Ok, let's be logical:


Experience A:

Setup:

Team A: they have ships, they have weapons. Call them fed.

Team B: they have about the same ship, and the same weapons. Call them Kling

No cloaking

Result

They fight, each side probably win 50/50

Experience B:

Setup

Team A and B are the same

Cloaking introduce for...one side.

Result

So team A<team B. (mathematical) since one side has a strategical advantage. Call it the way you want but it's reality

and

Team B can choose wich target to punch first as soon as they decloak. snb, vm, etc..boom one guy is dead.


Conclusion
Reduce cloaking: delay after decloak to do anything (like after a impulse boost for example, after all the cloaking takes all power, no ?); big reduction of hull and shield heal while cloaked, any things dev can find

As soon as you cloak you lose all power to shields and i believe you cannot regenerate your shields while your cloaked. The delay in cloak is also significant I think.

The cloak is a risky issue. If they mess up alot of klingons will be alot and you will also be taking away from the geniune experience of star trek that is created in this game.

The real question is have you played fed and klingon?

Weeeeellll...

Your not completely right in your calculation...

Group A happens to have sci ships and cruisers that have that "little" bit of extra hull and that "little" bit of extra shields.

That little bit varies as your levelling goes on but I have seen variation of up to 1000-1500 shield/hull variation. That may seem little to you but in a pvp match when you are down to your last 5% your going to want those extra shield/hull cause you could have lasted longer.

In salvation operation cloaking is not much use since you can not capture a point when cloaked so you are preety much forced to uncloak all the time and ill ask you honestly then...who do you like for a winner in a matchup where team 1 has every ship extra 5% shield and team 2 has a cloak.

It's not as cut and dried as that though. Klingon ships are a hell of a lot more maneuverable too, which helps a lot more with survival than the extra hull that Federation ships get.

But cloaking is canon, so you can't mess with it that much. If balance is an issue (and I'm not sure it is) then you'd have to look at some other change to equalize things. I don't see every type of Federation ship having problems, or having the same problems.

Science ships with Science captains seem to do just fine; they have the strongest shields and the best defenses against OP Science abilities, along with the most OP Science abilities of their own.

Cruisers are likely to lose their shields in an initial attack, and hulls drop *fast* once the shields are gone. Since cruisers were supposed to hull tank-and hull-tanking isn't practical at all, maybe hulls need a buff? I'd also think that since Federation cruisers in cannon tended to have port and starboard weapon mounts, those might make sense in the game. Cruisers are already bumping against the maximum number of weapons that they can fire into a side arc without running out of power, so DPS would be unlikely to change, but it would let cruiser captains use a bit more variety of weapons and help focus a little more firepower fore and aft so Klingons camping out permanently on a Cruiser's 6 would be in a bit more danger.

I couldn't say what if anything escorts need. They die if they get focussed and don't have buddies protecting them, but they make Klingons melt rapidly

Honesty A fleet mate and I compared our shields yesterday. he showed me his shield that he has and told me the numbers he sees and i told him the numbers i see. we compared how our skill points are spent and it was VERY similar. (keep in mind he's in his fed tier 5 escort and I'm in my tier 5 Raptor) the shields he showed me are available to both races threw Marks of Honor the Covarent mk X capx3. on his end he saw over 10k max cap... I saw about 6400. Fact of the matter is the only real difference between us was faction and he's a sci and I'm tact. Thats almost 4000 more hit points than what i'd get outta the same shield (and no its not the runabout bug my fed is only LC3) I have played pvp on both sides and honetly cloak has no bareing on how i play. just makes me sit back and let the fed get back up before i join in.
as for the tactics on the fed side heres a good way to attack the same ship like the cloaked klinks will do. pick a team mate and target him and when the klinks come outta cloak and he fires you then fire and wow you all attack the same one. If i'm guy that has 4000 more points in each shield faceing than the enemy I'm a happy camper even if i cant see em. There are ups and downs for each side. I'l lvling my fed now and i aint gonna complain cause I've played Kink and know how they work and what they can do and i'm ready for it I'm at no disadvantage (so long as the queue works right). you want to learn to play your fed better lvl a klink I guarantee it will help ALOT.

Sub Zero