What good are fed cloaks? There are 2 ships that have 'em. This is NOT a battle cloak. So what good is it?

You cloak, move up to an unsuspecting enemy ship and decloak right away? So what? No extra performance or capability, and much like full impulse you cannot re-engage the cloak until the fight is over.

Can you scan stuff while cloaked? Decrypt borg satellite nodes in the sector encounters without being harassed by probes/spheres?

What good are these? IMO they look totally useless as compared to battle cloaks.

It's about tactics. In my Defiant I will cloak, sneak right up behind the ship, decloak gaining 15 to weapons grab the poor bugger with my tractor been and hit him with everything I've got, if that doesn't do the job i scarper out of range cloak and repeat until his cooldowns prevent him from healing. Works most of the time LOL

You get a bonus to damage when coming out of cloak, plus it allows you to get in a nice position before engaging. Only Bird of Preys have battle cloak I think.

Haha, I will use the cloak on my defiant against you and then you can see how useless it is....hahahahaha.
The cloak on the Defiant-R and Galaxy-X are totally worth it. Yes they aren't battle cloaks, but they are still worth it. If you don't think so, then I will use my cloak against you, and you can see for yourself.........

Fed cloaks are as good as KDF cloaks with the exception of the B'rel's battle cloak.

While cloaked you can scan nothing, interact with nothing and will decloak when your first officer hands you a cup of tea. You are also totally unshielded, and generally defenseless if your oponent somehow see's you.

Of course the Fed cloak is in one way better than KDF cloaks, as the kdf have no ships capable of detecting cloaked vessels (Nebula) and no way of attacking them while cloaked (emission seeking torpedo). So as usual the kdf get the short end of the shaft on their own tech.

Not saying its impossible just difficult to detect them, thinking eject warp plasma here as a start.

Yes, that is correct. You get an extra 15% damage output for 5 seconds after you decloak. More then enough time to kill your opponent with a great alpha strike.

Meh, it's romulan tech hehe, but anyway kdf doesn't get the short end because their cloak is innate. Fed's have to use up a console slot to use cloak.

I had a skirmish with my Fleet mate, and he found my cloaking annoying and a pain to deal with.

For starters, I can get the preemptive strike on the sides or back at almost point blank range.

He also can't debuff me, because as soon as I attack, he has to use his shield buffs immediately.

I really dont agree as much in regards to the Galaxy-X, its more of an anchor ship than most other cloakers. It would almost be just as well of with a Mask Energy Signature II.

While it's true to an extent, it's not much of a handicap since the majority of Fed ships aren't cloaked, and the two that can usually fulfil the role of damage dealers and in the GX's case healers, so they're both useless to their team whilst cloaked. With the rest of their team uncloaked, they are essentially a man down until they do. It's not like being cloaked as a team where it allows you to dictate when the engagement occurs. And when you see a fedball that's a ship down, it's a fair bet that there's a Galaxy X or Defiant lurking nearby.

Also, the ship I've detected whilst cloaked the most is the Galaxy X, usually whilst cloaked myself in a Hegh'ta. It's easy to just jack the aux up and cruise around likely spots for it to be, spawn areas in Ker'rat, near team mates or cap points in "proper" pvp. Granted the latter does risk being decloaked yourself, but I expect a lot of players on both sides don't spec into stealth, considering the cloak in and of itself to be enough.