightmare, sooner or later they would put it up for sale in the starbases because of people whining that it was necessary to play. If you'd have asked for the ability for sensors on a Science ship to pick them up at combat range, of 10km, then it would have been a request that might have been worth debating, but triple that distance? Remove cloaks from the Empire and offset it with increased hull points, because cloaking would be useless.

There's a reason people get ****ed off when devs change things to either completely bolster one class or faction, while negating another. I'd prefer it if Cryptic didn't follow in the footsteps of SOE or Blizzard in that respect.

Not detect them - only get their direction.

I see you feel strongly about this and thanks for you input. I understand your opinion but having played both sides I definitely think the Federation needs some alternative to turtling to keep PvP from stagnating. What is going to happen in a Romulan vs. Klingon PvP when that becomes possible?!?! Both sides wander around the map invisible to each other? At what point do you actually stop falling for the "lone visible ship" trap when you know the entire enemy fleet can cloak. Maybe deathmatch will disappear and all the PvP will be objective based at that point but this offers an OPTION which does come at a cost.

So for example you detect their direction from 30k. You get that momentary feedback and now you won't be able to use that skill for another x seconds. You would need to either Charged Particle Burst the cloaked ship or, according to an earlier poster specialized in detection, get within about 5k and Sensor Scan to actually detect or uncloak the ship. In order to do either of those you need to get your sensor ship to within at most 7k of them - quickly - that does give time for the Klingon to move. So you also just either blew off an engine battery/evasive maneuvers in order to keep your energy levels up or full impulsed to the enemy to catch them before they skidaddle.. You just gave up your ability to keep a BoP from disengaging using a EM-Battery combo or are showing up to fight with your pants down. With a skill cooldown on your "direction finder" it makes it VERY likely the Klingon will escape. It also makes the Fed Ball break up a bit. It would actually be tough odds for the Federation. It would, however, keep a Klingon from going AFK knowing there is NO WAY for the Federation to ever close in on them if they are cloaked (I am not suggesting this happens but to Federation players it can seem that way). That skill dedicated to detecting would also soften up the Fed fleet. I know I don't have ANY skills I don't use regularly regardless of which side I am flying. If a bunch of Feds took the skill to up their odds of catching a Klingon, how much will all of those skill slots be missed in the Federation fleet. Fleets that don't support and heal each other get creamed against well organized opposition. Take away some debuff/buff/heal ability from each ship dedicated to finding you due to the skill slot for detection and it only gets tougher for them in combat - negating their advantage of being able to chase you down.

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As long as Klingon ships can full impulse and generally go faster than federation ships while in cloak even if you knew the general direction of them you wouldn't have any real chance to catch them.

If you did decloak a Klingon vessel that still would't do you any good, thei'd just hit evasive maneuvers and rocket away from you at insane speeds, and once thei're burning at 100 engine power you won't catch them in a federation ship.

Even without any cloaking at all in the game, the faction with the faster ships still has most of the advantages.

If you're the fastest ship around you can outrun anything you can't outfight. In most MMOs the stealth classes move SLOWER than all other classes, not faster. In STO Klingons have a double layer of pure advantage.



The only way I see cloaking vs. non cloaking ever being balanced is if non-cloaking ships go faster.

Then one side can run/catch and the other can hide/ambush.

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Honestly,

As a Fed escort, I find myself doing the most damage on the fed side for pvp BUT I am useless when dead and am always the first to go from a 4 to 5 cloak strike at the start of the game.

So I would like to see weapons and shields drained to half while you are in cloak, i.e. No power rushes and you would still have defense to stand your ground if attacked.


Im just saying

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I for one, honostly don't care what you do to cloak and/or cloak detection. We will still win just as often. Then you will have nothing left to nerf.

[Archived Post]

Honestly,

As a Fed escort, I find myself doing the most damage on the fed side for pvp BUT I am useless when dead and am always the first to go from a 4 to 5 cloak strike at the start of the game.

So I would like to see weapons and shields drained to half while you are in cloak, i.e. No power rushes and you would still have defense to stand your ground if attacked.


Im just saying

I would rather cloak be removed then have this change. That would give you an insta-win button. Half weapon power = half damage.

Also, our shield power IS 0 when cloaked and must recharge when coming out of cloak..

[Archived Post]

Honestly,

As a Fed escort, I find myself doing the most damage on the fed side for pvp BUT I am useless when dead and am always the first to go from a 4 to 5 cloak strike at the start of the game.

So I would like to see weapons and shields drained to half while you are in cloak, i.e. No power rushes and you would still have defense to stand your ground if attacked.


Im just saying
At higher tiers it becomes slightly more probable to survive an alpha.. though without teammates propping you up immediately you'll be gone by the second salvo. Escorts are not well suited for waiting to be ambushed. They could, however, chase down a fleeing ship if given the option to go on the offensive..

[Archived Post]

Honestly,

As a Fed escort, I find myself doing the most damage on the fed side for pvp BUT I am useless when dead and am always the first to go from a 4 to 5 cloak strike at the start of the game.

So I would like to see weapons and shields drained to half while you are in cloak, i.e. No power rushes and you would still have defense to stand your ground if attacked.


