Stealth Armor: Unbalanced

Aub · #1 December 8th, 2001, 03:05 AM

Well, I think I played enough of SE IV to say that stealth armor is a very much unbalanced feature in the game.

Consider this: for every offence there is a defense, and the defense is usually less costly. That is the way it should be - the attacker has the huge advantage of surprise, and concentration of force.

Examples: PDC are cheap, missiles and fighters are expensive, the self-destruct device is much cheaper than boarding parties (and security stations are more effective), shield depleting weapons are costlier to research than shields themselves. Ships cost more maintenance than bases. And so on.

It is the same way with cloaking vs. scanning: cloaks are expensive to build and hard to research; scanners are cheaper in both respects.

BUT: Stealth Armor is extremely cheap (and you gat it along with the regular Armor and other benefits), and once you get it you can do stealth attacks, which gives you a huge advantage. Counter-measures? They are rather expensive...

As a result, Stealth Armor is a MUST, and there is no way around it. Once everyone gets it, they put it on all ships, and then before scanners are researched the game becomes more of a guesswork than a strategy game. This is what I call an "unbalanced feature", when you do't have a choice about it.

Of course this all does not matter that much in HUGE galaxy games or games with all-tech start. But if you are playing a 4-player game in a medium galaxy...

Does Stealth Armor need to be changed? E.g. if it's Armor VII - Armor IX instead of Armor IV - Armor VI, it would become much more palatable

Aub

Suicide Junkie · #2 December 8th, 2001, 03:34 AM

Countermeasures for stealth armor are actually quite cheap. One spysat per system is not expensive to build, and is free maintenance-wise.

As long as you research the first level in some sensor tech, defending against stealth armor is free.

Aub · #3 December 8th, 2001, 04:07 AM

quote:
Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
As long as you research the first level in some sensor tech, defending against stealth armor is free.

Yes, but researching it is more expensive than the armor itself. And the tech you'd research is not otehrwise an obvious choice (e.g. gravitic sensors). Plus, the guys who puts Stealth Armor on his ships does not lose anything - I'd put it on my ships even if it didn't have the stealth ability, because of it's other advantages!

Please gat me right, I don't think Stealth Armor is a game breaker

I'm simply saying it's unbalancing... other strategies don't hold against it, you HAVE to do it...

Baron Munchausen · #4 December 8th, 2001, 06:52 AM

Advanced Miltary Science, levels 3-6, gives Hyper-optics. The very FIRST level of this will defeat stealth armor. Yes, it costs a bit more in research terms but remember some of the 'special' techs like Psychic and Temporal also get sensors free with their racial tech trees. So it's not such a big deal. Personally, I think it makes the game more realistic. It's actually quite difficult to see a tiny little ship in the vastness of space. Standard 'vision' (ability to detect ships) really ought to be changed to have limited range instead of being 'all or nothing' over a whole system. Then stealth armor would just let you get closer before being seen.

Taqwus · #5 December 8th, 2001, 07:47 AM

Hm. Are cloaked ships still prohibited from sweeping?

MegaTrain · #6 December 8th, 2001, 08:42 PM

I think in the Gold release they've fixed it so when a cloaked minesweeper enters a mine field, it automatically decloaks to sweep.

Well, that's better than just being killed by the minefield, but it does expose you to attacks by other enemy in the sector.

Mysterial · #7 December 8th, 2001, 10:41 PM

quote:
Originally posted by MegaTrain:
I think in the Gold release they've fixed it so when a cloaked minesweeper enters a mine field, it automatically decloaks to sweep.

According to the history file, it only does that with known minefields. If you don't know about it your minesweeper(s) still get blown away.

About Stealth Armor: I don't agree about its cloaking ability, but I agree that there really isn't a way to counter the 5-15% to-hit bonus it gives.

Mark Walton · #8 December 9th, 2001, 12:22 AM

Personally I think all cloaking devices ought to give a to-be-hit penalty if there is a shortfall in the scanner tech.

So a target ship with level 4 cloak being fired on by a ship with level 2 scanners would get 2x the bonus.

The bonus should be scalable in settings.txt (say 5% default)

Aub · #9 December 9th, 2001, 10:08 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Taqwus:
Hm. Are cloaked ships still prohibited from sweeping?

Here is a different question: what occurs first, sweeping or combat? If I send a bunch of suicidal sweepers through a warp point, will they sweep before they get destroyed by the guarding ships?

IF the asnwer is "yes" then by sacrificing some sweepers first I can easily sneak a cloaked task force through a mined warp point (and then it can travel undetected and pick lightly defended tragets).

If the sweepers are destroyed before they sweep then the combination of some mines plus ships is very effective at stiopping a cloaked invasion.

Rollo · #10 December 9th, 2001, 10:19 PM

The answer is yes.

Mines are encountered (and swept) before combat. Any ships that survive the minefield will then be engaged by the defenders.

Rollo