Cloaked space yard ships

I am VERY disappointed. My brand new space yard ships started building bases on warp points Last turn. They were cloaked when they arrived, and I told them to build a six turn cloaked yard base. But on the next turn their construction queues were cleared. My whole strategy for secretly building cloaked yard bases above the 17 sphereworlds not yet colonized on my map is blown. Is this a bug or a feature ? If building with a yard component while cloaked is not legal, then it should not have allowed me to queue up the projects at all, rather than clearing the queue next turn....

Also, will a cloaked sensor satellite work while it is itself cloaked ? I verified that I CAN tell the sat to cloak and it will.

Also, I read in a thread that combat was occurring at warp points between cloaked ships and enemy ships which lacked the sensors to detect them. Was this a feature or a bug, and if a bug, has it been fixed ?

[dogscoff]

I can confirm both of th things Lmmy has just said. In my vs AI game I am using cloaks a lot and my cloaked ships / sensors work fin. I can also fly into / over / through enemy fleets without causing combat. I don't know what happns if the AI moves into my sector though because it dosn't try, due to the "routing takes undetected ships and colonies into account" feature.

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"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career ... oooh, it's all too much for me. "

quote:

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Originally posted by dogscoff:
I don't know what happns if the AI moves into my sector though because it dosn't try, due to the "routing takes undetected ships and colonies into account" feature.

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IS THAT A FACT!!!!
Evil me, you just introduced a new tactic vs. the AI - warp point blockade ships. I just checked - Escort with b/ls/cq + 6 eng + ss3 + cloak 3 costs 6810 1000 1280. Park them on all the warp points in enemy territory until he learns sensors 6 or the equivalent. I designed one but have not checked it out yet.

I am going to check what you can/can't do with cloaks using a high tech test game under 1.35 and will put it on this thread. I will check the Dubious Strategy Guide first of course.

Ok - verified under 1.35 While cloaked you CAN :
1) Launch/recover satellites
2) Launch/recover fighters
3) Launch mines, but there is no recover of course. To get rid of excess mine stacks select icon scrap then button self destruct

Furthermore, although you are limited on launch to whatever your bays allow, you are NOT limited on recovery except by your total cargo capacity. So to clean up those stacks of satellites left behind when your front lines move forward, you need just ONE satellite bay on a cargo ship....
Edit:
Same applies to fighter stacks if you have to get them past a warp point, just one fighter bay to recover them at the warp point, then deliver to the carriers on your front lines. Usually you would fly them to a colony for recovery then cargo transfer, but like me you might have lots of yard bases on warp points cranking out fighters with no carriers or colonies in sight....



[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 15 June 2001).]

[Lemmy]

can't build while cloaked, that's feature i think.

cloaked sats with sensors work fine, i use them all the time.

quote:

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Also, I read in a thread that combat was occurring at warp points between cloaked ships and enemy ships which lacked the sensors to detect them. Was this a feature or a bug, and if a bug, has it been fixed ?

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Last time (a few patches ago) i used cloaked ships i was able to move free in and out enemy sectors. Combat would only happen if an enemy ship in the sector has the right level sensors.


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Q: When he went, had you gone and had she, if she wanted to and were able, for the time being excluding all the restraints on her not to go, gone also, would he have brought you, meaning you and she, with him to the station?

A: Objection. That question should be taken out and shot.

[This message has been edited by LemmyM (edited 15 June 2001).]

I forgot to mention :
1) You CAN transfer cargo between cloaked ships and cloaked to colony or noncloaked ship/base.
2) You can NOT colonize a planet while cloaked. Your colony ship must first move to the planet, then decloak, then you can colonize.

As I mentioned in another thread, resource mining with starbases works while cloaked. The best place to mine is planets with moons and a high total percentage of any single resource. See the thread "Remote Mining Economics" for more.

[This message has been edited by LCC (edited 16 June 2001).]