Im just saying

1. use MES
2. first klingon that uncloaks gets this strike too (in good teams the weakest klingon gets full alpha strike)
3. as said shield starts at 0 and recharges to given value.
4. at t3 you will probably have RSP so you have some rest when you used it because either the klingons will continue fireing at you recharging your shields or change target, so ou only have to worry if they change back.

There are several ways for an escort to survive or not to get chosen as first target. Maybe escort captains are able to exploit the behavoir that they are first target.

(i have seen 2 escorts chasing behind our firsttarget(the one that uncloaked first) leaving all other teamates behind. That could be as fed possible too)

in fact i have seen some pretty smart escort players out there.


But back to topic. I actually like the Idea. best as said by some other guy on poage 1.

unter 10km away just a message over 10 km get the direction to nearest OR random ship.
For klingons the nnearest ship scan is exploitable to lure the feds this or that way or to seperate the fed ball. I think such skill would open up nice playing styles. And max rage should be no more than 30km i would suggest 25km.

Triangular is bs because i would do it like the normal scanner. a arrow shows in the direction where the ship is. That would prevent 2 player insta detection.

All packed as SCI BO skill for both sides So klingon can use it too.

[Archived Post]

Not detect them - only get their direction.

I see you feel strongly about this and thanks for you input. I understand your opinion but having played both sides I definitely think the Federation needs some alternative to turtling to keep PvP from stagnating. What is going to happen in a Romulan vs. Klingon PvP when that becomes possible?!?! Both sides wander around the map invisible to each other? At what point do you actually stop falling for the "lone visible ship" trap when you know the entire enemy fleet can cloak. Maybe deathmatch will disappear and all the PvP will be objective based at that point but this offers an OPTION which does come at a cost.


Well..I am looking forward to it, it will be great to live such battles.

Throughout the years we heard of Klingons and Romulans fighting it out, now we get a chance to live it first hand.

But to address your concerns again, it depends on the scenario. if for Instance there is a Scenario where one Side has to destroy a Station of the Other side to Score the win, then...don;t you think that they will have to Decloak and shoot?

Again in an Arena, it will be a even bigger game of patience and opportunity but then again that is exactly how Cloaked Combat is supposed to be...it is analogous to Submarine Combat...

Cloaked vs Non Cloaked...is like a Submarine vs a Surface Destroyer...Cloaked vs Cloaked is like a Sub vs another Sub.

And when they add Cardassians (if they expand further) we will get to also have Destroyer vs Destroyer.

If you do not like Klingon Cloaking capabilities please then play the scenarios which are not based on Kills, such as Cap&Hold where the Klingons would lose if they remain Cloaked.

I haven;t tried all the types yet but maybe the Assault, is also a situation where Cloaking is there for the Alpha Strike...and initial advantage or a means of escaping if possible.

But it is what it is, and it is exactly as it is supposed to, this is really the Star Trek feeling.

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This really addresses a problem with the PvP game. It's a sterile, static engagement between factions with nothing at stake except one another. There's nothing really to protect, nothing to conquer, on maps that have little to do with actual planetary systems. If anyone wonders why the Feds continue to do their ball impression, or why the Klingons stay cloaked, the answer is simple: what have either got to lose?

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So does the whining about Romulan Battle cloaking for all their ships start now or after they are released ? I'm just curious at this point . The up roar about Klingons will be nothing to what's to come . If you can't handle Klingon battle cloak of one specific ship , imagine a race that all the ships are capable of it ?

Jumping the gun yet a little... We've still got the Feds Nerf Feds around the corner :)

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So does the whining about Romulan Battle cloaking for all their ships start now or after they are released ? I'm just curious at this point . The up roar about Klingons will be nothing to what's to come . If you can't handle Klingon battle cloak of one specific ship , imagine a race that all the ships are capable of it ?

Not to mention cloaked mines!

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If anyone wonders why the Feds continue to do their ball impression, or why the Klingons stay cloaked, the answer is simple: what have either got to lose?
If they have nothing to lose, the Klingons should go ahead and attack :p

In fact, I suggested exactly that in a recent game where the Klingon side only had 2-3 players for an extended period of time. There's not a lot of difference between winning and losing, and sitting around waiting for a half hour is just a waste of everyone's time. Go ahead and charge, even if you lose (I would have done it myself if Federation had the ability), so everyone can re-queue for another game and hopefully get full teams on each side.

as for match timers im against them
in teir 4 during beta we had some games that lasted an hour not bc one side was trying to find some cloaked guy but becuase both sides had leanred by then hwo to play there faction
The timer doesn't necessarily need to be an overall game timer. As I suggested on the first page, it could be a "no combat" timer; that way if there's a battle going on the game won't end prematurely, but if you get some of these "OH MY GOD LOSING MEANS THE END OF THE UNIVERSE!!!!" people, they won't be able to sit around cloaked with no intentions of actually engaging their enemies.

I think this is a bad idea. I will tell you why: it is too easily exploitable and it only negatively impacts one side. What would happen if a group of federation people all stock up on MES then then full impulse to the lower most corner of the map, deliberately away from everything.
Mask Energy Signature got nerfed, did it not? I've seen some people claiming that it's virtually useless now.